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AppGameKit/AppGameKit Studio Showcase / [WIP] Go Team Yeah [Android TV] [Apple TV] [PC]

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Wilf
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Posted: 3rd Jul 2015 13:38 Edited at: 12th Jan 2016 15:21







Old Teaser trailer


Go Team Yeah! Orgin Story:
https://itanicus.wordpress.com/2015/09/09/go-team-yeah/

Go Team Yeah is a work in progress.

Two teams go head-to-head in a platform arena. Jump on enemies to kill them and force them to drop an energy ball. Grab it and throw it into the top of your TeamMachine to make a Bomb or Powerup! Throw enough bombs into your enemies Team Machine and it will explode, ending the round.

- 2 - 4 players
- A large cast of characters to play as
- as many power ups as I can think of
CJB
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Posted: 3rd Jul 2015 13:54
Looks like fun! Going to have to get myself an Android device to plug into the TV.

V2 T1 (Mostly)
Uzmadesign
Wilf
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Posted: 3rd Jul 2015 14:16
You should! I got the Amazon Fire TV stick about three weeks ago and it just works. Sideloadings easy, broadcasting the AppGameKit player even easier. I watch Netflix through that instead of the slow, buggy Samsung TV native app.

I was pleasantly surprised by the Fire TV and it only cost 40 euros.

Twitter: @itanican
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/PushdownGame
Website: www.push-down.com
Wilf
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Posted: 10th Jul 2015 18:27 Edited at: 10th Jul 2015 18:28
Another week another update.
One of the problems holding couch-based-video games back is the controller.

Who wants to buy extra controllers (usually for $50 each) that just lie around, getting in the way when not playing your games? Not too many I think, which is why I've developed a Wifi-controller for Go Team Yeah.



As an aside, I made a quick prototype of Go Team Yeah last year, bought some wireless 360 controllers and almost started with it. The problem was that AppGameKit handles controllers too simply - checks once for their existence and then never again. This would be a poor user experience if people want to join after the game has started or if their controller drops out (batteries and all) halfway through, so I put it on ice.

Two things made me realise that an alternative was possible: One, I discovered a game called Bombsquad on Amazon TV that does uses an wifi controller app already. Its really fun, and made by one Pixar employee in his spare time. Kind of sickening really.

Two, Batvink wrote an absolutely amazing AppGameKit networking tutorial in Newsletter 147. Networking is one of those things I'd been putting off for years as it seemed a bit complex, but that tutorial and code made me realise it can be so, so simple. Send strings and parse them on the server? Sign me up.

So Go Team Yeah is designed to be played using iOs and Android devices as controllers.



Using a phone as a controller has its own set of interesting problems - I hadn't realised how much feedback you get from the button and thumbstick positions of a real controller. I increased the size of the buttons, then again, and this morning my 7 year old son was still missing them during a playtest so I made them huge. Right now the thumbstick is static but I plan to make it float (so it appears wherever you put your thumb). Since AppGameKit doesn't support that right now, so I'll have to write my own virtual joystick code.

Latency is and always be an issue, and I've done a ton of work to mimimise it and optimise the data being sent. The gameplay needs to be slightly slower to allow for it.

Ultimately a flat-glass screen is no substitute for a real controller but I think this is a pragmatic approach. Many more potential players will have smartphones laying around than game controllers.

Also: think about the kind of games you can make where ever player has their own controller with a display? Hidden information can be a great mechanic; Think of a 4 player, 2 team game where everyone can see the game on the TV but everyone is keeping track of their own inventory or abilities on their phones. You and your team-mate could be huddled at one end of the couch, collaborating tactically. Ah, possibilities...

Twitter: @itanican
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Website: www.push-down.com
Wilf
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Posted: 13th Jul 2015 07:46 Edited at: 13th Jul 2015 07:47
Had a productive weekend, its amazing what you uncover with just a bit of player feedback.

Here's a experiment with ditching the red/blue team colour system:



- new sound effects
- invulnerability on spawn and just after losing armour, with visual effect
- new knight characters to test 'squat' skeleton
- super stomp mechanic - tap jump again when airborn to land with greater force, with landing effect
- powerups fall from the sky
- added a special effects skeleton to each player to display stomp, spawn, speedup etc

Twitter: @itanican
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/PushdownGame
Website: www.push-down.com
Wilf
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Posted: 19th Jul 2015 15:35
This week was spent consolidating the code-base. I'm working towards the goal of new powerups being easy and fast to implement. Some bugs relating to invulnerability were fixed too



- new pickup 'Potion' - triples the size of your character.
- experiments with new sound effects
- wifi controller no longer causes device overheat (increased latency, capped frame-rate)
- platforms wobble when jumped on.

And finally, the Windows GoTeamyeah.exe, Android GoTeamYeah.apk and Android WifiController.apk are available to download! See first post for links.

This is a bare-bones first playable - no menus, no end state just the ability to run around, drop energy into the machines and increase score. I'd love some feedback on playability, especially for the Wifi Controller.

Twitter: @itanican
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Website: www.push-down.com
Wilf
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Posted: 21st Jul 2015 17:55 Edited at: 27th Jul 2015 10:24
Yesterday I bought one of the new Spine asset packs and integrated it into GTY. The animations seem smoother and more flowing now and I'll be building on that as a base.



Also found a bug in the invulnerability system. AppGameKit Spine doesn't have a 'hide skeleton' command; to make the players blink on and off I change their skeletons depth to 250 every few frames before returning them to their default. This worked great until I realised it stopped working if they were carrying an object. Took me an hour of debugging to find one place in code that was overriding the skeleton depth to 1 on carrying an object.

This reminded me of the time I was working on the original Far Cry (2002-ish), trying to find out why it was impossible to shoot down mercenary helicopters. Every time you'd lock on with the heat seeking rocket launcher, fire, and the enemy chopper would dance away. Turns out that the two programmers involved - one working on vehicles and the other on weapons - had been briefed very differently on the design intention. The vehicles guy had been told that 'helicopters should always dodge rocket launchers' - I think because we were hacking it for E3. The weapons guy had been told rocket launchers should always hit helicopters. So their code was fighting it out, and clearly one guys code was stronger than the other

If I can accidentally override myself, I have no idea how any of the programming teams at Crytek got anything working at all...

BatVink
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Posted: 21st Jul 2015 18:24
This is looking really good, looking forward to finding time to play it. I have a Chromecast but I'm not sure I can use this. I could plug my laptop into the TV for the bigscreen experience.

Quote: "Batvink wrote an absolutely amazing AppGameKit networking tutorial in Newsletter 147"


Thanks

I'm also using AppGameKit "Remote Control". I'm slowly creating a generic controller for my pub/club games. So I can control bingo ball calling and pub quiz questions without having to be next to the screen. It's not a difficult concept but it keeps getting sidelined for other tasks.

I had an older version where I replicated the game on the big screen and phone. But the work involved in synchronising the two became to onerous.

Quidquid latine dictum sit, altum sonatur
TutCity is being rebuilt
SpecTre
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Posted: 21st Jul 2015 18:34
Great work so far Wilf, I like the concept and styling of this project. Should be quite fun when finished

The Amiga and Amos were great!
My website LEAP - Download Paint Pot here!
Wilf
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Posted: 21st Jul 2015 18:47
Thanks spectrepaul!

Thats an interesting project Batvink. I have my own kind of fun(?) running AppGameKit in Broadcast mode from Windows 7 running in a VM on a Mac, connecting to an Amazon Fire TV and trying to figure out why the controller says 'connected to Android' - and then realising it's connecting to an old instance of Go Team Yeah running on the Samsung phone with the screen powered down.

That whole paragraph gave me a headache. Thanks again for your tutorials and other great contributions!

Wilf
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Posted: 27th Jul 2015 10:23
Low productivity week due to moving house - isn't that always the way?

Still, I did add three damage states to machines, plugged in a particle system and re-wrote the way flash images are created, cached and displayed.



Wilf
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Posted: 21st Aug 2015 11:26
Added teaser trailer to first post.

BatVink
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Posted: 24th Aug 2015 22:24
Looking astounding!
It's the small details that impress me. The explosions made of boxes are spot on, I love the way they fly out then freeze before disappearing.

Quidquid latine dictum sit, altum sonatur
TutCity is being rebuilt
JLMoondog
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Posted: 24th Aug 2015 22:53
Amazing work! The video sold me. Can't wait to play.

Wilf
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Posted: 26th Aug 2015 21:22
Cheers both! Yes I think I'd spend all my time in Spine if it were up to me. But then menu/ui code would never happen, so....

Wilf
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Posted: 9th Sep 2015 21:47
The new Apple TV/ TVos has been announced by Apple so its all steam ahead for Go Team Yeah!
Blog update added to the first post.

Wilf
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Posted: 17th Sep 2015 21:03
A busy couple of weeks doing UI work.
Now there's a carousel system for choosing your character and then which team to play on. I use the same system later for the End of Round screen, and it'' be the basis for the Game mode selection and level selection screens.
Carousels...carousels everywhere.



Crazy Programmer
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Posted: 17th Sep 2015 21:10
The UI is nice and the Special Effects are sweeet. Very well done and professional looking.
The Carousels are a nice touch

Beta Test Age of Knights:https://play.google.com/apps/testing/com.CrazyProgrammerProductions.my_AgeOfKnights
Download JellyFish Dive:https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.CrazyProgrammerProductions.my_JellyFishSwim

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