8 Days 'til Block'd

Well, I'm apparently bad at timeliness, but what's important is it's still the 8th day for me, right? If you haven't already, make sure to check out day 1 and day 2 of this series!

Today I'm going to talk about the first programming step. After laying out the basic idea of a puzzle game with cascading tiles, we were able to determine what the first steps of programming this new game were.

• A grid.
  • Obviously the core element of Block'd is the grid that you play on, looking at the game as it stands now, it might not seem that fancy. However, the logic and infrastructure behind the grid would allow it to support any reasonable sized grid, with auto-scaling. 
  • Fun fact: the splash screen you will see at the beginning of the game is actually built with our Grid Builder class.

The grid is the entire basis of Block'd. What tiles go where, how big of a board you're playing on, which tiles can move in which direction so on, so forth. So naturally, we had to nail it. While it was one of the first things we implemented, it was also one of the things we did the most iterations on.

IF I were doing a proper dev blog like we should have been doing, I would have many screenshots of the various iterations to show you right now. Unfortunately, I was not that cool, and I will have to do my best to describe.

View fullsize

a 5x5 grid from Block'd

To the left you can see the grid in its final state. There is no padding between tiles, the tiles are white, and when it animates (as shown in the teasers) it appears seamless. 

It was not always that way. The first iteration actually had padding in-between it all creating a spacing. We moved away from that idea because it created a weird graphical feel that we were not 100% comfortable with, it did not flow as smoothly as we envisioned.

One of our next iterations had different colored empty tiles, like a grey. That was scratched quickly, and evolved into what happens if we make the empty tiles a smaller size against a different background. I was actually oddly fond of that idea, but again, was not what we were looking for, and we moved back to the original thought of padding.

Programmatically we were oddly attached to padding, mainly because it was a nifty bit of code that got the auto-resizing to work with dynamic padding as well. It was my brother who suggested we move away from the padding. Matt took a bit of time to get accustomed to it, but I think he's grown to like it where it is now.

I hope you enjoyed this little look into our iterative design process. We can't wait to bring you more! 

Austin

7 Days 'til Block'd

9 Days 'til Block'd - The Inspiration

We're now down to only nine short days until the release of block'd for iPhone and iPod touch.  For today's count down post I'm going to give you guys a little insight into the inspiration behind the game. (Also, if you haven't read the day 10 count down you should go do that now and then come back)

Honestly the main inspiration for this game really came from a need.  We had just finished our first game, ColorGuess, and we were onto the next one.  However, we were having some trouble finding an idea for our next game that would fit our learning curve.  With both of us in school full time and dealing with part time jobs it wasn't always easy to find time to learn all the skills we needed in the amount of time we had.  With all of those factors influencing the direction for our next game a puzzle game just kinda seemed to fit into all of those criteria.  It seemed simple enough, not requiring too much animation or in-depth artwork, and only needing a simple game engine.  Additionally, it seemed like a logical next step in our learning curve to help us become more aquatinted with more advanced programming techniques for our future games.

The other source of inspiration for block'd came from the games we were playing at a time.  The main games that gave me inspiration for block'd were Color Zen and KAMI, both of which are puzzle games that, coincidentally, have the same end goal of filling the playing area with a single color.  The main thing I remember while playing Color Zen was the simple concept of the game accompanied by the complexity of the gameplay.  It kinda got me thinking about how a developer would come up with a concept for a puzzle game.  What the end goal would be, what the game mechanics would be, and how both of them would fit together to give people a challenge.  While Color Zen really got me thinking about the basic concepts of a puzzle game, KAMI really drove it home.  KAMI really helped me put the finishing touches on my basic idea for block'd.  But again, the inspiration for block'd really came from the contrast of simple goals but complex mechanics that both these games have.

Once I had the basic idea down I started making some simple levels to see if the idea for the game was even interesting.  I told Austin about the game and that I had a couple of levels I had made that I wanted him to look over, but before I had a chance to give them to him he had already started the programming. . .

Thanks for reading and make sure to come back tomorrow to read about the begging programming for block'd

10 Days 'til Block'd

Today marks the 10 days 'til Block'd is released, and with that we will be starting our 10 days of Block'd information. So without any more waiting, here we go.

Block'd is a challenging puzzle game by Symbiotic Studios, and it is coming soon to an iPhone or iPod near you!

As a truly unique puzzle game, Block'd draws inspiration from some of the iOS greats (such as KAME) to create a new challenge. With each new level you are presented a new challenge. Some challenges require careful organization and planning, while others require precise timing and multiple split second moves. Whatever the challenge, Block'd makes sure it will require thinking.

Easy to learn, but difficult to master, Block'd is sure to present even the most accomplished puzzle masters with enough challenge to keep them coming back for more.

That's not all, though. While Block'd may only be launching with 30 levels, we are hard at work creating more for our wonderful players. Each new group of levels we bring will add new dimensions of difficulty.

We are excited to bring you Block'd on July 7, 2014. If you haven't checked out our teasers, make sure to check them out on the our Block'd Landing Page. 

Day 9 - The Inspiration