{"author_name":"Frozen Fractal","cat":"LD #26","comments":[],"epoch":1367865720,"likes":1,"metadata":{"p_key":"42693","p_author":"Frozen Fractal","p_authorkey":"7882","p_urlkey":"78328","p_title":"Aranami is going mobile!","p_cat":"LD #26","p_event":"LD26","p_time":"1367865720","p_likes":"1","p_comments":"0","p_status":"UPD5","us_key":"7882","us_name":"Frozen Fractal","us_username":"thomastc","event_start":"1366934400","event_key":"16","event_name":"LD26"},"text":"<p>The voting round isn&#8217;t even over yet, but the responses to our zen garden raking puzzle game <a href=\"http:\/\/www.ludumdare.com\/compo\/ludum-dare-26\/?action=preview&amp;uid=7882\">Aranami<\/a>\u00a0are so positive that we&#8217;ve decided to make it into a proper game for iOS and Android!<\/p>\n <p>After having weighed the pros and cons of various technologies, we&#8217;ve started writing Lua code in the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.cocos2d-x.org\/\">cocos2d-x<\/a> framework. We considered <a href=\"http:\/\/libgdx.badlogicgames.com\/\">libgdx<\/a> but found a $299 Xamarin license (needed to run the Java code on iOS) a bit steep. We also considered <a href=\"http:\/\/haxe.org\/\">Haxe<\/a>\u00a0with <a href=\"http:\/\/www.nme.io\/\">NME<\/a>\u00a0but it seemed a little immature, and lacking good documentation. We also considered <a href=\"http:\/\/code.google.com\/p\/playn\/\">playN<\/a>, but it did not appear to have any advantage over libgdx. So cocos2d-x it is.<\/p>\n <p>Improvements we plan to make, compared to the Ludum Dare version:<\/p>\n <ul>\n <li><span style=\"line-height: 13px\">More levels! We&#8217;re aiming for 30, instead of only 8.<br \/>\n We might offer additional level packs as in-app purchases later.<\/span><\/li>\n <li>Super-crisp, beautiful, HD, Retina-ready graphics.<\/li>\n <li>Different rake shapes, starting with a straight I, going to the L from the LD versoin, then later on maybe U, T or Z shapes.<\/li>\n <li>Correct par scores. We had some trouble with beta-testers achieving better scores than we had, so we intend to brute-force all possible routes to verify there is no shorter option. It&#8217;s a large state space, so I&#8217;m not sure how well this will work, and we might have to use some simplifications, heuristics or hinting. Apart from producing a par score, such an algorithm could also tell us how many possible routes there are, which is a metric for how difficult the level is.<\/li>\n <li>An undo option.<\/li>\n <li>A sandbox mode, where you can draw lovely patterns to your heart&#8217;s delight.<\/li>\n <li>A level editor.<br \/>\n In a future version, we hope to make levels shareable online.<\/li>\n <\/ul>\n <p>Cocos2d-x is a bit harder to get started with than plain HTML5 and JavaScript, neither of us are familiar with the API and neither of us have a lot of Lua experience. But after a day or two of research, fiddling and hacking we&#8217;re finally over those first hurdles: we have a rake, and it moves in response to touch, both on Android and on iOS.<\/p>\n <p style=\"text-align: center\"><a href=\"http:\/\/www.ludumdare.com\/compo\/2013\/05\/06\/aranami-is-going-mobile\/img_20130506_210409\/\" rel=\"attachment wp-att-257031\"><img class=\"aligncenter  wp-image-257031\" alt=\"IMG_20130506_210409\" src=\"http:\/\/www.ludumdare.com\/compo\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/05\/IMG_20130506_210409-550x412.jpg\" width=\"330\" height=\"247\" srcset=\"http:\/\/ludumdare.com\/compo\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/05\/IMG_20130506_210409-300x225.jpg 300w, http:\/\/ludumdare.com\/compo\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/05\/IMG_20130506_210409-550x412.jpg 550w, http:\/\/ludumdare.com\/compo\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/05\/IMG_20130506_210409.jpg 1597w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 330px) 100vw, 330px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n <p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n <p>So if you haven&#8217;t played Aranami yet, <a href=\"http:\/\/www.ludumdare.com\/compo\/ludum-dare-26\/?action=preview&amp;uid=7882\">go try it now<\/a>!\u00a0Any additional suggestions for the upcoming mobile version would be hugely appreciated; you can leave them in the comments to this post, or on the entry page!<\/p>","time":"May 6th, 2013 1:42 pm","title":"Aranami is going mobile!"}