When the game’s theme changed to take place in the sky, the crates simply did not make sense, So I started thinking about sky mines, falling debris, and missiles.

This was in the right direction, but these just did not fit right with the game.  I then called my artist Stephen Cellar to see if he could come up with any ideas.  We started thinking about robots, debris, and what not.  I needed something that would make sense as falling from the sky.  With that thought in mind, he started to do some sketches, and this is what he sent.

After seeing these, I was not feeling the robots, felt too close to space invaders, and why would they all fall at the same speed.  What I actually liked were the little squiggily balls that he drew.  Reminded me of “Invasion of the Body Snatchers”, which I had just recently seen again.  Like these were infectious slime spores, from a distant planet, falling towards earth with intentions of consuming all life on the planet.  I told him to go forward with this idea and see what he came up with.

After working around with the colors, I inserted these last slime spores into the .xib file and felt that they fit the theme very well, and this is whaere I am at right now.

1.  I needed an enemy that was cool and fit with the theme and color scheme of the game.

2.  I needed some nice images to make the game look more finished.

3.  I needed to reinforce the way you play the game to the player in the opening screen.

For # 3, I wanted the game to be about a simple action “Dodge.”  That is all anyone have to do in the game (at least in this version).  Therefore, I named the game dodge to reinforce that action.  Also, the image that opens the game will show a ship flying and dodging whatever baddies, the show the player, right from the start, what they need to be doing.

For # 2 I called my artist Steven Cellar, and he drew up some images for me.  I will post them all in next post showing them chronologically in order.

For # 1, there was much deliberation.  I tried Sky Mines . . . did not work.  I tried falling debris . . . nope.  I tried Missiles . . . too much.  Then after some sketch conversations with Steve, we came up with the enemy.  They were to be Spores, falling masses of purple goo that melt the player’s ship on contact.  Steve send me some artwork, and I have now added the new bad guys and new opening screen.  Below is a screenshot of the current game.

My Mom is hooked, and I have never been able to get her to play any games.

My Great Nephew said that he was “Addicted.”

My friends found it to be a simple, fun and addicting game, which then turned into a competition on who could get the highest score in Sludge races.  Unfortunately, I lost to my cousins girlfriend in “MY OWN GAME” . . . hahaha.

One of the most interesting comments came from a friend of mine Frances Repass.  While he was playing, I had been messing around with the layers and some of the slime in the water was spawned on a higher layer than the Player Ship.  these sprites were transparent, and when Frances was playing, he said it gave it a really cool effect, “it’s like you are flying through clouds.”  I played around with the transparency and the layers, and I agreed and decided that I wanted to push that effect more.  I therefore decided to take the game out of the sewers and put it into the skies, with the ship flying through white clouds.  From the first playtest, I felt the colors really worked well together and the game was beginning to have a really cool feel, like you are zooming through the clouds.  I knew I would continue in this style, and now I just needed to find the right enemy.  Below is a image form that point in the design.

I was then faced with a slight delimma.  In order to use the new framework, I would basically have to trash my old code, which I had been working on for over a month, and start from scratch.  And what was worse is that the project was due in 15 days.  I thought about it, and simply trashed my old file to get it out of the way in light of starting a new and better version of the game.

I started programming in the new framework, and it went very well.  It was hard with the time constraint, but the game was running smoother after 4 days in Cocos2D that with the code I wrote for over a month without it.  I found a whole new stash of open source code for games that helped me with things like collision detection, smoother accelerometer control, and setting sprites onto layers.  I finished the project as Sludge Racers with some artwork added.  I handed it in and the project was well received.  I planned to take the project further, but I was satisfied with the progress thus far.

For the second part, I have gotten the accelerometer controls to work.   I have manipulated them to allow the ship to move at the desired speed and rate of acceleration.  In a second window, I have found some code that allows for some random creation of sprites.  With some manipulation, I have changed it to create the floating crates.  Now I just need to combine these two files and add some collision detection and I will have a basic version of the game.  Here are some images to give you a look at what is going on.

I will update as the sludge progresses.

-Whittington Twitmore

General Information

Project Overview

The Sewer Sludge Riders is a 2-D Vertical Scroller where the player drives a water based vehicle through a series of sewers, dodging debris as they rack up points.  Players compete for the highest score by guiding the ship through the sewer, as far as possible, without crashing (“getting stacked”).

Controls:

Players use the iPhone accelerometer, or an on-screen touch controller, to guide the vehicle through the sewers to reach their goal.

Feature Set

Simple fun game, perfect for “On-the-Go” game players, who take a quick break from work to have a little fun on their iPhone.

A simple game such as this gives rise to a Competitive Advantage as friends compete with each other to achieve the highest score.

Fun and interesting setting and aesthetic style that will immerse the player into the game world.

Setting Overview

The Sewer Sludge Riders is a 2-D Top-Down Action Scroller where the player takes the role mutated outcast, racing for scraps in the depths of the sewers.  In the underworld catacombs of Los Angeles, freaks and disfigured people of the like have escaped the cruelty of the surface world and moved to a life void of sunlight in the sewers.  Surviving on the waste of the world above, these people have settled and grown accustom to life here.  As their culture began to define itself, they started forming their own society, a communal society where everyone is equal and share equal responsibility to the well being of their settlement.  There were town officials, educators, food gatherers . . . yet there was still something missing.  Some ray of light to shine some joy on this dark world.  They needed excitement, something to make their daily life worthwhile.  It was this thought that created the Sewer Sludge Races, and every weekend, all the townspeople went down to the docks to drink, cheer, and scream for their favorite racer as they tore through the sewers.

I know the screen image is a little amateur in drawing skills, but that will soon change.  A friend of mine, Steve Cellar, has agreed to do some of the art content for the game.  As of now he is drawing the ships, debris, and the level so that we can really get an idea about what the game will look like.  Here are some of his initial designs for the ships, although they will need to be top down views.

After that, I have planned a risk assessment for unforeseen mishaps in the near future.  The first things to go if the project takes a turn for the worse, will be accelerometer control, the multiple characters.  Now it is time to set all of this up.  There will be more on the design and production in the next post.

-Whitmo

-Whitmoses

1.  I made two balls, but they moved in unison with each other.

2.  Then I made them move independently from each other, but only one would score.

3. I got both to score and move not in unison with eachpohter and then I ran into a couple places where the ball could get stuck that did not exist before.  Ball gets stuck in places or the balls get in a pattern that only one can be hit and the score increments one by one.  As these fix, I will continue to update.