Monstercraft Postmortem Part 4: iPad enhancement

[iPad enhanced version (1.0.2) is now available here]

Monstercraft initially only supported the normal and Retina Display resolutions of the iPhone.  When played on the iPad, you can run the small 480×320 version or have it do an automatic 2x scale which makes things blurry and loses the nice sharp detail.

[iPad screenshot after the jump]

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Monstercraft Postmortem Part 3: Win32 and iOS

The port to C++ for Win32 and then iOS took about 60 hours.  As with Zombie Outhouse, I used Instant C++ to port the C# to C++ which took about a minute.  The rest was all manual labor.  Monstercraft runs on the same bioroid enhanced version of the bork3d engine that was used for Zombie Outhouse so it uses a custom C++ XNA style layer to ease the process.

There were a few parts of the port which I felt took too long and need to be optimized for the future.

Monstercraft Postmortem Part 2: XNA and WP7

The game that eventually mutated into Monstercraft was first targeting Xbox360 when development started in 2008.  We’ll go into the nitty gritty in a future post, but for now we’ll focus on the final few months of development.  Sometime around spring/summer of 2010 after Windows Phone 7 was announced, I decided to switch the focus to touch based input with the plans of supporting WP7, iOS and possibly other touch devices.

I took what I learned from porting Zombie Outhouse between the various platforms and created a system that would automatically scale the game to the various resolutions.  Specifically, the supported resolutions were 480×320 for original iOS, 960×640 for iOS Retina Display devices (iPhone 4 and iPod Touch 4G) and an in-between resolution of 720×480 for Windows Phone 7.  The WP7 resolution is perfectly in between the two iOS resolutions.

PLATFORM	RESOLUTION	SCALE
iPhone (original)	480×320	1
WinPhone7	720×480	1.5
iPhone 4	960×640	2

Monstercraft Postmortem Part 1: Overview

Monstercraft is an ultra-casual arcade strategy game available for Windows Phone 7 and iOS (iPhone, iPod Touch, iPad).  You craft monsters using a skill based slot machine mechanic.  You control when the reels stop and start so it’s not a game based on luck, although luck can sure help.

Zombie Outhouse Development Part 7

Zombie Outhouse Development Part 7: Back to the XNA Arrrr!

[Bonus points to whoever gets the title reference.  Okay, maybe not.]

Porting Zombie Outhouse to Windows Phone 7 was a fairly easy process since the game was developed using XNA and already running on the Xbox 360 & Zune HD.  But Windows Phone 7 is a new mobile platform with its own set of challenges.

Zombie Outhouse Development Part 6

Zombie Outhouse Development Part 6: To the iPad and beyond!

[Just like a zombie, this blog is back from the dead.  Apologies for the neglect.  I got derailed a few times but am back on track.  There will be a flurry of posts over the next few weeks to catch up on the backlog and then we’ll focus on an upcoming action rpg project.]

Soon after the iPad came out, I wanted to upgrade Zombie Outhouse to add native iPad support using the higher resolution art that was used in the Xbox 360 version.  But luckily [really?], I got sidetracked with the Cyborg Mice web comic.  A few months later, Apple announced the iPhone 4 with its high resolution Retina Display.  Believe it or not, this actually would make the porting job a much easier task.

unofficial Available On Xbox Live Indie Games badge

After searching for the non-existent official XBLIG badge, I decided to create my own.  While Microsoft quickly released a set of badges for Windows Phone 7, there still isn’t an official one for XBLIG.  😦

So here is my attempt at one.  Feel free to use it on your website, etc.