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 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 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.

Zombie Outhouse Development Part 4

Zombie Outhouse Development Part 4: Porting to the iPhone with the Bork3D Engine

[Apologies for the long hiatus but I hope be back on track and am planning on weekly updates for this blog]

When it came time to port Zombie Outhouse to the iPhone, I looked at numerous options to help ease the process.  After the dust settled, I decided on the Bork3D Engine.  Some of the reasons were:

• It’s C++!!!!
• Low price ($49 for an indie license)
• Full Source Code
• Lightweight and clean

Zombie Outhouse Development Part 3

Zombie Outhouse Development Part 3: Converting from C# to C++

While the official programming language for the iPhone is Objective-C, you can use C/C++ within it.  I prefer to work in C++ and try to avoid Objective-C at all costs.

To take the path from C# to C++ I used Tangible Software’s Instant C++ software.  The conversion of the files was fairly quick but that was the easy part.

Zombie Outhouse Development Part 1

Zombie Outhouse Development Part 1: Overview, design and development (Xbox360 & Windows)

This is the first part of a multi-part series which will document the development of Zombie Outhouse for Windows, Xbox 360, Zune HD and iPhone platforms.  I’ll be talking about the various issues and decisions that came up during the development process including details on porting the game from XNA/C# to C++.

Check out the video of the Xbox 360 version below to get an idea of what the game is like and make sure to have your audio on to get the full experience.