Between baby-related activities and the ridiculous snowstorm that swept through the Midwest last night, I haven’t had a chance to work on Corgi Corral for a few days. However, a lot of things came together rather quickly last week, so I do have some progress to report (no screenshots, though).

Accomplishments

• After the time runs out, the game now displays your score, high score, and the name of the medal you’ve earned (bronze, silver, gold or none). The medal name will eventually be replaced by an image.
• On the Options screen, there is a toggle to turn the sound effects on and off (and it works!).
• iAds are set to appear on menus, but not in-game. I don’t plan to use a backup ad service, so countries that don’t display iAd won’t ever see them, which is fine.

What’s Next

I’m to the point where I can’t stand not having menu art or an app icon…so yeah. Looks like it’s time to close Xcode, open Affinity Designer, and try to make some passable artwork! I’m about as much of an artist as I am a programmer (which is to say, I sit squarely in the “amateur” category), so we’ll see how this goes! Just wait til I get to the music… ;)

Time for a game progress update!

Things I’ve gotten done

1. The game now detects the angle you are holding your device when you start playing and sets that as the starting point for accelerometer updates. Previously I had hard-coded some neutral orientation values.
2. Game states! Now the game is more gamey and less proof-of-concepty. You can tap to start the game, pause and resume it, and start a new game after a “game over” message is displayed. It’s all pretty bare bones but it works.
3. Animations. I’ve never animated anything before so they’re kinda rough, but the corgi now “runs” and the sheep blink at random times when idle.
4. Sound effects. I edited some sheep sounds from freesound.org and put them in the game. Personally, I think they’re hilarious. I also learned how to convert audio files to Apple’s Core Audio Format via the command line.

Things I decided not to do

• Add “flocking” behavior to the sheep. I tried adding some separation, cohesion, and alignment goals to the sheep and I actually didn’t like how it made them behave. There’s nothing wrong with the goals themselves, but when combined with the “wandering” and “fleeing” goals, they just don’t function well enough. It’s also kind of funnier to have the sheep running every which way without any concern for one another.
• Animate a “+1” when a sheep enters the pen. I decided to animate the score label instead; it quickly scales up and down when the score increases. The sheep also “baaa” when they enter the pen, which I think is much more satisfying.

Things I plan to work on next

The game is now to a point where I have to start working on its overall structure. In other words, it’s going to have to be more than just one scene file and a “LevelScene.swift” class. I need to set it up to accommodate multiple levels and multiple scenes (such as “Menu” and “Options”).

I think I need to make some sort of “level configurator” that loads the details for each level from a .plist. Then I need to create some kind of “scene manager” that can switch between the menu, options, level selection, and also load the correct level. This is all incredibly new to me so I imagine it will take quite awhile to figure out. In fact, this is the part I’ve been dreading because I hardly know where to start. I think I’ll spend time examining Apple’s “DemoBots” sample code (which just came out, so it’s written in Swift and includes the latest APIs) to see how they set up the level loading and switching.

I’ll let you know what I come up with! :)

Most seasoned game devs would probably say that you should start the development process by writing a game design document (GDD). The GDD describes your game’s hooks, characters, objectives, audience, etc. in enough detail that it can serve as the primary reference for you and your team.

Well, I don’t have a team, or a design document. Instead, I started with a concept and hoped to eventually turn it into a game. Now that I have a better idea of how that concept works in practice, I figure it’s time to start nailing down some of the specifics.

Initial elevator pitch: Corgi Corral is a casual, tilt-based herding game that offers fun for all ages. You play as an adorable Welsh Corgi with one job: to herd as many frenzied animals into their pen as possible before time runs out. Avoid obstacles, chase away predators, and try to beat your best score in 9 colorful levels.

Some more game details: I haven’t figured out the perfect time limit for each level yet, but I’m guessing it will be 1-2 minutes. It’s gotta be quick: something you can play while waiting in line.

I’m planning to implement two power-ups that spawn randomly and infrequently:

• A little clock that you can tap on to add 5 seconds to the game time
• A “magnet” power up that temporarily draws all of the animals toward the middle of the screen (and away from the edges…yay!). This will either look like a magnet and make a “buzzing” sound when you tap it, or a sheep/cow bell that rings when you tap it. I’m leaning towards the latter, because I think it better fits the character of the game.

As for the aforementioned predators, I’m thinking they’ll wander onto the screen and move slowly toward the pen. If they reach the pen, you lose a couple points from your score. All you have to do to make them go away is chase them off screen.

Monetization: I’ve been going back-and-forth about this a LOT. Personally, I prefer to play games that are paid-up-front with no in-app purchases. However, this is my first game, and although I’d like to add levels in the future, the initial experience will be relatively limited. Right now it’s more important for me to get something out there than to make something mind-blowing. So, with that in mind, I think Corgi Corral will be tastefully ad-supported. By “tastefully” I mean that ads will only be shown on the main menu and the “game over” screen…never during gameplay. And there will of course be an option to remove ads altogether.

So, there you have it! I’m going to spend the rest of my game dev time today with my notebook and pen, knocking out a few more things that will help me move forward such as: what game states I need to set up, what options I will need to record in NSUserDefaults, what information I need to include in the plist for each level, and what scores or achievements the game should highlight.