iOS - Sphoxie

[Archerx]

I have been working on my next project for a while now since I have completed Bizango Blast.

I would like to introduce "Sphoxie"! What is Sphoxie you ask? Well it is when a foxie box and a sphere clash!

In Sphoxie you are in control of a spiked ball character, the spikes allow you to have more control on your enviroment and even let you stick to thing to a certain degree.

The game is touch based, where you touch on the screen is where the ball will go, that ball is also controlled by physics when not being controlled by the player.


Here is the player character, when not in control of the player the PC will have the spikes inside and when in control the spikes come out.





The underside of the first level.

Video Update

[HavocInferno]

Oh, this looks clean... and like some kind of jelly... really nice, is it ingame or renders, because on the first pic there's some lightmass-like looking glow below the spikey ball

[Jarro]

ooh no, I think I saw the most beautiful and the best screenshots of any of UDK projects. Amazing style and so pure concept, it can be seen rarely though.

[Carsten]

It looks and sounds like youur on to a pretty cool game.

Can't wait to see more of your progress

[Archerx]

Thanks for the nice comments guys

I'm actually skipping lightmass this time, it's awesome not having to rebuild lighting all the time. I make the levels in 3d max, bake the lighting into the textures and export to udk.

I'm also working on a technique to fake glows on mobile and it's looking good so far. More updates to come!

[Jarro]

Do you make the collisions with UCX and UBX in 3dsmax ?

[Phen0mM0dz]

Looks amazing, Cant wait to play it!

[online|offworld]

o_O

How are you getting that SSS look on mobile?

[Phen0mM0dz]

What is SSS?

[Archerx]

Thanks for the kind words guys

I have a few levels that are playable and its going well! I'll add more images and videos soon!

Do you make the collisions with UCX and UBX in 3dsmax ?

I do all the collisions in the UDK, do you think it's better to do it in Max?

What is SSS?

SSS = Sub Surface Scattering. Put your hand infront of a very bright light and the transulcent red you see is light getting absored by your skin and spreading under it.

Milk, Wax, Skin, Jade are some examples of materials that have SSS

I baked it into the textures.

[Jarro]

hmm I wouldn't make any collisions in udk because it is much complicated than to do it when modelling a mesh already, also some CSG may lag or make some bugs

[Archerx]

The collisions have been working alright for me so far but I will see as the game progresses if I need to make them in Max.

New update and this time it's in game!



What do you think? There is still a lot to do and it runs pretty well on my 3Gs

[Hellclown]

I'm liking the look of this project, can't wait to play it.

If you need/want any help feel free to shoot me a PM.

[ironbelly]

Genius man, I was waiting for a good monkey ball style game to come out for these devices.. The visual style is awesome btw, I love that blue

[Archerx]

I've been hard at work and the game has advanced at a nice pace. I have most of the systems complete and my kismet-fu is increasing a lot. I am doing this so much more efficiently now that I learned all the lessons from Bizango Blast. I have the level loading/restarting handled much more elegantly than before. I will make some video tutorials when the game is complete

Here are some images from the game so far, it's still in WIP and some of the graphics (especially the buttons) are place holders.



The Pause menu will be a map of the level



The levels will be very mixed and not just flat



I'm planning on 27 levels, the first run through will be to collect the tokens, unlock the exit and finish the level after that a race mode to complete the level as fast as possible and a motion mode get openned up to add to replayability.

[Carsten]

Your kismet-fu!1!!1! Awesome xD

Love the visual style.

[stevelois]

Well, your second project look as nice & promising as the first

Good stuff

[Archerx]

Thanks guys, it looks really good in motion because of the parallax/perspective effect giving it a feeling of depth.

I will start releasing videos when it's almost complete but there is still a lot to do;

-In game UI
-Button Graphics
-Level selection menu
-Bad guys and bosses
-Physical objects
-GameCenter & iCloud
-Last visual layer
-Bonuses
-Powerups because every one loves powerups!

And much more.

Right now I have the main game objective system complete (Collect the 4 yellow cubes and head to the exit). Now I'm working on the Race mode which is more of a time trial.

I'm more excited about the stuff behind the scenes. I managed to get the level loading/restarting in kismet to be one nice elegant line of nodes. Before for Bizango Blast it worked well but was not as simple and nice.

Also making a controllable ball that also reacts to physics is as simple as you'd think in the UDK.

[Archerx]

I have most of the functions worked out and mostly done and now I'm going to be filling in all the levels with content. I have decided to remove the motion controls from the game because the it's a bit too iffy with the UDK and it's impossible to stop the screen from dimming.

Before doing the rest of the content I want the main menu worked out so here are some WIPs so I can get a few points of view.

Here is the title screen:



Level Select:

[HavocInferno]

Thanks for the kind words guys

SSS = Sub Surface Scattering. Put your hand infront of a very bright light and the transulcent red you see is light getting absored by your skin and spreading under it.

Milk, Wax, Skin, Jade are some examples of materials that have SSS

I baked it into the textures.

Actually, the green light is absorbed and the red is the light going through the matter of your skin/hand


tt: I love it, though the red is too strong(?) imho. You should tone it done a bit like it was in the first pic on page 2. Anyways, I'm looking forward to it, I haven't found any real good 2D Jump&Run/Platformer games like this yet.

[Archerx]

Thanks HavocInferno! I toned down the red and I hope it's better now, also there is a lot more red :P

I redid the main menu and I cant decided between:



And:



Subtle but noticable.

I did some more work on the level select screens.







Thanks for viewing and feedback is always welcomed!

[ADF86]

Looks awesome! Can't wait to see the final gameplay, if I had an iOS device I'd definitely be buying this. Great work!

[Hellclown]

What's the status of this project?

[Archerx]

The project is still alive and I almost have all the levels in place!

This is taking me longer than I expected because this year so far has been ROUGH! Also I made two smaller apps (Ask God and Magic Hate Ball) in the mean time to do some app store research.

Here are a few screen shots to show the current state of the game, kinda close to beta but it will still be in alpha for a while.


The elements in this level come in and out of existence for a nice effect, when the player goes on one of the cubes it will force it into existence and will stay there as long as the player is on it. Every cube the player touches remains stained.



Crazy track style level that is about speed and not falling off the twisty curves.



Spiral level that is all one piece, the player must travel all along it with out falling off.



Crazy rotating box level, give awesome perspectives.



Rotating sphere level.

I'm having a technical issue with collisions and rotations, when I rotate and object it's collision stays put which causes a lot of problems, if anyone knows how to solve this I would be very grateful!

[stevelois]

Lovely pics & nice progress

As for the collisions issues, I can suggest to use dynamic blocking volume for your collision mesh that give you issues !

[Archerx]

Thanks I'll try that but it's weird because if the object moves the collision is fine, it's only rotations that have an issue.

[Archerx]

Here's a small update, I testing out styles for the bad guys. I found something abstract and impossible in real life so I like it.

It makes more sense when they are in motion since they kind of look like an optical illusion.


Set 01 - The "illusion" set Each bad guy has different states depending on how fast they are moving or how close the player is to them.


Set 02 - Non illusion set. They try and get "Spherical" properties to move as fast as the player.


Set 03 - Trying to give them more "character".


Feedback is appreicated and this are not ingame yet.

[Archerx]

Hey guys I finally made a video so you can see Sphoxie in action, check it out and let me know what you think.

[Archerx]

New video this time I show three different levels and bad guys! Check it out and let me know what you think.



I was going to show some of the kismet backend but fraps decided to not record that part for some reason.

[Archerx]

No comments? I need some feed back on the background, I'm thinking about changing it to a skybox so that there is the impression of falling when the character is falling. Any thoughts? How do you feel about the current gradient background?

[woodesh]

what kind of skybox would it be? currently i think the solid colour is good because it isn't much of a distraction so the player can easily tell the difference between platforms and non platform. it goes well with the theme of simple shapes and colours. if i had to critique something it would be the lack of shadow on the player ball, since this game relies heavily on depth perception it may be hard to gauge exactly how high the ball. some ios games have be criticized in this manner, there is one particular platform game i can't remember off the top of my head about a man jumping with a balloon. this got mediocre reviews due to that little factor.

totally off topic but on your "shake and hate ball" game what udk version where you using? i'm trying to play a movie file as the loading screen after the splash screen has ended but it just ignores it and continues with the "out" on the kismet node "control game movie". the file is an m4v.

[woodesh]

double post.

[Dr.J]

very nice work, i love the style and overall look to the game . i think that a skybox would be good for telling the player that he is falling, but will be best if its kept to gradients like your current bg. woodesh has a good point about the shadow, i also think that due to the import of depth perception in the game it will be great if a shadow was there to tell you how far away the surface you plan to land on is. again great work and keep it up !

[Archerx]

Thanks for the feedback guys

I took some screenshots so you can see the difference.

This is the old one where the gradient is always pointing to the center of the screen and moves with the camera.



This is the new skybox background, it's a bit lighter but the brightness changes depending on your height in the level. So as you're falling everything becomes bright, I like that so I think I'm going to keep it.



I'm still using the the July 2011 UDK for this project but before I release it I'll move it up to the latest UDK for some DOF and maybe bloom effects. I will try and see if I can make the little dude have a dynamic shadow if performance allows.

Right now he does have a shadow but I guess it's too subtle.

[Archerx]

Here's video preview number 3!

This time we look at the UI and some of the bad guys, feedback is very welcomed!

[Archerx]

Sphoxie is pretty much done, now I'm just squashing bugs and making sure everything is running as smooth as possible. Once that's done I'll have a small beta to get some feedback before release.

In the mean time here's one of the story slides!

[Hellclown]

Wow, this is making huge strides. I can't wait to play it.

[Archerx]

Thanks man, I'm starting my beta now so if anyone is interested in testing it out let me know.

[eridan]

Thanks man, I'm starting my beta now so if anyone is interested in testing it out let me know.

Hey Archerx,

Love the progress you have made with this game. If you need help feel free to contact me for testing or feedback. I own an iPod Touch 4g.

Good luck with Sphoxie!

[Archerx]

Sphoxie is out!



Get it now!

https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/spho...558189485?mt=8