Kablamo

On the DVD I have given you, there is the xcode project for our game. You can build this to your iDevice and play through the updated version of our game.

This is if the game hasn’t been released onto the iTunes store of course. It’s quite possible that it will, and possible that we need to make a few changes so i’m covering some options here.

You need to make a few changes, like the bundle identifier and the provisioning profile under the build area of info.

Oddly enough, you still may get an odd error. A popup window may come up saying something about linking or something similar. if you just go into the build menu and choose clear all targets, you’ll be fine and ready to go.

Thats a very odd error that xocde likes to throw out when you open up and try to build someone elses project.

Anyway, enjoy our game.

The most important tools while creating Triff, hasn’t just been our minds and imaginations, but also cloud computing.

To get over the need to send lots of files to each other all the time and share diagrams with each other, we decided to set up accounts with sites that let us collaboratively share and view files and mind maps.

Box.net is the site we used for file sharing. It let us collaborate on Triff anywhere where we decided to work. By the end of the journey, we had over 100 files uploaded and shared with each other.

This service worked wonderfully, and was completely free. We only wanted to share small files as is the nature of our project and so the size limitations on how much we could upload wernt an issue.

The other site that played a huge role in making triff work is Mind42.com. This is a mind mapping site that let us collbarotively work on the plot and narrative of the game. More importantly, it gave us a visual basis for how the game is laid out and let me be able to link everything together and find the correct slide we needed to change with minimal fuss.

Apart from the zoo stage where that had been started on another mind map and my numbering labels were never transfered over due to Gary not liking me naming the slides and my laziness.

When working in a group like we did, being able to share files and thoughts is the most important thing. We needed a better way to discuss things, preferably through skype or some other system, but that never got put into place.

But working in the same room or in different houses, these sites let us work effortlessly together. Fantastic.

As you probably know, my current site is in the form of an adventure game. This idea stuck with me and I have decided to upgrade this concept. Now, what do adventure games normally include?

Inventory systems? Big story? Thought out user interaction?

Mines getting all those.

Yes, I made a live, browser based inventory system that runs along side the game. Before you say anything about it, no, it doesnt just involve several story strands where you have an item or not. No, one story path and the inventory system will work whether or not you pick up or if you use an item or not. Like a proper game.

The story is now roughly 3.5 times larger than the current one. Thats 143 pannels. The downside to this is that the final size will be roughly 12mb. For a website this is not good, so I am adressing this with a preloader and the choice to just view my work instead of waiting for it all to load.

Now some of you may be asking ‘why not just make the game in flash? It will be much smaller and easier!’ and to you I say shut up. It was my personal goal to make an adventure game that is browser based. Plus lots of people have made flash based adventure games. Show me someone who has done this. It’s a rediculous concept but thats kind of the point of Kablamo, turning rediculous and stupid ideas that shouldn’t ever work or exploiting platforms that others have dismissed and making it work.

From possibility to reality.

If only I could make a browser based squib.

Hi Adam, if you’re reading this right now it means you’re marking my work.

Just so you know, we didn’t want to kill you off during the game, but people chose to do that, sorry.

What kind of cake do you like? I’ll bake you a cake, will that help?

Have fun reading this blog, thanks for a fun first year.

Secret Agent Man has been handed in. Presentation next tuesday.

Everything is fantastic today.

SAM in our minds has been a fantastic project to work on and has given us endless joy. We can only hope that RED will see it as being as good as we think it is.

Hopefully some money can be made from this bad boy.

Documentary is pretty much all done and dusted now.

it wont let me embed it here so check it out on the linky links

http://www.kablamo.co.uk/sam/

If you want to buy it for yourself it shall cost you £10 p+p included.

We found out after having people play the game that no one really understood the clues.

We need to rework some of the clues to make it more accessible to other people. Once we’ve done this, we can submit it to BID and hopefully get a bit of money to turn this into an actual business venture.

GO US!

Once again, if you want to buy a full on dvd version of the documentary with ultra amazing packaging, drop me an email through my main site’s contact page. Would post an email address but I dont want more spam.
Go on, you know you want to buy one for yourself and all your relatives.

In recent days, the game has been tested a few times by me and Gary.

We found out that we didn’t really test it very well while we were making it. The multiple endings didnt work, the bluetooth headset to trigger the endings turned off after 15 mins and some of the clues I had written didnt contain the full clue but a copy and paste of two lines.

Thankfully thats all fixed now. Adam helped us out again by providing a work around for the text problem we were facing. For the multiple endings to work, there would be a text sent from the phone to one of three phones to reveal the ending. Java apps have a problem sending texts to phones it seems if the recieving phone doesnt have a recieve text app running on it. Adam showed me a work around he found before and now it all works again.

Filming has been going great, pretty much all done now apart from dropping in game footage and adding a bit of polish to it all.

All this and still over a week left to do it all in. Fantastic.

No attachment today. Maybe next time there will be the documentary here for your viewing.

Filmings going great. All the major filimg is done, just have to film the run through and do the final edit.

Had some issues while testing the game, found out that the ending, which relies on texting, only worked to one phone and we didnt know why. Asked Adam and of course told me why it didnt work and provided the work around for it. Now we have a working ending and therefore, a working game!

Apart from polish and testing we are finished. Bizzare.

Heres a photo of one of the scenes during filming.

After spending two days at garys house, I’m pretty sure my liver wants to die.

Never the less we accomplished sod all.

But, the lab coat has arrived which today i promptly set about writing on it. Sitting around designing a new poster in a lab coat is brilliant, it all works together.

It makes me want to wear lab coats to design in. It’s all so scientific i might explode.

Only a small post today since I just want to share the poster really. Not too much is happening with the project right now anyway since its all coming together in its strange fashion. We just need to do some testing and the mocumentary and we are pretty much done.