Annoyed Tomatoes
Photics
Member Posts: 4,172
They're coming!
You've been warned!
________________________
With the ePub conversion of The Unofficial GameSalad Textbook now complete, I decided to stop getting caught up in the GameSalad drama and just get to work on making games. I wasn't planning on having a Halloween game, but I didn't expect Annoyed Tomatoes to be so... creepy... the music, the animation, the theme... it's a great game for the holiday. So, I'm in crunch mode. The plan is to work really hard on this game until it's ready to launch.
It's looking like my best GameSalad game yet!
You've been warned!
________________________
With the ePub conversion of The Unofficial GameSalad Textbook now complete, I decided to stop getting caught up in the GameSalad drama and just get to work on making games. I wasn't planning on having a Halloween game, but I didn't expect Annoyed Tomatoes to be so... creepy... the music, the animation, the theme... it's a great game for the holiday. So, I'm in crunch mode. The plan is to work really hard on this game until it's ready to launch.
It's looking like my best GameSalad game yet!
Comments
I am excited to see it!
Please show us some screenshots when you can...
Can't wait to see screen shots!
From what people are saying approvals are running at around 12 days or so.....
So it might be prudent to not make it too halloween-centric so it has an appeal once the Halloween rush is over.
Looking forward to seeing the game! What's the genre?
Area 51...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Area_51_(1995_video_game)
Operation Wolf
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Wolf
Terminator 2: Judgment Day
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terminator_2:_Judgment_Day_(arcade_game)
Excitement - After testing the tomatoes for the first time, I went back to making changes in GameSalad. Yet, I could still feel my heart pumping. Wow... that's how I know I'm making a good game. It's exciting.
Remorse - This game is a little creepy. I think it could give little kids nightmares. It's the music. It adds something to the game... a certain dark atmosphere... which is uncommon with my creations. I usually make cute and happy games. I'll have to rate it accordingly.
Pride - This game has 3D rendered video. The "Mission Brief" is a true sign of professionalism. It looks and sounds great.
Doubt - Will I make a Halloween release? Will the drama with GameSalad subside? Will Pro return? It's hard to concentrate with such uncertainty.
I think Annoyed Tomatoes is my best GameSalad game by far. The title screen is finished. I'm almost done with level 1. There are five levels in total.
• Level 2 is just about complete.
I'm moving slower than expected... although Level 2 was finished rather quickly. I'm aiming to wrap this game up by tomorrow night. There's the whole Corona vs GameSalad debate on the forums. But while working on Annoyed Tomatoes, the speed and ease that I can create content is just amazing. Multi-layer particle effects, audio fades / interpolation, animation, positional sound, replication... it just seems like extreme tedium to manually code such a project.
The performance is pretty good. Although, I have an iPhone 4 right now. The frame rate doesn't drop much below 60 FPS, so it's hard to tell. Although, I'm using my optimization tricks. The game is very responsive.
I have to figure out level transitions. I'm not quite sure how I want to change from one scene to the next. I'll probably add something interesting. After the highly polished title screen, a simple cut to the next scene is not sufficient.
It has full Retina Display support... except maybe for the App Icon. I don't know if the GameSalad team fixed the bug. Because it has Retina Display support, it barely stayed inside the 20 MB download limit. The zip file of my app is 19.2 MB.
• I managed to squeeze in all five levels.
• It's a difficult game. The last level is tough.
• It sounds awesome! It's meant to be played with headphones on.
• It's a little creepy and a little violent... not usually something I make.
• The animated "Mission Brief" is awesome. I'm really proud. It looks so professional.
It does get the heart pumping. It's also designed with Game Center in mind. It can be expanded for high scores, achievements and even multi-player.
I'm setting it for a Halloween launch. I pretty much missed the peak of the season, but I wasn't planning to make such a creepy game. It just turned out that way.
Can't wait!
http://forums.toucharcade.com/showthread.php?t=70655
Screens look great!
I also use Positional Sound and I used a trick to maximize the use of sound effects, so they sound less repetitive. It's a shooting game, so I didn't want the sound effects to get dull. Also, when the tomatoes make their chomp sound, it's a little disturbing. The screen flashes red and you hear this crunching sound.
I've shown Annoyed Tomatoes to non-gamers, and even they were impressed. Normally they just nod their head and say something like, "That's nice Mike." Yet, I could tell they're not really interested. This time, wow, the reaction was much more intense. You could see that the game made them feel emotions... laughter... suspense... passion — the comments and reactions to the game was very good. It's my best GameSalad game by far.
Can I make one suggestion? I think your icon would be better without the text, make that annoyed tomato bigger. The text is in the app name, anyway ;-)
It's also a memorial. The background is an image of an actual tomato plant. I planted that tomato plant from when it was just a bunch of tiny seeds. Earlier in the year, when it was too cold to grow fruits and vegetables outside, I put the seeds in very small pots. I left them by my window and I watched them grow. I had to water the tomatoes about twice a day, otherwise they'd dry up and die. As I did this, that's when I got the idea of making a tomato game.
Eventually, tomatoes started growing. They were cherry tomatoes and there were a lot of them. I didn't eat them, but those that did eat the tomatoes really liked them. It was a nice healthy snack. And then the next day, there were more tomatoes... and then more tomatoes... and even more tomatoes.
This plant was hearty. When the grass was dying from a rather hot and dry Summer. I kept my tomato plants alive. Eventually, Fall arrived. The tomato plants were done growing tomatoes. They were cut down, close to the roots, but these plants would not die yet. In a few days, new leaves started to appear. In a few weeks there were a lot of leaves. I took a picture of those leaves and I made the Annoyed Tomatoes icon.
Could the icon be better? Sure, but I'm happy with the current icon. It's not just a pretty image, it has special meaning. I really liked that plant. It brought lots of happiness into people's lives... and when Annoyed Tomatoes is launched... in a way that tomato plant lives forever.
I left some of the tomatoes from the plant in the soil. Perhaps next year my tomato plant will return.
Seems like you put a ton of effort into this one, so i don't think there should be a problem in waiting for more time for it to be reviewed
Changing the icon might have a negative effect. I've seen some top apps with letters in the icon. Switching the icon might actually decrease sales. I don't know for sure. What I do know is that if I upload a revised app, I'll totally miss the Halloween launch date. Right now, there's still a chance Apple will approve the game on Halloween. If that happens, it's a strong marketing opportunity.
Basically, I created the artwork with Daz Studio (with licensed content from the daz3d website), Adobe Photoshop... heh... and "Preview" from Mac OS X. The music loops were licensed. I'm not a musician. The sound effects I created myself. The game logic was easy with GameSalad. I worked full-time on the game for about a week... once I got past the concept stage.
Tricky parts...
• keeping the game under the memory limits
• testing game difficulty
• thinking of good level design
• getting the 3D rendered artwork to play. (The mission brief was too big.)
• Switching back-and-forth from my PC to my Mac. (I still haven't completely switched to Mac.)
Before the big development started, I was thinking about Annoyed Tomatoes for about two months, but I wasn't happy with the game idea. And then, once I found a game idea that I liked, it was tough to get motivated again. There was drama with GameSalad Direct® and my last two iOS games did poorly. It was breaking my concentration.
What helped was my experience with GameSalad. I could just drop in expressions when I needed them. I knew how to use random to make the game more lively. I was also familiar with Interpolation for movement and fades. The game doesn't really use complicated game logic, but some parts were tricky. I wasn't really thinking too hard about that part. That's why I like GameSalad. It makes it easy to make games. I was just creating attributes and actors without much concern. Compared to Commove, this game was a lot easier to make.