71-Squared: iPhone Game Programming – Tutorial 1

I came across a wonderful series of iPhone Game Programming by 71² and it is outstanding. Source code is also available at the official post. For beginners, this is the series you should probably start with. Thanx 71² team.

iPhone Game Programming – Tutorial 1 from Michael Daley on Vimeo.

Happy iPhone Game Programming

New iPhone Application

Nowadays I am thinking about a new iPhone application, which might use some iPhone SDK 3.0 features and cocos2d architecture. Thinking, thinking, thinking……………………………………… I would appreciate if anyone might give some input or share their idea, and I might make an application around it. thanx in advance

Gobbledygook

I am a member of Counter strike clan named AZOSH…………..named after me and my brothers. Every one has a nick and mine is Gobbledygook………..Why? What is the reason behind this nick? So to know the reason behind my nick, here we go

At the time of my graduation I received the title of “Min Min Jee” ( in Urdu) which means that I talk in so less volume that every other person thinks that I am just moving my lips and making small sounds……….or I am just doing gibberish

So I started looking for something similar to the title I received and found Gobbledygook. To some it is a nonsensical language and for some it can be a secret language for sharing thoughts; but to my clan it’s a player with non sensical strategies and this clearly describes why my blog is gobbledygook……….because there are no links in all posts in my blog and it makes no sense whatsoever I am posting, just like this very post………which itself has become gobbledygook

Tintash Pvt Ltd

After completing iTouchBall, I was outsourced to TinTash for approximately a month to develop some modules for their game. Tintash is one of those Game Development Houses which has achieved a milestone of reaching in Top 10 Apps frame of Apple’s App Store. Their game Fishing Frenzy made a great impact and made it’s place in top 10 free applications.

I learned many basic things of game development there. First of all, I got introduced to Cocos2d architecture. I never knew that game programming can be so simplified for iPhone. I still have to explore it, but at least I have got a start and insight of something new and worthy.

I came to know what is an Asset? it’s not only an accounting term but it’s also a game development term.

Game assets are the “things” that go into a game. Some examples of assets are artwork (including textures and 3D models), sound effects and music, text, dialogue and anything else that is presented to the user. Sometimes the terms content or objects are used interchangeably with the term assets. – Wikipedia

I found the environment very healthy and entertaining. They have department for each domain; developers, QA team, Art designers, game designers, sound designers…. and they all co-operate with each other fully and whole heartedly. It was great fun being with them. I wish Tintash good luck for bringing fresh and beautiful games in the hands of people of all ages.

iTouchBall 1.0

Here we go!

We developed a simplest game for iPhone and iPod Touch devices. The game is very easy to learn and master. The game is available at App Store. Please download and give a good rating. This might help my company to get some service oriented work

It can be downloaded from here.

The life cycle of the development of iTouchBall is as follow:
Our iPhone Application Development team worked on an application for about 4 months and at last it was sent to Apple for review and unfortunately it is still in review process. Our management lost hope for further development in iPhone, but then I came up with a simple game which had a ball bouncing off the walls or your finger. Then we were given another chance by our management to modify the game and get it ready in 2 weeks.

The first idea was to modify the game into a game in which there is a moving ball with higher radius which bounces off the walls and if player touches the ball it divides into 2 and so on, until all balls are eliminated from the screen. In first week, this game was completed. Levels were introduced and in each level the number of divisions increased. Simple graphics were used.

Now when we played the game, it was very monotonous. We  scheduled a meeting with our management and informed them that we need to rethink the game design, level designs and come up with some addictive game but we were not given any extra day. We were pushed to reach the already set deadline. So we modified the game. We restricted the number of divisions, increased the speed in every level. We named the developed game Eliminator and added a functionality of merging together. We developers, ourselves, introduced another game Protector where player will have to protect the ball from hitting the screen walls. After completing the games, we added the score comparison thing, so that every player around the world can see what is the highest score ever made in particular game. In 2 weeks, we were done with the game. Due to lack of interest from our management, we did not even push our graphic designer to come up with any fascinating graphics. He tried his best to come up with the current ones and we appreciated his effort because he is not game graphics designer, he has his expertise in designing graphics for websites which is totally a different domain. Our QA department spent about 3-4 days on the game and then we submitted it to Apple. We got a couple of genuine issues from Apple and we fixed them and resubmitted it. With in a weeks time after last submission, we received an email from Apple that it has been launched.

No hard feelings but we need to be patient in doing everything. It is good to have an application at App Store but we know that we have the capabilities to make 150% times better game than this. There are hell lot of things you can do with a ball moving around the screen. But still, lets see what reviews does this simple game receives. I will be working my brains out to come up with a game which will be more presentable, logical, exciting and addictive than iTouchBall. For the time being, I feel proud that we have atleast something on App Store. Cheers!

Game Development in iPhone using Cocos2d

A couple of days back, I got a chance to explore Cocos2d and I found it very useful and easy to understand if you want to jump into Game Development for iPhone. I would suggest all newbies to go through the white paper by Monocle Studios which gives an introduction of how to convert your project into Cocos2d environment. Its been fun and I hope everyone will like it. Lets hope I come up with couple of games of my own too

Happy iPhone Development

[iPhone] Learning OpenGL ES for iPhone Application development

This week, after completing our first application, I was given permission to explore and learn openGL ES for iPhone Application Development. This has been a great week and I have come across various forums and tutorial sites. I am thinking to keep my blog updated with all the steps I am taking in exploring graphics programming in iPhone. So here is the first post. I came across this blog post via iPhoneDevelopmentBits. The post is very resourceful and the first link I visited is iPhone OpenGL ES Series.

This post is for those, who don’t know where to start graphics programming in iPhone. Happy iPhone Coding

AZOSH goes online in gaming

Our clan AZOSH started playing online Counter Strike on 24th January 2009. Well, it is late but still fortunate enough for us to enhance our skills by playing with world class players online. Before joining the online servers, we brothers used to play against BOTS turn by turn. Well, actually we still go online turn by turn due to lack of resources….. but it is still a great experience.

azosh | dangerking has made an impact online and is considered to be the most entertaining player in our team; and he will continue to increase his skills.

Happy Gaming

Remembering the GAMES which…

Today, I received an article “Boss by day, gamer by night: Tech leader’s favorite video games” from Computer World; and thought that although I am still not a big high techie or shot but still I can try to remember and list almost all games which I played since my childhood. It would be easy for me to share in future when I become a Tech Guru or something sometime later

It’s very hard to compile all games in one sitting, I have spent almost whole day and is still not finished with the games I played on my first gaming console So I’ ll keep updating the list form time to time

So here we go…

Atari: Bowling

Atari: BasketBall

Atari: Bobby is going home

Atari: Angriff der Luftflotten

Atari: Sea Quest

Atari: Combat Game

Atari: Pitfall Harry

Atari: Space Invaders

Sega: Jim the Earthworm

Sega: Brian Lara 96

Sega: Michael Jackson’s Moonwalker

Sega: Midnight Resistance

Sega: Ms. Pac Man

Sega: Super Pang

Sega: Robocop

Sega: WWF Superstars

Sega: Snow Bros.

Sega: Street Fighter II

Sony Play Station: Tekken 3

Sony Play Station: Dune 2000

PC: Virtua Cop

PC: Command & Conquer

PC: Age Of Empire II

PC: Civilization III

PC: Civilization IV

PC: Counter Strike

…………. The above list is still not complete, I still remember many games but not their names Once I complete the list, I’ ll add some description and my experiences about all of them.

Tricastmedia In-Office Counter Strike Competition – March 2008

I and Usman Qutab were given the responsibility to organize an In-Office Counter Strike Competition. We worked very hard to arrange this event. MIS department, administration and especially our core team cooperated fully with us to make this event a success.

We selected aim_headshot, de_dust2 and de_inferno as the maps for the competition, made rules and emailed everyone about the event. I designed the following poster, which was then displayed on the notice board. We received about 20 participants, so instead of making 5 teams of 4 players, we made 4 teams of 5 players each. The 4 teams were Alpha, Bravo, Charlie and Delta……..which were directly sent to the semi-finals

The first Semi-Final was between Alpha and Bravo. Alpha lost by a great lead. Khalid Zubair Khan of Bravo led from the front.

The second Semi-Final was between Chalie and Delta. Great effort from Usman Qutab of Delta was not enough to beat Charlie which was led by Rana Hammad Hussain.

The Final match took place between Bravo and Charlie, in which Bravo out played Charlie in all 3 matches.

• Bravo became the best team.
  • Khalid Zubair Khan – 65 Kills (CT) & 56 Kills (T)
  • Muhammad Shahzad Amin – 27 Kills (CT) & 17 Kills (T)
  • Muzzamil Hussain – 9 Kills (CT) & 16 Kills (T)
  • Muhammad Rizwan – 4 Kills (CT) & 7 Kills (T)
  • Syed Ahmed Sohaib – 2 Kills (CT) & 1 Kill (T)
• Khalid Zubair Khan won the best Counter Terrorist Award with 65 kills.
• Rana Hammad Hussain won the best Terrorist Award with 73 kills.

Congratulations and thanks to all participants who played till the end and cooperated a lot with the organizers.