Stick Golf: 1 month, 1 game (Part 1)

February 25th to March 30th (with a trip to vegas in there!). Thats what the svn log says. Now, that’s just impressive… All graphics (with the exception of some logos and stick animations), all programming, all sound.

It’s actually kind of hard to believe that I’m just finishing up the sound tonight… I’m actually pretty shocked. Anyways, I found myself looking at my svn log comments and thought I’d actually get this blog going with something interesting… The one-month one-game log analysis: The format is: revision | date | svn commit message (yes i know my messages are ridiculous)

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r1 | 2010-02-24 23:06:39 -0600 (Wed, 24 Feb 2010) | 1 line | importing project

So yeah. This i guess was pretty much the creation of the project. Checked out the latest cocos2d trunk and started away using Chipmunk as the physics engine. I started with pretty much a similar template to ‘Scuba Guy’, which is currently in development… But not much here, pretty bare bones.

Ok. So, I can’t really remember where I was at this point from the messages… I assume I was just truckin along hacking away..
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r5 | 2010-02-25 00:29:52 -0600 (Thu, 25 Feb 2010) | 1 line | asdf
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r6 | 2010-02-25 00:32:19 -0600 (Thu, 25 Feb 2010) | 1 line | Test level

Ok. So obviously here, I’ve got some test level stuff done. I essentially ripped the whole build process from ‘Scuba Guy’. Because it’s just awesome and super efficient. 1 photoshop file, 1 level. Export a big file file, and the build chops it up, figures out all the boundaries, and recognizes all the dynamic elements. The test level looked pretty bad as I recall, but it was a start.

I remember what I was doing at this point.. OK, so you know in UIKit or Cocos2d, stuff like [UIImage imageNamed:] or [CCSprite spriteWithFile:]. Ya that’s no good if your Xcode build generates images on the fly. The last part of my build is a script that runs the level generator, which means that none of the images are ‘added’ to the Xcode project. Anyways, I built a framework for accessing these images really easily.. It ends up just using: [[NSBundle mainBundle] pathForResource:] which is where all the level images get put in the end.

I don’t really remember what specifically I was doing at this point. But I remember being in about 50% Xcode and 50% photoshop. Cutting up images is tedious….

Oooooo. Yup. I know exactly what I was doing here. So chipmunk didn’t really work out as a physics engine for this game. The problem? CCD, continuous collision detection. Chipmunk doesn’t have it. And the way I wanted this game has the golf ball really small. With Chipmunk the ball kept passing through the group boundaries. Increasing the cpSegment size wasn’t possible because then it would appear that the ball wasn’t quite touching the ground… Chipmunk, I love ya, but it was time to dive into Box2d..

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r22 | 2010-03-06 22:30:28 -0600 (Sat, 06 Mar 2010) | 1 line | remove

Hahaha… I GUARANTEE (without looking at the detail svn) that this commit was changing all the bloody .m extensions to .mm… *facepalm*

Ok. prolly more Box2d tweaks here. I did spend ALOT of time trying to figure out why stuff in Box2d wasn’t moving faster… Without getting into the details… PTM_RATIO. Ya, there’s a limit to force and velocities and I was reaching it way too soon.. Applying a stronger impulse to an object, and getting the exact same result… I was running into limits. Scaled all the physics down by a factor of 25, and it was all good from there.

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r25 | 2010-03-07 13:51:58 -0600 (Sun, 07 Mar 2010) | 1 line | c plus plus collision handler

Ok. So now we need collisions handlers right? Well, time to take out those Chipmunk callbacks and write a C++ class… ( I wrote a lot of server software in C++ a few years ago at a different job… not impressed… ).

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r26 | 2010-03-07 14:25:16 -0600 (Sun, 07 Mar 2010) | 1 line | left right boundary walls

Ok. So i added invisible boundary walls here.

This was probably the fade in of the logos.. Most CCScene transitions..

OOO.. level select scene. This put some UIKit stuff on top of Cocos2d. Mostly just TableViewController stuff.. Maybe some transitions in there..

Ok. not sure what I was exactly doing this day. But it looks like from this message that I was tweaking the build a little bit.

Right on here we go… looks like we got levels 3 4 5 and 6 going. These are finished levels. One photoshop file. Export. and done.

Looks like the first course was done here. ‘Loftstrom Links’. With a minor fix later, I think this was actually complete here…

Ahhhhhh.. YES. Definitely remember this. Implemented the ‘water hazards’ in the game. Needed some definate tweaks to the level processor script, and some Box2d sensors, but other than that, not too much! A custom graphic for each course which is the water hazard graphic and thats it!

Heehee.. Slowing down the ball when it hits the water…

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r58 | 2010-03-12 23:52:05 -0600 (Fri, 12 Mar 2010) | 1 line | new world

Alright. So, started creation of the second course here…

OK. There you go. A course in ONE day. I remember doing these… I hammered through these course designs. All that time building that level processor pays off..
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r69 | 2010-03-13 17:40:13 -0600 (Sat, 13 Mar 2010) | 1 line | new world
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r70 | 2010-03-13 20:47:59 -0600 (Sat, 13 Mar 2010) | 1 line | sand traps and new level

OK. So it looks like I added the sand trap feature here.. Pretty simple as it’s very similar to the water hazard.. Just needs different logic on the sensor.

OK. So it looks like I finished the third course here…