Hi everyone In a departure from my previous game, Animal Trackers, which was a timed puzzle game, I'd like to introduce my next game, Gravity Bowl, a one-touch arcade action game. Gravity Bowl [Universal] - by Dave Alder (DAiv Games) Aliens have trapped planet Earth inside a gravity well and surrounded it with electrified barriers! However, they only have enough resources to replenish the barriers for 72 rounds. The Earth is protected by a coloured energy shield which can dislodge a barrier of the same colour if it is struck with some force. It also has a Gravity Booster which can temporarily increase the force of gravity. So, slingshot the Earth onto a barrier of the same colour to remove it from the edge of the well. Remove all barriers to clear the round, and clear all rounds to free the Earth! Start as an Aspiring Bowler and use your skill and timing to ultimately become a Legendary Sniper! * 1-touch gameplay * 2 game modes * 3 difficulty levels * Physics-based gravitational simulation * Rotating gravity well * Static / Rotating / Double-up barriers... * Progressive unlocks * Game Center I'm putting the finishing touches on it at the moment, but hope to have it ready for beta testing soon. More details, screenshots and a video to follow. As always, all comments and questions are welcome. Dave
Animation of a complete round To give you an idea of how the game plays, I made an animated gif of the whole of round 7. The full-sized version is 9.5 MB, so I had to compromise and produce this tiny, colour-reduced, highly compressed (< 500 KB) animation so I could display here. Nevertheless, I hope you can start to get a sense of the mechanics of the game.
Zen - A state of mind I thought I'd give a bit more info about what it's like to play the game. Gravity Bowl has one-touch gameplay, where touching the screen increases the strength of the gravity well and releasing the screen returns it to normal. By timing when to touch down, how long to hold for, and when to release, you can slingshot the Earth across the gravity well and onto the target of your choice on the other side. It doesn't take long to get the hang of it, and once you do, you'll soon be able to send it to wherever you want. Before long, you may go into a zen-like state where you're only partially paying attention (such as when you're also having a conversation with someone) and only a little while later realise that you've cleared several rounds. It's akin to driving for several miles and not having much recollection of the road in between. This is helped by the fact that the end of one round flows straight into the beginning of the next, so that the last slingshot of a round can actually carry over and strike a target in the next round, effectively giving you a free boost. (I'll write more on boosts, shield energy, multipliers etc. in a later post.) But there's been many a time where I've started the game to test a change I've just made and had to consciously break myself away from it some time later, long after the outcome of the test was known.
Boosts Well, as promised, here are some more details about the boost system. As you can see from the screenshot, during play, two stats appear at the top centre of the screen, one of which is 'Boosts'. Boosts shows you how many more times during the current round you can slingshot (bowl) the Earth at the targets. Once this reaches zero, you can no longer affect the trajectory of the Earth, but you can still clear the round if the Earth strikes the last target (or targets) before it loses its angular trajectory and therefore its ability to dislodge any targets. Should you clear a round, you get a full complement of boosts for the next round, so a close shave at the end of one round won't compromise your ability to play the next. Any remaining boosts are not carried over, but will gain you a nice score bonus. Lastly, if you're playing in 'Sniper' mode, striking a target will earn you a free boost, but more on that later.
Thanks. I was initially learning how to write a simple physics engine and after experimenting with this and that, Gravity Bowl was the result.
Shields Besides the 'Boosts' stat that was detailed in an earlier post, the other stat to appear at the top of the screen during gameplay is 'Time'. This shows how many seconds you have left before the Earth's shield runs out of energy. This shield has two functions: 1) To resist the extreme tidal forces of the gravity well that are threatening to rip the Earth apart 2) To act as a charged barrier with which to dislodge the targets surrounding the well The first of these means that you must endeavour to maintain at least some shield energy at all times, just to keep the Earth alive long enough for you to make use of the second function, which is used to free the Earth from the gravity well. Shield Color You may have noticed in the screenshots spread throughout this thread that the colour of the targets surrounding the gravity bowl can differ. Each target is surrounded by its own shield and its colour represents the shield frequency. In order to dislodge a target, the Earth has to change its shield frequency to match that of the targets. Once all targets of one colour have been removed, the Earth's shield colour will automatically change to the colour of any remaining targets. On the early levels which only have one colour of target, it poses no added challenge, but on later levels where there are multiple colours, you'll have to make sure you aim for only those targets whose shield colour matches the Earth's. As a bonus, every time the Earth dislodges a like-coloured target, it will leech a little shield energy from it. In this way, even if you're getting precariously low on energy, as long as you can keep hitting targets quickly enough, you can survive the round.
Not long to go now... Well, it's been a while since I last wrote, but with Apple's recent acquisition of TestFlight and the subsequent disabling of the SDK, setting up the beta testing system has taken the lion's share of my time. In addition to applying a few tweaks here and there to the game, I've also been composing the music, which you'll first hear on the upcoming trailer. After that, I'll be asking for beta testers, so just to get an idea of how many to expect, please leave a comment below to let me know that you might be interested. Thanks Dave
Beta Trailer on YouTube The beta trailer is now live on YouTube. (You might want to turn the speakers up... ;o) Subscribe to the TouchArcade YouTube channel As always, all comments, queries, suggestions, etc. are welcome. Dave
Beta testing system I'm just adding the finishing touches to the back end of the beta testing system. I've included a beta button on the attract and pause screens... ... which opens a dialog box where you can write any comments, suggestions, bugs, etc. and send them to me directly from within the game. The data will be sent the next time you connect to the internet. Of course, you can post any comments here or pm me, if you prefer. Dave
Beta testing now open Hi everyone The beta testing version of Gravity Bowl is now up on TestFlight. It should run on any iDevice with iOS 6.0 or later. If you'd like to test the game, please PM me stating which device, generation and iOS version you have. Thanks Dave
Tutorial and help updated I've updated the tutorial and help dialogs to better show how the controls affect the action. Version 0.9.0.4 is now on TestFlight. There are still beta testing places available to anyone who'd like to play. Dave
Direct link to TestFlight For anyone who doesn't have a Touch Arcade account, you can download the game via the following TestFlight link: http://tflig.ht/1p02nkv Dave