Universal Pocket Kingdom - Tim Tom's Journey (by 08 Games & Plug In Digital)

Discussion in 'iPhone and iPad Games' started by metalcasket, Jun 14, 2017.

  1. yankeeblue000

    yankeeblue000 Well-Known Member

    Aug 29, 2016
    644
    36
    28
    #21 yankeeblue000, Jun 17, 2017
    Last edited: Jun 17, 2017
    It would be really, really cool if I could get a more detailed explanation of what thie objective's and gameplay is like, please. Thanx :)
     
  2. metalcasket

    metalcasket Moderator
    Staff Member Patreon Silver Patreon Gold Patreon Bronze

    May 24, 2010
    11,064
    1,340
    113
    Deepest Circle, Hel
    Check out the trailer that's now embedded in the first post.
     
  3. Mainly it's puzzles and world exploration. Puzzles like this:

    [​IMG]

    Hookshot like in Zelda series, rocket launcher, lasers, gravity tricks, different types of keys for different doors and so on. World is non-linear, so it's not always clear how to get into some place. Usualy you need artefact, that give you new skill to make it. Or right portal. Like in metroidvania games, so we call it puzzlevania.

    Or puzzles like this:

    [​IMG]

    You need to find lamps to open something here.

    Objectives mainly are story items, which are stored in different places marked on the global map. Here are examples such places:

    [​IMG]

    Portal thing on Red Efreet level

    [​IMG]

    Yumo's Temple thing to summon Yumo
     
  4. metalcasket

    metalcasket Moderator
    Staff Member Patreon Silver Patreon Gold Patreon Bronze

    May 24, 2010
    11,064
    1,340
    113
    Deepest Circle, Hel
    08games, curious...will the Steam DLC you're working on eventually make it to the iOS version too?
     
  5. Pocket Kingdom

    Jun 1, 2017
    7
    0
    0
    Yes. There is no point of releasing content for platform A, but not for platform B, as it's mostly the matter of compilation target. Yet for mobile... There was a lot of compromises to decrease binary size (we're just under the limitation), and it may go with expense of even worse audio quality as it's the main bottleneck for binary size.
     
  6. metalcasket

    metalcasket Moderator
    Staff Member Patreon Silver Patreon Gold Patreon Bronze

    May 24, 2010
    11,064
    1,340
    113
    Deepest Circle, Hel
    I was thinking it's rather amazing that the whole package here is less than 100 MB installed, but do you have to have the app less than 100 MB? I understand that a smaller app will likely get more downloads if people can download over 3G, but is it worth jeopardizing the quality that much?
     
  7. collider

    collider Well-Known Member
    Patreon Bronze

    Mar 22, 2013
    185
    0
    16
    CEO/Owner Collider, Inc.
    NYC
    08 - look at App Thinning and On-Demand Resources... the general idea is to release a small binary that updates itself (or ask the user if they want the full awesome experience) with the high rez resources once the user has downloaded.

    As for the pixel thing, I believe the most common strategy is to design the game so you can crop your view in to whatever aspect ratio the screen is. The 2 most common are 16:9 and 3:4, so you would set your safe area inside one or the other while keeping your pix perfect ratios. Or you might be able to scale with nearest neighbor and be fine that way. There are a lot of strategies to deal with this out there, but you usually have to deal with it from the start. I haven't played this yet, so I have no idea how much pain it would be to rework it now...

    Having said all that, downloading now - this looks beautiful and fun... good week for metroidvanias!
     
  8. collider

    collider Well-Known Member
    Patreon Bronze

    Mar 22, 2013
    185
    0
    16
    CEO/Owner Collider, Inc.
    NYC
    OK, only a few minutes into this... border doesn't bother me. Haxe is one of the few I haven't played with, but it would seem extending the view area while maintaining the camera z position would take care of your borders and keep your tiles snapped if you were so inclined.

    Anyway, really beautiful pixels, audio and gameplay so far. Great job 08. This looks like it will be fun.
     
  9. Dazzlemi

    Dazzlemi Well-Known Member

    Mar 14, 2010
    979
    4
    18
    A was a bit hesitant at first hearing that it didn't work at all, but after the update I decided to buy it.

    I haven't had much chance to play it yet.

    Fun so far.
     
  10. Pocket Kingdom

    Jun 1, 2017
    7
    0
    0
    100mb is a size limit for an uploaded .app file, otherwise it won't pass. Main difference between PC and iOS - music quality. While PC have best available quality to us (mainly because Blinch have a tendency to not save project files, ha), iOS version have cut quality and I think you would notice the difference if you use headphones. Don't know about external speakers though. If we to add new content that does not include audio - that'd be fine, as we still can fit more graphics into atlases and I have options on optimizing other resources like converting map data from XML to binary format (which would actually increase perfomance quite a bit)

    I'll look into it, but no promises if that would require way too much effort to bundle music separately - I'm not ready for yet another hate session with Apple development environment. :)

    In PK scaling basically decided by a singular function which sets scale values depending on screen size. As I said before - it uses largest possible fit-in scale (but I think I can do compromises on what considered "fit-in", because game internal screen have around 16 pixels of unused area on both axis), without making pixels of non-integer size. For me - games which do not care about maintaining pixel size consistent look awful, as pixels change size all the time during motion (I look at you, Unity).

    Haxe is a programming language :) Render-engine-wise there is no actual camera involved, as OpenGL just receives the buffer data of already prepared quads to render. The sources for that part are open, and you can see them here. (code's a bit messy and may be optimized, but what works - works, eh?)
     
  11. metalcasket

    metalcasket Moderator
    Staff Member Patreon Silver Patreon Gold Patreon Bronze

    May 24, 2010
    11,064
    1,340
    113
    Deepest Circle, Hel
    Excuse my complete ignorance on the matter (no, seriously...I have no idea about the technical side of the App Store and apps), but how are there apps (say, like Grim Fandango) which are 2.6 GB to download and 3.5 gigs installed?

    Of course if you want over-the-air downloads, then the executable file shouldn't exceed 100 MB.
     
  12. Pocket Kingdom

    Jun 1, 2017
    7
    0
    0
    I have no answer to that. Mentioned by @collider app thinning and on-demand resources probably?
     
  13. .THOTH.

    .THOTH. Well-Known Member

    Mar 6, 2012
    279
    0
    16
    Credit counselor :(
    Tacoma, WA
    I just finished this but wasn't able to access all the areas. It seems there's not enough coins to purchase all the items; am I missing something?
     
  14. Yeah, there are secret levels with additional coins. And also you can find stars, that gives more coins.
     
  15. collider

    collider Well-Known Member
    Patreon Bronze

    Mar 22, 2013
    185
    0
    16
    CEO/Owner Collider, Inc.
    NYC
    Yeah, I meant I never explored FlashPunk/HaxePunk... used Action Script/Flash a billion years ago (I'm old enough to have used VideoWorks - yikes!). Anyway - it looks like your scale and views are tied, so the way you're doing it now is probably the way to go - this is always a pain, even in unity, cocos2d etc...

    Anyway, to anyone that comes across this thread - these are minor issues - I don't mean to derail this - this is a fun puzzle/open exploration game, and it looks wonderful. Don't hesitate to buy.
     
  16. redicius

    redicius Active Member

    May 8, 2014
    34
    0
    6
    Dood work there. I like this ;)
     
  17. anthony78

    anthony78 Well-Known Member

    Nov 13, 2015
    3,037
    616
    113
    So this is on sale for $.99. Is the border people were talking about on the iPhone X? Or are there black bars in addition to the borders mentioned?
     

Share This Page