Hola Jugadores!!Luego de varios meses de estar arreglando cosas (y casi un mes de retraso con esta nueva actualización 1.3) estamos muy contentos de tener el lanzamiento de la actualización de los minijuegos de aventura!

Volcan de la Aventura

En el volcán de la aventura, los jugadores van a encontrar 3 nuevos minijuegos los cuales son:

Ala Delta:

La aventura no puede acabar sin los deportes extremos, el ala delta invita al jugador a cruzar los aros a través del nivel. Intenta conseguirlos todos!

Vuela Con Nosotros!

Escalar en el rio:

En este minijuego, el jugador debe escalar y evitar las rocas que caen. El juego tiene dificultad dinámica por lo que aquellos que sean muy buenos tendrán un reto mucho mayor! Trata de llegar lo mas alto posible!

Cuidado con las rocas!

Pesca en el Tarcoles:

Una tranquila tarde en el rió pescando para aquellos que disfrutan de los juegos mas relajados. Trata de sacar la mayor cantidad de peces del rió!

Una tranquila tarde de pesca!

Notas de Balance y Cambios:

• Se modificaron algunos textos de los minijuegos y menú
• Se arreglo el flujo de conexión con facebook para la sincronización de cuentas.
• Se elimino un exploit que algunos jugadores utilizaban en el juego de balance para tratar de sacar provecho.
• Se hizo un chequeo contra los números de teléfono para aquellos jugadores que trataban de crear múltiples cuentas con un mismo numero
• Se hicieron ajustes en el minijuego de fútbol y de tap tap para mejorar la experiencia.
• Mejoras de rendimiento en iOS e Android.

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Hola jugadores de Ciudad kolbi!

Ya disfrutaron de la actualizacion de navidad! Pero que sigue entonces para ciudad kolbi? En la siguiente actualizacion vamos a estar presentando un nuevo mundo.

En el turno, los jugadores van a encontrar una serie de nuevos minijuegos (3 al igual que en los mundos anteriores), entre ellos estan:

La rueda de Turno; En este minijuego, los ciudadanos estan atrapados en la rueda de turno, tenemos que intentar bajarlos a todos, pero al mismo tiempo, cada una de sus posiciones tiene valores diferentes, gana quien baje a los mas valiosos. Pero cuidado! Con cada ciudadano que baje, la rueda aumenta su velocidad.

El carrusel y el sombrero magico, le ponen un reto a los jugadores, traten de reventar la mayor cantidad de globos, mientras disfrutan dando vueltas en el carrusel. Los jugadores ponen atencion sobre los globos y tienen que ponerlos en la zona en donde el ciudadano se va a estirar.

Quien no fue perseguido por las mascaradas? Nuestros ciudadanos tienen que correr lo mas rapido posible y recolectar todas las monedas que puedan para escapar de las mascaradas y convertirte en el ganador.

Pero,¿Que ma tenemos preparado para esta actualizacion?

Algo que los jugadores quieren desde hace ya bastante tiempo, son los premios fisicos:

El premio epico tendra los siguientes requisitos:

1. Tiene un costo de 1000 kolbi monedas
2. Solo puede ser comprado 1 vez por cada usuario
3. Solo lo pueden comprar aquellos jugadores que al final de la temporada, se encuentren en el top 100 de la tabla de liderato (osea LOS MEJORES!)

Es importante recalcar, que la tabla de liderato se reinicia luego de 30 dias, y si el jugador pierde su oportunidad de comprar el premio epico, tendra que volver a cumplir con los requisitos en la siguiente temporada.

Esperamos que sigan disfrutando de ciudad kolbi y que puedan ganar mucho mas!

Notas:

• Se modificaron algunos textos de los minijuegos y menu
• Se arreglo una pulga en donde la fecha de la temporada se repetia muchas veces y disminuia el tamaño de la letra
• Se arreglo una pulga en donde en casos particulares no se ponian los puntajes correctamente
• Se acomodaron los niveles para enviar solicitudes a amigos/jugar con ellos de nivel 7 a nivel 3 (justo despues de terminar el tutorial).
• Mejoras de rendimiento en iOS e Android.

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Navidad Llego a Ciudad kolbi

Hola a todos!

Ciudad kolbi es uno de los proyectos favoritos para el equipo de Headless Chicken Games debido a la cantidad de  oportunidades para crear que nos dio. Este Diciembre no es una excepcion y con el llega la primera expansion del juego. El mundo de la granja viene acompañado de 3 nuevos minijuegos:

• Sobre El Camino: Donde el jugador busca llevar su camion por un viejo camino recolectando la mayor cantidad de monedas.
• Alimentalos Ya: En esta grande todos deben comer, por eso los animales de la granja deben ser alimentados.
• Las Gallinas de Abuela: Alguien le dio super concentrado a estas gallinas! Trata de que no se quiebre ningun huevo.

Ademas de los minijuegos tambien hemos resuelto una serie de pulgas que habiamos encontrado en la interfaz del juego, se activo el tema de navidad (con una fragante nueva pantalla de inicio) y tambien se agrego un pequeño adelanto del maravilloso premio super epico con el cual pueden ganar grandes y maravillosos premios.

Que opinan de esta actualizacion? Mucho? Nada?

Dejen sus comentarios abajo y gracias por jugar Ciudad kolbi!

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Hola a todos y todas!

PlayStore

AppStore

Ha sido una semana de lanzamiento muy intensa! Desde el primer dia nos dimos cuenta que existia un problema con el calculo de la experiencia, lo cual estaba permitiendo que los jugadores avanzaran a una velocidad totalmente desmedida. Luego de eso, tambien nos dimos cuentan que existia un problema en nuestro codigo de servidor para poder entrar a ciertas partidas. Esto nunca nos sucedio durante el proceso de desarrollo y las pruebas finales, pero al tener un incremento tan significativo en los usuarios del juego  los errores del servidor se volvieron mas evidentes.  En fin, luego de tanto esfuerzo, ya lanzamos la primera actualizacion que mejora muchos de estos problemas. Nuestro objetivo es seguir mejorando el juego para que ustedes, los jugadores puedan disfrutar del juego como ha sido nuestra vision desde el principio, a continuacion un poco mas de detalle con respecto a lo que hicimos en este primer parche 1.0.42

Novedades:

• Se agrego un boton de salir del juego en el menu de opciones
• La configuracion de sonido y musica se encuentra en el servidor de facebook
• Agregadas nuevas

Bugs Solucionados:

• Experiencia de jugadores se presentaba de forma equivocada en la interfaz del juego.
• Algunas partidas no se iniciaban.
• Jugadores no avanzaban en el tutorial
• Tutorial quedaba activo a pesar de haber concluido
• Erorr en el servidor por tiempo de duracion de consulta de los numeros al entregar un premio
• Se soluciono un problema con las partidas ya creadas donde se intercambiaban los resultados de los jugadores.
• Se mejoro la jugabilidad en el juego de obstaculos
• El boton de salir de juego no funcionaba durante los primeros 3 segundos del juego de balance, esto fue corregido
• Un error que impedia comprar items y equiparlos correctamente se corrigio.
• El nombre de uno de los premios con monedas estaba incorrecto, ahora lee correctamente las cantidades: 40, 75 y 150.
• Se resolvio un problema con los items al tratar de pasar de hombre a mujer donde se empezaban a empotrar uno sobre otro.
• Se modifcaron algunas partes del  GUI para poder calzar el juego dentro de los telefonos con pantallas mas pequeñas.
• Se modifico la configuracion de Android para permitir los telefonos con pantallas mas grandes como el LG K4 y el Huawei Mate 8 (NXT L09)

Mejoras de Rendimiento:

• Se eliminaron ciertos archivos de audio que no estan siendo usados para el juego
• Se cambio la forma de procesar el audio a streaming, incrementa un poco el procesamiento pero disminuye considerablemente la cantidad de memoria.
• Se ajusto para que se renderice en todos los telefonos a 30 cuadros por segundo para que la experiencia sea equivalente en todas las plataformas.
• Se modificaron el tamaño de las texturas dentro del juego para disminuir la memoria utilizada

Por otro lado, les contamos que pueden seguir el desarrollo de Ciudad kolbi a traves de nuestro Facebook, Twitter y ver los live streams en nuestro canal de twitch:

https://www.twitch.tv/headlesschickengames

Gracias y esperamos que sigan disfrutando de Ciudad kolbi!

DevTeam

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This is me and my son Felix:

I think everyone has been exhausted at some point. And that’s fine, being exhausted doesn’t mean you are done, or that you can’t try again.  Being exhausted usually means you are giving your all, going far beyond the %100.  This is a dangerous moment though, you might not recognize being at this point, you may start thinking less of your own work, your own abilities, and definitely you will think you can’t do this anymore. ( I might start second guessing my decisions)

My presentation at GDC this year

And so after 5 years of working non stop, with IGDA Costa Rica, with my own game studio, taking care of the family. I was exahusted, I couldn’t write, I couldn’t read, eveything that I saw seemed to me like work, and even though I approached it as I usually do… I still felt… tired.  But then, while browsing through the wonderful internet  I stumbled on this page

http://www.forwardslashstory.com/

It was very unexpected, because I try to be on top of everything happening here in Costa Rica. And this was happening again?? I didn’t know what it was, the description of the event was really vague. All I knew was that great story tellers were going to fly into my country, and I wanted in. A couple of months later, I got email from Christy and Lance, I was in!!

Fast forward to May, my dad dropped me in the middle of the night in this dark road in the middle of Nosara, that even for my 3rd world standards was “too dark”. And there they were, Christy, Lance and Trevor the first ones to greet me just received as if I was an old friend “Anything to drink sir? I make a killer passion fruit rum drink” said Trevor as I walked into the bar/restaurant that we were to hold as our stronghold for the next 3 days.

Deadpool was at the bar too

The next day [edit], of course this happened because [edit], I couldn’t stop thinking about it and still today I think about it! Then we had this [edit] and all of this [edit] on the trees, it was unreal. Therefore…

Now now, I know this seems very rude on my behalf, but trust me, the only way I could explain F/S is if you were there, I cried, I laughed, I slept, and didn’t sleep, I got a terrible hangover and in the end, I found myself. Like a Formula One racer, our creative spirit needs to take pit stop every once in a while, for some of my new friends it was about moving from the other side of the world to a small country in the middle of Latin America just to meet with other story tellers like them, for others it was realizing how similar we are to others, younger/older. Letting go from the limitations that we put in our minds, and being able to take that wild jump, or as I saw Grant doing, walking almost naked under the tropical rain (which is also one my favorite things in the world).

Anyway,  what I really want to say is, Christy, Lance, Trevor, Seth, Benham, Lucinda, James, Heidi, Matt, Christian, Grant, Lewis, Lisa, Louise, Luis, Mary, Michael, Sarah, Stefan, Karen, Byron and Anthea… Thank you for coming into my life, making it richer and more exciting, thanks for being part of my Forward Slash Story.

One my favorite pictures in the world

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SOOOOOO!

Last time I had to build for iOS, we ran into a lot of problems, but with iOS latest version and the latest unity installer, everything works JUST fine….

NOT

So we are currently using xCode 7, with iOS 9, and on Unity 5.2.3, we can follow the same steps found on part 1

And we’ll find out that the build isn’t working! CUTE huh!?

Now the first thing that we need to fix, is make sure we can compile the whole build. First we need to look for the WWWConnection.mm file, once we have it we go to the BUILD PHASES setting, and we add a nice new flag:

-fobjc-arc

And this should allow us to compile it again… just to find a new error, regarding the Display Manager. The error is related to line #277 regarding a missing reference:

once you fix it (by adding retain!! ) it will look like this:

FINALLY

Regarding iOS plugins, I was trying to do this:

But I kept getting a marshalling error, this is due to the fact that I was trying to send a const char* that would disappear right after the method ended. Luckily we have a beautiful helper function that allows us to create a copy that can be send out of the method context:

So we use it to get the information we want through the method, also see that we are not releasing the netinfo  since the marshaller is taking care of that (NICE addition btw).

AND I think those are all the fixes I had to do for this build!!

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So I haven’t been posting here for a while, but I have had all kinds of issues. Issues I have solved in the past, and for SOME SORT OF REASON, I haven’t been writing down. So from now on, I will be writing a blog post about every issue I have. That way if I have the issue again in the future. Here’s the solution, and hopefully it will help someone else!

Enter (errrrrrrr) Unity iOS

Today’s problem is brought to you by a new project we are developing for a client. It’s a mobile game that’s supposed to be running in both Android and iOS (MAYBE windows phone?? am trying to ignore it for now, you know, like everyone else).

Now I have done my fair share of android development (on windows), and I thought, hey I got a Mac, it should be as simple as clicking build.

ARC

Guess what? It’s not that simple. After going through the whole process of becoming an approved developer for iOS (I went through it twice, once for myself, and another time for the Company) that you can find here http://docs.unity3d.com/Manual/iphone-GettingStarted.html

I thought I was set, we already had the project running on android, so why would it be different?

First Build, Boom.  Build Succesful. AWESOME I thought.

The Xcode project would no open. That’s ok, I tried opening it manually, it opens fine

Command  + B (a nice shortcut to remember!) starts building, and it gave me this error:

Error in Xcode!

On this problems, don’t be afraid to use the proposed fix, it’s actually as simple as double clicking (not sure if it’s going to be fixed in the next Unity version, downloading as I speak). Once it’s fixed, try to build it again (from XCode, not from unity!)

ARC forbids explicit message send of ‘autorelease’

This issue was tricky to catch, because a lot of people in the Interwebz (helpful strangers) say that you should deactivate ARC (this can be done through the Build Settings). But guess what? This is not the solution, the real solution is adding a compilation flag to the files that give you issues.

We are using an asset from the AssetStore (https://www.assetstore.unity3d.com/9) called social plugin, that enables different platforms to use several different social plugins, this is the root of our compilation issues! (https://www.assetstore.unity3d.com/en/#!/content/15066).

The file that was giving us the issues was the FbUnityInterface.mm so we are going to add the no ARC flag to this file ONLY, how do we do this? We go through the build phases setting in the target.

Select the file and add the flag!

Now look for the file in the Compile Sources and add:

-fno-objc-arc

As a compiler flag for the specific file that we know it’s giving us issues, it should look like this

Add the -fno-objc-arc flag

AND WE ARE … not done yet… what?

(null): Symbol(s) not found for architecture arm64

This was the worst error, since it was related to how iOS works internally, but don’t worry! We are going to fix it (though we  have to go through the whole process again). Basically, what this error is saying is that we are missing a reference to a library that the plugin needs to compile. So to fix it, we need to add a couple of library that handle social stuff and messaging!

This is done inside unity,specifically this 2 libraries:

Need to add the Social and the MessageUI libraries, remember to apply it!

And now we build, AGAIN.

THINGS TO REMEMBER

This was quite a while of work and researching, but finally seeing it running on an iPad Air 2, and knowing it will run with no issues on all other platforms gives me quite a bit of pleasure :).

Now you need to keep in mind that some errors may happen because:

• Scripting Backend is not set to IL2CPP (this is set in the player settings)
• Universal Architecture is not set in the player settings
• Some files may be missing
• Provisioning File or Certificate may not be set properly
• Unity Version might have a bug

So be sure to always check this first! And hopefully your app will be up and running in no time!

Don’t hesitate to write me if you have doubts!

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The Idea

When the idea of Pause Play Stop came about, it was a very small concept. Having never finished “The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time” (I never got past the Deku Tree), the idea that music changes the environment was really cool. I love listening to music and I am certain that a good song can change the way we perceive things around us. But the concept felt too linear – you couldn’t use the songs whenever you wanted, and they had specific triggers or places where you needed to play the music.

I asked myself this: What if you could use this song anywhere? What if you could combine the songs, and shape the game and puzzle solving around your own taste? In the past, I was also obsessed with puzzle games, especially first person puzzle games like the Portal series and Quantum Conundrum. There were just not enough of these games! (I mean we waited quite a while for Portal 2 in order to throw money at the screen once it was out.)

There are a lot of players out there who don’t define their gaming experiences by simply running around and shooting at stuff, and I wanted to create a game for people who want to just enjoy their time in the game and be challenged in different ways. This realization of my love for puzzle games, as well as my love for music, created the basic idea for Cassette.

The Prototype

The first Cassette prototype

The game play on the prototype had two basic songs: one that could slow down time for everything but the player, and another one that could affect any water source  (this is a proud reference to Ocarina of Time’s Song of Storms).

After showing it to people, I knew we had something. People loved the idea and wanted to have more puzzles, even though all I had was a grey and blue mess.

I knew that we had to move forward with completing Cassette. At the time, I started searching for artists who could share our vision of the game, a game that would both challenge the wits of our players and invite them to step into a world that right now, only existed in my head. I needed a team… it was time to look for the best.

The Team

I had no funds, I had some money saved, but it wasn’t enough to hire people to work on the idea I had, and more than that, I never wanted employees, anyone with money can have employees. I wanted a group of people who wanted to share a game with me, who wanted to add into the game world and not just do the stuff that I told them. I started searching for people, pitching them Cassette (damn, I learned a lot on how to refine the pitch), and by the time I had reached the first artist. I already had a very clear idea of what I wanted to create, and how to get them involved into this dream.

The Dream

Then the idea of Cassette started growing.  What if the game was more than just puzzles? What if it could tell an important story? Something that we could all relate to?

The fleshing out of Cassette started with Astrid Pinel, a former artist with Headless Chicken Games. The game’s concept art was taking a different turn than before: the game was going to have a different look inspired by cel-shaded games, where details and aesthetics play just as big of a role as the music.

Below is one of the first concepts that Astrid created for Cassette, and the idea and beauty behind Pause Play Stop was born:

Original concept by Astrid Pinel

I fell in love with the color palette, the aesthetics, the whole way the game pushed itself away from the “grey scale” kind of games. We wanted Pause Play Stop to be colorful. We wanted to touch peoples’ hearts. But this was just the first part of a very long journey: a journey to go from just a small mobile game to a full-fledged game, created by an amazing and talented team. This is not only the story of Pause Play Stop, but the story of a small, dedicated team willing to make this dream come to life.

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