manta 2010 and other stories

In development: improved radar in Manta 1.1.

Fri, 22 Oct 2010 11:56:26 -0500

In development: improved radar in Manta 1.1.

Manta 1.0.1 in the App Store

Wed, 22 Sep 2010 00:00:00 -0500

It actually appeared on 9/22. Sorry for the slow post, been busy with other stuff. Manta 1.1 is in the works, but slightly delayed because of a couple of odd bugs in the current Unity 3 final candidates.

Manta is free until September 18th (tomorrow)

Thu, 16 Sep 2010 10:55:50 -0500

Manta is free until September 18th (tomorrow):

And I’ve reduced the “regular price” to $1.99 permanently.

Manta 1.0.1 in the queue

Tue, 14 Sep 2010 00:04:18 -0500

So, with a bit of luck it will be available for download in a week or so.

"We are continually trying to make the App Store even better. We have listened to our developers and..."

Thu, 09 Sep 2010 10:10:00 -0500

“

We are continually trying to make the App Store even better. We have listened to our developers and taken much of their feedback to heart. Based on their input, today we are making some important changes to our iOS Developer Program license in sections 3.3.1, 3.3.2 and 3.3.9 to relax some restrictions we put in place earlier this year.

In particular, we are relaxing all restrictions on the development tools used to create iOS apps, as long as the resulting apps do not download any code. This should give developers the flexibility they want, while preserving the security we need.

In addition, for the first time we are publishing the App Store Review Guidelines to help developers understand how we review submitted apps. We hope it will make us more transparent and help our developers create even more successful apps for the App Store.

”

- Apple Press Release

Good news for those of us developing apps with tools like Unity (or Flash for that matter!)

Manta 2010 is in the App Store today

Tue, 07 Sep 2010 12:31:21 -0500

Manta 2010 is in the App Store today

Waiting for Jobso

Fri, 03 Sep 2010 14:57:00 -0500

Waiting for Jobso:

Some of my thoughts on the App Store approval process while I was in purgatory.

Actual 1.0 gameplay video (although from the dev environment,...

Wed, 01 Sep 2010 16:41:00 -0500

[Flash 10 is required to watch video.]

Actual 1.0 gameplay video (although from the dev environment, not the iPhone itself, because it’s easier to capture). The main differences from the iPhone are the lack of indicators for the touch controls (because there are no touch controls when running it on the desktop) and the lack of (brief) cut scenes (because video playback on iOS devices is handled very differently from on the desktop version).

And yes, a desktop version will be released down the line.

Note: I’m not sure what the vertical lines are… they seem to be an artifact created by tumblr when it processed the video.

Here’s a screenshot from Manta running on the iPhone....

Wed, 01 Sep 2010 14:46:09 -0500

Here’s a screenshot from Manta running on the iPhone. (It’s an iPhone 4, and Manta currently runs pixel-doubled on the iPhone 4. Looks perfectly nice, but obviously it will be better when it’s running at full resolution.)

Another screenshot from Manta running on an iPad.

Wed, 01 Sep 2010 14:44:17 -0500

Another screenshot from Manta running on an iPad.

Early mockup (not in-game) showing relative scales.

Tue, 31 Aug 2010 23:41:00 -0500

Early mockup (not in-game) showing relative scales.

Manta in-game screenshot from about two months ago. Yeah,...

Tue, 31 Aug 2010 23:40:36 -0500

Manta in-game screenshot from about two months ago. Yeah, we’ve come a long way.

Alien Submarine test render. I love this model.

Tue, 31 Aug 2010 23:39:26 -0500

Alien Submarine test render. I love this model.

Early render of the (as yet unreleased) Alien Ruins level of (as...

Tue, 31 Aug 2010 23:35:38 -0500

Early render of the (as yet unreleased) Alien Ruins level of (as yet unapproved) MANTA.

This video shows the original MANTA (which won special...

Tue, 31 Aug 2010 23:22:00 -0500

[Flash 10 is required to watch video.]

This video shows the original MANTA (which won special recognition in three categories in the Unity Awards for 2008). It’s amazing how clunky the MANTA looks compared to the new design (which, not coincidentally, uses far fewer polygons).

Two of the major changes in manta 2010 are that the player now has a “afterburners” and a “quick turn” maneuver.

Music by Levan Iordanishvili.

MANTA uses a few animated particle effects. Most of these were...

Tue, 31 Aug 2010 23:05:00 -0500

MANTA uses a few animated particle effects. Most of these were created using Apple’s Motion (which outputs video files) and then processed into single textures using a utility called Particle Accelerator I wrote specifically for that purpose. (It’s available here.)

Here’s a MANTA-themed desktop picture for your viewing...

Tue, 31 Aug 2010 23:01:00 -0500

Here’s a MANTA-themed desktop picture for your viewing pleasure. Note that it’s using the old typographic treatment of “MANTA”. I ended up not using it because of the strokes which bugged me. If I had my druthers I would have redone the logo using a black version of Eurostile, but I didn’t want to spend money on typefaces when we’d already put a ton of time and money into the project. (Ah the joys of indie development.)

In case you’re wondering, the backdrop was generated from a bunch of particle effects in Apple’s Motion (which is rapidly becoming one of my favorite programs to play with). The Manta was rendered in Cheetah 3d (of course).

For good performance on the iPhone you need to keep things as...

Tue, 31 Aug 2010 22:57:58 -0500

For good performance on the iPhone you need to keep things as simple as possible, and one way of doing this is to bake lighting into your geometry.

At some point I rendered this collection of vehicle models from...

Tue, 31 Aug 2010 22:56:04 -0500

At some point I rendered this collection of vehicle models from MANTA. (Some scale changes occurred after this.) I had to remodel pretty much every vehicle from the original game to cut poly counts for the iPhone — but most of the low poly models looked better than the originals. As is so often the case, constraints make us better.

ForeSight 2004

Tue, 31 Aug 2010 22:51:00 -0500

ForeSight 2004:

Every once-in-a-while I still get questions about ForeSight. Yes, I had (have?) a contract with Shrapnel Games to publish it, and it’s essentially ready-to-go, but the difficulty we had recruiting willing beta-testers shows that the market for really serious paper RPGs has dried up. (I’m guessing the few of us left are using GURPS or somesuch.)

Anyhow, if you want the rules, they’re here.