How to Make an Indie 3D Mobile Game
Infinity Blade and other great 3D games are out for iPhone and iPad, so I wanted to make a fun 3D game and see how far I could push the mobile hardware. A lot of the games look they come from the Xbox, with polished and smooth animation.
I looked at Unity, Cocos3D and other solutions and decided
on Cocos3D since it integrates nicely with Cocos2D and Objective-C. Using the MashUp object test app, I created
a 3D starting room, with a 2D floor, background and 3D objects moving back and
forth, from the left to the right and back again.
The Plan
Turrets are a fun gameplay concept, with interesting game
mechanics, collisions and controls. But
I needed a subject for the game and a story to go along with it. The Two Guys From Andromeda had put together
a new Spaceventure kickstarter, so I chatted with them a bit about using one of
their characters in my game.
When their adventure game project was greenlit, I put
together a proposal to star their new Cluck Y’Egger character in a 3D
game. They accepted!
Mark Crowe and I had been working on some 3D models during
the kickstarter, and his team had a Cluck model ready to go. During this time I was collecting other
models for the game. Also I had a high
score table and menu ready with Cocos2D.
Putting it Together
As we put the game together, I would update 2D resources
with new files and graphics, and 3D models as animations were updated. I created transitions for levels, and set in
motion the firing mechanism for the eggs.
As we played around with the alpha version, shooting eggs at squadrons
as they flew by, we formulated a plan for the beta.
The models all worked great. Cluck has a number of character animations, the eggs have a nice
trajectory and collide nicely with enemy ships. The target reticule is between Cluck and the background, but was then removed and remapped as a 2D sprite for better quality.
I created a couple scheduling models that would kick off
events during the level, such as motions and missile firing. After a couple successful hits, you get
upgrades for your egg cannon! It was
fun to play, and we filled out 20 levels with different flight patterns and
ship designs.
Music and sound effects were added and timed with events to
give a full cartoon atmosphere in 3D. The game has a dramatic feel as you launch back into space and plays
great with satisfying egg-splosions. Upgrades are available to shoot 2 eggs at once, use extra large eggs for easier aiming or regenerate health.
Rolling it Out
After a few months of development and testing, it was polished and ready
to ship as version 1.0. We made a few
adjustments and fixes for 1.1 since then.
Let us know what you think of Cluck Y’Egger!
You can download Cluck Y'Egger at http://appstore.com/cluckyegger or visit http://titanbase.wordpress.com/cluck-yegger for more information.
