chriswaite.dev

The motivation behind my new website.

In this post we'll take a look at the initial concept for my board game. Much like any game design, the initial concept evolves at a rapid pace.

It's finally time for a new project and, what I hope will be, a brand new series of blog posts.

Last time I entered I produced a time-lapse of the development. I find these pretty interesting so I've done the same again.

Ludum Dare is a game development competition (and game jam) that takes place over 48 hours.

Experience with A-Frame framework and virtual reality development.

Final installment exploring VR as an interactive experience.

Development progress report including Unity investigation.

Explores VR game design challenges using Google Cardboard and A-Frame.

Welcome to the first devlog for Cardboard Dungeon...a devlog for experimenting with virtual reality.

Developing a smartwatch application as an Apple Watch alternative.

It's fair to say that electronic prototyping and the creation of custom hardware at home has exploded over the past few years.

Annual retrospective examining the previous year and discussing aspirations for the upcoming year.

Participation in a game jam focused on procedural generation techniques.

Personal reflection on the Sega Mega Drive as a childhood gaming console and nostalgia for classic titles.

Website redesign and updates to the Bytesize Adventures platform.

Reflects on creative restlessness and the desire for ongoing self-reinvention.

Post-WWDC analysis of Apple's new Swift programming language as Objective-C alternative.

Development challenges faced when maintaining long-term hobbyist projects.

Limited weekly progress update focused on level creation planning.

Significant milestone achieved with level editor completion matching engine features.

Hello again. I suppose you're wondering what happened to the 7th and 14th devlog's? Well, I had a few weeks break but I'm back now and ramping development back up.

The first week of April has seen some good progress. As promised last week, I've been continuing work on the level editor.

These months are really flying by; the end of March is upon us. I'm afraid it's been a slow week.

Development focused on map graphics and UI design consistency improvements.

Work centered on character progression system implementation.

Limited development time spent on level select screen animations.

Level select screen implementation work in progress.

Concept development for the level select screen interface.

Progress on separating foreground elements from tiles and scenery points.

Brief animation demonstration shared on Vine.

A bout of illness early in the week slowed me down somewhat. Progress continued in the latter part of the week.

Sprite Kit porting completed but performance issues emerged with scene transitions and tile placement.

Still more porting! Level select screen successfully migrated across devices, though layout refinement needed.

Sprite Kit migration progressed with texture atlas creation for multiple device targets completed.

Opening devlog of 2014 using weekly development updates discussing progress achievements.

Retrospective reflecting on the previous year and discussing upcoming development goals.

Discussion of importance for game designers to play diverse gaming experiences beyond AAA titles.

Level 3 of my demo is at last complete. Added river tile and bridge/teleport widgets.

Development momentum building with level 2 progress on the five-level demo.

Relative positioning implementation enabled iPhone 5 compatibility and future device support.

This is a post I didn't think I'd be writing. Mini Mob recently got to the stage where its feeling...

If you're into coffee and have yet to try my coffee App, now is a good time...

It's been a long time since Bytesize Adventures had a face lift.

Packt Publishing recently got in touch and asked if I'd like to review their newly published book...

A friend recently pointed me at a tool called gource. It analyses a version control repository...

Mini Mob is going through a bit of a rough patch at the moment with motivation dipping...

Time for another short update. I've spent some time away from the game recently to get perspective...

Achievements come in all shapes and sizes and today marks a considerable achievement in iOS development...

Just a quick update. I've now implemented the core gameplay changes mentioned in my previous diary...

Whilst this blog is predominantly about game and App development, its nice to sometimes blog about...

As predicted, porting the prototype from MOAI to Cocos2d was relatively simple.

2013 is upon us. Its a chance for a clean slate and an opportunity to dive head first into a new project.

Annual tradition featuring yearly review and goals for the upcoming year.

Discussion of Coffee Cellar 2.0 reboot and app marketing efforts.

Development time-lapse for Ludum Dare 25 game competition entry.

Documentation of 48-hour game development competition participation.

Release announcement for Coffee Cellar 2.0 with free updates for existing users.

Overview of redesign approach for previously released Coffee Cellar application.

Personal announcement with blog hiatus notice.

Update on new game project Subterranea after blogging gap.

Continuing to explore the Moai framework and Lua, leading towards a second game.

Documenting progress on the next iPhone game, temporarily titled PPRPG.

Introduction to the Moai framework that I had my eye on for some time now.

Development update noting a bit of a struggle with social media and game design challenges.

Reflection on Twitter's role in connecting indie game developers to the community.

Progress report on a second demo level that's throwing up plenty of issues.

Status update noting approximately 30% of the way through development.

Update on new GUI elements and tile queue to buffer taps and keep animations in sync.

Progress on artwork including dialogue, character selection, and NPC designs.

Milestone post marking the tenth post in this series of weekly updates.

I missed my weekly update last week because I didn't have much to talk about.

Work completed includes added NPC's to the game engine and a data structure to support them.

When I'm coding my games I like to listen to music or, more specifically, music without lyrics.

Developer notes missing a previous update due to taking time away.

Attendee reflection on an online game development conference.

Its been a huge week in terms of progress with system reworking and GUI additions.

Developer focused on implementing core gameplay mechanics.

Game design insights from playing puzzle games.

Work on level editing tools development.

Focus on getting a basic inventory system functional.

Weekly updates covering the development of my new game (working title – PPRPG).

Exploring Unity and Blender tools for upcoming game project.

Retrospective on blog's purpose chronicling game development efforts.

Holiday season promotion offering 50% off the regular price.

Development progress report on in-progress game project.

Festive-themed icon creation inspired by Christmas update.

Release announcement featuring 3 new festive icons and interactive features.

Discovering an unexpected magazine review for my application.

Announcement regarding upcoming project development plans.

Status update on application availability and pricing.

Today, I, like the rest of the world, woke up to the sad news that Steve Jobs had passed away.

6 months, 5,000 lines of code, 13 blog posts, 15,000 words and both the App and my blog series are finally finished.

Post-launch analysis examining what went right and wrong after one month in the App Store.

Data analysis and project dissection focusing on numerical metrics from the app development series.

Book review exploring interactive fiction and its historical context.

Launch announcement for the Coffee Cellar app across multiple app stores.

Final pre-launch marketing strategy post before the app's public release.

Culmination of six months of visual development including design docs, wireframes, and artwork.

Overview of the testing process for the Coffee app with public beta feedback.

Update on beta build distribution and early tester feedback.

Whilst I'm brainstorming ideas for my next game, I've decided to take a slight diversion into the world of application development.

Findings from working on the first free update for Astro Noughts, focusing on difficulty-related design challenges.

Brief announcement that the Astro Noughts postmortem was featured on the gaming industry publication Gamasutra.

Written a postmortem of my latest game Astro Noughts. I'm using the traditional format of 5 things that went right and 5 things that didn't.

New Year reflection article marking the return to iDevBlogADay blogging community.

Astro Noughts has just been approved by Apple and is available now on the iPad App Store for $0.99.

Pre-launch post written while the game awaited App Store approval.

Announcement that Astro Noughts was submitted for Apple approval, with expected December release.

Tutorial systems are a part of game design that can't be avoided.

Philosophical exploration of creating lasting impact through creative work.

When I started porting Star Fusion to the iPad, I expected it to be just that – a port with a few tweaks.

Useful responses from Twitter about sound design resources for game development.

Announcement that Star Fusion, my first iPhone game from June 2009, was made permanently free.

Discussing upcoming content related to Star Fusion HD's approaching launch.

Update on a project management tool created for game development that generated interest from other developers.

Progress report noting the project's advancement but greater-than-anticipated challenges.

A lighthearted post exploring coffee culture within programming and creative work.

Discussion of abandoned game projects and the various reasons for discontinuing development.

Introduction to a new version of my original iPhone game from over a year prior.

Practical lessons drawn from experience developing multiple iPhone games.

Modern games are highly derivative, boring, and predictable. They nearly always involve some form of shooting.

iDevBlogADay initiative where developers publish daily blog content about game development.

Game development update covering progress and changes made to the latest project.

Reflecting on childhood aspirations and artistic background.

Development progress update on game projects Star Fusion and Rocket Santa.

Work on level manager and core level editor components.

Refinement of the exploration mechanic as core gameplay feature.

Tool addressing project management challenges for independent game developers.

Focus on game theme and artwork style development beyond placeholder graphics.

Weekly development update with visual screenshots of project progress.

This week i've been stripping my next game back to its core mechanics.

This week has been an interesting one, i've been playing with 2D physics engines.

Another week over, so time for my weekly update. Unfortunately I've been ill for most of this week.

Experiencing temporary inability to continue writing work.

Discussion of redesigning the site with improved direction and cohesion.

Developer perspective on Apple's new tablet computer announcement.

Analysis of a rapidly developed Christmas-themed game project.

Year-end review of top-performing blog content and site statistics.

Coverage of an annual app development contest with prizes.

Update on game approval after addressing a critical bug.

Rocket Santa was approved by Apple on Thursday 3rd December at 11pm just 1 week after submission. However, this good news quickly turned sour as we found a major bug.

I'm pleased to announce that my next iPhone game has been submitted to Apple.

Star Fusion has had another professional review, this time from App Girl Reviews who scored the game 7/10.

Early artwork shared for an upcoming Christmas game by artist ClintonMc.

Review of the iPhone Tech Talk World Tour event hosted by Apple in London.

Announcement of Apple's iPhone Tech Talk World Tour with expert advice.

Update on development changes and project status adjustments.

Discussion of making Star Fusion free due to low sales figures.

Creative exercises and tools explored during game development.

Progress report on second iPhone game development.

Here are some early art assets for my next game. These don't represent the final look and were created using Inkscape.

Development process documentation for my second iPhone game project.

Reflection on five months of iPhone game development experience, starting without Objective-C expertise.

Announcement of site redesign featuring HTML5 compliance.

Update announcement regarding Star Fusion patch 1.1 submitted to Apple.

Discusses instructional design challenges in game development.

First professional review scoring the game 8/10.

Download statistics and promotional efforts after Star Fusion's July 26th release.

Announcement of App Store approval for my first game.

Overview of hardware and software tools used for game development.

Some great news today. Star Fusion has been submitted to the iPhone App Store for approval.

Release date approaching with mechanics complete; currently refining graphics, sounds, and game difficulty.

Game nearing release with difficulty balancing and polish work underway.

Focus on refining gameplay elements to improve overall quality.

Significant changes made; the Icarus theme has taken a backseat.

Update on Icarus project including an early gameplay video preview.

Progress report on new game using Cocos2d iPhone framework.

Mythological opening quote about the legendary character.

Reflection on recognizing the right moment to abandon projects.

Game prototype development complete; moving to story research phase.

Progress on the game is pretty good. I'm currently getting a handle on using multiple views.

It occurred to me the other day that I don't really have any sort of project plan.

I have to confess that it's taking me longer than I expected to get this game going.

Progress has been pretty slow. I have written a basic php page that talks to my database.

After a month or so of conceptual scribbles, I've finally begun to develop my first game.

Bytesize Adventures is the community portal for my future game projects.