A fast, easy to use, free, and community supported 2D game engine
Today the game I've developed for the past seven months has been approved by Apple and it will be on sale starting September 30th.
I just wanted to say thank you to the cocos2d-iphone community and Riq in particular. I gave credits to the engine in the loading screen of the game and I won't miss to make a donation if the game becomes popular.
Videos and screenshots of the game can be retrieved at this URL: http://www.3dtunnelonline.com
Thank you yohann. It surely was a lot of work to create the depth illusion in a 2D plane.
The principle is very easy though: circles start in the middle of the screen with scale 0. Then the first circle of the tunnel starts scaling proportionally to the time elapsed (linear scaling doesn't work) and after some time the second circle starts scaling, then the 3rd, and 4th and so on.
You then lower proportionally the alpha value for the circles (the ones in the far back have alpha value lower than the ones in front to give the illusion of blur), you define a path that every circle has to follow, moving the X and Y coordinates of it, then you put a spaceship in the middle of the screen. Tilting the device makes the tunnel to shift left and right, up and down (but that gives the impression that the spaceship is moving instead!).
Once the circles go out of the screen, they are quickly faded and put back into initial position (to save memory so I don't need to create new circles but I reuse the same ones).
Sorry about my english, but I hope that explained the general idea :)
yohann305
Member
Very slick, the illusion is perfect. One more time, great job!
Some items on the way would have been nice, such as bonuses, boost up, etc...
You probably thought about that for sure. Was it too complex to implement?
ps: don't worry about your english, it's great. Multo bene !?!
Yes I thought about having extra items that you can pick during the game, but as the levels get harder it's impossible for the user to concentrate on both picking up items and staying inside the borders.
Maybe I'll figure something new for the first update. I want to gather more feedbacks data before deciding where to put my efforts.
Wow, the fact you built a 3D game with a 2D engine, is amazing! Great JOB!
I have to say though, no offense, but the video is really boring, and there were parts I had to read the subs to understand what you said.
I suggest creating some sort of a trailer instead of such a long video... overall I got a really bad impression from the video, I got the feeling you were always talking about:
"How great the game is" or "The game is soo well made!!!"
Seriously, the video is very unproffesional and quite annoying.
Again, I'm not trying to offend you, just telling you what I think, 'cause I don't think this video would attract too many people, as they would probably close the video after 0.5-1.5 minutes out of boredom.
Otherwise, Good Luck on the store!!
I guess it depends on the way people see the ad. It seems like it's aimed at people who never played with an iPhone before. For exmaple, when you say that you prefer simple graphics and performance over good graphics and lag, anyone who played an iPhone game saw games like Need For Speed or other 3d Games which are visually more intense than your game and don't lag.
Don't get me wrong though, As soon as I saw pics of your game, I knew it was awesome for a game created with 2D. When I saw it in the video, it was even better than I thought. The illusion is perfect. It has great potential.
I would do what other people said, do a 1-5 minute video that shows how the game is played and looks. Start showing stuff right away or people will close the video. It would, IMO, sell way more than a long video that over promotes yourself and your game versus the iPhone market.
Good job with the game, I wouldn't be surprised to see it in the featured list.
thesmileman
Member
Your game looks great however I am in agreement with the other post in regards to your video. I was ready to buy your game as soon as it came out until I watched that video. It really comes across as smug and arrogant. It seems like 8 minutes and 31 seconds of you belittling how poor other games are designed and written and how awesome you and your game are. I don't think I want to give you my 3 dollars because after watching this video I feel it would insult the hard working Cocos gaming community and the quality games that are out there. I hope this is not how you really feel and if it is you should remove this video asap.
mint
Member
Same for me. Good Idea, game looks nice but the video is an awful mixture of boredom combined with degrading other games and worshipping the own game while speaking a very bad english. I'm not a native english speaker, too (as you can possibly read ;p), but I'll ask my american friend to present the english video for me.
On top of the arrogance you(r video) emit(s), the high praised online highscore e.g. is a feature already available in lots of games, even the cheapest ones, so where's the point?
I don't want to criticize you, rather I want to say that promoting the game with that kind of video prevents LOTS of people from buying it (thesmileman and me for example :))
~mint
I'm verry sorry that I'm giving you the impression of degrading other games but I swear that was NOT my intention. This is my first game and I think that people made great games with Cocos. Yes the video is not targeted to developers but rather to an audience who doesn't have any experience of computer programming and I'm not surprised it's seen as boring from a developer prospective. Maybe I shouldn't have posted it here, as it's not the target audience I prepared the video for. Sorry about the english, but that's why I have subs.
I removed the video as suggested, maybe you'd rather enjoy this one:
</param> </param></embed>The only thing i3D Tunnel Lite has in common with my game is the name and the fact that has a tunnel; the gameplay is very very different.
p.s. Thanks to all of you for the feedback about the video. It's surely something I'll think about next time I'll release a game.
I actually wanted to just go buy it because of the video, but I couldn't find it in the app store that day. Gonna try again today. I thought the video was funny.
Looks awesome! Do you think it will do better at $2.99 than .99? I keep hearing that .99 is the best price for mosts games.
The tunnel is e I could figure out how to do but howd you get the ship to rotate in 2D? And I have a suggestion so the player can be more accurate....you can highlight the current ring it is checking agasint to a lighter color so they can get their bearings when things get tougher =)
I have a question:
I'm assuming your app got approved, if you release it on September 30th, the release date of the app would still be the date on which Apple sent you a "your app is ready for sale" email.
Wouldn't you lose a lot of visibilty because of the date...?
We basically can't tell when the app would be released, 'cause Apple won't let us. Has the system changed?
~ Natanavra.
natanavra, I think you're right. My App got approved on September 21st, but I set the release date to the 29th, but I found out that apple considers the approval date and not the release date to publish it in the "New releases" page. So since my game was approved the 21st but I told them to publish it only on the 29th, my app never showed up in the new releases :-(
Some of the things Apple does are illogical; why would they use the approval date to decide which apps go into the new releases instead of the release date? Makes no sense at all to me.
It made me very sad. I'll have to wait until the first update to get into that page. I'll be posting some coupon codes soon.
p.s. the ship that rotates in 3D is an animation containing 61 frames (rendered with Blender).
Try not to get too depressed pierotofy. It's clear that you worked very hard on your app. It looks to be quite polished/relatively high quality. Apple is doing a number of things that should be improved/rethought if their goal at the end of the day is to make developers happier. I hope your app does well. I think some of us here came down on you a bit hard for your video. So what if it was a little long, and a little boring. :-) Free country (I think so, at least... where do you live, again? :-]). Unless this is A Clockwork Orange, we're not being forced to watch it. I think a large portion of the impression people got from your video was simply due to the language divide, or whatever the term is. I had a friend in college from Brazil and he came across as rude some of the time, but it was simply because he was still getting used to the language/mannerisms/etc. (and I understood this after a while). I personally wasn't really annoyed by your video (guess I'm not particularly sensitive about any of the mentioned problems). Maybe next time make a similar video, but bundle it with a collector's edition ($999). :-P I hope you keep working hard and that you stay in good spirits.
AkumaStreak
Thank you akumastreak.
And, thank to all of you for the feedbacks about the game/video.
Now here are some promo codes that will give you a free copy of the game to use in the U.S. appstore. Please consider writing a review about the game once you've tried it. I'm really hoping to get some good reviews and some good ratings.
K4YRKKJ4YYM4
36MXM7FPAL4H
EMJYLLR73YEH
K7XJ436HLNTW
To avoid confusion please write which one you pick.
Enjoy the tunnel!
Used K7XJ436HLNTW.
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