Solitaire Blaster Preview Images
by John Kanalakis · 07/06/2006 (11:33 am) · 4 comments
After taking a brief break from our TSE Racer to put TGB through it's paces, we're putting the finishing touches on Solitaire Blaster.
About the Game
Solitaire Blaster is a new twist on an old classic. It plays a lot like classic Solitaire, only faster. A timer at the bottom of the screen counts down. Before the timer hits zero, you must make 3 legal Solitaire moves. If you successfully make 3 moves in time, you're rewarded with a hidden card being blasted out of a column and into the card deck. However, if you fail to make 3 moves in time, the card deck is blasted, tossing a card back into one of the columns. The faster you play, the better your chances of completing the game.
There are 5 levels of difficulty, in which the clock ticks down faster and more distractions attempt to slow you down. My favorite level has cards floating around in zero-g (image below).
About Development
Game development was pretty fast and painless, thanks to the power of TGB. The biggest complication was managing all the mounts and layers for all the cards. Since Solitaire is a pretty open ended game, where player moves are unpredictable, we needed some solid game logic rules.
We came up with the general rule that every card is mounted to something, whether it be a column marker, a final drop marker, the card deck marker, or just another card. This way, the core game logic boils down to the player clicking a card, moving that card with the mouse, and testing the drop area when the mouse is released. Drop tests inlcude a half dozen checks to determine if the move is legal - if not, the card is sent back.
Layering was also a little complicated, since the cards need to appear overlapping. Normally, this is no problem, however, when dragging an entire column of cards, we wanted the whole pile move across the screen over all the over cards already in play (at the lowest possible layer). So, we came up with some new methods that quickly return the number of child mounts, the number of parents, as well as a method to quickly re-sort the layering for all cards.
Aside from the mounting and layering complications, the game was mostly art driven. We worked with Ryan Bliss to get some great 3D artwork into the game and spent quite a bit of time working on the card deck image map to get it to look right. Each level has its own feel with its own effects and music track.
Overall, it's just a fun little game to kill some time - all thanks to TGB!
Next Steps
We're currently testing, testing, testing. The Windows work is pretty solid and now we're testing out the game with Mac OS (Tiger). We'll probably open the game to public Beta next week, so if anyone is interested in participating, please email: beta@envygames.com . Our goal is to get some feedback about the gameplay, and work out any machine compatibility issues. We're aiming for a release in early August.
John K.
About the Game
Solitaire Blaster is a new twist on an old classic. It plays a lot like classic Solitaire, only faster. A timer at the bottom of the screen counts down. Before the timer hits zero, you must make 3 legal Solitaire moves. If you successfully make 3 moves in time, you're rewarded with a hidden card being blasted out of a column and into the card deck. However, if you fail to make 3 moves in time, the card deck is blasted, tossing a card back into one of the columns. The faster you play, the better your chances of completing the game.
There are 5 levels of difficulty, in which the clock ticks down faster and more distractions attempt to slow you down. My favorite level has cards floating around in zero-g (image below).
About Development
Game development was pretty fast and painless, thanks to the power of TGB. The biggest complication was managing all the mounts and layers for all the cards. Since Solitaire is a pretty open ended game, where player moves are unpredictable, we needed some solid game logic rules.
We came up with the general rule that every card is mounted to something, whether it be a column marker, a final drop marker, the card deck marker, or just another card. This way, the core game logic boils down to the player clicking a card, moving that card with the mouse, and testing the drop area when the mouse is released. Drop tests inlcude a half dozen checks to determine if the move is legal - if not, the card is sent back.
Layering was also a little complicated, since the cards need to appear overlapping. Normally, this is no problem, however, when dragging an entire column of cards, we wanted the whole pile move across the screen over all the over cards already in play (at the lowest possible layer). So, we came up with some new methods that quickly return the number of child mounts, the number of parents, as well as a method to quickly re-sort the layering for all cards.
Aside from the mounting and layering complications, the game was mostly art driven. We worked with Ryan Bliss to get some great 3D artwork into the game and spent quite a bit of time working on the card deck image map to get it to look right. Each level has its own feel with its own effects and music track.
Overall, it's just a fun little game to kill some time - all thanks to TGB!
Next Steps
We're currently testing, testing, testing. The Windows work is pretty solid and now we're testing out the game with Mac OS (Tiger). We'll probably open the game to public Beta next week, so if anyone is interested in participating, please email: beta@envygames.com . Our goal is to get some feedback about the gameplay, and work out any machine compatibility issues. We're aiming for a release in early August.
John K.
About the author
John Kanalakis is the owner of EnvyGames, an independent game development studio in Silicon Valley that produces games and tools for Xbox 360, Windows, and the Web.
#2
In any case, Solitaire Blaster was a lot of fun to make and is even more fun to play.
John K.
07/06/2006 (3:15 pm)
We had the same concern initially. We searched copyrights, patents, and trademarks for all variations of the term "Solitaire" - it was pretty time consuming because the term is more frequently associated with diamonds. It also turns out that there are nearly a hundred variations of the Solitaire game for all variety of computing devices. There are even a couple websites that list links to all the Solitaire games they can find. We've determined that since the game (in some form or another) has existed since at least the 1800's, this should fall under the 'prior-art' clause of copyright/patent laws. In any case, Solitaire Blaster was a lot of fun to make and is even more fun to play.
John K.
#3
07/07/2006 (7:31 am)
I figured it was open content as you see so many variations, and although I am a fan, I don't like it enough to play 100 different variations of it. This variation looks exciting and fun, so you'll have at least one fan! 
#4
07/07/2006 (1:23 pm)
Heheh..my first action after installing Windows is to delete sol.exe mainly so when somebody sees me working at my pc, and they ask, "Ooh, can I play Solitaire?". I can say, "Sorry, I don't have Solitaire.". Yours looks much more interesting =)
Torque 3D Owner Jonathon Stevens
EDIT: Did you need any sort of licensing for solitare? I don't know who owns it or if it's like public domain.