Tap! Touch! Defend! Postmortem
by Zeinad · 09/16/2009 (3:46 pm) · 1 comments
Tap! Touch! Defend—Postmortem by Pseudo Playgrounds
This was written before the game was released though it is out now so buy it. :D iTunes Link
I’m sitting here right now thinking of how to write my first postmortem for our first game, Tap! Touch! Defend! I have a lot of stuff on my mind, and a lot of stuff yet to finish before the game is on the app store.
Tap! Touch! Defend! is a fun and simple game that we approached differently. For us at Pseudo Playgrounds, when we sit down and discuss concepts or new projects, the project is usually birthed from a story or an idea. We then build our games around that story or idea. Sometimes you have to do things different though. It can teach you something about your team you didn’t know and it can be interesting to see what the end results are.
Tap! Touch! Defend! was different for us because it was built around gameplay. We knew what we wanted the game to play like, and that is what we built the game around. When looking at the game you can see how evident that actually is. The art is simple and is only really there because with out it, the game couldn’t exist.
GAMEPLAY
The gameplay to Tap! Touch! Defend! is fairly simple. The player will spend the bulk of his/her time tapping and or sliding his finger around on the screen. If the player taps an enemy, he will defeat it and gain some points. This is a defense game, so the player needs to defend their diamond nodes from the random enemies. If the node is hit, it will lose power. Once all power is lost, the game is over!
The player can regain some of its lost power by tapping the diamond node. The tapping of the player’s nodes will also increase the nodes charge. The charge acts like a score multiplier. The higher the charge, the more points you will get for defeating the enemies.
These two simple mechanics allow the player to find a balance between defending the node and charging the node. Putting more attention on the node allows the player to get a higher score in the end, but makes him more vulnerable.
Tap! Touch! Defend! can get pretty hectic at times, there is a lot of stuff to tap, and as time goes by, the game gets progressively harder making your taps all the more important.
Understanding how the game works makes it easier to see all the questions and answers we had to go through to get this game from concept to completion.
ART
The art to Tap! Touch! Defend! was based off of freedom. There is no story or reason to this game. So it really didn’t matter what the art looked like or how any of it fit together. If we could have done the game with out art, we probably would have. Adam Bergstrom, our Art Director did all the art for this game and he really just put together random shapes and images.
“The main focus of the art was complimenting the gameplay, with this in mind and no story attached it was simple figuring out what shapes and sizes would work well.” – Adam Bergstrom
AUDIO
The audio for this game was meant to be relaxing and almost spacey in sound. The music is just as enjoyable as the game! The sound effects for this game are all guitar driven like the music.
“The soundtrack for this game was birthed typically between the hours of 3-5am, the only time of day which is very still and silent. I was in a dark musky basement of a huge office building watching videos of space and time. This is where my mindset was to create these soundtracks. In each level we chose to put between 4 - 5 very short guitar licks ( 1-2secs long ) in as part of the effects, at which point they are played randomly over the soundtrack at any given point of time, thus giving the player a sense of playing/creating a guitar solo which is completely random each time. This is something kind of inspired by Guitar Hero, except, with my own personal twist to it.” – Jens Andersen
For each song being played, the sound effects are guitar notes and licks that fit that song, so when you defeat an enemy and hear the effect, it sounds as if it was part of the song. This is a concept from Every Day Shooter, that I felt was brilliantly executed. I always wanted to try and approach the audio in one of our games from a musical stand point entirely.
WHAT WAS EASY
Tap! Touch! Defend! was easier to make than some of our other projects, that didn’t mean the game gave us no problems, but it was definitely easier. A lot of that though comes from the experience we have had from other the iPhone projects that came before it.
The game took around 2 weeks to complete. Don’t let that throw a lot of you off though, there is a definite reason the time frame for this game was short. The code that the game was built around already existed in another project. We had finished code at our disposal and only nearly needed to modify it to suit our needs.
“I did not particularly partake in the making of this game, but the basic structure of this game is from a previous project of mine and we just expanded on that.” - Dakota Nicol
Another reason the time frame was short was because a lot of the stuff we learned from iArena was passed into this game. Because we had experience with things like engine modifications and iPhone memory usage we were able to jump right into this game already knowing what to expect. The experience we had along with a clear idea of what we wanted to do helped make this project move quickly and smooth.
WHAT WAS HARD
This game didn’t really present many problems for us. I’d say the main issue we had was spawning the enemies. How many do you spawn? How random do you want the spawning to be? How fast should the enemies spawn at? How big should they be?
All those questions were answered by numerous play tests and internal discussions. The result of those questions is in the final build of the game, and its questions like that that can lead to a better product. Our initial builds of this game were a lot harder to play because they were too hard. The enemies are too fast, too small to tap, and you as the player do not stand a chance. Play testing was a very important part of this game and it helped us get a game that we are not only happy with, but actually enjoy to play. I don’t really play a lot of the games that I work on, but I have easily played around 3 hours of Tap! Touch! Defend!
“One of the biggest challenges we ran into was finding the sweet spot in terms of balance. Sometimes you need to take a step back and look for some new ways of going about programming different aspects of the gameplay to add in or remove difficulty from the gameplay. In our initial tests we were often finding that the game would be too hard for someone new to the game, yet a person who knew what they were doing could potentially live forever if they had enough skill. When problems like that arise you need to start thinking about how to adjust the difficulty in different ways. I think we managed to find a good sweet spot in the difficulty where the game is approachable and playable to a more casual gamer and yet difficult to master. It’s definitely the sort of game that’s fun to try and beat your old high score on.” – Daniel Crowson
When developing for the iPhone, the game needs to be under 10 mb in order for the user to download it in 3G areas. If the game is over 10 mb, they need to be in a wi fi zone to download the game. Our final build of the game was around 14 mb, and we knew with a game like this it would be in our best interest to get it under 10. We nearly had to spend a whole day optimizing art and audio and discussing whether we should cut any art or levels out of the game just so we could make it under 10 mb.
In the end we got the game down to 9.9 mb with out cutting anything out. It was definitely a good feeling getting all that accomplished. The game is now gold and under the 10 mb limit set upon us. Yay!!
iTunes Link
This was written before the game was released though it is out now so buy it. :D iTunes Link
I’m sitting here right now thinking of how to write my first postmortem for our first game, Tap! Touch! Defend! I have a lot of stuff on my mind, and a lot of stuff yet to finish before the game is on the app store.
Tap! Touch! Defend! is a fun and simple game that we approached differently. For us at Pseudo Playgrounds, when we sit down and discuss concepts or new projects, the project is usually birthed from a story or an idea. We then build our games around that story or idea. Sometimes you have to do things different though. It can teach you something about your team you didn’t know and it can be interesting to see what the end results are.
Tap! Touch! Defend! was different for us because it was built around gameplay. We knew what we wanted the game to play like, and that is what we built the game around. When looking at the game you can see how evident that actually is. The art is simple and is only really there because with out it, the game couldn’t exist.
GAMEPLAY
The gameplay to Tap! Touch! Defend! is fairly simple. The player will spend the bulk of his/her time tapping and or sliding his finger around on the screen. If the player taps an enemy, he will defeat it and gain some points. This is a defense game, so the player needs to defend their diamond nodes from the random enemies. If the node is hit, it will lose power. Once all power is lost, the game is over!
The player can regain some of its lost power by tapping the diamond node. The tapping of the player’s nodes will also increase the nodes charge. The charge acts like a score multiplier. The higher the charge, the more points you will get for defeating the enemies.
These two simple mechanics allow the player to find a balance between defending the node and charging the node. Putting more attention on the node allows the player to get a higher score in the end, but makes him more vulnerable.
Tap! Touch! Defend! can get pretty hectic at times, there is a lot of stuff to tap, and as time goes by, the game gets progressively harder making your taps all the more important.
Understanding how the game works makes it easier to see all the questions and answers we had to go through to get this game from concept to completion.
ART
The art to Tap! Touch! Defend! was based off of freedom. There is no story or reason to this game. So it really didn’t matter what the art looked like or how any of it fit together. If we could have done the game with out art, we probably would have. Adam Bergstrom, our Art Director did all the art for this game and he really just put together random shapes and images.
“The main focus of the art was complimenting the gameplay, with this in mind and no story attached it was simple figuring out what shapes and sizes would work well.” – Adam Bergstrom
AUDIO
The audio for this game was meant to be relaxing and almost spacey in sound. The music is just as enjoyable as the game! The sound effects for this game are all guitar driven like the music.
“The soundtrack for this game was birthed typically between the hours of 3-5am, the only time of day which is very still and silent. I was in a dark musky basement of a huge office building watching videos of space and time. This is where my mindset was to create these soundtracks. In each level we chose to put between 4 - 5 very short guitar licks ( 1-2secs long ) in as part of the effects, at which point they are played randomly over the soundtrack at any given point of time, thus giving the player a sense of playing/creating a guitar solo which is completely random each time. This is something kind of inspired by Guitar Hero, except, with my own personal twist to it.” – Jens Andersen
For each song being played, the sound effects are guitar notes and licks that fit that song, so when you defeat an enemy and hear the effect, it sounds as if it was part of the song. This is a concept from Every Day Shooter, that I felt was brilliantly executed. I always wanted to try and approach the audio in one of our games from a musical stand point entirely.
WHAT WAS EASY
Tap! Touch! Defend! was easier to make than some of our other projects, that didn’t mean the game gave us no problems, but it was definitely easier. A lot of that though comes from the experience we have had from other the iPhone projects that came before it.
The game took around 2 weeks to complete. Don’t let that throw a lot of you off though, there is a definite reason the time frame for this game was short. The code that the game was built around already existed in another project. We had finished code at our disposal and only nearly needed to modify it to suit our needs.
“I did not particularly partake in the making of this game, but the basic structure of this game is from a previous project of mine and we just expanded on that.” - Dakota Nicol
Another reason the time frame was short was because a lot of the stuff we learned from iArena was passed into this game. Because we had experience with things like engine modifications and iPhone memory usage we were able to jump right into this game already knowing what to expect. The experience we had along with a clear idea of what we wanted to do helped make this project move quickly and smooth.
WHAT WAS HARD
This game didn’t really present many problems for us. I’d say the main issue we had was spawning the enemies. How many do you spawn? How random do you want the spawning to be? How fast should the enemies spawn at? How big should they be?
All those questions were answered by numerous play tests and internal discussions. The result of those questions is in the final build of the game, and its questions like that that can lead to a better product. Our initial builds of this game were a lot harder to play because they were too hard. The enemies are too fast, too small to tap, and you as the player do not stand a chance. Play testing was a very important part of this game and it helped us get a game that we are not only happy with, but actually enjoy to play. I don’t really play a lot of the games that I work on, but I have easily played around 3 hours of Tap! Touch! Defend!
“One of the biggest challenges we ran into was finding the sweet spot in terms of balance. Sometimes you need to take a step back and look for some new ways of going about programming different aspects of the gameplay to add in or remove difficulty from the gameplay. In our initial tests we were often finding that the game would be too hard for someone new to the game, yet a person who knew what they were doing could potentially live forever if they had enough skill. When problems like that arise you need to start thinking about how to adjust the difficulty in different ways. I think we managed to find a good sweet spot in the difficulty where the game is approachable and playable to a more casual gamer and yet difficult to master. It’s definitely the sort of game that’s fun to try and beat your old high score on.” – Daniel Crowson
When developing for the iPhone, the game needs to be under 10 mb in order for the user to download it in 3G areas. If the game is over 10 mb, they need to be in a wi fi zone to download the game. Our final build of the game was around 14 mb, and we knew with a game like this it would be in our best interest to get it under 10. We nearly had to spend a whole day optimizing art and audio and discussing whether we should cut any art or levels out of the game just so we could make it under 10 mb.
In the end we got the game down to 9.9 mb with out cutting anything out. It was definitely a good feeling getting all that accomplished. The game is now gold and under the 10 mb limit set upon us. Yay!!
iTunes Link
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