Isola test demo posted online.

Member Joined: 16 Aug 2004 Posts: 29 Location: Houston, TX

This is my first test release. It's not the final demo, by any means, but it'll give you a view of part of the game area.

http://www.isolaiphone.com/test/index.html

I'm irritated with the lack of:
-transitions
-audio
-scripting

I find the AM toolset for iPhone games fairly limiting; will there be support for transitions, audio, and scripting anytime soon?

Still debating whether it's worth waiting for AM to improve in iPhone functionality, or if it'd be better to move on to Gamesalad or some other system for this project. Confused

The frames in this demo, in case you hadn't noticed, would be capable of seamless transitions between them - if transitions were possible for AM iPhone games.

Oh, well.

Posted: Mon Jan 18, 2010 5:43 am

Your drawings are nicely done.

Posted: Mon Jan 18, 2010 3:18 pm

Going to check it out soon Smile

Posted: Mon Jan 18, 2010 9:05 pm

Checkin it out on my iPod.

EDIT: Ok, here's the feedback.

It's a great first-person game with great graphics.
What you are doing is exploring an island.
Tap the right part of the screen to look right.
Tap the left part of the screen to look left.

Over all, I'd say it is 4 stars.

Member Joined: 16 Aug 2004 Posts: 29 Location: Houston, TX

Thanks for the feedback and the 4-star rating!

Very Happy

It's only a small demo though; the (later) demo release should include twice the area of the test demo, and one playable puzzle.

The finished game - roughly 3 times the area of the later demo, with four puzzles - though some of those "four" puzzles contain multiple parts that require doing combinations of things across the gameworld. (So, you could argue it's more like seven puzzles.)

I've been working on some of the other areas of the island, some video cutscenes, etc; I've been modelling the greenhouse, several buildings, a japanese garden, underground/underwater tunnels, and the other island, all images of which have been intentionally withheld from the web to keep it, and its role in the story, a surprise. Shocked

The AM test demo was a start, though I recently did some tests in Gamesalad, and found that a bit slow to work with - all animations had to be loaded as sequences of individual images - but it's capable of much more than AM as far as iPhone apps are concerned.

Thus, after that test, I've all but decided to shift to Gamesalad.

In GS, I was able to develop transitions, complex programming-like GUI interactions, various forms of embedded animation, hotspots, sounds, music, ambient audio, etc.

AM could compete with that and be better than it (for this genre, at least), if AM had the transitions, scripting, and audio features working for iPhone. At the moment, though, it's no contest. You can make a better adventure game iPhone app in GameSalad.

I'll release the GS test demo in a few days - until then, enjoy the one I did in AM. If GM Support can improve the features of AM (within a month or two) to include viable scripting and sound, I may shift back to AM.

Otherwise I'm moving on to GS on "Isola". Sorry.

That said, I've still got another (PC) game project on the backburner which I've never quite gotten finished - that one, "Traveler's Enigma," if I have time, will be released as freeware and will (at some point) be a good demonstration of what AM can do for PC; 3d-rendered graphics, 20+ minutes of video cutscenes, 3000+ lines of scripting, custom inventory and hint guide systems, over a dozen puzzles, panoramic interface, and a dark story bordering on the insane.

It's over 90% done, which sounds great until you realize it's been over 90% done for a year now. Laughing

I've got to make time to finish it, I'm actually getting sort of sick of working on it and I want it *done*.

I do work on it a bit here and there, and am gradually nearing the point of release. I think I could have the thing done if I focused on it - nothing else, just that one project - for three weeks.

I've been working on it intermittently since August 2005 (!)

No guarantees on release date, just know that I haven't given up on it.

I often take a long time to finish things - but I rarely give up on a project once I've started it. I tend to see things through to completion even when that takes years to do.

My tendency is to have between 3 and 10 projects going at any time, small ones, big ones, etc. I like to rotate between them, several hours per day on (whichever) project I feel like focusing on that day, in between college coursework.

We'll see - I have four game-related projects going on now, and four video projects Razz

Anyway, it's a lot of fun, doing digital media/art stuff.

Posted: Thu Mar 11, 2010 2:20 pm

Just a quick note for you there. You are NOT creating a native iPhone app using Adventure Maker, you are making just a webapp. Which is very limited even if you use other softwares. Webapp means Website which is optimized for iPhone. iPhone 3GS (the latest one) don't support sound in webapps, so it is not adventure maker's fault. iPhone just don't support sound in webapps, can you show me a webapp with sound? Don't go to find, you will not find it!

The iPhone games which have sounds are very different from webapps. It is called Native Apps. It's coding language is very hard. Many programmers hate that language.

GameSalad creates native apps, so it cantains sound. But you can't make iPhone native app in windows. PearPC emulators will also not work as GameSalad requires a very higher version of OSX.

Apple's iPhone SDK requires Mac OS X 10.5.7 or later and Intel processor. Windows computer will not work. You have to buy MacBook Pro, or Mac, iPhone SDk will lag on MacBook, . Both are very expensive, estmited $1,499.00 for MacBook and $2,499 for Mac. iPhone's scripting language "XCode" is very tough to learn. It would take at least 2 months to "start" making just a calculator or something..

So, if you really want to develop games or apps for iPhone you have to pay for Mac, GameSalad (if u are going to use it), iPhone Developer Program and GameSalad Membership Program ($1999). Yeah! all those are very expensive.

If you are going to use GameSalad, then don't worry for scripting language, but it will be also limited, you will not get to change the source code. GameSalad will offer sounds and stuff because it will create you native iPhone apps.

Also, even if you decide to make your game/app free, you will be charged for GameSalad Membership Program and iPhone Developer Program.

So, making a native iPhone app is a long road.

Rolling Eyes

EDIT: I think you have a Mac. So, you tested Game Salad. But you still have to pay for its membership and apple developer program to even make the game and submit it to appstore.