Fixed a lot of auto layout issues, added a true type font to the app bundleStruggled with the scene builder quite a bit. it lacks precision tools, so I’m trying continue to create things in Tiled.
Started to add SKTileMap to my project, which will read both the objects/boundaries i place in Tiled, but also send the graphic information in the JSON export.
Ah, end of semester is drawing near, and I’ve got a conference and an apartment relocation going on all in the last 2 weeks! eek! ok. Full speed ahead on this.
I copied the todo list from the previous log, and have crossed things out that I’m just don’t have time for now.
This with an X mean I’ve started and/or finished an item. Today’s work specifically meant struggling with Xcode and auto-layout.
Designers have sent me some UI assets, still waiting on level pieces for the actual maze. Working with what I have lying around.
it’s progress, right?
Artists are out on Spring Break.
I did find some info on Ukrainian Castles. Hope that can inspire us.
I made some headway on sound design, deciding to focus on folk music.
Found an adorable lullaby about a sassy grey cat – and a YouTube video where I could hear it sung. The link also had a midi version of the song, which I grabbed.
I found some other nice audio options at archive.org
Dream Passes By The Window CC – more info Folk songs from over the Dniester captured Eugenia Yaroshinsky
Learned a bit about SKLabelNode
Initially, when I added a lives counter to the child node, I could not seem to make the custom font appear.
This link helped me realize i needed to make sure the custom font was included in the build phase for the bindle.
I’m still having some hero control issues. I kept going over my code, finding little things that seem to help, but not fix my problem. ah, debugging… I ended up using git to help me compare code to the example code. Seems that I had some variables set as optional vs required, and vice versa.
A friend told me that many of my errors were symptoms of CopyPasta. I’ll have to keep an eye on that type of thing in the future.
So, after all this 7 hours of tutorial, several other hours of debugging and research, I realized that this project would be a good candidate to use the GamePlayKit features for the things I want to do.
2015 WWDC Intro to GameplayKit
At this point, I’m not sure if I’ll be using them or not. Either way, programming the basics by hand will understand a bit of what GameplayKit is offering. I’m trying not to get sidetracked and stuck in a loop of constantly reworking the foundations. I could push that further out on the timeline.
Completion is always of more value than perfection.
My next goal is to start getting things ready/resized to work for iPad sized devices and the level art, as well as making some new maps, add a timer, and change out the sounds.
Here is a bonus A movie called “The Guide” recently was released at international film contests regarding Kobczars and Stalin.
Lots of things happened this week.
The artists are buzzing about with some on the general look and feel and our heroine design is also in the works.
We’re trying to use inVision for collaboration, but it’s new to all of us, so we’re learning all together. I copied lots of my mood board images over to an Invision Mood Board… it doesn’t work like Pinterest, but does some things that pinterest does not. My favorite invision feature for mood boards? It grabs a color palette from each image!
Here is a character sketch of our Hero by E.M. Isn’t she cute!
and some colors from N.P.
I made a couple sketches to explain the concept, ie that the hero is basically rock climbing up a tower.
I dashed off a brief wireframe for a common starting point. 
Since a lot of our inspiration is coming from traditional Ukrainian costumes, I searched for traditional Ukrainian instruments and came across a beautiful stringed instrument called the Bandura.
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This of course led me to wikipedia
Which led me to an amazing new fact:
Musicians who play the bandura are referred to as bandurists. Some traditional bandura players, often blind, were referred to as kobzars.
What?! This meant I hopped straight to the entry on the Kobzars
In Ukraine, kobzars organized themselves into regional guilds or brotherhoods, known as tsekhs. They developed a system of rigorous apprenticeships (usually three years in length) before undergoing the first set of open examinations in order to become a kobzar.
Wikipedia: Preservation of Kobzar music
and this interesting list of recordings off off wax cylinders of actual Kobzar music! The recordings are rough, and the most popular ones are the roughest. Wax cylinder recordings degrade with each listen.
I’m 3/4 of the way through the maze games tutorial from CartoonSmart. I can load the maze and enemies from a json file, created by using Tiled. It’s a bit of a slog here in the middle, but I’ll push forward.
Climb the tower, pass the tollways using your ears and your wits, but don’t believe your eyes!
My project now has TWO artists! /kermitarms. That means our project is fully staffed and we can forge on!
The theme and design of the game is taking shape, at least in my mind. 😉 I’ve shifted from thinking this will be a top down game, it will be a face on perspective. Our protagonist will traverse a tower that looks safe, but is only an illusion, needing to use the audio clues to know which ways are safe/possible to climb.
To help inspire and communicate my vision I’ve created a mood board with visual themes/ideas.
Follow Stacie’s board Tollways Tower on Pinterest.
Bought a book on accessible games, published in multiple formats by National Braille Press. It lists many accessible games that I’ve run across in my research, as well as a few I have not.
I was a bit disappointed the content focused more on quick suggestions of which games to play than what makes each one ideal. There is still plenty of hints and tips to glean regarding control schemas. Most of the games are also listed on http://www.applevis.com with reviews, but it’s nice to have an organized selection in one place.
I will need to explore the VoiceOver options as I stitch things together. Is it as easy as adding alt text for web? or does it require a few more settings. There’s a standard, I just need to follow it.
Am halfway through the mazes tutorial on CartoonSmart. Spent some time learning how to make nodes and add attributes that allow them affect other nodes or physics.
Learned how to create a maze using the SKS builder and how to parse JSON levels created with a cool new(to me) tool Tiled.
I had to do some debugging before jumping into the 3rd section, somehow I’d lost my hero ship, and while the map was displaying fine, and all the gestures were working as desired, I could no longer see the ship itself moving around the map!
That took some slow review of the code to fix, but I’m happy it’s working again! It’s the foundation of my sound maze, the basics I’ll start from before adding the pieces and graphics, and other variations.
More to come, I imagine I’ll be setting up some wireframes with my team in Invision over the next few days, and they are working on some character designs for our heroine, and some general look and feel for our app.
