Dash & Dot game studio's microblog

If you don't know anything about Leap Motion here is short demo video about from official website.

Ksenia helped to make several unboxing photos. 

In box we've found letter from Michael – Leap Motion Co-founder and CEO.

 As you can see, Leap Motion controller is tiny and light. It has logo on rubber back side. There are several red leds on top, green led is placed on one of the side surfaces. Controller also has micro USB port to connect it to your Mac or PC.

After unboxing we've connected Leap Motion to our Mac Mini to run first tests. At developer's portal company has shared several test and example applications. So, we downloaded it with special application that is required to make everything work. Hardware connected, software installed, GO!

We decided to save original “pencil&paper charm” without cartoonish effects.

Here’s main menu evolution:

…and “intro” variants:

Menu scene made in blender3d. I was new to 3d and blender, so this scene wasn’t created as fast, as it should be. Sure game menu wasn’t super realistic render, but for such purpose it was ok:) There were some troubles with blender 2.5 beta - some tools didn’t work yet or worked not properly, but some features, that I need, were improved in 2.5 and I didn’t want to use old 2.49. Anyway I love blender:)

Another hardcore was making TRULY realistic fonts, ‘cos I hadn’t found handwritten fonts, that suit well. All fonts were replaced by handwritten titles: they were written by hand in pen on paper, photographed and “photoshopped” this way:

Of course, pen tablet could solve the problem, but that time I had none:(

Here’s some sketches, that used for game icon and menu scene:

Game field looks extremely minimalistic:

Some cartoonish faces were added to tutorial:

Decided to follow the “realistic-pencil-and-paper style” to the end, we started to record the sound effects by themselves on iPod Touch. Here’s Anton recording “pencil sound”:  

After short discussion we decided to make simple jumping up game. Ksenia started to work on game art, and I was working on game prototype. 

On Saturday I’d started with LimeJS engine and first prototype was ready soon.

But on next day I met several problems with box2d. That’s why I decided to switch to cocos2d-html5. It was right choice, because I worked with cocos2d-iphone earlier when we were developing Virus Wars.

With new engine my coding speed increased! But I hadn’t enough experience with box2d. So, I’d spent a lot of time in learning new things about physics engine and applying it to game. Nevertheless our game started to look more polished. 

On Monday I’d begun to add game character’s animations created by Ksenia. It was easiest part.

On next two days (Wednesday and Thursday) I’ve improved work with box2d, polished gameplay and added a lot of stuff to make everything more fun. 

Last two things were main menu and credits. Video with them has been posted in Dash & Dot blog yesterday at evening. Several hours later we submited our game to Charity Game Jam site.

GAMEPLAY VIDEO TIME!

Want to try and beat my record? Here you are!

Official website Charity Game Jam: http://charitygamejam.com

And direct link to Mega Block our site http://dash-and-dot.com/mega_block