Howling Moon Software

Scott had a fairly free day today so he figured he’d get some of the trunk changes/fixes out into the wild.

Source
OSX Demo Binary

Changes Since 5.0.0:

• FIX: fixed a NaN issue that was causing raycasts for horizontal or vertical lines to end up in an infinite loop
• FIX: fixed a number of memory leaks
• FIX: fixed warnings for various compiler/OS combinations
• API: Rejecting a collision from a begin() callback permanently rejects the collision until separation
• API: Erroneous collision type parameterns removed from cpSpaceDefaulteCollisionHandler()
• MOVE: FFI declarations of inlined functions into their own header
• MOVE: Rearranged the project structure to separate out the header files into a separate include/ directory.
• NEW: Added a static library target for the iPhone.
• NEW: Type changes when building on the iPhone to make it friendlier to other iPhone APIs
• NEW: Added an AABB query to complement point and segment queries
• NEW: CP_NO_GROUP and CP_ALL_LAYERS constants

We stay in touch with a lot of different developers both around Minnesota and the world, and one of our buddies is BravoBug Software. BravoBug specializes in Mac software, especially handy little utilities. They have a lot of great freeware apps that are worth checking out.

But, we’re writing to point out a special sale at BravoBug: the Funbox bundle! It’s six piece apps for $29.99, so check it out!

Chipmunk 5.0.0 is finally ready for general consumption! Head on over to the Google Code Project to get the latest source.

New features in no particular order:

• New joints/constraints system. Much more flexible and programable than before. Joints have adjustable parameters now so you can use them like servos and the like.
• Raycasting. Actually just line segment queries, but should be about as useful and is implemented very efficiently.
• New collision callback API. You now can register callbacks for collision begin/separate events among other useful things.
• Sensor shapes. Collision shapes that call callbacks but don’t generate collisions, like sensors in Box2D or triggers in Unity.
• API for safely removing objects from the space from callbacks.

Twilight Golf was released overnight, and we searched through the new releases lists on the App Store for our game. Alas, we’re on page 7 due to a reported release date of October 7th, two weeks in the past.

Unfortunately, this is a pretty big deal. Although Touch Arcade posters have been really excited and saying favorable things about the game, the simple fact is that most app buyers are only looking at the App Store. We’ve know first hand how App Store exposure helps; Crayon Ball was featured before, and that made a big bump in sales… And this isn’t the first time we’ve missed the recently-released list.

So what’s the problem here, Apple? In order to organize any sort of a release, you have to be able to have a set release date. In spite of all the many problems with the App Store review process, you could argue Apple is doing their best with the reviews. It’s a lot of apps for them to sort through, and approval isn’t always black and white.

However, if you provide the ability to set a release date for an application, make sure it works. Setting a future date so you can coordinate advertisements and promotions with the app’s release should NOT start you weeks back in the new release list. This should be a black and white issue.

Worst of all, I don’t really have any recourse for this. The “Contact Us” section on iTunes Connect doesn’t actually let you contact people- it’s just a faq. Apple has made it clear they don’t want to hear from developers, unless you’re Google and the FCC is involved. Simply put, being on the new releases list in the App Store is key, and I think we were screwed out of that list. We miss the new releases list, we risk missing the exposure needed to get in the top 100 lists. It’s tough trying to make a living when seemingly small problems with the App Store can really throw you.

Contact us admin at howlingmoonsoftware.com.

UPDATE: We’re definitely not the only ones affected by this same issue. The same thing happened with Paul Smith’s most recent app, Ask The Hoff. Likewise, there’s a at least two threads on the topic at Touch Arcade about the problem (mine and an older thread).

Get a free pre-release copy of Twilight Golf; we’re giving out promo codes for Twilight Golf- one day before the big release on October 21st!

We need your help to get the word out about our new iPhone game. So we’re asking you to Twitter about Twilight Golf or to join our Facebook group. In exchange, we’re going to give promo codes out a day before the game is released. You can use them immediately and get the game before it even appears in the App Store (yeah, we tested it).

On October 20th, we’ll go through the list of fans and choose 10 randomly and send them promo codes- easy!

Or, twitter about us and include the hashtag #twilightgolf. On October 20th, we’ll search for that hashtag, make a list of names, and give out another 10 promo codes randomly. Feel free to link to this thread, or whatever.

You can enter the drawing twice, but if the same person wins we’ll give the second prize to someone new.

You can find out more from our webpage:
http://howlingmoonsoftware.com/twilightGolf.php

Finally, we’re also looking for more reviews. We’ve got some press resources on our webpage at http://howlingmoonsoftware.com/twilightGolfPress.php and we’d be happy to give out promo codes to reviewers. Email us at admin at howlingmoonsoftware.com and be sure to include the name of the site you represent.

Finally, a huge thanks to everyone participating in this giveaway and helping get the word out. We can’t make it as indie game developers without your support, so it’s really appreciated!

Andy and Scott
Howling Moon Software

Finished editing the gameplay teaser for our upcoming Twilight Golf game. Check it out!

Sorry for those who did not make it in the beta, but we have more than enough testers at this point. Thanks for your interest!

Twilight golf is feature complete and is ready for some public beta testing! Please contact us at admin at howlingmoonsoftware.com for more information. Spots in our beta testing program are limited- be sure to mention what type of device you have. Our artist also finished up the last round of fantastic artwork for the game. Check out some of our final screenshots:

Read more…

Twilight Golf has evolved quite a bit since it was originally envisioned back in January of 2007. (Yes, it really has been that long!). At the infancy of Howling Moon Software, we created several small gameplay demos, and one of them was a game called Gulf. Read more…

As a designer of a video game physics library, I’m always thinking about ways to let the physics interact with other parts of a game and possibly even drive them. Lately I’ve been thinking about what kind of sounds we can put in Twilight Golf and how to drive the sound based on the physics as much as possible. Sound has traditionally been something that I’ve struggled with. It always seems to get left until the very end of the project, and I don’t want Twilight Golf’s audio to sound as though it was an afterthought.

I remember a few years ago reading an article about the physics driven sound system in Deus Ex 2 and was enthralled at the idea. My expectations fell flat a bit after playing the game and experiencing what they were describing. I think the effect was pretty subtle and didn’t stand out to me like a cool effect like doppler shifting the sound of a rocket buzzing by your head. It did make we wonder how you could use it to simplify the sound programming however.

Simplicity is a big thing that I’m going for with the Twilight Golf sound system. I started hacking out a few ideas in the last couple days and I think that it’s working pretty well. With only a few lines of physics and OpenAL code, I’m able to modulate impact sounds based on the strength of the impact and make doors creak based on their turning. Stay tuned for a video example in a day or two!

As we are just a small two man operation, we are trying to do things as simply as possible. We don’t have a level editor so much as we have Photoshop, a text editor, and a little bit of helper code.

We start out with a basic grid image that we lay the level out on and place all the widgets that we want. This is all scripted in the code, and we are able to add each widget with only a line of code or two. Adding new widgets is pretty easy too as we just have to define what the physics acts like (mass, shapes, joints), and then attach sprites, lights and shadows to the physics objects.

One handy feature that we made was to let the running game help us edit itself. All the mouse clicks get recorded to the log in a format that we can just copy back into the code to define the collision edges. This saves hours of tedious typing of the coordinates by hand, and it only took a couple minutes to write.

Once all the widgets and collision outlines are defined. We pull a screenshot into Photoshop and add textures. We even found a nifty way to automate compressing the Photoshop files directly into format the game uses the game without needing to export or resave them by hand. Play with some layers in Photoshop, save normally, and run the game again to pull in the latest graphics changes.

Here is the level background image without any of the lighting or sprites. It’s pretty bland, but the lights and shadows will help add a lot of depth and character to it.

Lastly, we add a few more lights around the edges of the scene to brighten up the foreground give it some contrast from the background. See how much better it looks with shadows.

This level is still looking a little bland, but there is always time to polish up the game some more before we release!