Challenge mode screen mockup for Widescreen devices

Now that the game has been out for quite some time, I’d like to gain some experience developing for other mobile platforms.

When work on the iOS version of Fruit Remover began back in 2009, the game art was designed around the portrait screen rotation since many of the applications included on the devices are primarily used that way. All of the screens were laid out in a way that I felt was best for that form factor. However, I did consider at some point I would want to support different form factors and devices and made some preparations in advance for this. For example, most of the art was created at twice the resolution used in-game. This came in handy when the iPhone 4 was announced, because I already had art for the appropriate resolution and updating the game to support it required very little effort. I also kept the original Pixelmator documents for the menu screens with layers and formatting intact, which would allow me to generate alternate versions of the same art in the future.

The obvious move at this point would be an iPad version of Fruit Remover, which I have begun preparing art assets for. Part of this involves recreating some of the old art in a widescreen form, and coming up with new layouts for menu screens that better fit in a landscape form factor. For example, in the challenge screen pictured above, the simple left and right arrows you used to use to toggle between challenges can now be replaced with a scrollable list. (Note, the screenshot above is not an in-game screenshot but a work in progress. Some obvious things are missing, such as the text shading present in the iPhone/iPod version.) As previously I am thinking about the future when I do this though, so this art was actually created at an extremely high resolution, 2732×1536. This resolution may seem odd, because if Apple were to adopt a retina display for the iPad 3 it would likely have a resolution of 2048×1536. I added the extra width in this case in preparation for 16×19 widescreen devices. That resolution scales down perfectly to 1920×1080, great for 1080p televisions so in the event I ever wish to port to a device with that resolution I’ll be ready for it. In the screenshot above, the borders are darkened to show the extra space offered by a 16×9 display over the 4×3 display present on the iPad.

Unfortunately, developing art a such a high resolution is actually somewhat difficult because it’s larger than the resolution of my monitor and Pixelmator seems to be not as stable working with images that large. But it’s worth the effort, the graphics look very sharp at full size.

Currently, I have no specific time frame as to when I want to finish iPad support for Fruit Remover. I come back to this project every once and awhile when I feel like it, it hasn’t been on a regular basis like when I first started. I have also purchased some additional devices that I’d like to do some development for, so perhaps at some point we might see additional platforms supported. I’ve also been thinking about what my next major project will be, but haven’t decided on anything yet.

• The “How To Play” and “Credits” screens are no longer blank under iOS 5.
• Updated How To Play screen with more information about the HUD.
• Added a “Start Over” button to the pause screen in challenge mode. This allows you to restart without going back to the main menu.
• The animation when closing the “How To Play” and “Credits” screens now works properly on iOS 3. (Unintentionally fixed, the problem seems to have gone away on it’s own when built against the iOS 5 SDK.)

This update remains compatible with all iOS devices running iOS 3.1 or newer, including 1st Generation devices.

Update (10/10/2011) – The update has been approved and is now available for download. I’m rather impressed by that, it took less than 24 hours after I submitted for the update to become available.

Personally, I’m slightly disappointed that several of the games I own seem to be broken in iOS 5. Some crash on launch, while others just display a black screen yet audio and touch input still work. I’m not sure why these things broke, but I can only assume the video related problems might have something to do with the new notification system since it is capable of appearing on top of any app. Despite these problems, iOS 5 is still an excellent update that is worth installing.

I don’t have any other news to share at this time, as I will be busy with some other things for the next coming months. However, I hope to return to this project for at least one more worthwhile update after the next patch.

However, I haven’t received any feedback outside of the people that I know personally who’ve played it. I’ve gotten the following requests:

• Make it more obvious how the scoring works. A user did not notice that you lose points for removing single fruit. (This probably can be addressed with an update to the instructions, pointing out the “Current Combos” display at the bottom of the screen.)
• Restarting a challenge takes too long because you need to wait for the screen to fade in and out to return to the menu, then again to get back into the challenge. Add a restart button to challenge. (I agree. The fading makes the game look more polished, but it’s not there to hide load times or anything. I could easily remove it, but reset seems more appropriate because it’s two fewer taps.)
• Make a version for iPad, and sell that. (This has always been feasible, but if it’s worth it is another story. For iPad, I’d prefer designing the game for landscape instead of portrait like it is now. Doing that would require some new art, and the additional screen real estate would allow for a slightly bigger game board which means I’d want to re-design some of the challenge puzzles as well. The core game logic could remain unchanged, but I don’t know yet if I want to do it. I’d like to start a completely new project at this point, rather than dragging something this old on for a long time.)

I also have some ideas of my own. The level editor that I created to design the levels for challenge mode is multi-platform. I actually initially wrote it as a Windows application in C#, then ported it to OS X with Mono. This may seem odd, but the work I do during my job is all on Windows machines so I’m most familiar with that language right now and I was able to throw together the level editor in a few hours. The editor is fairly easy to use considering how quickly it was thrown together, levels can be painted like in a drawing tool. The actual drawing part is custom UI control, which I’m familiar with how to create in .NET but I’ve never created a custom UI control in Cocoa. Those are a few reasons why I decided to create the editor in C#. (I created the editor in the first place because the first few levels that I created by hand took quite awhile and I wouldn’t know how they looked until I ran them. With the level editor, I could create and edit levels much more quickly.) The reason I mention the level editor is because I’ve considered releasing it, along with adding a feature to the game allowing users to install custom levels. I suppose the level editor could be built into the game at some point, but the lack of screen real-estate just doesn’t make that as nice as it is on a desktop machine.

So, in summary I’m not actually promising anything at this point, but I do hope to address the first two points above with at least one future update to the game. If you’ve played the game and have any feedback, feel free to e-mail me at the address on the support page and I’ll consider it for the future.

Last month I got an automated e-mail from iTunes connect informing me that I had 30 days to submit “Fruit Remover” or the app name would be freed up for someone else to use. The reason I got this was because I needed to create an entry for the game in iTunes to begin testing game center support. Once this happens, they give you 120 days to use it or they free it up for another developer, presumably to prevent name squatting. By the middle of last month, I had a final build ready so the only thing remaining was to insert the final music and submit. Unfortunately due to time constraints the artist in question wasn’t able to have some music done on time. I submitted as-is with the music I created in GarageBand, and decided to release it once it was approved. Perhaps someday I can update it with a new soundtrack, but honestly I don’t think the generic music there now is too bad.

Here are some changes since the last beta I wrote about below:

• More fruit removal sound effects. (There are 3 different sounds now, instead of just one)
• Fixed framerate slow-down on the 1st Generation iPod touch device when playing Original mode
• Sometimes the animation when transitioning to or from the “How to Play” and “Credits” screen would show the game area as completely white. This was fixed for devices running iOS 4.
• One of the challenge mode puzzles was actually unsolvable. Oops. I’ve completely tested every puzzle in Challenge mode from start to finish, they are all solvable and you do get the achievement for finishing them.

I wasn’t expecting the game to instantly show up on the store after it was approved, so I was kind of in a rush today to get the website online and this blog post up. Perhaps I’ll follow up in a few weeks with information on how the game is doing. And for anyone who is interested, approval took about 8 days. I submitted on Sunday May 1st and it was approved on May 9th.

At this time, everything is now complete for the first release with the exception of Audio and any remaining problems that may be discovered while testing. Some changes made as a result of testing:

• The game now has an in-game instructions screen, with an overview of how to play.
• The arrow buttons on the challenge screen now respond over a wider area than the actual button, so that it’s easier to touch them.
• The main menu buttons were reorganized, partially for the new instructions mentioned above but also so that on devices that don’t support Game Center there isn’t such an awkward gap where the missing button would be.

When the game is ready for submission, I will post another update here. In the meantime, I’ll be getting the website ready.

I’ve made a few more minor changes since my last post, but nothing of particular notability. The remaining things to do are minor and the game would be in a releasable state without them. I may decide to set a worst-case release date soon, because my current developer account expires sometime in March.

Game Center High score list

Normal mode is much easier since you’re allowed to remove individual pieces, but it gets progressively harder. Eventually you’re given a stock of singles that you’re allowed to remove, and you’re only allowed to go on to subsequent levels if you have some remaining. Of course, if you don’t use any you get to keep the ones you didn’t use to build up a stock of them. After a few levels though, I introduce another element to the puzzles that I won’t be revealing.

After completing the endless modes, I added the highest score for each to the save file so you know what score you need to beat. The real fun in this will come to those with Game Center devices though. Beating your own scores gets boring after awhile, but having other scores to compete against makes things a bit more interesting. In late 2009 when I canned the idea of adding online features due to time constraints, Game Center hadn’t been announced yet. Thanks to it’s online leaderboards, I’ve been able to add the “Online” button back to the main screen. It will only appear if you’re using a game center compatible device and you’re logged into Game Center. From the online screen, you can access the leaderboards and see what achievements you’ve earned in the game.

Of course, development on the game started before the iPhone 4 or even iPhone 3GS were released and I still intend for the game to be playable on the same devices that I wanted to support from the beginning. This includes the first generation iPod touch, which is the slowest of the iOS devices. Any features not supported on these devices (Game Center, Retina display) will just be hidden and the game will function as it did before these features existed. However, the minimum OS version the game will require is iOS 3. This is because Apple no longer accepts submissions that target iOS 2.

Although I have achievements and leaderboards working, they aren’t quite finished yet. I need to create some artwork for the new content, in addition to handling situations where the network becomes unavailable while you’re playing the game. This will be finished of course before the game is released. I’ve also implemented the pause screen I mentioned in the previous post, as while as improved the initial startup of the game. Most of the changes now just involve additional artwork and refining things that are already working. I’m not ready to decide on a new release date yet, but I hope to update a bit more frequently again. Look forward to another update in a couple of weeks.

I still hope to release in the next couple of months.

However, there are some small things I’d like to add at the last minute which I believe will improve the popularity of the game. I’d also like to see if I can get some outside contributions for music to replace the crap that I’ve thrown together in GarageBand. So here’s the plan: Next weekend I’d like to send out a private beta of the content originally planned for the first release. (If you’d like a copy, just contact me via IM. I haven’t posted this blog publicly yet, so I think for anyone who wants a copy there won’t be a problem. Just remember the final game will be free so you’re not really getting anything valuable out of this.) Based on the feedback from the beta and my own plans, I’ll make further changes to the game. Then I hope to submit the game at the end of the month.

The app store won’t be accepting submissions over the holidays, and after the holiday break I’d expect that there might be a bit of extra wait for the game to make it on the store. In other words, I don’t expect to make the 2010 date for the public release. I intend to submit the game before the end of the year though, so I don’t consider this missing the 2010 date on the main page.

Check back for another update later this month.