iGalcon – pretty backgrounds and lots of tweaking
I managed to assemble a few backgrounds by grabbing some great photos from here. I also did about 50 million little tweaks to the game, making it “almost done”. (Meaning, there is probably quite a bit of even finer detail work yet, but not as much as their used to be.)
This version of Galcon introduces a new 3-way scenario. This scenario the bots continuously choose which player to make a temporary alliance with. They always attack the strongest player other than themselves.
I also created a new bot that has “redirect” capabilities. I originally worked on doing a fairly complex one that I had done before, but found that it didn’t seem to work. Probably because it was somewhat complex and I was doing something wrong. I took a break and came up with a very simple variation on the fairly simple bot I use for the rest of the game. It works great 🙂
On the iphone specific front, I keep having to deal with gravity every step of the way. I’ve added several other status items on the screen which I always orient with gravity. These items are in the corners of the screen, so I have to temporarily place large planets in those corners during the level generation to ensure that none of the final planets end up obscured by a status icon.
I’m not sure if I’ll have it done in time for “launch day” but I hope to be pretty close 🙂
July 1st, 2008 at 9:07 pm
Hi Phil,
iGalcon is looking really sweet! Keep up the good work and I hope that you’re able to get it done in time!
July 8th, 2008 at 3:20 pm
Heya Phil.
It’s very exciting to read about your iPhone development adventure!
Keep up the good work. I wish I could get an iPhone to try it out, but carriers in Canada like to gouge consumers on iPhone plans.
…
Hooray! Galcon! 😀
July 8th, 2008 at 6:24 pm
fydo – you could always get an ipod touch 🙂 that’s what I got, it’s the iphone MINUS the phone
July 8th, 2008 at 7:51 pm
Oh right!
I totally forgot about that!
Cool, I might just have to look into that … 😉
Thanks for the info.
July 11th, 2008 at 2:52 pm
ok Phil, I’ve got my iPhone in hand and I’m itching to play some Galcon…
July 19th, 2008 at 3:25 pm
Fantastic man! Most developers would not have even thought about the planets getting obscured by the controls! Your attention to detail is extremely appreciated!
August 3rd, 2008 at 5:52 pm
[…] Well I found something else out instead. It turns out Phil mentioned this bot in a post on June 29th (link). […]