It's Dev Diary part two, and things are getting serious. To recap, I was looking to see how much I could get done on a new iPad game in the week leading up to the iPad Launch App Submission Deadline, starting Monday and ending Saturday sometime. In Part One  you learned that I fell asleep on Monday night, and on Tuesday/Wednesday I got some basic code up and running which actually does a fair bit: You can drag your paddle around the screen and hit the puck, which will bounce off the screen edges. I added some token enemies, but they were no different from the puck really - they don't hurt you and you can't destroy them.

So we don't really have a game yet. Oh, and it looks ugly, like a 2600 took a memory dump knowwhatimsayin? Time to take care of business...

I noted that according to my official back-of-a-napkin schedule, I should have by now coded the 'level system'. The idea was that you would need to clear screens full of enemies that come at you in waves, and fight bosses and so forth, with some sort of transition between levels to give you a break from the furious action. Seeing that it is already Thursday and I don't even have proper enemies or scoring or bumpers or a whole list of important things, I am beginning to think the level structure is the first thing that might get cut when push comes to shove. The two player mode (which I had as 'essential' in my original plan) is looking dubious too.

But I must soldier on - Thursday night actually turns out to be quite productive:

So what are we looking at here?

Well firstly, I have added some actual graphics - the colours aren't final (nor are the graphics necessarily) but it is something to work with for now. See the green pips around the paddle (the cyan circle)? That is your health, although for now it is just a graphic which never changes (so it always looks like you have full health). If the puck leaves the play area (through the hole at the bottom) you lose health - well, at in spirit at least. The puck can now bounce off the bumpers and light them up, and it can destroy enemies too! When an enemy is destroyed a little score pops up and fades away..well...it is meant to fade away...

The points add to your score (displayed at the top of the screen). I also added some sound effects, and the logic so that when you run out of health, the game over screen is displayed. Technically, by the end of Thursday night we have a game. We don't have much time though.

Friday night was full of code for spawning enemies, accumulating combo points, getting additional multipliers when all bumpers are lit, properly displaying your current health level, and powerups. Three powerups were planned: A health replenisher, a small duration shield of invulnerability, and one which spawns another puck when collected, so you can have multiple pucks. Beetlefeet also helped out with some assets, getting some more appropriate fonts in, and designing the title screen and game over screens. So now the action now looked like this:

Now we are getting somewhere. You can actually play this, and it is actually fun. It is also insanely hard. It has its bugs and kinks and things that need to be fixed to be a smooth ride, but it is getting there.

We back and forthed about names and came up with oh, about a zillion, but eventually settled on Halogen. Rockethands have proved themselves to be good at coming up with names, and terrible at choosing just one, but we did. The visuals still aren't finalised (the particle effects for example are just placeholder), but they are definitely heading in the right direction. Obviously the Laser Hockey game from Wii Play is an inspiration, although I (just recently) discovered a sparkly-glowey hockey game for the iPhone/iPod touch, which has a HD version on the iPad! Am I overly worried? No. Sure they have some glow effects, but there is a fair bit of visual difference, and they sure don't have asplodable enemies!

Stay tuned for Part 3, where last minute changes are added, and last minute decisions are made!