*BOOM* – A Sneech Update

I’ve not done much with Sneech over the past week. I did go 3 weeks where I was working full time (60+ hours a week!) Now, I’m back to a day or two a week for a short while. Part of the reason was my iPhone game BoXiKoN got featured on iTunes, and sales shot up, and money started flowing, and I got a bit lost in the  excitement!! I took some time out to make the most of the exposure while it was there. Now things have settled a little, but I realise I need to manage my development time a little better.

The other reason for the slow-down is actually good news… I’ve almost completed all of the features that are copied direct from the Amiga version. There are some more obscure things left to copy over, but most of the work left to do is redesign, and new features. This means I have to put some real thought into how things will work! This is a good stage to reach, but it’s taking a bit of time to adjust as new design is always tougher.

I’ll give you an example of a design change, and welcome any feedback.

The way Bombs worked in the original game was: you bought some Bombs, and then they got used up when you collided with other players. Most Bomb & Deflect action happened in the first minute or two (except for Bombs that people picked up.) Back then, we used joysticks where 4 directions and a button were all we had. With all the different weapons and power-ups, it was just not possible to work it any other way. Now, I’m thinking of doing things differently. I’m thinking of having an on-screen display (a Bomb icon), showing you how many bombs you have. Bombs would be activated at the start of the game, and activated whenever you decide to use one. Activation could be a tap (on iPhone), or a keyboard, or extra button on a usb controller. I can’t see much fault in this idea so far…

Extra design decisions follow: I thought it could be fun to actually see a black ‘Bomb’ icon on the head of your snake, or perhaps some kind of glow or other visual clue that you’re armed and dangerous! This could add a new level of excitement to the game because victims know exactly what’s coming, there’s no surprise. I think knowing you’re being chased by a bomb, is better than a surprise. Especially when the victim knows he has a deflector!!

Perhaps the Bomb takes 5 seconds to ‘initialize’ , making a locking sound, so everyone knows you’re loading up a bomb for use. Perhaps once a bomb is initialized, there’s no way back? Too much activating/deactivating would get boring.

Well, you can see that even a simple feature can take quite  bit of thought, to get things just right.

As soon as I implement this new Bomb feature (and some other things), I will look towards releasing the game as Beta on the website for iPhone, PC and Mac. That could be 2 weeks away, but I think the move to open beta, and feedback is important at this stage.

Any feedback on this would be appreciated.