My new game - Tornado Time for iOS and Android - 3D physics tornado destruction

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LennyLenard_sl

shitlord
195
2
Hi guys. Some of you may remember this from the Ludum Dare thread almost a year ago.

My partner and I have just released our first mobile game,Tornado Timefor iOS and Android.







Full Imgur Album

We made it in Unity over the course of six months (half full time, half part time).

iOS versionis free to download, comes with first level unlocked and three other levels that can be purchased via IAP (one time unlocking fee, no other costs).

There's two Android versions,one fullandone free(just the first level).

We recommend iPad 2 or better, iPhone 4S or better (will run alright on 4, will run like shit on 3GS). Android is recommended Android 4.2 or better (tested on Nexus 7 and AT&T based Galaxy S3).

Any questions, comments, either game, Unity or mobile development related, please ask in thread or PM.

Thanks!
 
Stave

Stave

Potato del Grande
2,106
4,027
Congrats. I will have to check it out. I myself am starting out android development, and am being lured by Unity and the ability to publish multiplatform and ease of use. So do you have to pay any royalties, or did you make this with the free Unity license? And from what I understand, unless you make over 100k in a year, you can use it for free, is that true? Oh and what language is best to use for this? I have been learning Java heavily, but don't know any C# or C++. I would like to develop for Android and ios together.
 
L

LennyLenard_sl

shitlord
195
2
Stave_sl said:
Congrats. I will have to check it out. I myself am starting out android development, and am being lured by Unity and the ability to publish multiplatform and ease of use. So do you have to pay any royalties, or did you make this with the free Unity license? And from what I understand, unless you make over 100k in a year, you can use it for free, is that true? Oh and what language is best to use for this? I have been learning Java heavily, but don't know any C# or C++. I would like to develop for Android and ios together.
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Thanks. Unity has its ups and its downs. We, my partner and I, both have Unity Pro ($1500) as I'm in the US and he's in the UK and it is just easier that way (and we do non mobile stuff quite a bit that requires the pro features). Unity also requires separate licenses for mobile platforms and/or other configurations (beyond web/pc/mac/linux). However, recently, they added free versions of the mobile licenses, and we published ours with these free mobile versions (still all done from the same editor, just affects things like splash screen and some compile options). A bit confusing.

Unity doesn't require royalties, no matter what version you use. You might be thinking on Unreal Engine which does have something similar to what you described.

As for languages, Unity supports C#, a kind of JavaScript called UnityScript, and a language called Boo. It is built on Mono, a framework which is an opensource version of the .Net Framework from Microsoft, which is why the cross platform is so easy. If there is a Mono version for the platform, then most likely Unity can build to it. I've personally never written more than 5 lines of Java in my life though I did have to learn some Objective C for this project.

I'm no expert, as I mentioned, this is my first time doing a mobile app. But generally iOS requires Objective C (which is Apple's own take on adding objects to C) while Android requires Java. So, unless you want to do the same work twice in both languages, you probably need to find a middleware that'll do the work for you so that it only needs to be written in one language. I can't really comment on alternatives, as I've been a Unity user for about 3-3.5 years.

What do you want to make? An app that fetches json based weather data will be quite different than making a 3D game, for instance. There's tons of theories and arguments about the "right way" but from my own experience, I figured out what I wanted to do, then found a road (or often several broken tangential roads) that got me to my destination.
 
Stave

Stave

Potato del Grande
2,106
4,027
LennyLenard_sl said:
Thanks. Unity has its ups and its downs. We, my partner and I, both have Unity Pro ($1500) as I'm in the US and he's in the UK and it is just easier that way (and we do non mobile stuff quite a bit that requires the pro features). Unity also requires separate licenses for mobile platforms and/or other configurations (beyond web/pc/mac/linux). However, recently, they added free versions of the mobile licenses, and we published ours with these free mobile versions (still all done from the same editor, just affects things like splash screen and some compile options). A bit confusing.

Unity doesn't require royalties, no matter what version you use. You might be thinking on Unreal Engine which does have something similar to what you described.

As for languages, Unity supports C#, a kind of JavaScript called UnityScript, and a language called Boo. It is built on Mono, a framework which is an opensource version of the .Net Framework from Microsoft, which is why the cross platform is so easy. If there is a Mono version for the platform, then most likely Unity can build to it. I've personally never written more than 5 lines of Java in my life though I did have to learn some Objective C for this project.

I'm no expert, as I mentioned, this is my first time doing a mobile app. But generally iOS requires Objective C (which is Apple's own take on adding objects to C) while Android requires Java. So, unless you want to do the same work twice in both languages, you probably need to find a middleware that'll do the work for you so that it only needs to be written in one language. I can't really comment on alternatives, as I've been a Unity user for about 3-3.5 years.

What do you want to make? An app that fetches json based weather data will be quite different than making a 3D game, for instance. There's tons of theories and arguments about the "right way" but from my own experience, I figured out what I wanted to do, then found a road (or often several broken tangential roads) that got me to my destination.
Click to expand...
Thanks, I really appreciate the tips. I am mainly planning on making pretty simple 2d games. Puzzle games, platformers maybe, etc. I was going to make Android apps with Java, but after hearing more about Unity it sounds like it's easier to develop with, and able to platform games to android and ios which is a nice bonus. I prefer to not have to go back and totally rewrite code to export it to both platforms, which is why I was curious about the language to use so that it can export easily to both.

I'm sure I will find out all this stuff as I delve more into it. I just don't want to start learning a bunch of other languages yet, until I become more comfortable in one, and I am knee-deep in Java right now. Trying to learn multiple languages at once in the past just led to failure for me. My biggest concern is I don't want to waste a ton of time learning one language and then finding out I should have learned another instead. I understand your road theory, seems like there is a lot of that. Many roads to take but the question is which one. I suppose all will lead me to programming apps in the end.

Anyways, sorry to bombard your announcement thread with programming questions. Going to download and try your game out here when I get a break at work later.
 
L

LennyLenard_sl

shitlord
195
2
Don't worry about it, this isn't exactly a prime promotional spot (far better places to do so), just wanted to share my excitement about the release. And I love talking development.

Unity recently released a 2D version which has made it a good (or better? than previously) choice for platforming or other 2D games. Haven't used it much myself, but I've seen tons of tutorials and walk-throughs popping up (and tons of Flappy Bird clones showing up on Unity's forums that are using it). You might also want to consider, and I don't have any names at hand, looking for a HTML5 framework as those tend to be fairly easy to get into. I also believe GameMaker supports a variety of platforms, including Android and iOS. So there's always options.

The thing that most people don't talk about, and I'm not sure why not (I guess because it's just assumed), is the cost. To get up and running for iOS development you need to pay a $100/yr license, plus have a computer running OS X to run their XCode IDE. Android is $25/yr license, and could be compiled on any platform I believe. So you need to decide how important it is for hitting both, especially if you're just starting up and have never done anything like it before.
 
Jx3

Jx3

Riddle me this...
1,039
173
Downloaded for the iOS. Bought the Area 52 level and its fun. Both levels are well done. Minor complaint/bug When doing the Area 52 level once I complete I get the extra points for achievements/ secrets but I don't see what they are. Besides that its a fun little game.
 
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LennyLenard_sl

shitlord
195
2
Glad you enjoyed it. What device are you running? There was a problem with version 1.0 (was released on the 6th I believe) on the iPhone 4 that caused the end of round points not to show, but that should be fixed with v1.0.1 from yesterday.
 
Jx3

Jx3

Riddle me this...
1,039
173
Running it on an Ipad 2. ver 1.0.1.

edit. updating my ipad to iOS 7.1. That might be an issue. I'll let you know.
 
A

Astral Projection_sl

shitlord
1,268
18
Pretty cool. Downloaded on my Nexus 7 tablet and my gf's 10-year-old son's Samsung Galaxy Light. Works great on both, no issues whatsoever. He really likes it.

I got 350k on the first level but then he destroyed me with over 600k.
smile.png
 
Jx3

Jx3

Riddle me this...
1,039
173
LennyLenard_sl said:
Glad you enjoyed it. What device are you running? There was a problem with version 1.0 (was released on the 6th I believe) on the iPhone 4 that caused the end of round points not to show, but that should be fixed with v1.0.1 from yesterday.
Click to expand...
Updated the Ipad to 7.1 and everything works great. That must ahve been the problem. Awesome game!
 
L

LennyLenard_sl

shitlord
195
2
Astral Projection_sl said:
Pretty cool. Downloaded on my Nexus 7 tablet and my gf's 10-year-old son's Samsung Galaxy Light. Works great on both, no issues whatsoever. He really likes it.

I got 350k on the first level but then he destroyed me with over 600k.
smile.png
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Haha nice. Thanks so much for playing.

We'll be pushing an Android update in the next day or two, but just to add a "Quit" button to the menu, since apparently that's a thing Android games/apps generally have.
 
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Tenks

Bronze Knight of the Realm
14,163
607
Cool stuff Lenny congrats on the game. Wish I had the motivation to work on something like this. I have a really neat game design concept but it's scale is a bit to much for me to bite off at the moment. Kind of a mixture between Plague Inc. and Starcraft.
 
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LennyLenard_sl

shitlord
195
2
Thanks Tenks!

That sounds cool just from the "x + y" concept. You should pursue it if you can, even if it's one hour a week, it'll be more likely to get done (or far enough to see if it'll work) than never working on it.
smile.png
 
L

LennyLenard_sl

shitlord
195
2
Stave_sl said:
And from what I understand, unless you make over 100k in a year, you can use it for free, is that true?
Click to expand...
Just a correction on this as I wasn't quite accurate before. Been re-reading some stuff since Unity 5 was just announced. $100,000 is a figure that does come up, it applies to organizations:

Entity Size Restrictions for Unity Free

Unity Free, which include the free platform add-on products, may not be licensed or used by a commercial entity with annual gross revenues (based on prior fiscal year) in excess of US$100,000, or by an educational, academic, non-profit or government entity with a total annual budget for the entire entity (based on prior fiscal year) in excess of US$100,000.

So, I do suppose if you make a game with the free version, it is does well (or you are part of a group that makes $100k+/yr), you may be on the hook to pay for the pro licenses. But it's not royalty based.
 
K

Kharza-kzad_sl

shitlord
1,080
0
Haha I remember the ludum dare version of this! With Cheney and all, loved it!

My crappy old iphone can't run anything anymore or I'd grab it, but looks like you really made it snazzy
 
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LennyLenard_sl

shitlord
195
2
Draegan_sl said:
Downloading on my Note 3 now. Check it out soon.
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Cool, let me know what you think!

Kharza-kzad_sl said:
Haha I remember the ludum dare version of this! With Cheney and all, loved it!

My crappy old iphone can't run anything anymore or I'd grab it, but looks like you really made it snazzy
Click to expand...
Haha, yep, exactly. I remember trying to explain to my British partner why Dick Cheney, I don't think he ever got it. It's a shame your iphone is too old (it's best on an iPad tbh), but perhaps some day! Thanks very much.
 
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