Aaron Tinkers

I was relieved and then excited to try my Snowball game on the iPad. First off, there were no show stopping problems when moving from the simulator to the hardware. Yes, there are some issues I’ll explain below, but it was completely playable.

In fact, it is VERY playable. It’s the most fun I’ve had with the game. Expanding away from the tight screen and cramped play space on the iPod Touch really makes it a new experience. I could speculate all I wanted — and I had mixed results with the speculating — but there’s no comparison to holding it in hand.

One of the best parts was sharing my game session with my daughter. We sat comfortably next to each other and figured out the puzzles. We could both reach in and make something happen whenever we wanted. The screen doesn’t lose clarity from wider angles so we could both see it fine. It’s something that doesn’t happen naturally on any other device I can think of.

A couple of surprises did pop up. I need to adjust the length of a swipe necessary to get snowball to roll. Seems that the big screen encourages slightly wilder swipes from people.

Also, the tilt is far nicer than I expected. I actually implemented a double touch alternative to get gravity moving because I thought using tilt would be cumbersome and/or tire people out. It was a pretty big plumbing job as I had originally built the game around single touches only. I figured the tilt would be default on the iPhone and the two-finger push would be default on the iPad, but tilting turned out to be pretty great on the iPad. The larger size allows for more precise tilting. Haven’t decided if tilting will be default on the iPad, but I think I will. I was half right, though. It can get tiring to use tilt in a game like this. I know that some people will prefer the two-touch method after a while. I enjoyed using both and I’m glad I added the option.

I found that apps that don’t flip orientation when you flip the device stand out like a sore thumb. It’s something I’m going to have to implement, and I’m unsure how tricky that will be. I know I hardcoded some stuff in there I shouldn’t have, so that’s another plumbing job.

My initial impression of the iPad itself is extremely positive. I have this whole week to work on the game, so real progress should happen soon. I’m going to have to cut this entry off because I need to work on the game!

Tags: code, iPad, iPhone, iPod Touch, Programming, Snowball Touch

This entry was posted on Monday, April 5th, 2010 at 12:19 pm and is filed under Blog, Games, Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.