UK's LARGEST UNITY PORTING DAY - MICROSOFT / NOKIA / UNITY

What an awesome day...

Nokia decide to hold a one day porting event at their London offices along with Microsoft and Unity.

The challenge of the day was to take an existing app, either on iOS, Android, Blackberry or any other platform and port it to Windows Phone and / or Windows Store in that same day. A tonne of help was available throughout the day along with food and drink to keep the energy levels up. If that wasn’t enough lots of shiny Nokia toys were readily available to test on.

If we can get the apps published to the Windows Store by next week then we will be rewarded with a variety of Nokia devices. What better incentive to get the head down get Prison Escape II completed.

Traveling from Scotland to such events in London or further is always a difficult decision to justify. It’s going to be expensive just to get there so it is important to plan what you intend getting out of such events. In other words you need to get your moneys worth. You need to arrive back at the studio the following day and confirm that you got what you went for plus a little extra.

So did I get what I hoped for from this event?...

After virtually being stripped searched at Edinburgh airport, it was time to jump on the 6:35am flight to London Heathrow. A strong wind on our tail meant we were 20 minutes early. Heathrow express to Paddington followed by a short walk and I was being greeted at the Nokia offices with breakfast. All good so far.

Naturally many of us there were iOS developers arriving with our Macs and iOS devices so the first order of the day was to install Windows Pro 8, the Windows SDK and Unity for Windows onto a variety of Macbooks. This proved to be a slow and demoralizing task with the entire morning spent staring at progress bars.

After a lovely spot of lunch from a hot and cold buffet, my Unity project was ready to open and test. Fixing a couple of small errors due to left over iOS specific code and my project was ready build to the Windows platform. A couple more minor errors fixed by the evangelists on hand and Prison Escape II was looking and running beautifully on the Nokia 820 phone. No signs of lag so it was time to test on the lower spec Nokia 520. Again running well with no issues and no lag. This was success right there!

It was now time to do some networking - something I am not good at but for these events it is important and worth more than any amount of freebies. The rooms were full of a fantastic mix of people:

Indie developers

Game Studios

Microsoft evangelists

Unity experts

Marketing teams

Nokia organisers

And lets not forget the catering staff who laid on some nice cold beers to help wind down the day.

Back on the plane to Edinburgh, I reflected on the day. I arrived with a Macbook Pro and an iOS app and I left with Windows Pro 8, Windows Phone SDK, Unity Pro installed on my laptop and my app up and running on Nokia devices. I have 10 days to finish things off and I’ll be rewarded with a shinny new Nokia device.

On top of that I met some wonderful people and gained a wealth of sound advice from industry experts. I look forward to more events like this.

Next project. Concept art

As well as working on a new level for Prison Escape involving a train, I have been working on a spin off series from the first level. It appears people like catapulting  little men (and indeed birds) over, under, through and into walls and any other object that happens to be in the line of fire.

New characters are on the way with a more cartoon feel and plenty of animation to exaggerate various events as well as help filling in some gaps and tell more of a story.

Still at concept stage but for the moment, meet Bert....

Think he looks like a "Bert"?

This spin off series is all about escaping from prison.... lots of them!

Think prisons from the past, present and future. Think fantasy prisons as well as real life prisons from history. Alcatraz will most likely feature in the launch. Think more obscure prisons from Hollywood such as offshore installations and outer space.

In terms of graphical style, I'm aiming for a darker feel with more dramatic lighting, heavy contrast with ambient occlusion but with a sharper cleaner edge and black outlines where appropriate.

Anyway here is some more concept artwork which will hopefully demonstrate what I've just been rambling on about... 

The opening level depicting a futuristic prison. Bert carrying a boulder to break through the damaged walls behind.

Remember to check our Facebook page for further updates.

Facelift to Website

It's long overdue and the current website is so very out of date. With the next update of Prison Escape due out in another week or so I thought it was time to clean up the website and simplify it.

I also wanted to make it compatible with mobile devices. Still some work to do but this is how it will look on the iPad 4...

After some deliberation I decided to use Adobe Muse to create the site. There is a very small learning curve, the tools are logical and 'Muse' has an overall feel of an extension to Photoshop. I feel 'Muse' is limited in functionality however for a simple site such as this it is serves its purpose perfectly and you can knock up a fully functional site in no time. 

What I liked most was the speed at which you can design, preview, publish to a temporary site and view how the site will look and function in the real world on any device.

Prison Escape Level 4

Just finishing off level 4 with the aim to publish the update to the App store next week. This could be my favourite level to date with infinite scope for expansion.

You start where level 3 finishes off so after escaping from the rooftops down through the multi storey car pack, level 4 takes over on the ground nearby the car park. The actual starting point will be random in an effort to make it a little more difficult to memorise your way around the level.

As this is a new level and the mechanics are different from the previous levels, we have again introduced new gesture controls to navigate and complete the level. Level 4 is all about running through the night time streets whilst being chased by 3 policemen.

Swipe left, right, up, down to turn, jump and duck whist avoiding obstructions and moving vehicles.

The purpose of the game is obviously not to get caught, avoid oncoming obstacles, find the train station and escape.

Look out for the update in the app store in the next couple of weeks - hope you enjoy.