Finally released the first version of Bubblision on the Google Play Store. I’ve a busy few weeks coming up so, with the release of Bubblision, I’ll let the dust settle for a bit before starting any more sprints on any projects (new or existing). I’ll keep doing the SunUps though as I can’t imagine I’ll get some time off 😉 Read on

Sprint stories My priorities for this sprint are to:- Release Bubblision Expected duration Two weeks (ending 11/01/2015) Read on

Released what I hope will be the final alpha of Bubblision before the initial release. Some tasks completed during this sprint: Fixed a number of minor bugs Updated GameAnalytics and Google Play Services Added privacy policy Updated list of play testers Created (and added) a sound for levelling up Some other things I did: Celebrated Christmas 🙂 Started work on the company website Read on

Sprint stories My priorities for this sprint are to:- Fix a few outstanding bugs Release a final Alpha build Update the help screens Work on the company web site Privacy policy for Bubblision Expected duration Two weeks (ending 28/12/2014) Read on

The main achievement for this sprint has been releasing a third alpha of Bubblision – this latest alpha introduces the new level system. Some tasks completed during this sprint: Created the level system Changes some of the particle effects Limited power-ups to only showing after level three Record the highest level a player reaches Added a “Paused” message when paused Created a pop-up screen between levels Other tasks: Added a blog post to the company... Read on

Sprint stories My priorities for this sprint are to:- Complete the level system Release a third Alpha build Work on the company web site Expected duration Two weeks (ending 14/12/2014) Read on

I started implementing some of the feedback from the alpha testers during this sprint. I’ve not reached the point where I can release a third alpha yet but that’s the main aim for the next sprint. Some tasks completed during this sprint: Moved the GUI for identifying the player bubble below the release point Moved the score text around to improve the look of the game screen Updated Google Play Game Services Started work on... Read on

Some tasks completed during this week: Moved the GUI for identifying the player bubble below the release point Moved the score text around to improve the look of the game screen Updated Google Play Game Services Started work on the level system Read on

Sprint stories My priorities for this sprint are to work on some of the feedback from the alpha testers:- Better GUI for accessible version to identify player bubble Show leaderboard immediately after logging in Add level system Expected duration Two weeks (ending 30/11/2014) Read on

Had another reasonable sprint and made good progress, including releasing the first (and second) Alpha of Bubblision. Some tasks completed during this sprint: Reworked the Google Play Game Services screen Tweaked design of “Log out” button Released the first Alpha of the game to my group of testers (12/11/2014) Auto-submit scores on logging in (feedback) Design tweaks to “Play” button (feedback) Refactored the AdMob integration to fix a bug where an ad might appear on... Read on

Sprint stories My priorities for this sprint are:- Sort out the UX for logging in and logging out of Google Play Game Services Publish the beta for first round of testing! Expected duration Two weeks (ending 16/11/2014) Read on

I managed to put in a bit of time on the game this week and am quite pleased with progress. Some tasks completed during this sprint: Added Google Game Play Services Created a Leaderboard Posted scores to the Leaderboard Created some more promo images for the store listing Other tasks: Upgraded live RF1 to Django 1.6.8 Read on

Sprint stories My priorities for this sprint are:- Add Google Play Services Add high score table Carry on with graphics work for store listing Expected duration Two weeks (ending 02/11/2014) Read on

Having had no time to work on the game last week I managed to find some time this week. I’ve also come across a couple of tricky bugs which, having solved, I’ll blog about separately (when I find the time). Some tasks completed during this sprint: Added ads from AdMob to the game Configured test ads for my devices Made some design changes to the various game screens Update: now blogged about one bug: How to:... Read on

Sprint stories My priorities for this sprint are:- Finish implementing ads Add Google Play Services Add high score table Expected duration Two weeks (ending 19/10/2014) Read on

Well, this is something of a milestone as I’ve now been working on Bubblision for over a year. It’s quite surprising that I’ve been working on this fairly simple game for that length of time but, in reality, my time-sheet shows I’ve put in a total of 150 hrs (or 12.5 hrs a month) on the game. The truth is that with so many other commitments it’s difficult to find a lot of time to... Read on

Sprint stories My priorities for this sprint are:- Fix the over-lapping bug Fix the over-lapping bug … Fix the over-lapping bug …… if there’s time… start implementing ads Expected duration Two weeks (ending 05/10/2014) Read on

Probably the biggest achievement this sprint was to show the latest build of the game at the Unity meet-up. I had to do a web-player build but the demo seemed to go ok… well, no-one laughed… so I’ll count that as a success. I got some good feedback regarding making the game more testing when only one NPC bubble is in play and some other helpful comments (including on the changes I’d made to improve... Read on

Sprint stories My priorities for this sprint are:- Add trails to NPC bubbles based on colour streak size Sign up for AdMob Write some more tests Other things Present the game at the next Unity Meet-up Expected duration Two weeks (ending 22/09/2014) Read on

Some tasks completed during this sprint: Finished the save/load game functionality Game is saved automatically on pause and on exit When opting to play a game you now get a choice or load a saved game or start again Added a setting screen (moved sound and accessibility settings to it) Added code to improve the accessibility of the game Updated RF1 to support double points at the end of the season (also added an integration... Read on

Sprint stories My priorities for this sprint are:- Finish save game functionality Add a settings screen Improve accessibility Write some more tests Other things:- Sign up for an ad network Expected duration Two weeks (ending 07/09/2014) Read on

Some tasks completed during this sprint: Added some code to try and fix the overlapping NPC bubble bug Added sound for erratic movement of the final bubble Made a good start on adding save game functionality Finished reading Free: How today’s smartest businesses profit by giving something for nothing (4/5) Started reading Jacked: The unauthorized behind-the-scenes story of Grand Theft Auto Unfortunately I couldn’t make the Unity Meet-up this month (something came up at the... Read on

Sprint stories My priorities for this sprint are:- Solve bubble overlapping bug Add a settings screen Improve accessibility Add save game functionality Write some more tests Other things:- Sign up for an ad network Expected duration Two weeks (ending 24/08/2014) Extra notes I’m hoping to demo the latest build of the game at the next Unity group meet-up and I’m also doing a “code club” on Unity at work at the end of this sprint…... Read on

Some tasks completed during this sprint: Show players the colour the next player bubble will be Investigated bubble overlapping bug Made the remaining bubble in a single bubble remaining scenario more erratic in its movement Destroy player bubble if a power-up is hit (user feedback) Read more of Free: How today’s smartest businesses profit by giving something for nothing Read on

Sprint stories My priorities for this sprint are:- Show players the colour the next player bubble will be Investigate bubble overlapping bug Think about how to make the single bubble remaining scenario more entertaining Destroy player bubble if a power-up is hit (user feedback) Write some more tests Other things:- Sign up for an ad network Expected duration Two weeks (ending 10/08/2014) Read on

Some tasks completed during this sprint: Capped the score multiplier at 16x Updated code so the multiplier is only used on colour matches Registered for a developer account on the Play Store Set up my KeyStore for signing my APKs Uploaded the current APK as an Alpha to the Play Store Read more of Free: How today’s smartest businesses profit by giving something for nothing Read on

Sprint stories My priorities for this sprint are:- Cap the score multiplier Only apply multiplier on colour match Investigate showing players the colour the next player bubble will be Write some more tests Other things:- Register as a developer on the Play store Set up Alpha/Beta play test details Sign up for an ad network Expected duration Two weeks (ending 27/07/2014) Read on

To be honest “the wind has gone out of my sails” this sprint, it’s been really hard to get going again after the staggering delays associated with getting a bank account for the business. Even though this is now sorted out the enforced hiatus means it’s been a bit difficult to find the motivation – it’s strange how external factors can rapidly demotivate you and sap your energy. Some tasks completed during this sprint: Update... Read on

Sprint stories My priorities for this sprint are:- Write some more tests Other things:- Company bank account – this has become pretty critical now. I’m really unimpressed that it’s taken almost a month since I applied for a business bank account and I still haven’t got one. As a result I can’t sign up for ad networks etc so this is now a priority for me Register as a developer on the Play store Sign... Read on

Some tasks completed during this sprint: Wrote three integration tests More play testing A few other things I did: Continued to try and set up a business bank account… sigh Created some test fixtures for the Identifier Read more of Electronic Brains Read on

Sprint stories My priorities for this sprint are:- Write some tests More play testing Other things:- Company web site Company bank account Sign up for an ad network (company bank account permitting) Expected duration Two weeks (ending 29/06/2014) Read on

Some tasks completed during this sprint: Updated the design of the game spikes Updated Unity Test Tools to 1.3.1 Updated GameAnalytics to 0.6.3 Changes some of the shaders to more mobile friendly ones A few other things I did: Returned forms to the bank for my business account Read more of Electronic Brains Read more of Unity 2D Game Development Read on

Sprint stories My priorities for this sprint are:- Write some tests Finally decide on a design for the spikes More play testing Other things:- Company web site Company bank account Sign up for an ad network (company bank account permitting) Expected duration Two weeks (ending 15/06/2014) Read on

Some tasks completed during this sprint: Adjusted NPC bubble speed depending on the number of bubbles remaining Redesigned the end game screen Tried redesigned the playing area (still don’t like it) Updated NGUI to 3.6.1 A few other things I did: Went to a UKIE session on tax relief for games development Went to the Bristol Games Hub monthly social – excellent talk on sound and music in games Tried to set up business bank account…... Read on

Sprint stories My priorities for this sprint are:- Write some tests Adjust speed increase based on how many NPC bubbles remain More play testing Other things:- Company logo Company web site Company bank account Expected duration Two weeks (ending 01/06/2014) Read on

A few other things have conspired to take up my free time recently so I barely accomplished anything on Bubblision during this sprint: Updated GameAnalytics to version 0.6.2 Updated EveryPlay to version 1.8.0.1 Did some play testing A few other things I did: Upgraded RF1 to Django 1.6.5 Set up a company 🙂 Waiting for a letter from HMRC to register the accounting start date but the company is officially registered and I’ve had the... Read on

Sprint stories My priorities for this sprint are:- Write some tests Adjust speed increase based on how many NPC bubbles remain More play testing Other things:- Set up the company Expected duration Two weeks (ending 18/05/2014) Read on

During this sprint I managed to finish a few things on Bubblision: Fixed the jerky motion issue – turned out the problem was my use of FixedUpdate. FixedUpdate updates the display on a fixed time interval which is all well and good except if the FixedUpdate is out of sync with the visual update on the device. If the two are out of sync then the result is jerky motion. The solution is to switch... Read on

Sprint stories My priorities for this sprint are:- Fix the jerky motion bug Write some tests Integrate ads (once the company is set up) More play testing Expected duration Two weeks (ending 04/05/2014) Read on

During this sprint I managed to start a few things on Bubblision but didn’t finish any major items: Did some play testing Read a tutorial on integrating Google’s game services and specifically AdMob Made some changes to the shaders I use to improve performance Reduced rigidbody radius of the player bubble Spent a lot of time investigating the jerky motion you can sometimes get on game start up. The issue is intermittent and better/worse at... Read on

Sprint stories I’m expecting this to be much more like a normal sprint and I’m hoping to get some good things done. My priorities are:- Write some tests Look at integrating Google Play Services Look at integrating ads More play testing Related to a couple of the things above will be setting up my company and also getting a business bank account. Expected duration Two weeks (ending 20/04/2014) Read on

I think it’s fair to say that this sprint has been a bit of a disaster in terms of working on Bubblision. I was away for a week and, prior to that, had a number of other projects vying for my attention. As a result I did next to nothing on Bubblision. The few tasks I did do: Updated the Unity Test Tools plugin to the latest version Read some tutorials on Integration testing in... Read on

Sprint stories I’ve a lot on over the next couple of weeks so I’m not going to have much time to spend on Bubblision. For that reason I’m only going to attempt to… Write some tests Expected duration Two weeks (ending 06/04/2014) Read on

In the last sprint I completed: Stop new bubbles overlapping Made re-instantiated bubbles faster Stopped the ‘slow down’ power-up being shown when only one bubble remains Cleared power-ups when the last bubble has burst (i.e. end of the game) Tweaked the text colour used in the ‘end game’ screen Read the Unity documentation on testing Play testing A few other things I did: Did some analysis on link profiles and thin content (SEO) for one... Read on

Sprint stories Stop reinstantiated bubbles from overlapping Play testing Looking into Google Play Services Write tests Expected duration Two weeks (ending 23/03/2014) Read on

As predicted I didn’t have much time to work on Bubblision during this sprint. I did manage to: Review some of the ad networks (I’m currently thinking of using Google’s AdMob) Work on the final game screen Add the current high score to the main game screen A few other things I did: Added a couple of new awards to Reality F1 Did some work on the Glossary as I found a bug when working... Read on

Once again I’m expecting to have only limited time to work on Bubblision during this sprint as I’ll be launching my fantasy F1 game for 2014. That said I’m going to try and complete the following… Sprint stories Finish the ‘Game Over’ screen Stop restored bubbles from overlapping existing bubbles when they first appear Consider adding high scores and best colour streak to the game screen Decide on an Ad network Expected duration Two weeks... Read on

As expected, I didn’t have a huge amount of time to spend on Bubblision during this sprint. Tasks completed this sprint: Sorted out the scaling for different screen resolutions Removed the old code for adjusting camera size on the menu screens Created/improved GUIs and screens Home screen Help screen Credits screen Game screen – addition of logo and score etc Added functionality to toggle the sound on and off SunUp #14-08 Spent most of my... Read on

This has been a bit of a mixed up sprint as I’ve had a lot of other things to do at the same time so I’ve not been able to put in as much time as I’d have liked. Over the next few weeks I’ll launch my fantasy F1 game so that will impinge on the time available for Bubblision too. Tasks completed this sprint: Increased the speed of the restored NPC bubbles an increased... Read on

Sprint stories Fix duplicate player bubble bug Give new bubbles an average speed rather than starting them at the slowest speed Add ability to pause the game Install NGUI (a library to help with the in game GUI) Create the designs and artwork for the remaining scenes Code tidy up 😉 Expected duration Two weeks (ending 09/02/2014) Read on

After a slow start I managed to get a few things done during this sprint. I’ve still been unable to fix the duplicate player bubble issue and this will have to roll over to the next sprint. I’ve a few things left to try, including a rewrite of the code, as a lot of the other things I’ve tried haven’t worked. To date I’ve tried making the player bubble a singleton, trying to detect and... Read on

Sprint stories Detect player bubble collision with power-up Fix duplicate player bubble bug Adjust NPC bubble spike burst player collision Adjust size of NPC collider Create app icon Expected duration Two weeks (ending 26/01/2014) Read on

I didn’t have as much time to work on my projects as I’d hoped during this sprint. The sprint overlapped with the New Year and also me needing to mark some of my students’ assignments. As a result I probably had only half the time I usually have during a sprint and so I finished fewer tasks. Tasks completed this sprint: Fixed a bug which led to the score increasing if the player bubble burst... Read on

Sprint stories Randomly show power-ups to player Detect player bubble collision with power-up Create app icon Expected duration Two weeks (ending 12/01/2014) As this is the first sprint of the New Year I might also blog about some New Year resolutions. Read on

This sprint was disrupted as the last week coincided with Christmas so I didn’t get to spend as much time on the game as I’d hoped. However, I did complete a reasonable number of tasks although didn’t finish some of the big tasks associated with “power-ups”. Tasks completed this sprint: Decide on power-up types Create icons for power-ups Show score in game screen Populate remaining scenes with GUI etc Game GUI – score Store player... Read on

Sprint stories Decide on power-up types Create icons for power-ups Randomly show power-ups to player Detect player bubble collision with power-up Show score in game screen Populate remaining scenes with GUI etc Expected duration Two weeks (ending 29/12/2013) Although I expect the sprint to last two weeks I think it’s fair to say that the festive period will have an impact on how much I get done. I’m hoping to get the game to a... Read on

Well, Sprint 5 actually went rather well, so well in fact that I completed all the tasks I’d assigned to the sprint and also a few more besides. One of the tasks I hadn’t planned to complete this sprint was implementing analytics on the game. Mobile games track a lot of data about how players use their games (whether the player realises it or not) and this guides a lot of the decisions about how... Read on

Sprint stories Add sound for NPC bubble collisions Add sound for player bubble burst Add sound for NPC bubble burst Add sound for collision between player and NPC bubble Slow down NPC bubbles if colour matches colliding player Expected duration Two weeks (ending 15/12/2013) Read on

Wow, these sprints are rattling along! It’s the end of Sprint 4 already and I completed all the stories. Towards the end of the sprint I came across a rather frustrating issue with the collisions in the game but this turned out to be something I’d overlooked and easy to fix… albeit after spending a couple of hours researching Unity’s collision detection and reviewing all my code. I’ll write a blog post about that separately... Read on

Sprint stories Player bubble burst and re-instantiate Instantiate NPC bubbles at runtime Set collisions between NPC bubbles and the player bubble Expected duration Two weeks (ending 02/12/2013) Read on

Well, I have to say that I didn’t think I’d complete all the tasks I’d allocated to this sprint. The tasks themselves were a bit tricky and on top of that a combination of people visiting us, the kids having colds and me having to do some unexpected work on another project meant I didn’t have much time to devote to this sprint. That said, I managed to complete the tasks and I’m pleased with... Read on

Sprint stories Create NPC bubble burst particles NPC bubbles burst and remove Create spikes at the bottom of the playing area Create player bubble Launch player bubble on tap Expected duration Two weeks (ending 17/11/2013) Read on

It’s the end of Sprint 2 for Bubblision and I’ve completed all the tasks and fixed a few early bugs. One of the major tasks this time was to do the first Android build and seeing the first dev build on my phone (even though it’s not playable) was a big milestone. Set up Pivotal Tracker Adjusted game area NPC bubble collisions Background art work First Android build Stop NPC bubbles getting stuck at the... Read on

Sprint stories Set up Pivotal Tracker to keep track of all the sprints, stories, back log and ice box etc. Set collisions on NPC bubbles Configure the screen limits Create background artwork Set up video capture Upload game progress video First Android build Expected duration Two weeks (ending 04/11/2013) At the end of the first sprint I decided to reduce the sprint time from three weeks to two weeks. Read on

Sprint stories review Set up Git repo Create Unity project and configure it to use Git Create game design document/summary Basic screens/menus Movement of NPCs – currently just moving around a bounding box. The bubbles bounce off the walls but not each other Additional stories: Set up Google Docs spreadsheet and data collection form to keep track of time spent on various tasks Added a glow (light) to each of the bubbles Randomly switched bubble... Read on

Background Bubblision was a (very) basic Flash game I created in 2003 for our Staff Art Show. Now I’d like to create a much improved and bigger version in Unity – for deployment on Android (and hopefully iOS). The game is a small puzzle (casual) game and my plan is to use it as a manageable project for my first experience with Unity. Building on that I can then work on some of the bigger... Read on

Sprint tasks review Created a new branch in the git repo Migrated the code Fail – confirm the existing SimpleTest test suite reports no errors Additional task – Migrated test suite to PHPUnit Tested the deployment to a fresh CakePHP 2 install Merged branch into master Moved code into production Complete Read on

Story By the end of this sprint we will have migrated the current application from CakePHP 1.3 to CakePHP 2.3. We will have also deployed the new codebase into production. Sprint tasks Create a new branch in the git repo Migrate the code Confirm the existing SimpleTest test suite reports no errors Test the deployment to a fresh CakePHP 2 install Merge branch into master Move code into production Expected duration One – two weeks.... Read on

Sprint tasks review Work out how to extend SimpleTest to a test database with the WebTester Complete – see documentation. Create Integration Tests Created tests for Terms (public and admin functionality) Created tests for Groups (public and admin functionality) Created tests for Links (public and admin functionality) Created tests for other ancilliary models (admin functionality mainly) Complete – tests created Read on

Story As a developer I need to be certain that the web front-end of the application works as expected. Sprint tasks Work out how to extend SimpleTest to a test database with the WebTester Create Integration Tests (predominantly Terms, Groups, Links but also including ancillary models) Expected duration Two – three weeks. Read on

Sprint tasks review Migrate existing code to a git repo Complete – Source code moved to my BitBucket account. Install SimpleTest Complete – SimpleTest installed and tested using CakePHP 1.3 core tests. Create Unit Tests (Models and Util component) Created fixtures (needed fixtures for all models) Created tests for Models Created tests for Util component Complete – tests created Read on

Story As a developer I need to migrate the current code base from CakePHP 1.3.15 to CakePHP 2.x. In order to do this I need to create missing unit tests as these will allow me to migrate to the new codebase and retest the migrated code. I also want the code to be under version control. Sprint tasks Migrate existing code to a git repo Install SimpleTest – the only test framework supported by CakePHP... Read on