BlackOut 1.1 was sent to Microsoft earlier today, just have to wait for it to get approved. I wanted to get theme support out as soon as possible, so a lot of the new features mentioned in the previous post will trickle out in the next coming updates. All of the bug fixes are in this release, and full theme support. Expect another release shortly…
I will also be working to get the product page up for BlackOut, so expect it to show up under products soon as well!
Been working on the blackout theme support. I had to do some modifications to some of the storyboard animations on the board since they didn’t play well together. Overall, I think I will release this next version with three themes, and build out further from that point.
The first them is Aqua — Aqua is my own twist on an Apple look, it has some nice gradients, a bit of fireworks in the background and some nice gloss on it. I did keep it pretty dark, and muted it down a bit though so it doesn’t stick out too much on Windows Phone, it still fits right in if you ask me and it looks great! I might even make it the default theme…
The second theme is LED — This one kind of borrows from the old school marquees where they had a bunch of LED bulbs and would scroll text in front of restaurants. It’s very basic, but has just enough texture to it to make it stand out.
The third theme is Metro — This is the current existing theme, which is basically no theme at all. It’s the flat 2-d squares that we have all come to know and love about Windows Phone!
As a bonus, every single theme will still let you change the color to your choosing the same as before. The color will blend into your theme and what you get is just absolutely stunning.
If you have any theme requests, please post them in the comments below! I am open to any suggestions, even feedback on the existing themes, to bright, to dark, etc.
BlackOut v1.0 is now available for Windows Phone 7 on the marketplace. You can download it now for free! BlackOut is a lights off game for Windows Phone 7.
The following is a list of features in the current version:
- 338 Custom Tailored Levels
- Intelligent hint system to help you along
- Metro theme with customizable colors
- Fast and stylish animations to transform the board
- Score system to keep track of your scores
Now that version 1.0 is out, I have begun working on version 1.1 features. Below is a list of the features that are slated for version 1.1:
- Theme support
- Custom Level Designer
- Random Level Generator
- Leader Boards
- Various bug fixes
In addition to being able to select a color for your board, you will also be able to select a theme! Below is an example of the aqua theme that is already complete and working in the game.
The level designer is the same level designer that was used to create all 338 levels. It is being fixed up so it can be used by the public, currently it is not very user friendly and needs some UI work done on it.
The custom level designer will tell you how difficult the level is going to be, whether the level has a winnable solution, will allow visualization of hint patterns, will check for duplicate boards, and offers you the option to randomly generate a board using the random level generator.
At some point I would like to be able to build support so people can build their own levels, and share them online with other people, but for now that is in the future.
The random level generator will build unique and random levels. Currently when you get to the last level in the game (338), it will go back to level 1. In version 1.1, it will ask if you would like to continue using the random level generator. The random level generator will always builds a board that has a solution, and it will build up 300 unique boards back to back without ever repeating a previous design. If you were to play a game using the random level generator, you are guaranteed at minimum 300 unique levels.
The leader boards will store your high scores in our database so you can compete against other people from around the world. I am unsure if this will make it into version 1.1 or if it will be in 1.2 at the moment. I am still working out the details.
- Fixed a bug where the board would flicker– this is only noticeable if you are using the lighter colors for your board. It can be very distracting though and this has been resolved!
- Replaced the Microsoft ads with a new ad provider. This one is a bit better and less resource intensive. For whatever reason, the Microsoft one would cause an occasional hiccup in the game animations. This one does not so everything seems much more smooth. Additionally, this one is supported around the world so it will show up in countries outside of the United States.
- High Scores will now only update if the previous score was worse than your new score. This was broken and the score would always update in the past. Also renamed the screen from “Scores” to “High Scores”
- Drastically improved the help screen based on user feedback– it now offers substantially better verbiage. It also offers reference guidance from around the web on strategies for playing the game.
When I originally released Hanoi in September I promised world wide high scores as coming soon! Well I am glad to let you know they are nearly done, it’s not nearly as easy as it sounds! I had to setup my own server side database, web services, and high score system to get all of this to work.
I also would be introducing an element of instability into the game where it will now be reaching out onto the network to fetch data, there are lots of use cases around this where the server could be down for maintenance, the internet connection on the phone could be not working, airplane mode, etc. So I have to take that into consideration when developing the platform, with that said, here is a screen shot of how its going to look on the game. The server side piece is done, the client side piece is done, and I am working on finishing up some testing and some final details.
I should have the final push out very soon! The lite version will have read only Leader Boards, while the Full Version will let you participate in the leader boards.
The below shot contains test data:
Been working very hard on a new Windows Phone 7 game, and at the same time I have pushed two new versions of Hanoi. I have to admit that I am not doing a very good job at keeping this blog in the loop on what is going on with everything. With that said, I am going to make 2011 my new attempt at trying to keep things more updated.
To the left is a sneak peek at the new game, it should be out very shortly. Its about 75% completed, its fully functional, I only need to add some polish to the main menu, etc. If you can guess what it is from that then you definitely get some brownie points! 
This will be the last game that I write for a bit, I am going to focus on productivity and business applications for Windows Phone 7 at which point I may switch back and forth between the two of them. I am also looking into Appcelerator to do some Android and iPhone work. I have done Objective-C iPhone work in the past, but its pretty time consuming and I have been an Appcelerator beta tester for as before the company even existed but never really used any of their products.
After a lot of work, and still more work work down the road the final release of Towers of Hanoi is nearly complete! A ton of new features have been added and I have a lot of features planned for future releases, I was going to try and submit early into the early access program that Microsoft is offering but I recently decided to go ahead and add the next wave of features to it for final release!
So what will Hanoi have for its final release?
It will be available for $0.99 USD and will have a Trial Mode, the trial version will be limited to basics.
Trial Version
Future Versions
I will be posting a new video, and screen shots of everything very soon as these new additions progress so keep in touch!
So I have been working on lots of Windows Phone 7 games and applications, and so far all of them I plan to sell, albeit cheaply like .99 cents or something around there, but I wanted to make a free one as well just to kind of give something to the community. So I decided to write a Tic-Tac-Toe game, but I wanted to spruce it up a bit so I put my Photoshop skills to work and I have come up with the following. This is a quick preview, the game is near completion actually I just need to start putting the bits and pieces together. If you are curious its play against the computer only right now, the AI is done using MiniMax with some tweaks to make it slightly dumb so you can can actually win a game or two and the computer seems very intelligent at decision making.
I’ll probably add multiple chalk colors and such to make it more fun, this game is obviously aimed at the younger crowd but adults can still have fun with it as well!
Take a look at one my other Windows Phone 7 Games I posted called Towers of Hanoi!
So I have been developing a couple Windows Phone 7 Applications in Silverlight in anticipation for the October release of the phone, below is a preview of the first game I have written that is a Towers of Hanoi game. It was relatively easy to do, only took me total of 2 weeks development time and that was with 2 full time clients at the same time. I could have easily pulled this off in 3-4 days time, which just goes to show you the sheer amount of power that Silverlight is offering up here on this platform!
So what do you think? I am going to slowly add features to it overtime but this is the final version of this game. I have 3 other applications that I am working on for Windows Phone 7 with the goal of release 4 fully fledged apps by October. Not all of them are games, but most of them will end up probably being games for the time being.
Update: I forgot to mention that I borrowed a bunch of concepts for this game from one of my favorite iPhone Towers of Hanoi games by NimbleBit. If you have an iPhone I seriously recommend getting that version as its awesome!
Eric Malamisura
Owner of Elucidsoft LLC
IM via Google Talk: elucidsoft
Phone: +1 (703) 679-7688
