InvinciBall - iPhone Game

I just got InvinciBall 1.0 onto the AppStore

Code (csharp):

1. What is it?
2. King of the Hill with Balls
3.  
4. FEATURING
5.     * Beautifully detailed 3D graphics and sound
6.     * Awesome physics engine
7.     * 3 game modes
8.     * 3 difficulty settings
9.  
10. CLASSIC MODE
11. Gather points by rolling into a scoring zone or steal points from opponents by knocking them out of the arena!
12.  
13. SURVIVAL MODE
14. You lose a life each time you fall out of the arena, but so do your opponents. Last ball rolling wins.
15.  
16. TERRITORY MODE
17. Capture as many scoring zones as you can. Holding onto them will earn you points.
18.  
19. CONTROLS
20. Move your ball by flicking anywhere on the screen to add force to your ball. Tilting or shaking is not required.

I have a gameplay video on this page:
http://protonstudio.com/InvinciBall/

And here is the link to it in the AppStore:
http://itunes.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/viewSoftware?id=301047058&mt=8


Technical Details
- The balls are all just billboards with a sphere collider
- The shadow is actually part of the billboard. I just adjust the alpha to show or hide the shadow (saves 4 draw calls if I were to do the shadow in a separate pass )
- Faces are drawn in a 2nd pass though

 

looks nice!

what do you mean by "adjust the alpha"? are you writing to the alpha-channel of the image?

 

When the faces were just black lines I was able to do it all in 1 pass like this:

Code (csharp):

1.  
2. Pass {
3.             Lighting Off
4.             SeparateSpecular Off
5.             SetTexture [_MainTex] {
6.                 Combine texture, texture
7.             }
8.             SetTexture [_FaceTex] {
9.                 Combine texture * previous, previous
10.             }
11.         }

That would draw the ball with the shadow since the alpha channel in _MainTex allowed the shadow to show through.

To get rid of the shadow I would change the shader on the material slightly:

Code (csharp):

1.  
2. Pass {
3.             Lighting Off
4.             SeparateSpecular Off
5.             SetTexture [_MainTex] {
6.                 Combine texture, texture
7.             }
8.             SetTexture [_FaceTex] {
9.                 Combine texture * previous, texture
10.             }
11.         }

Now it uses the alpha of the _FaceTex image which is a perfect circle, thus the shadow is masked.

So I can just swap between the 2 shaders depending on if the ball is touching the ground.

I ended up adding another pass to the face to add color (the white eyes). But that is okay since I saved a pass on the shadows

 

you really think you can sell the game at $2.99 (it looks super polished but that seems kind of high). I would buy it for $1.99USD!

 

Yeah, I think you are right. I changed it a few hours ago to $1.99 and the changes have just taken effect.

I was looking at this article:
http://bestpracticepricing.blogspot.com/2008/08/appstore-microcosmos-for-understanding.html

Finding the right price is tricky. I had 30 downloads on the first day. So at 1.99 I would need to get 45 sales to make the same amount. It seems from the comments and emails I have gotten, that I could have made 45 possibly.

The app store is pretty fun to work with, once you get past the certificate stuff. Now I get to focus on user feedback and make version 1.1 better in the areas people like. Possibly a pinball machine type level.

 

you got a sale sir !