Test Driven Development is a well known technique to produce well tested code. I first heard about it around 3 or 4 years ago from a colleague but only came to apply it in a coding dojo myself for the first time a little more than 1 year ago. A process to reliably “generate” unit tests The idea is to write a (failing / red) unit test before actually implementing a part of the functionality itself, then implement the functionality…

Its already 8 month since the last post. Month that passed quickly. Since January I am working as an official freelance software architect in a scrum team for my customer. However there are some ideas that I can now finally pursue with this channel meaning that updates are going to come again soon. Topics I am interested will continue to be game design and development related topics, but I currently not see myself as a full game developer, and clicking…

So the beta ran over the weekend and I received some hints and input from good friends. I am happy that most of the people I talked to that tried the game, seemed to like it till now. I decided that while in beta, I want to push a version on Fridays and Tuesdays, and the same goes for the blog posts. That way, I can celebrate a release and look back on what went good, and what went bad.…

Ohh boy, I am so happy. It was a hell of a ride till here, and as said last time, I never thought there would be something playable within four weeks, but I am happy that I was wrong. Due to the commitment I gave myself for today, I went straight to pushing the app into the stores, itch.io and googleplay. TrainAutomaton on GooglePlay TrainAutomaton on Itch.io And that looks easier than it was. I did not do any research…

Ok. Four weeks ago, I would not have thought to get a real game out in 4 weeks. This Friday is approaching fast, but I feel it is very possible to get the TrainAutomaton out on GooglePlay and itch.io this Friday. Today, I will finalize the second and third level pack, and if time is left, invest in my artwork. Tomorrow is there to prepare a youtube trailer and some Splash Screens for the project pages in said stores, and…

Today was the final day of week three. I am happy with my progress, although I think I am not exposing the Train Automaton enough to other people. My wife gave me some feedback on the tutorial levels I was working on today, and I showed the version some friends. If you want to test the game, I can provide an apk or windows version, just get in touch. To the stuff I have: Tutorial levels: This week I decided…

Make the user reset, not regret. Today I wanted to stop the user from accidentally resetting his solution, since I noticed players would sometimes do so. In my first iteration, I would have a normal menu like popup. But that seemed very intrusive. So I came up with the idea of adding a little animation to the button, that shows the user a “red button of kaboom”. Other animations. afterwards I was working on the animation to clarify a train…

This week starts with steam! I iterated over the train animation, and now little clouds apear near the train. Also the train now has a coal waggon and a car. I actually did try to animate the waggons each on their own, but that was a real pain: The animations where never in sync, no matter what I tried. The engine would end the animation of the current tile, while the other ones where not even close to finished, or…

This week ends early for me. Tomorrow I will go to the Spiel in Essen, and see whats new in the world of boardgames. My Milestone this week was called visually polished alpha, and I am not quite where I wanted to be yet. Yesterday and the day before: The day before yesterday was travelling. When I reached home, I felt not yet ready, but I did not continue working because there was some immediate stuff to do at home.…