Fishing Cactus development blog » Announcement

Shift 2 level contest

Bruno Urbain — Tue, 31 Aug 2010 06:42:47 +0000

As some already guessed, Armor Games and Fishing Cactus are bringing Shift 2 to the iPhone, and we need your help. We are looking for users to create and submit levels for ‘Shift 2′ that we can feature in the game.

If we end up featuring your level in Shift 2 (iPhone) you’ll get your full name in the credits as well as a free copy of the game in the app store.

The rules for the contest are as follows:

1. E-mail your level codes to support@fishingcactus.com
2. Make sure you include your full name to be listed in the credits
3. Lastly, submit an e-mail address that is easiest to reach you so the game can be sent to the winners.

Armor Games & Fishing Cactus wishes all contestants the best of luck! To get started, click here. Follow us on Twitter to know in real-time what we think about the levels submitted!

Behind the Level Design of Shift 2

Samuel Languy — Wed, 25 Aug 2010 10:10:30 +0000

Yes, you heard me, that’s what I’m talking about. The Level Design process of Shift 2 levels.

Who knows? We might have something related in developement…

Let’s face it, designing batches of dozen and dozen levels while keeping our beloved player entertained can be tricky. So here are some tips and tricks we use in the making of the levels for our unique platformer (as a reminder created by Anthony Lavelle and Armor Games).

Evolution

While Shift 1 was featuring only 2 kind of level elements (doors and spikes) Shift 2 is featuring brand new elements which greatly improve the level design possibilities, hence, player experience. Let’s have a quick look at those.

Rotators:

This feature is a trigger represented by a 4 direction arrow placed on any simple black or white tile. If the player walks on it, the level rotates in that direction.

It is a very big change that introduces 2 new ways of seeing the level for a player. It also allows the design of much more aerial/platform-oriented levels, in which the player has to gracefully jump back and forth, avoiding deadly spikes while being rotated at each landing. Lot of fun in perspective !

Shift impermeable material:

This level element creates platforms which are not black or white, hence impossible to shift!

Impermeable material disolver:

This bonus goes with the previous, picking it up will transform a non-shiftable material that the designer has preset into a black or white shiftable square.

Customisable door:

We can now set 5 different lengths for the door. Yay! It means that it is possible to think of much cooler dynamic mazes using the doors to block or open path.

Design process

Let’s see what we got now… Design process, or how to use all the elements we talked about in order to create fun, challenging, and varied levels.

Find a base to start with:

It is nearly impossible to think of a Shift 2 level in one shot. Something will most probably go wrong and you’ll find yourself with a level impossible to finish, or really easy to exploit. As it is really difficult to plan out a level straight ahead, it is better off to start with a base. It can be some randomly placed platforms or a simple layout or a theme (such as the aerial level, for instance). Better not place any special elements such as door or rotators yet and keep them for the end.

Iteration:

It is common to almost every design process (be it game or level): Think about what you want to do, do it, test, redo, test, redo so on so forth until you have a satisfying result. The “redo” basically means to implement new elements if you have new ideas while testing, or fix the level (difficulties, impossibility to finish, exploits etc…). If you think you are done do not forget to have your levels tested by another person! At Fishing Cactus we have several designers and most of them will test your level at will. Of course once this step is done, the good thing to do is to playtest them with a completely unfamilliar tester (this is what we do when we externally playtest the game). By the way if you’d like to become a playtester for our games, stay updated we are currently setuping the playtest web form for you to register.

Design tips and tricks

Now here are just some hints on how to spice up a level. Some ideas to compose with, of course there is no special alchemy that works 100% of time.

Foresight:

When you design a level it is important to always foresee what will happen in the game. When you place a new element for any reason, always check if you do not block a previous step of your level. It can save you some time of test! For instance, a door once rotated can easily block a previous path you had setup.

Action repetition:

Get the player to perform the same action over and over for few seconds, like “jump+forward”. Doing so generally introduces a “robot” rhythm and the awareness of the player goes down, a good time to set a trap that will remind the player to stay alert! In a nice and not too frustrating manner of course . But what would be a puzzle/platform game without a whee bit of frustration?

Obvious path:

The obvious path is a way you can set the level to suggest a path to the player with subtlety. An open way with a useless bonus which is in fact a deadly trap is easier to go for the player than analyzing the possible paths if he would shift. Using rotators arrow can also be a nice trick, because of the directional aspect of the element, players are more tempted to follow the direction.

Surprises:

The surprise element is always good to have. In Shift 2 you can create such effects pretty easily as the player never knows what will change in a level when he picks up a key or a dissolver bonus. Example: you can push the player to a “leap of faith” where he has to take a chance jump right towards spikes, but there is a bonus to catch during the fall! It might save him, a door could turn and create a platform right above the spikes. Or not.

Confuse the player:

Using the dissolvers and keys you can literally transform the structure of the level. Now add the rotators and you will confuse the player so well that he will have the impression he is playing a new level.

Variations:

There are various other little ways of creating fun and various level. From real puzzle to pure platform, Shift 2 is really a nice game to develop level on! Do not forget to add some pure fun level (easy to do, but fun theme) to give the player some rest once in a while and you are good to go!

Contest?

You’ll get more information about this one soon enough

New powerball screenshots!

Samuel Languy — Fri, 20 Aug 2010 15:50:49 +0000

Check these out ! Notice the openfeint logo here. We have loaded the game up with several challenging achievements to put to a test your spinning abilities!

Soon in your palm !!

Minim 1.2 Update: Out now !

Samuel Languy — Mon, 16 Aug 2010 14:04:45 +0000

Good news for you, atoms lover!

We just updated our iPhone puzzle game, Minim. As a reminder, the game features molecules of numerical atoms that you have to combine wisely with each other in order to reduce them to one single particle.

This updated version features:

14 Brand new levels!
OpenFeint integration with a leaderboard and 12 achievements.
Updated graphics.
Overall performance improvement.

Get it now on the AppStore !!!

Check out the trailer for more information about the gameplay:

Shift & Starshine available on Bada store

Bruno Urbain — Thu, 24 Jun 2010 13:19:00 +0000

OK that’s true we have tons of projects coming out! RollOut, Dimension, Gridz. Today we’re announcing the release of 2 of our latest games on the Samsung Bada Store, Starshine and Shift! Most of you already know everything about Shift and basically it is a port from iPhone to Samsung Bada. However I’m sure some of you don’t know anything about Starshine, yet!

Starshine game has been initially developed as a flash game by Hero Interactive. Your goal is simple: light all the stars of a given puzzle. You have just one shot to trigger a marvelous stellar fireworks!

Starshine features 50 levels to keep you busy with its shining gameplay! Beautiful, poetic visual style, simple and elegant control scheme. Finally a relaxing but yet challenging type of puzzle gameplay for everyone.

Just like Gridz, Starshine is also coming on the iPhone later this year.

RollOut: Top #1 Paid App France

Bruno Urbain — Thu, 17 Jun 2010 14:06:19 +0000

We’re proud to announce that today, RollOut, our last iPhone game created in partnership with Artik Entertainment and BulkyPix has reached the first place on the French AppStore (top paid apps). We are even in front of the famous Angry Birds.

Also we had tons of positive reviews on the game (too many to quote here), the latest being made by AppModo. Here is what they say in substance: “The game is only $0.99, and for that price, it is a definite, no question, without doubt must-buy! It has elements of a platformer, a puzzler, and another genre that hasn’t been publicized yet (because of the unique control scheme). ”

Very cool isn’t it?

Start spinning!

Andrea Di Stefano — Tue, 15 Jun 2010 14:27:17 +0000

We’re happy to finally announce our new iPhone/iPod Touch game!

Some of you might know it, some of you might even have used it, hell…some of you might even be really crazy about it…Ladies and gentlemen, here it is:

Featuring the NSD Powerball, the world-famous gyroscope (of which we’re pretty huge fans ourselves!), POWERBALL lets you spin your iPhone/iPod to incredible speeds and compete for the highest score over several gamemodes!

On top of that, the game features the whole collection of gyroscopes, all beautifully rendered and animated!

Start warming your wrists up and stay tuned for more info and screenshots!!

:Shift: free game of the day but only today :)

Bruno Urbain — Tue, 15 Jun 2010 08:04:28 +0000

Hey everybody, :Shift: released almost a year ago by Fishing Cactus and Armor Games on iPhone is now free, but only for today. I suggest you to take this opportunity and grab it as soon as you can (if you don’t have it already).

For those who don’t know anything about the game, :Shift: has a sharp presentation and ingenious level design which will make you flip the gameworld around to get your character to the exit. There’s not much to it, but what there is still make your head hurt. As a reminder, :Shift: has been featured in Edge as one fo the 100 best games on iPhone.

For those who don’t have an iPhone, no worries, :Shift: is also coming on Samsung Bada very soon!

Fishing Cactus Selected for EBN Burgos Finals!

laurent.grumiaux — Fri, 28 May 2010 13:08:12 +0000

We are glad to annouce we have been selected amongst over 400 candidates to defend our activities at the 19th EBN annual congress in Burgos, Spain.

Laurent will unleash the power of the Cactus against 3 other finalists of the Category ‘Digital Models’, we count on your support to give us the strengh and energy we need to win the contest!

RollOut, an innovative iPhone platform game

Bruno Urbain — Wed, 26 May 2010 16:39:34 +0000

OK we haven’t spoken of in-house projects for quite a long time but we have been working on almost 6 projects at the same time. Today we are going to present you one of them: RollOut which is a unique platform game planned to be released first on the iPhone and will come on iPad later on (depend on you guys).

In RollOut you play as Wabba, a cute little creature and you have to help it get through levels in a uniquely nervous platform game that we exclusively designed with Artik Entertainment team for the iPhone platform in mind.

RollOut has a simple but yet challenging goal: touch the screen to scroll the icons and order Wabba when to speed up or speed down, when to jump and when to stop… Wabba truly depends on your scrolling skills to reach the end of each level!

Here is a teaser artwork for you to feed on while you wait for the official press release.