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- Herausgeber: Packt Publishing
- Kategorie: Wissenschaft und neue Technologien
- Sprache: Englisch
Build rich, high production value mobile games and distribute them across different platforms with Buildbox
About This Book
- Create captivating 2D & 2.5D (isometric) video games for all platforms
- Leverage Buildbox to monetize and prepare your games for distribution
- This step-by-step tutorial will get you generating complex and media rich games with no coding experience
Who This Book Is For
This book caters to those who have an interest or desire to create their own mobile games either as a hobbyist or who are looking to enhance their skills as a professional games developer. No coding experience is required.
What You Will Learn
- Create the illusion of a 3D background in your game using parallax
- Add advanced controls and obstacles to our first world
- Develop assets (graphic and audio) for the Buildbox engine
- Design games based on the capabilities and limitations of Buildbox and their target platforms
- Compile and distribute video games on various channels such as Steam, iOS store, Android stores, and the Mac App Store
- Optimize your games to get the absolute best quality within platform restrictions
- Conquer common issues experienced with Buildbox development
In Detail
Buildbox is an “any skill level” development platform to develop video games with no coding experience. It also exports these games to be compiled for any platform (from Windows to Mac to iOS to Android and Blackberry) all using the same graphic user interface.
Using an example as a tutorial, we will relate the driving principles and you'll see how you can implement these principles to develop any games on the platform. We begin by setting expectations and providing a brief overview of the software. But it's not long before you “dive in” to creating your first video game. You will actually have a playable level (“world”) by the end of the second chapter.
Later on, you'll learn everything from basic graphics creation to advanced world design while you refine your first game, called “Ramblin' Rover.” All along the way, you will see how certain functions could be used in tandem to create other types of games; hoping to spark imagination. We will follow the principles and process of monetization through ads and in-game rewards.
Lastly, we will go through the process of exporting, compiling, and preparing your storefront to sell the games you will eventually create.
Style and approach
This book follows a tutorial-based approach that teaches through examples, while also providing the necessary principles to enable you to abstract these principles into any game you want to make.
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Seitenzahl: 291
Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2016
Ähnliche
Buildbox 2.x Game Development
Buildbox 2.x Game Development
Copyright © 2016 Packt Publishing
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embedded in critical articles or reviews.
Every effort has been made in the preparation of this book to ensure the accuracy of the information presented. However, the information contained in this book is sold without warranty, either express or implied. Neither the author, nor Packt Publishing, and its dealers and distributors will be held liable for any damages caused or alleged to be caused directly or indirectly by this book.
Packt Publishing has endeavored to provide trademark information about all of the companies and products mentioned in this book by the appropriate use of capitals. However, Packt Publishing cannot guarantee the accuracy of this information.
First published: September 2016
Production reference: 1260916
Published by Packt Publishing Ltd.
Livery Place
35 Livery Street
Birmingham
B3 2PB, UK.
ISBN 978-1-78646-030-1
www.packtpub.com
Credits
Author
Ty Audronis
Copy Editor
Safis Editing
Reviewer
Nik Rudenko
Project Coordinator
Ritika Manoj
Commissioning Editor
Ashwin Nair
Proofreader
Safis Editing
Acquisition Editor
Reshma Raman
Indexer
Mariammal Chettiyar
Content Development Editor
Sachin Karnani
Graphics
Abhinash Sahu
Jason Monteiro
Technical Editor
Rupali R. Shrawane
Production Coordinator
Nilesh Mohite
Disclaimer
The projects and raw files included with this book are free to use for learning purposes. However, be advised that if you attempt to distribute a carbon copy of Ramblin' Rover (even if by another name) to any distribution channel, that channel may cancel your account. This decision lies solely with the channel, neither the Author nor Packt Publishing has a say in it. Duplications, such as this, are forbidden by the EULA (End User License Agreement) you agreed to, with your distribution networks.
Foreword
At Buildbox, we’re extremely passionate about the creation of games. It is our livelihood, and we believe games themselves to be the ultimate in artistic expression. Video games combine core elements from every major art form. They fuse animations, pictures, technology, and sound into an immersive experience like none other. When you view a painting or watch a movie, you can see a beautiful world on display, but when you play a game, you are inside that beautiful world. You are the hero of that world and you are 100% responsible for their journey. You, as the protagonist, must hone your skills of the game to decide their fate. This immersion causes a very close connection to the games people play; a connection that is much stronger and more emotionally attached than most forms of art. Proof in point—there are many more people with tattoos of The Legend of Zelda than the Mona Lisa. They are both great pieces of art, and the Mona Lisa is arguably more famous, but The Legend of Zelda has definitely affected more people on an emotional level.
If there is one hobby more fun than playing games, it’s creating them. Making the game, testing, tweaking, and finally watching it go live is something only a few will experience, but they will all tell you it’s amazing. This especially rings true if you see strangers playing your game on the subway, or when you watch the facial reactions of your friends playing your game for the first time. There is something truly special about creating joy for others, and games do this in a very special way. When you make games, you are doing more than just creating code. You are creating experiences for other people.
Unfortunately, the problem with creating games is inherent in their design. To create something that is an accumulation of all art is not an easy task, and before Buildbox, options were very limited. In fact, with an estimated 17 million programmers on Planet Earth, only 0.2% of the population could create a game. Our goal with Buildbox was to help the other 99.8% of the people who might be interested. It was a difficult task, but we’ve been very excited to cultivate a new style of software—and an amazing community—over the past 2 years. This journey hit a major milestone a few months ago with the release of Buildbox 2.0. This new version expanded the software in a large way by adding in over 150 new features. Some of these were major additions such as multiple worlds, multiple characters, and an expanded menu system with animations. Other features were more under the hood, but still required to make vastly expanded gameplay.
It’s been a very exciting ride so far, and when Packt Publishing reached out about creating this book, we were excited for two very important reasons. First, we are not only fans of Packt, but also customers. Things have come full circle as the development team here at Buildbox has purchased multiple Packt books in the past to help create various aspects of the software. Second, we understand that while tools are great, you are only as good as your training. With Buildbox, there are many best practices, undiscovered tips, and hidden secrets that can vastly improve your game making experience. Inside these pages, you’ll find all of those and more. The author, Ty Audronis, has an amazing insight into the software regardless of how complex the issue is at hand. Also, our CTO, Nik Rudenko, was the technical editor. Nik single handedly coded the first version of Buildbox and has been instrumental in its success. No human on the planet knows Buildbox better than him.
Finally, there has absolutely never been a better time than right now to make a video game. As of 2015, more people are spending money on video games than movies, music, or TV. The market has matured, the app store is proven, and mobile has won the race. Everywhere you turn people are glued to their phones, looking for the next app to download. What will they download? Will it be your game? There is no reason it shouldn’t be. In the last 18 months, more than 75 Buildbox games have been featured by Apple or broken the Top 100 of the app store. These are games made by regular people—the 99.8% of us that don’t know how to code. With this book and Buildbox, you’ll have all the tools you need to do it yourself. Time to get started.
Trey Smith
Founder of Buildbox
About the Author
Ty Audronis has been creating games and interactive experiences on computers since 1980. When other children were earning money for trips to convenience stores and arcades by raking leaves or mowing lawns, Ty was helping neighbors buy computers, and programming games for the neighborhood kids on an Atari 800 computer.
In the 1990s, Ty was introduced to the Internet and was attending California State University, Chico, as a visual effects major. He had an epiphany; one day there will be no difference between film, television, games, and the Internet. Everything will converge. As a result, Ty diversified his education (and career) into all things media. Luckily for Ty, he was right.
He’s worked on several apps and games for various clients using several different development platforms. Ty has worked in many great institutions (from Frog Design to California Academy of Sciences and beyond). Ty has been recognized in several industries for his artistic and technical exploits and abilities. These include studio design, workflow design, post-production for TV/film, marketing, digital design and development, and even as a drone pilot and builder.
Ty has authored two other books for Packt Publishing: Lightning Fast Animation with Element 3D and Building Multicopter Video Drones.
I’d like to personally thank all those who have helped in the creation of this book. From my partner in crime and editor, Sachin Karnani, to the gracious and personable CEO of Buildbox, Trey Smith, and CTO, Nik Rudenko, without whom this book would not be nearly as informative as it stands. I’d also like to thank the users of Buildbox on the forums, who have been instrumental with their help, especially these users: yenomeerf, telerebor, heathclose, and Andy (the Admin). Also, I cannot forget the Buildbox support team. Their patience and diligence in supporting their product is certainly commendable and outstanding. To my family, friends, and mentors: thank you to my father, Tony Audronis, for introducing me to technology at a very early age. To my wife for reading through this book with me chapter-by-chapter and correcting my many typos and errors. For standing by me through the years and all the struggles we’ve endured. To my children who gave up a majority of their summer vacation daddy-time with no complaints while I wrote this book. And to my mentors: thank you, and I hope this book (and my career in general) have made you proud.
About the Reviewer
Nik Rudenko has more than 15 years of game development experience. He originally started his career as a 3D artist, but quickly found himself being drawn to the technical aspect of making games. After earning degrees in both graphical design and computer programming, Nik merged his knowledge of graphic concepts and coding to master the art of game development.
While he was working on AAA games such as Overlord, Pirates of The Caribbean, and Show Time Boxing, he always had the dream of one day building his own game engine. Nik wanted to create an engine that could help art designers that didn’t know how to code, make games.
After multiple successful game projects for iPhone and Android, he moved to America from the Ukraine where he started working on his dream project—Buildbox.
I would like to thank my father, who was a Ukrainian teacher. He instilled the important values of education, hard work, sacrifice, and family. He saw my passion for computers and used all of his savings to buy a modern PC for me, and that very first CD disk with 3D Graphics Software was a major turning point in my life.
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Preface
This book is designed for two purposes.
First, to give you the necessary familiarity with the Buildbox interface, as well as the process of getting your games distributed to players.
Second, to be a reference guide in the future if you find yourself stuck. We tackle many of the most common issues that developers face when using Buildbox.
We use a tutorial method to follow the entire game building process within Buildbox, by leading you through the full process of game development; from design, to development, to distribution, you will gain the necessary knowledge to create your own games. We even cover monetization strategies so that you can make your games profitable!
Whether you're a beginner or an experienced programmer, you’ll find this book helpful while discovering that Buildbox is a great tool for quick-turnaround game creation for mobile and computer games.
What this book covers
Chapter 1, So, You Want to Develop a Video Game?, is designed to set the expectations of the reader, and get them excited about the journey that they are about to embark on.
Chapter 2, Orientation, is an orientation to the game development environment within Buildbox by touring a template of a basic game.
Chapter 3, Your First Game – Ramblin’ Rover, Part 1, will cover setting up the game's structure and create the first world of our motocross-style game.
Chapter 4, Advanced World Design – Ramblin’ Rover, Part 2, will cover adding advanced controls and obstacles to our first world.
Chapter 5, Menus, UIs, Sound, and More! – Ramblin’ Rover, Part 3, will add the finishing touches to our game by adding menus, user interfaces, and audio.
Chapter 6, Monetization – Ramblin’ Rover, Part 4, will walk through how to set up advertising accounts, and set up your game for in-app advertising. We will also talk about monetization models using coin shops, video rewards, and more!
Chapter 7, Exporting your Game and Compiling for Various Platforms – Ramblin’ Rover, Finale, is followed by the summary of this chapter.
Chapter 8, Building Other Popular Game Types, covers some tips and tricks for making other popular game types with Buildbox.
Chapter 9, Buildbox Tips and Tricks, is a quick reference of procedures for certain tasks and reference a for some settings within Buildbox.
What you need for this book
You’ll need a Mac or PC that meets the minimum specifications for Buildbox. You should also have either a trial or full license for Buildbox version 2.x. Having graphics software such as Gimp or Adobe Photoshop is highly encouraged, but not required (as for the examples in this book we have created the assets for you). Similarly, having some sort of audio editing software (such as Adobe Audition) is highly encouraged, but not necessary.
Who this book is for
This book caters to those who have an interest in or desire to create their own mobile games as a hobbyist, or who are looking to enhance their skills as a professional games developer. No coding experience is required.
Conventions
In this book, you will find a number of text styles that distinguish between different kinds of information. Here are some examples of these styles and an explanation of their meaning.
Code words in text, database table names, folder names, filenames, file extensions, pathnames, dummy URLs, user input, and Twitter handles are shown as follows: "Mount the downloaded WebStorm-10*.dmg disk image file as another disk in your system."
New terms and important words are shown in bold. Words that you see on the screen, for example, in menus or dialog boxes, appear in the text like this: "The shortcuts in this book are based on the Mac OS X 10.5+ scheme."
Note
Warnings or important notes appear in a box like this.
Tip
Tips and tricks appear like this.
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Downloading the color images of this book
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Errata
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Questions
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Chapter 1. So, You Want to Develop a Video Game?
Games are fun, and they're super cool. They've quickly replaced baseball as America's favorite pastime (heck, the world's for that matter). But with teams of hundreds of people developing games for major development companies, how do indie developers, small companies, or even marketing agencies keep up with the amount of work to get a game to market in time? Enter Buildbox, a code-free game development tool for mobile and desktops alike.
What Buildbox can (and can't) do
Before we really get started, let's set some expectations. Just like a contractor building a house, a video game developer has several tools in their toolbox, each with their own purpose. Although these may (at times) overlap, each development platform has its strengths and weaknesses.
Buildbox is a truly code-free solution for developing video games. You won't be developing any First Person Shooter (FPS, such as Call of Duty) games using Buildbox, nor any (Massive Multiplayer Online Role Playing Games (MMORPGs, such as World of Warcraft). But what you can do is quickly develop entertaining mobile and computer games that are 2D or 2.5D (isometric).
And that's why you should choose Buildbox to develop such a game... speed. In fact, what you'll find through the course of this book is that the most time-consuming part of using Buildbox isn't actually Buildbox. It's creating the graphic and audio assets for your games using your favorite graphics and audio software.
Limitations of games based on platforms
When considering what your game will be, it's important to factor the limitations of your target platform into the equation. It seems like forever that Android mobile platforms limited applications to 50 MB in base size (one could make them bigger with extensions, but this could require some extra coding). A 50 MB video game is not very exciting, especially when you consider that a mere 10 minutes of music for such a game would take up around 10 MB or 20% of the game package.
Luckily, in late 2015, the powers that be raised that limitation of the base application (also known as an APK file) to 100 MB. While that's still not a lot by today's standards, it's still plenty for developing an entertaining game. Since Android's limitation is 100 MB—and so is iOS (Apple)—that's what we'll use as our hard limit. However, if we were strictly developing a game for Windows or Macintosh computers, we could ignore this limitation. This brings us to...
The platforms for Buildbox games
Buildbox is pretty amazing in that it can export games for several platforms. As each platform has its own unique intricacies, you can see just how exciting it is that a developer may create one project that exports to several different distribution channels for several platforms. Let's take a quick look:
Note
Downloading the color images of this book:
We also provide you with a PDF file that has color graphics of the screenshots/diagrams used in this book. These graphics will help you better understand the changes in the output. You can download this file at the following link: http://www.packtpub.com/sites/default/files/downloads/Buildbox2xGameDevelopment_ColorImages.pdf.
The preceding image shows the various platforms Buildbox 2 is designed to support. Again, with Buildbox, you won't be making the next PlayStation or XBOX FPS. But you can make the next Flappy Bird or Mario Bros.
The actual process for getting the games onto the various platforms is a bit more complex than the previous image implies. We'll get into the nuts and bolts of the various workflows for export in a later chapter. Suffice it to say, though, that the ability to use one project is definitely a big check mark in the pros column for Buildbox.
You'll notice that there is some duplication of platforms among the various distribution channels (Windows EXE and Steam, or Amazon and Google Play). This is because exporting and some parameters differ between those distribution channels. Confused? Don't worry, we'll clear up the differences between distribution channels and platforms in just a bit.
Defining some terminology
Before we dive into the interface, and dive further into what we're going to cover in this book, let's clear up some terms (such as distribution channels and platforms):
The equipment and software you'll need
Of course, you should have either a device or emulator for every platform you intend to compile for. An emulator is a piece of software that can mimic a device on the desktop of your computer. You'll need these devices and/or emulators to make sure your app isn't taxing the processing power and memory of a device too much. Although a game could test fine on your desktop, it may prove to be too much for a device to handle.
Additionally, you'll definitely need a Mac of some sort to compile for Apple devices. Unfortunately, the compiler for iOS, tvOS, and Macintosh only runs on Mac. We'll be developing (using Buildbox) on a PC, and compiling for Apple using a Mac Mini for the projects in this book.
To effectively develop a game, you'll also need some sort of image editing software. In this book, we'll be using Adobe Photoshop CC2015 and Illustrator CC2015; however, there are freeware solutions available (such as GIMP—available here: https://www.gimp.org/downloads/).
A worthwhile game absolutely must have good sound. Therefore, a developer must have a decent audio editing application. In this book we'll be using a combination of Presonus Studio One 3 Professional and Adobe Audition CC2015. Again, a freeware option known as Audacity is available from SourceForge at https://sourceforge.net/projects/audacity/.
Finally, to create animated assets (such as enemies, explosions, and so on), it's advisable to get a 3D animation program to speed things up. In this book we shall use LightWave 3D 2015; however, yet again, a freeware option known as Blender is available (https://www.blender.org/).
It is not entirely necessary for a developer to create their own graphic and audio assets. You could always hit up Fiverr (https://www.fiverr.com/) or similar services to have custom graphics and audio made for you. However, as this is a complete book on developing a game using Buildbox, we will be covering how to create these assets yourself.
Complete specifications of the development environment
Granted, this greatly exceeds the minimum needed for game development with Buildbox. However, this should give you a good idea of the capabilities necessary, and it's nice to have for game development.
PC (primary development machine)
Processor
Intel I7 5960X
Memory
32 GB 3000Mhz DDR4
Hard drives
512 GB Solid State Boot Drive
10TB RAID 0 SATA II Internal
10TB RAID 1 USB 3.1 External Backup
4TB Seagate Baracuda Docked USB 3.0 Archival Backup
Motion capture (not necessary at all for Buildbox, but helpful for graphics creation)
XBOX One Kinect with USB 3.0 adapter
Color accuracy (not necessary at all for Buildbox, but helpful for graphics creation)
Pantone Huey Pro
Monitor
Samsung 4K oLED
Audio
Presonus FireStudio Project USB 3.0 Interface with Presonus powered speakers
Music hardware
Roland Fantom X6, Roland MC 909, various guitars and basses
Software
Windows 10 Pro x64, Buildbox 2.0, Android SDK 2, Adobe Creative Cloud 2015, LightWave 3D 2015, Brekel Pro motion capture, Presonus Studio One 3 Pro
Mac (for xCode compiling only)
Model
2008 Mac Mini
Operating system
OSX Yosemite
Software
xCode
Distribution channel memberships
Developing a game is only half the picture. Yes, it's cool to be able to play your own games, but wouldn't it be better to have the world play them? Better yet...wouldn't it be better to make a profit? That's where distribution channels come in.
Distribution channels, such as iTunes, Steam, and Google Play, are places where platform owners go to shop for new apps and games. But for each device, there are unique distribution channels, and in some cases multiple ones (such as Google Play and Amazon Apps for Android devices).
In order to develop for Apple devices, you're going to need a subscription to the Apple Developer Program. It is an annual fee, and can be expensive (when compared to Android). Speaking of which, you'll also need a membership to the Google Play developer program, and Amazon developer program.
For Windows games, you will need a Steam account, and to authorize it, to submit programs to Steam Greenlight. You will also need a Windows Dev Center account.
As you can see, if you sign up for all of the various services as a developer, the costs can run up. So, it's probably going to be important to make up your mind on the target for your games before you begin developing. The bonus is that if your game does well on one platform, it's very easy to port it to another (because one Buildbox project can generate the same game across multiple platforms).
Tour of the Buildbox interface
Now that we've got a bit of a foundation, let's get into Buildbox itself. We'll spend the rest of this chapter giving you a tour of the Buildbox interface, and in the next chapter we'll go over a template project that comes with Buildbox before creating our own Ramblin' Rover game. Alright, here we go...
The welcome screen
When you first open Buildbox, you're greeted with the Welcome screen. The following screenshot shows this screen. Buildbox has taken a page straight out of Adobe's UIX design team with this. If this is the first time you've opened the Welcome screen, you should immediately uncheck Open Buildbox at startup:
Unless your computer's sole purpose is for Buildbox development, we suggest unchecking this immediately to minimize your frustration upon startup of your computer. For some reason, the Buildbox team believes that everyone would want Buildbox to start every time they restart their computer by default.
Let's take this interface from the bottom up (since we started with the Open Buildbox at startup option).
The area near the bottom with the Latest News
