Lucera Project

Gift of the Magi

2011-01-06T00:00:00.003+01:00

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Today Lucera gives you all it's games and applications for free!

Hurry up and download them for free from the AppStore:

Cristmas Mishap
Hugh's Shop
Geek Wars!
Invisible Runner: (published by Devilish Games)
The Galactic Melody Catcher: (published by Devilish Games)
WeightControl
LittleGame: iPhone and iPad

Christmas Mishap 1.1 available in the AppStore

2010-12-23T13:25:00.000+01:00

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We picked up the criticism and advice from the users to improve the user experience of the game, and these are the changes we've added:
- Now It is nearly 40% easier to select gifts.
- Now you can play again from the record entry screen.
- Now the game stores the last name entered in the record text field.

Besides this, we added some animation and sound effects to make the game even more fun.

We hope you like it!

Hugh's Shop on sale

2010-12-17T13:23:00.000+01:00

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Hugh's Shop is the game that we developed together with Cheesecake Games and today gone on sale in the AppStore.

Hugh's Shop is a fun game of skill where you have to move our hero: Hugh, so the fruit that falls from the tree will finish on his cart, and thus help keep his shop open.
In the game we will face different seasons, each with its own peculiarities, which makes the game more entertaining and dynamic.

Here you can see a video of the game in action:

Videogame web: http://www.lucera-project.com/en/hughshop.php
Buy for iPhone: http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/hughs-shop/id408244996?mt=8

GeekWars! available on the AppStore

2010-12-17T13:22:00.000+01:00

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Today GeekWars! has been approved on the AppStore.

GeekWars! is an arcade game based on: Rock, Paper, Scissors but with two new elements: Spock and Lizard.

The rules are simple, each element can beat two other elements, draw or lose himself with the two remaining elements.

But it is not what it seems, there is not a turn-based game or anything like that, it is a shot'em up where you have to shoot quickly the appropriate element for each of the enemies that come in waves.

The game has exceptional music and graphics.

Here you can see a video:

We hope that you enjoy it.

Videogame WEB: http://www.lucera-project.com/en/geekwars.php
Buy for the iPhone: http://itunes.apple.com/en/app/geekwars/id408245857?mt=8#

Christmas Mishap is ready for sale in AppStore

2010-12-14T13:22:00.000+01:00

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As you will know, this is a Christmas-themed casual game with beautiful graphics and amazing music that works on iPhone 2G, 3G, 3G, iPhone 4 (leveraging Retina Display) and iPad. Taking advantage of the different resolutions.

Let the Christmas spirit take over you playing this fun game with Santa Claus!
We hope you enjoy it and you can enjoy it.

We remind you that the address of the website dedicated to the game is this:
http://www.christmas-mishap.com/

And we leave the link to the AppStore:
http://itunes.apple.com/en/app/christmas-mishap/id405898484?mt=8

Happy Christmas!

Videos on the portfolio

2010-12-12T13:20:00.000+01:00

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We have been updating the portfolio section to add videos on each product we have.

We hope you enjoy the videos.

Christmas Mishap

2010-12-08T13:18:00.000+01:00

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We present our latest game: Christmas Mishap.

In collaboration with Grupo Enfoca we have developed a game for Christmas and not a seasonal adaptation. The idea and the concept are originally from Grupo Enfoca and we have taken part on the development tasks for iPhone/iPad.

In the game you must help Santa Claus to retrieve the gifts that are dropping from the bag, it has a brilliant soundtrack, with nice and fluid graphics, and a global score ranking. Will be available as soon as validated by the process of reviews of Apple at a price of $0.79/$0.99

Below you have a promotional video, hope you like it.

Game Site: www.christmas-mishap.com

Facebook: www.facebook.com/christmas.mishap

Sound Track for LittleGame

2010-10-16T13:16:00.000+02:00

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We had a great update to the game LittleGame, this time we added sound. In collaboration with Machinet, a great professional, which has been commissioned to compose a melody in the line of the type of game. The soundtrack is great for the game for its simplicity and subtlety, is a music that accompanies the game perfectly, adding fun and entertainment.

We bring you a video so you can enjoy it.

We improved our streaming audio system for iOS

2010-10-08T13:10:00.003+02:00

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Currently we are using OpenAL API for our audio driver, and thanks to the AL_EXT_STATIC_BUFFER extension, at least offered in MACOS X and iOS, we achieved a 2500% gain in performance when transferring audio data.

What is offered by this extension?

Basically the function alBufferDataStatic, that allow us to send to OpenAL directly a memory buffer managed by us, so that OpenAL does not have to reserve extra memory (the corresponding malloc or realloc), and make a copy of our data (memcpy) in its own reserved buffer. Thereby achieving a performance boost (around 2500% in the iPhone).

We have seen some controversy on the Internet about using this extension.

On the one hand it is recommended by Apple in their Technical Note: OpenAL FAQ for iPhone OS, but many people (in the Apple forums) seems not to understand well what does this function, misusing it, and therefore do not getting the desired results.

A clear example is to send to OpenAL a buffer (using alBufferDataStatic) and afterwards release it, (which is exactly what you have to do when using alBufferData). In this example, of course, the sound can't be heard well...

Rule of thumb:

If you use alBufferData you must release your memory.
If you use alBufferDataStatic you must handle your memory.

Some bad practices with the use of this function are contained in the blog of Ben Britten: alBufferDataStatic: Why You Should Avoid it, which in our opinion does not say do not use it, but do not use it unless you know exactly what are you doing.

In any case, we have concluded that we are able to reserve a memory buffer and then do not forget to free it, or use it after being released, so we will use it ^_^

LittleGame new update

2010-10-06T10:12:00.003+02:00

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This is the port to the iPhone platform from a flash game, the game is the brainchild of cheesecake games where we will have to help Hugh, our Neanderthal friend, to collect all the fruit you can along the four seasons of year, you must be skillful and quick to pick fruit and prevent it from falling to the ground.

Features:

Powered by Box2D physic engine.
Appeal, from Casual (girls game & kids game) to hardcore players (hard difficulty mode).
Easy to play (RIGHT & LEFT cursor).
Four different seasons with different gameplay (Spring, summer, autumn & winter).
3 difficulty levels.
Nice climatic effects (rain, wind, snow).
4 different fruits to pick up.
Fast and challenging gameplay.
Giant Dinosaurs.
Original music.
Achievements to achieve.
Hi-Score table.
Website support.

Invisible Runner on sale

2010-09-29T09:52:00.006+02:00

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Enjoy the iPhone / iPod Touch version of the successful and innovative online game Invisible Runner created by Devilishgames and ported to the Apple platform by Lucera Project.

Invisible Runner is a platform game where the character is invisible. During the game you have to go through 25 levels full of surprises, using your skills, intuition and some items that will provide visibility to your character for a few seconds.

The online version of the game has been played by more than 1 million people and was “Game of the Week” on the popular gaming portal Newgrounds. Invisible Runner for iPhone / iPod Touch adds many new improvements and features, and the gameplay is perfectly suited to the touchscreen.

You can buy it on the AppStore for only 0,79€

http://www.youtube.com/v/vWEBqK0zeic?fs=1&hl=es_ES

Next project: Hugh’s Shop

2010-09-22T09:41:00.002+02:00

(copied from our new blog, please visit it)

Features:

Powered by Box2D physic engine.
Appeal, from Casual (girls game & kids game) to hardcore players (hard difficulty mode).
Easy to play (RIGHT & LEFT cursor).
Four different seasons with different gameplay (Spring, summer, autumn & winter).
3 difficulty levels.
Nice climatic effects (rain, wind, snow).
4 different fruits to pick up.
Fast and challenging gameplay.
Giant Dinosaurs.
Original music.
Achievements to achieve.
Hi-Score table.
Website support.

New version of BrainWave

2010-09-04T09:34:00.002+02:00

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Finally we have updated BrainWave, our 3D audio library. Highlights in this version include:

Streaming audio (AU / SND, CAFF, AIFF, WAVE, OGG).
Improvements and optimizations in the codec system (signed / unsigned integer 8, 16, 24, 32, 64 bits, float 32, 64 bits, A-Law, Mu-Law, IMA-ADPCM, MS-ADPCM. Big Endian and Little Endian. Mono and Stereo).
Fixed some minor bugs.

Links to LittleGame new version

2010-08-09T21:18:00.002+02:00

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Oops!
We forgot to include links to new versions of LittleGame

- iPod Touch / iPhone 2G/3G/3GS/4 (retina display support included)
- iPad

LittleGame HD

2010-08-06T20:41:00.004+02:00

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Finally, the HD version of LittleGame is out. There are two versions: the iPad and the iPhone 3G/3GS/4 (retina display).

We expect you like it!

New versión of LittleGame

2010-08-01T20:40:00.001+02:00

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Shortly you will be able to enjoy LittleGame's new version with support for iPhone 4 (retina display) and for iPad.

These new versions include improved graphics and a better user experience, especially in the iPad version that has delighted children in all our preliminary tests.

We hope you like it and your children enjoy the game.

Today is the Tesla's birthday

2010-07-10T20:35:00.001+02:00

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From Lucera we invite you to read the biography of this great genius of mankind.

There are a lot of resources on the web about how this great genius was fooled again and again, to start we leave you the wikipedia link, but we invite you to do a little research on your own:

Windows Phone 7

2010-07-07T20:34:00.001+02:00

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This week we are in Barcelona getting a course on Microsoft's future mobile: Windows Phone 7.

Currently it looks awesome, especially the Expression Blend tool, which allows you to create applications for WPF, Silverlight and the future Windows Phone 7. I will mention that, for now you have to install a plug-in to compile apps for the Windows Phone 7 emulator, but at the end of this year a special free version will be available to do it.

This plugin includes an emulator that works pretty well, despite it is a bit slow starting the operating system.

The downside is that you can only program for the future mobile in C#, so that if we want to see our games in this new device, we would have to port both our game engine and the games themselves to C#, which does not look pretty feasible at this moment (We'll see it).

Upcoming release of Invisible Runner

2010-06-16T20:30:00.000+02:00

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We are working on final details of our second production in collaboration with ‘Devilish Games’. Soon you can enjoy the iPhone version of this innovative title.

‘Invisible Runner’ is a platform game where the character is invisible. The player must go through 25 levels full of surprises using his skill and intuition, with the help of some items that will provide visibility to the character for a few seconds.

In the meanwhile we leave you a video from the flash version:

Invisible Runner

The Galactic Melody Catcher is on sale!

2010-06-10T23:20:00.003+02:00

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Discover a new gaming concept on your iPhone / iPod Touch with the “Galactic Melody Catcher”. Become a melody collector and travel the galaxy in search of the funniest tunes in this original musical platform game.

The game consists of 25 different planets that have to be completed in a race against the clock. Control your character by tapping the screen of your iPhone or by using the accelerometer. Dive into the adventure of the “Galactic Melody Catcher” and save the planet “Sonorico”

“The Galactic Melody Catcher iPhone” is a version of the successful online game created by Devilishgames, ported to the Apple platform by Lucera Project.

The game is now available on the AppStore for only 0′79 € / 0′99$

>> See ‘The Catcher Galactic Melody’ on AppStore

>> View video of the gameplay of ’The Galactic Melody Catcher’

OpenGL Wrap

2010-06-08T23:14:00.003+02:00

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OpenGL has several ways to set the texture mapping, one of the most interesting is called ‘Wrap’ (GL_TEXTURE_WRAP_?) This feature indicates how that is going to repeat the texture or be mixed with the border color when they exceed the specified coordinates [0, 1].

Here we offer a brief description of the various wrap modes in OpenGL:

GL_CLAMP: Clamps the texture coordinate in the [0,1] range. In the limits the color of texture is combined with the color of the edge.
GL_REPEAT: Ignores the integer portion of the texture coordinate, only the fractional part is used, which creates a repeating pattern. This is the default value.
GL_CLAMP_TO_EDGE: Sets the texture coordinates to [1/2N] (where N is the size of the texture) texels within the texture. This prevents to draw the border color. Available since OpenGL 1.2.
GL_CLAMP_TO_BORDER: Sets the texture coordinates to [1/2N] (where N is the size of the texture) texels outside the texture. This allows to draw the border color without mixing with the texture color. Available since OpenGL 1.3.
GL_MIRRORED_REPEAT: The coordinates are set to the fractional part of the texture coordinate if the integer part is even; if the integer part is odd, then the texture coordinate is set to 1 – the fractional part of the texture coordinate. Available since OpenGL 1.4, or with GL_ARB_texture_mirrored_repeat extension, or since OpenGL ES 2.0, or with OES_texture_mirrored_repeat extension.

Since a picture is much more explanatory than any description, we believe it is better to add it to this mini tutorial.

Note: The sample image has the border color set to red (GL_TEXTURE_BORDER_COLOR) so you can well appreciate it.

The Galactic Melody Catcher

2010-06-05T23:11:00.002+02:00

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Soon the game “The Galactic Melody Catcher” will be available on the App Store.

The game consists of 25 different planets that you have to complete against the clock, controlling your character by tapping the screen of your iPhone or by using the accelerometer. Dive into the adventure of The Galactic Melody Catcher and save the planet “Sonorico”.

“The Galactic Melody Catcher” is the result of the collaboration agreement between Lucera Project and Devilish Games. This was the first project in this collaboration and consisted to completely reprogram the game for the Apple platform.

More info about Geek Wars!

2010-05-07T09:29:00.001+02:00

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As we can see that there are interest, I will show some more screenshots of the game. We hope you like them.

Here we go:

Geek Wars!

2010-04-15T14:55:00.005+02:00

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Soon finally we will have our new game available for iPhone: Geek Wars!
A game that combines geek humor and some action, accompanied by some nice graphics.

Today is a great day for Geeky, he woke up early to be the first one in buying the new iPan. What he does not know is that there are many more geeks who have long queuing.

Will you be able to help Geeky to obtain his new iPan?

MindShake goes 3D

2010-03-13T21:16:00.000+01:00

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Once we have done CCustomMesh, the next logical step was to add 3D support for MindShake.

Now MindShake can mix sprites with 3D objects, and they behave the same way and you can happily mix them in each layer, add behaviors to them and so on.

New version of WeightControl

2010-03-04T01:12:00.005+01:00

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Now with multiple user support!

If you did not know WeightControl, it is an application that allows you to monitor and control your weight in a visual way, being the ideal for people starting a diet or have signed up to a gym to increase muscle mass.

In addition to adding multiple users and correct some internal details, we added the French language.

Enjoy it!

PS: On the web we have some common questions such as: How to delete erroneous entries?

CCustomMesh

2010-02-26T22:44:00.003+01:00

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We've added a new object to CObjectLayer, it is a generic mesh. So, now you can mix sprites, texts and generic meshes in the same layer.

In addition, a mesh can be composed by submeshes, and you can assign different ways of rendering for each submesh: Points, Lines, LineStrip, LineLoop, Triangles, TriangleStrip and TriangleFan.

These meshes are fully editable and you can add and modify at any time: VertexPosition, VertexColor, VertexTextureCoords, VertexNormal. Finally, tell that the user can add VertexIndexes if the mesh is not linear.

Otherwise, it behaves like an ordinary sprite.

Finally we have web!

2010-02-19T17:59:00.003+01:00

Finally, we have time to do our web. We hope you enjoy the new design!
The web is in english and spanish.

Visit us at: http://www.lucera-project.com/

We look forward to reading your reviews, comments and suggestions.

As now we have our own web we will post our news in the new blog inside the web.

LittleGame reDsign

2010-02-13T11:13:00.008+01:00

We redesign LittleGame’s interface following some feedback from users. We expect you like it.

http://itunes.apple.com/en/app/littlegame/id348151236?mt=8

New web for WeightControl

2010-02-07T19:27:00.002+01:00

Now we have done the micro-site for our first app WeightControl. I hope you enjoy it!
Currently is available in English, French and Spanish.

http://weightcontrol.lucera-project.com/

Our first iPhone app is out

2010-02-05T12:45:00.006+01:00

This time is not a game. There were several companies asking us if we are able to do iPhone apps, and then we make this one.

WeightControl is an application to track your weight visually, making it the perfect complement for people starting a diet or sportmen who want to grow their muscular mass.

WeightControl is designed for people who want to gain or lose weight, or just want to keep track of this. Thanks to the historical weight measurements you will see your progress, for weeks, months or years, easily graphically and can also observe the trend of your weight in certain moments in history. You can also view your weighing in a list, where you can watch the progress of your weight over time.

Another interesting aspect is the application that lets you define milestones to help motivate you to reach your ideal weight.

Finally, the units of measurement and targets can be easily changed in the application preferences.

Here is the link to the AppStore:
http://itunes.apple.com/es/app/weightcontrol/id353410223?mt=8

And here are some screenshots:

Working together with Devilish Games

2010-01-27T09:28:00.000+01:00

We created our first partnership with another company to create videogames, Devilish Games, one of the best and most famous companies creating flash games of Spain.

In this case, our work would be to port his last game 'The Galactic Melody Catcher' to iPhone. At the moment we can not give many details on this game, but we anticipate that is a very original and fun game.

In addition to make games, Devilish has its own free online game portal: DevilishFree. Do not forget to visit it.

New web for LittleGame

2010-01-07T21:29:00.001+01:00

Finally we have done the micro-site for the game. It has a similar aesthetic to the game. I hope you enjoy it!
Currently is available in English, French and Spanish.

http://littlegame.lucera-project.com/

LittleGame on AppStore

2010-01-02T01:55:00.004+01:00

Find our first application in AppStore.

It is a set of four educational games to develop different parts of the learning process.

Here is the link to the AppStore:
http://itunes.apple.com/es/app/littlegame/id348151236?mt=8

Enjoy it!

Our first game is out!

2009-12-31T17:04:00.004+01:00

We are very happy to announce that finally our first game is out!

Its name is LittleGame. It's an educational-entertaiment game for kids. It contains four games and it's cheap, please buy it!

Here is the app description:

The game is vital in many aspects of social, emotional and intellectual development of children and has a significant impact on academic learning. It is one of the most powerful vehicles that children have to good try and learn new skills, concepts and experiences. The game can help children develop the knowledge they need to connect meaningfully with the challenges they discover in the school.

The children's game is an activity that can be approached from many points of view, one of them is education.

LittleGame incorporates four different games designed to develop different abilities of children:

- Pairs:
- Develop the capacity of attention.
- Facilitate a strategy of memory through image association.
- Develop the skills of classification, recognition and assimilation of concepts.
- Develop the capacity of short-term memory and to form partnerships and relationships.

- Silhouettes:
- Ability to object recognition.
- Discrimination of shapes, colors, sizes and positions.
- Ability to play models.
- Analysis, hypothesis, comparison, trial and error.

- Mazes:
- Develop the skills of children and their powers of observation.
- Improves concentration.
- Develops creative thinking and constructive.
- Increases dexterity.
- Develops sensitivity, imagination and creativity.
- Improving the development of perception.

- Sudokus:
- Stimulates and enhances their math skills, logic and critical thinking.
- Excellent learning tool that helps strengthen the skills of reasoning and calculation.

Alea jacta est

2009-12-22T22:10:00.001+01:00

Finally we finish our first game in time and submit it to iTunes Connect. Now we can only wait the validation process from Apple.
Maybe now is time to end the port of our libraries to Android and submit it to Android Market.

Unfortunately, as we do not have an operative web, we don't have an easy way to distribute our application for Windows, Linux or MacOSX. Although in this case would have to redo the graphics to higher resolution.

In any case, our Christmas holidays begin!

Merry Christmas to all!

We are back

2009-12-13T18:28:00.003+01:00

Hi!

After theese days trapped in bureaucratic issues, finally we are back to work.
We want to finish our last game and we want to publish it before Christmas. We are conscious that there is a lot of work ahead to be able to finish the game but we think it will be posible.

Wish us luck!

Trapped in the bureaucratic spiral

2009-11-24T21:49:00.001+01:00

The last week there have been no news because we were involved in bureaucratic issues and we are attending an intensive course in management and business administration that will finalize the next week.

This has prevented us from making great advances in recent days, despite of that, we have been making some small internal changes and we have been testing some of our latest features added.

Improved layer system

2009-11-15T20:00:00.001+01:00

MindShake has improved its layer system.

Until now the layers were little else that an object container, but now you can:

Set the layer position, affecting all the objects inside.
Modify layer render order.
Scale independently each layer, horizontaly or vertically.
Set its pivot, to move each layer snugly and make nice transitions.
Modify the layer alpha channel or colorize (tint) it, to make some cool effects.

And, of course, you can still enable camera transformation to leave the system to adjust the layers relative position and scale to do automatic parallax scrolling.

All these changes affect the contents of the layer and you can make some effects more easilly now.

Unified Layers

2009-11-07T07:39:00.002+01:00

At beginning we mistakenly thought that was better to separate objects per kind because we thought that this way would be simpler for the users and we wanted to promote the use of layers because we think that is is a powerfull feature.

But now we think that is better, and easiest, allow the user decide how he/she wants to distribute the objects across layers.

In this way we unified SpriteLayer, TextLayer and 3DModelLayer (not available) into ObjectLayer. Thus, the only different layer at this point is TileLayer that is in fact wholly different from other layers.

Notes about new event StateChange

2009-11-06T01:23:00.001+01:00

Note that if you reach a state for the first time the order of the events will be:

ExitState (last state)
StateChange
Begin (for which behaviors associated with current state that have not been yet initialized)
EnterState
...

For this reason we are able to make some configuration changes in this event, because it will be before than Begin

New event for behaviors

2009-11-05T13:12:00.002+01:00

We added a new event ‘StateChange’ to allow behaviors to detect when the state will be changed. This event will be sent after ‘ExitState’ and before ‘EnterState’ to all kind of behaviors, with & without state.

Inside this event you can check the prior state and the current state, using behavior manager, to make per state changes or configuration.

IBC: Inter Behavior Communication

2009-11-02T22:56:00.003+01:00

MindShakes proporciona una forma fácil de comunicación entre los diferentes comportamientos a través de mensajes.

Cuando se va a dividir la lógica entre los comportamientos diferentes, no tiene que preocuparse acerca de cómo estos comportamientos se encargará de su visibilidad. Si necesita que varios comportamientos comunicarse, puede utilizar el sistema IBC.

Todos los comportamientos tienen un método virtual que se utilizará para recibir mensajes del administrador de la conducta. El nombre de este método es "Notificación". Un comportamiento sólo puede recibir notificaciones de los mensajes para los que ha sido registrada. Para ello debe utilizar el método "RegisterNotification", desde el administrador de la conducta, donde se debe especificar el ID de la notificación y el comportamiento de la instancia que va a recibir la notificación. Luego, cuando el método "SendNotification", desde el administrador de la conducta, se invoca la "Notificación" método, para cada comportamiento que se ha suscrito a este mensaje de identificación, será invocado.

Tenga en cuenta que debe sobrescribir la "Notificación" método en su conducta, si usted quiere manejar cualquier notificación.

Making some games to test the engines

2009-10-29T23:28:00.000+01:00

Hi folks!

We are making three games to test the engines and look the pros and cons from the trenches.

With a lack of a better name:

Jumper: A casual ‘five minutes’ game to compete with others for a better score.
Survivor: A resistance game to bear waves of enemies.
Tank Army: A strategy game to make the better army and fight with others.

Behaviors, states and events

2009-10-25T22:10:00.004+01:00

MindShake incorporates an easy way for defining event driven application logic. In this way the user defines a series of small objects to solve specific and concrete tasks, splitting the application logic into simpler parts to be implemented in response to certain events as 'enter new frame' or 'mouse click'. We will call these objects behaviors.

Whenever an event takes place, MindShake will be who calls to our objects, which avoid the user to worry about details beyond the logic of his application.

Furthermore, MindShake incorporates a state machine, which simplifies the creation of different stages in the application like: load, boot sequence, menu, game, credits, etc.. Allowing the user should not be complicated with these details.

The user then simply define the behaviors that should be executed in each state, and it will receive the events at the appropriate moment.

Behaviors
Unlike other kinds of MindShake’s classes, which are always created using factories, such as sprites, layers, images, etc, the user must define, instantiate, and destroy, their own kinds of behaviors. For it your behaviors must inherit from one of two basic kinds of behaviors that MindShake defines:

• CBehavior: Usually associated with logic.
• CSpriteBehavior: Associated with a sprite.

CMyBehavior class: public MindShake: CBehavior

CMySptBehavior class: public MindShake: CSpriteBehavior

Once instantiated a behavior, this should be added to the system with CBehaviorManager class, if the class inherits CBehavior, or through CSprite class, if the class inherits CSpriteBehavior.

pBehaviorManager->AddBehavior(pMyBehavior);

pMySprite->AddBehavior(pSptBehavior);

Additionally, we can walk away from our behaviors, forgetting that we must destroy them, passing a second parameter to BehaviorManager when registering the class:

pBehaviorManager->AddBehavior(pMyBehavior, true);

pMySprite->AddBehavior(pSptBehavior, true);

Thus will be MindShake who will destroy the behaviors when we get out of the application.

CBehaviors
These behaviors are usually associated with logic. They can be used to create new behaviors, control groups of sprites, states or parties to manage the program, and so on.

CSpriteBehaviors
These behaviors usually control a single character, or the sprites generated by this, such as bullets, aides, etc..

A sprite can have as many attached behaviors as the programmer wants, so the developer can simplify and distribute the logic associated with a sprite distributing its programming between different behaviors. For example, the user can define how the player can move through the world on one behavior, and use another behavior to handle the input.

States
As already mentioned, MindShake incorporates a simple state machine that allows users to define different stages in their implementation.

To do this the user simply has to create behaviors in a given state. Subsequently the user can jump between different states using the method GotoState(state) of the BehaviorManager class.

Once inside the behavior, the user can know both the current and previous state invoking the methods GetState and GetLastState also of the BehaviorManager class.

Events
Each behavior may receive the following events:
• InitApp
• Begin
• EnterState
• EnterFrame
• ExitState
• End
• BeginPause
• Paused
• EndPause
• MouseEnter
• MouseWithin
• MouseLeave
• MouseDown
• MouseUp
• MouseMove

InitApp
This event is called only for the behaviors that are defined when the application runs initially, or for behaviors that are created just at this moment, in the event InitApp of a behavior that is already created at the beginning.
In any case, MindShake just calls the behaviors that are not associated with any state.

Begin
This event is called only once for each behavior.
All kinds of behaviors.
For the behaviors associated with a state, shall be called the first time you enter that state.

EnterState
This event is called when entering a state.
Behaviors associated with current state.
It’s called for all behaviors associated with the state that becomes active (current state).

EnterFrame
This event is called before rendering each frame.
All kinds of behaviors.
It’s called for the behaviors that are not associated with any state and for the behaviors associated with the current state.

ExitState
This event is called when leaving a state.
Behaviors associated with current state.
It’s called for the behaviors that are associated with the state that become inactive (previous state).
This event is called in reverse order of creation.

End
This event is called when the application exits or when calling RemoveBehavior or RemoveSpriteBehavior.
All kinds of behaviors.
When you exit the application, this event is called in reverse order of creation for all behaviors. Starting with the last defined state. This event is called first for CSpriteBehaviors associated with a state, then for CBehaviors associated with a state, finally is called for CSpriteBehaviors without state and then for CBehaviors without state.

BeginPause
This event is called when the program enter into pause mode. (IDevice::GetInstance()->Pause())
All kinds of behaviors.
It’s called for the behaviors associated with the current state and the behaviors without state.

Paused
This event is called, every frame, while the program remains in pause mode. Note that in pause mode the system does not call EnterFrame.
All kinds of behaviors.
It’s called for the behaviors associated with the current state and the behaviors without state.

EndPause
This event is called when the program exit from pause mode. (IDevice::GetInstance()->Pause())
All kinds of behaviors.
It’s called for the behaviors associated with the current state and the behaviors without state.
This event is called in reverse order of creation.

MouseEnter
This event is called when the mouse enters over the sprite.
Only SpriteBehaviors.
It’s called for the behaviors associated with the current state and the behaviors without state.

MouseWithin
This event is called when the mouse is within the sprite.
Only SpriteBehaviors.
It’s called for the behaviors associated with the current state and the behaviors without state.

MouseLeave
This event is called when the mouse leaves the sprite.
Only SpriteBehaviors.
It’s called for the behaviors associated with the current state and the behaviors without state.

MouseDown
This event is called when a mouse button is pressed.
All kinds of behaviors.
It’s called for the behaviors associated with the current state and the behaviors without state.
For SpriteBehaviors it’s only called when the mouse is within the sprite.

MouseUp
This event is called when a mouse button is released.
All kinds of behaviors.
It’s called for the behaviors associated with the current state and the behaviors without state.
For SpriteBehaviors it’s only called when the mouse is within the sprite.

MouseUpOutside
This event is called when a mouse button is pressed inside a sprite and then is released outside the sprite bounds.
Only SpriteBehaviors.
It’s called for the behaviors associated with the current state and the behaviors without state.

MouseMove
This event is called when the mouse is pressed and moved.
All kinds of behaviors.
It’s called for the behaviors associated with the current state and the behaviors without state.
For SpriteBehaviors only it’s called while the mouse is pressed and moved inside the sprite bounds.

Improving internal features

2009-10-24T14:10:00.000+02:00

We have been some time without writing news on the blog because we are working on internal parts of the libraries and increasing performance.

By now we are working on improve the behaviors engine, and testing all the libraries to increase the reliability and security, also we are working to add support for Android.

Visit to Lemon Team Headquarters

2009-10-05T10:51:00.002+02:00

Last week we went to the Lemon Team headquarters.
Lemon Team is an independent game developer based in Alicante, Spain, focused on Mac and iPhone game development and porting. If you are looking for a partner to develop a PC, Mac or iPhone title, or you are interested in bringing a game to the Mac, then you should to contact them at http://www.lemonteam.com/

In our meeting we consolidated a contact that we had neglected over time, since we knew each other since university.

MindShake schema

2009-09-29T23:02:00.002+02:00

The composition of this engine is focused on the ease of use. We had seen others 2D engines and we decided to design MindShake with all the features we think are essential.
In this way we decided to have one main object called "Device", this element can provide access to all managers of low level elements, so we have them organized and they can be quickly accessed.
The object "Device" can give us access to:

Renderer (internal element, in charge of rendering)
Window Manager (responsible of size and position of the visual window)
Texture Manager (internal element to ease load and manage textures)
Scene Manager (manager of all objects that will be shown and his containers, layers, sprites, texts...)
Behavior Manager (element to control the behaviors added on our games)
Camera Manager (manager of all the camera objects)
Font Manager (manager of fonts, this fonts must be created with AngelCode Bitmat Font Generator and are loaded as textures)
Kinematic Manager (manager of kinematics objects)

Some of these objects will never be used by the user, like the renderer, the window manager or the texture manager that are only necessary for set some options or get information from the system. But others will be intensely used, like the Scene Manager that defines all the elements present in the world, or the Behavior Manager that handles the behaviors of the diferent details of our world.

Embedded Tremor

2009-09-27T21:56:00.000+02:00

Today we embedded a reduced subset of Tremor library, an optimized integer-only implementation of the OGG Vorbis decoder, thought for embedded devices.

Then, now we have our fourth optional library:

With OGG Vorbis embedded.
With Tremor embedded.
Without OGG Vorbis nor Tremor embedded, that permits you to link with the original libraries or your own implementation.
Other one without any OGG Vorbis support (small size).

This version takes only 97 KB in size.

Embedded OGG Vorbis

2009-09-27T12:38:00.001+02:00

We are noticed that there are some people who are bothered with the fact of have to link with multiple libraries (libogg, libvorbis and libvorbisfile) only for have support for another audio format.

For this reason we made a reduced ogg vorbis library subset only for decode it. And then we included this code inside BrainWave. We said reduced because it is only 135 kb in size.

Note that the sizes of these libraries are (MinGW GCC 4.4.1):

libogg_static: 15 KB
libvorbis_static: 1313KB
libvorbisfile_static: 28 KB

Total: 1356 KB

Due to the fact that there can be some people that maybe want to use these 3 libs for his own purposes, or because there will be some people that maybe don’t want ogg support at all, we made three separated libraries:

One with OGG Vorbis embedded
Other one without OGG Vorbis embedded that permits you to link with the original libraries.
Other one without any OGG Vorbis support.

In this way, the BrainWave users can select the best choice for his app.

Added OGG Vorbis sound file format

2009-09-23T22:28:00.000+02:00

Today we added support for a new file container (OGG) and for a new codec (Vorbis).

With this codec you can add great quality sounds with small size to your games or applications.

There are some people who loves this audio codec because its high compression ratio, up to 10:1, and for its great sound quality. Read the Vorbis FAQ to know more about this codec here:

Improved codec system

2009-09-22T22:06:00.000+02:00

As promised we have improved our codec system.

Now all parsers & codecs have less lines and more clearer source code and they are simplest to understand. Furthermore, we can easily add more file formats to parse or add more audio formats to decode.

Layer & Camera System

2009-09-17T13:10:00.004+02:00

MindShake includes support to add layers and cameras, with no limits, you can create as many layers and objects inside layers as you want.

MindShake includes managers for layers and cameras which act as factories, so you can easily create new objects. Later, to easy access to these objects, you can store the reference or give them a name, so you can ask the managers to recover one object with its name.

By default all layers created are configured to adjust to camera renders. If the user want to have a serie of static sprites on the screen, the common way is to put them on a layer that is ignored by camera transformations.

To create a usable sprite layer you need one instance of the scene manager and then invoke the method CreateSpriteLayer.
That is done in this way:

//Obtain an instance of scene manager
pSceneManager = IDevice::GetInstance()->GetSceneManager();

//Add and modify a new layer
pLayer = pSceneManager->CreateSpriteLayer();
pLayer->EnableCameraTransformations(false);

With this example you see how to create a new sprite layer and modify it to ignore the cameras, so any sprite created into this layer will be shown relative to the upper left corner of the screen.

With the layer created you can now add one or more cameras to view diferent parts of our world.
When we add a new camera it is important to tell it the size and position of the viewport (the region where the camera content will be seen) and the dimensions of the world (the region where this camera can move).
Now you can see one example of scroll.

//Obtain an instance of camera manager
pCameraManager = IDevice::GetInstance()->GetCameraManager();
    
//Add and modify a new camera
pCamera = pCameraManager->CreateCamera2D();
pCamera->SetViewPort(0, 0, 320, 240);
pCamera->SetWorld(0, 0, 640, 480);

If our window have a 320x240 size, with this example you will see a scroll effect when move the camera around the world, because it have double size than camera viewport.

It is easy to create more cameras, you only meed to set the viewports in order to view them correctly, for example you can split the screen with three cameras, two of them at the top and one at the bottom.

//Add and modify a new camera (top left)
pCameraTopLeft = pCameraManager->CreateCamera2D();
pCameraTopLeft->SetViewPort(0, 0, 160, 120);
pCameraTopLeft->SetWorld(0, 0, 640, 480);

//Add and modify a new camera (top right)
pCameraTopRight = pCameraManager->CreateCamera2D();
pCameraTopRight->SetViewPort(160, 0, 160, 120);
pCameraTopRight->SetWorld(0, 0, 640, 480);

//Add and modify a new camera (bottom)
pCameraBottom = pCameraManager->CreateCamera2D();
pCameraBottom->SetViewPort(0, 120, 320, 120);
pCameraBottom->SetWorld(0, 0, 640, 480);

Now you can move the cameras with the SetPosition method and every viewport will automatically show the camera content.

Added .AU sound file format

2009-09-16T23:39:00.000+02:00

We are noticed about some people needs support for .AU files on MACOS (or .SND files on NeXT or some *NIX systems). For this reason we added support for this file format.

Adding this format we have realized that the system of codecs could be improved, shortly we will update it.

Congratulations! Now we have another common audio file format for BrainWave and we will have an easiest audio codec system.

Targets

2009-09-12T21:58:00.003+02:00

Lucera Project is a small videogame company that wants to realize some basic libraries to help other ‘indie’ programmers to make games easily. Performing all difficult and cumbersome stuff to allow developers to implement their games without worrying about details like load sounds and textures, render on screen, capture inputs, and so on.

In addition, Lucera Project libraries are cross platform and can compile the same code for different platforms such as Windows or iPhoneOS.

We hope to help many people to achieve their dreams of creating video games.

Behaviors

2009-09-12T20:31:00.002+02:00

MindShake includes a behavior engine that allows the users to easily create custom 'event driven' logic, per full game or per sprite, that can be reused in various games.

In this way the user can split logic into several behaviors, defining initialization code (BeginSprite), defining simple actions for events like mouse clicks, per frame process 'EnterFrame' for single sprite or whole game, etc. Furthermore, the user can reuse the same behavior into multiple sprites.

For example, in a platform game, the user can define a behavior to control where a sprite can walk, fall down in case of having no ground under their feet, rising stairs, etc. Then the user can attach this behavior to all the sprites that are able to walk on the platforms.

Easy 3D Sound System

2009-09-12T14:28:00.001+02:00

BrainWave incorporates a simple system to position sounds in a 3D space:

First you must define the radius of the sphere, or spheroid, which wraps the listener.

pSoundListener->SetWorldRadius(radius);
pSoundListener->SetWorldRadius(xRadius, yRadius);
pSoundListener->SetWorldRadius(xRadius, yRadius, zRadius);

Out of the defined spheroid, the listener will not listen anything.

Later you must define the position of the sounds:

pSound->SetPosition(x, y, z);

Finally you can change the position of the listener (default 0, 0, 0) and the position of the sound objects that appear in the screen.

MindShake layer system

2009-09-08T17:42:00.001+02:00

MindShake has a great layer system. The user can add and shuffle Sprite Layers, Text Layers, Tile Layers and in a future version 3D Layers (like new StarCraft II from blizzard).

The user can apply some transformations directly over the layer or over its content.

Native support for audio file formats

2009-09-08T17:28:00.000+02:00

BainWave includes readers for some standard audio file types like WAV, CAFF or AIFF. Furthermore it includes native support for PCM, LPCM, MS ADPCM, IMA ADPCM, A-LAW and MU-LAW.

BrainWave supports mono and stereo streams of 8 and 16 bits.

Bitmap Font Generator

2009-09-07T17:30:00.000+02:00

Bitmap Font Generator will allow you to generate bitmap fonts from TrueType fonts. The application generates both image files and character descriptions that can be read by a game for easy rendering of fonts.

MindShake can load bitmap fonts generated with this tool.

Thanks AngelCode!

Sound eXchange

2009-09-07T17:14:00.000+02:00

Sound eXchange (SoX) is a great tool for convert between different audio file formats. SoX is a cross-platform (Windows, Linux, MacOS X, etc.) command line utility.
We apreciate a lot this tool that permit us to test our library.

Thanks!

What is MindShake?

2009-09-04T00:56:00.000+02:00

MindShake is a lightweight multiplattform 2.5D game engine.

In it's first alpha version it will run on several operating systems including Windows 95, 98, NT, 2000, XP, Vista, Linux, some others *nix, MacOS X and iPhoneOS and it will work on several compilers including GNU GCC 3.x - 4.4 and Microsoft Visual C/C++ 6.0 - 2008.

What is BrainWave?

2009-09-03T10:58:00.000+02:00

BrainWave is a lightweight multiplattform sound engine for games.

In it's first beta version it will run on several operating systems including Windows 95, 98, NT, 2000, XP, Vista, Linux, some others *nix, MacOS X and iPhoneOS and it will work on several compilers including GNU GCC 3.x - 4.4 and Microsoft Visual C/C++ 6.0 - 2008.

MindShake and BrainWave joins Lucera-Project

2009-09-02T23:05:00.001+02:00

MindShake joins Lucera-Project
BrainWave joins Lucera-Project

It seems that this begins really!

BrainWave joins Lucera-Project

2009-09-02T22:53:00.000+02:00

BrainWave is part of Lucera-Project

MindShake joins Lucera-Project

2009-09-02T22:39:00.000+02:00

MindShake is part of Lucera-Project

Beginning lucera project

2009-09-02T22:15:00.001+02:00

Lucera project has begun.

What is lucera project?
Soon you will know.