“We realized it was more half of the levels”, making level redesign a significant time-suck. The Voinovs took a methodical approach, playing each level of their mobile game and noting which were too tall and would need lay out adjustments. Meanwhile, many of Cut The Ropes levels were designed for a portrait orientation screen, while most Mac monitors stay fixed in the landscape position. If those aren’t enough, similar tweaks can be made to a game’s physics to reduce player frustration. To compensate, they made the physics of the Mac version work just a little slower.ĭevelopers should determine which controls might be harder with a mouse and consider adding similar options, keyboard shortcuts, or on-screen buttons that make use of the extra real estate. If it helps, users can leave it on, or disable it if they find it too different from the mobile version. During testing, the team noticed that levels where you had to make several quick cuts could leave users cursing the controls. To keep the original feel intact but give players an optimized control scheme for the track pad and mouse, the Voinovs added the option to hover near a rope to highlight it and click to cut it, rather than swiping. It’s pretty natural with fingers, but different with the mouse.” When the game was ported to HTML5, some laptop users reported difficulty holding down the mouse click button while using another finger for precise movements. “It’s tricky to move from one point of the screen to another very quickly. In Cut The Rope, users cut ropes attached to pieces of candy, working with gravity, momentum, and other forces to guide the sweets into the mouth of a hungry baby dinosaur named Om Nom.”It was challenging porting to Mac OS, because Cut The Rope was intended for touch controls” the Voinovs admit. The tools are pretty good. The majority of work was on the design and art side.” From Touch To Trackpad It took a bit longer than we expected, but from a technical standpoint the process of porting to Mac was pretty straightforward. “We started quite a while ago doing this in-house. On a phone $5 may seem steep, but the bigger screen size and history of $50 disc-based games may make $5 appear cheap on the Mac App Store. Without these apps occupying the charts, there are places for other developers to swoop in and get discovered.Īs expensive console and PC games like Call Of Duty and Star Wars: Knights Of The Old Republic appear in the store as well, paid apps ported from mobile may be able to get away with charging higher prices. Zombies are already available, but other staples like Fruit Ninja, Words With Friends, and Where’s My Water are absent. There are several quite nice games, but the competition is not as huge” said ZeptoLab’s twin brother founders Semyon and Efim Voinov. Angry Birds and Plants Vs. “We see opportunity with the Mac App Store because it’s not as occupied as the mobile App Store. After hooking me up with a pre-release download, the Moscow-based founders gave me the low down on the biggest challenges of porting to Mac OS, and why they think it’s critical that mobile developers don’t get left behind on the small screen. Tomorrow, after 100 million downloads across platforms, ZeptoLab will release its hit Cut The Rope for Mac OS. Otherwise they risk having to claw their way up much more competitive charts. It’s time for mobile developers to decide if they’ll bring their games to Mac OS, and how they’ll port their controls and levels. ![]() ![]() ![]() Mac play, and the Mac App Store will likely become more prominent. Last week, a Mountain Lion roared “Mac is the next big gaming platform.” Apple is bringing Game Center to Mac, it will support cross-platform iPhone vs.
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