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Shine is a colorful puzzle game based on light and colors that will take you for an unforgettable travel in space!

Report RSS Hello SlideDB !

Hello SlideDB ! Today is a special day ! Not because of the weather, not because of the summer (as it comes every year - well, almost), but because Shine is now in the SlideDB database !

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First : I'm french and even if I read a lot of english, sometimes I may write weirds things, so I apologize per advance for that or if I unintentionally make spelling mistakes. Don't hesitate to tell it to me in the comments. Thanks.

Hello world SlideDB ! Today is a special day ! Not because of the weather, not because of the summer (as it comes every year - well, almost), but because Shine is now in the SlideDB database !

- "Ok, but there are thousands of games, of projects, of developers here, so what are you so happy about ?"
- Because it is my FIRST "real" indie game !!!
- "I'm hungry ..."
- Duh

So yes, this is my first "real" indie game. Why "real" ? Because I already published a game on Google Play in July 2012. What makes it a "false" indie game to me even if I learned tons of things, is that it was made without any game engine (I used the Android SDK), without real searching about mechanics, without real passion, and without real headaches ... everything that makes a good indie game ;)
During this period I was also discovering mobile development as it was my first mobile app, and more especially Android dev, so I had no experience at all in game development, and had no idea about all the process involved in 2D game development.

So after months reading tons of tutorials, intense searching on forums, after having forgot to eat dozens of times, after having played around with LibGDX, Box2D, OpenGL, Shaders ... I decided to make my first real 2D game, coded from stratch, to practice. I think of it as a training. I precise that I have no formation at all in game development, OpenGL, or stuff like that, so I'm completely self-taught.

I decided to use LibGDX because it has a good reputation, a good documentation, good tutorials even if some are outdated, and because it is completely free (it's not negligible when you are a young penniless indie developer).
Okay it is not as "evolved" as Unity and other all-in-1 engines, but it suits me, because I don't want to build a game with an editor-like engine. I want to have full control on what I made, and above all I want to understand what I do, and why I do it. That's why I often look at the libgdx java source code trying to understand how it works, why it was done this way, and then I compare with everything I learned when browsing the web.


But let's stop talking about me. Now that every single people that came on this page left since the "I'm hungry" line - because that was probably the case - let's talk about the game ... ;)

Shine is a 2d puzzle game with a simple, but original, concept. There are 2 basic elements :

  • Emitters (each of these elements send one light ray of one specific color in one of the 4 directions)
  • Receivers (each of these elements needs to receive at least one light ray of one specific color to ... what ever ... let's say that's enough to make it happy)

The problem is that every receiver will not always be in the range of an emitter. There will also be obstacles that will prevent the light from passing. To complicates things a bit, you will sometimes have to mix colors for some pest receivers. Fortunately you will have plenty of other elements to use to succeed in your mission.
The game is still in the early stages of its development at this moment. Even if I'm busy now, I try to work on it a bit every day, and I think about an outlet (right word ?) on Google Play by the end of august, and later on iOS if we have a good feedback.
Anyway you can see the final graphics in the "Images" section ... naaaah just kidding :D. I'm waiting for the graphic designer to create the textures, and then I will implement it. These screens are taken from an internal prototype version for debug purposes.

If you like the game (even if at this point of development it is still more a concept than a game), don't forget to "track this game", because even if I have no idea about the purpose of this button it looks cool :D
Hope you enjoyed this introduction post. Watch out for further informations soon !

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