InvinciBall - iPhone Game

Community Showcases
1

I just got InvinciBall 1.0 onto the AppStore

What is it?
King of the Hill with Balls

FEATURING
    * Beautifully detailed 3D graphics and sound
    * Awesome physics engine
    * 3 game modes
    * 3 difficulty settings

CLASSIC MODE
Gather points by rolling into a scoring zone or steal points from opponents by knocking them out of the arena!

SURVIVAL MODE
You lose a life each time you fall out of the arena, but so do your opponents. Last ball rolling wins.

TERRITORY MODE
Capture as many scoring zones as you can. Holding onto them will earn you points.

CONTROLS
Move your ball by flicking anywhere on the screen to add force to your ball. Tilting or shaking is not required.

I have a gameplay video on this page:

And here is the link to it in the AppStore:
http://itunes.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/viewSoftware?id=301047058&mt=8

Technical Details

  • The balls are all just billboards with a sphere collider
  • The shadow is actually part of the billboard. I just adjust the alpha to show or hide the shadow (saves 4 draw calls if I were to do the shadow in a separate pass :smile: )
  • Faces are drawn in a 2nd pass though
2

looks nice!

what do you mean by “adjust the alpha”? are you writing to the alpha-channel of the image?

3

When the faces were just black lines I was able to do it all in 1 pass like this:

Pass {
			Lighting Off
			SeparateSpecular Off
	        SetTexture [_MainTex] {
	            Combine texture, texture
	        }
	        SetTexture [_FaceTex] {
	        	Combine texture * previous, previous
	        }
		}

That would draw the ball with the shadow since the alpha channel in _MainTex allowed the shadow to show through.

To get rid of the shadow I would change the shader on the material slightly:

Pass {
			Lighting Off
			SeparateSpecular Off
	        SetTexture [_MainTex] {
	            Combine texture, texture
	        }
	        SetTexture [_FaceTex] {
	        	Combine texture * previous, texture
	        }
		}

Now it uses the alpha of the _FaceTex image which is a perfect circle, thus the shadow is masked.

So I can just swap between the 2 shaders depending on if the ball is touching the ground.

I ended up adding another pass to the face to add color (the white eyes). But that is okay since I saved a pass on the shadows :slight_smile:

4

you really think you can sell the game at $2.99 (it looks super polished but that seems kind of high). I would buy it for $1.99USD!

5

Yeah, I think you are right. I changed it a few hours ago to $1.99 and the changes have just taken effect.

I was looking at this article:

Finding the right price is tricky. I had 30 downloads on the first day. So at 1.99 I would need to get 45 sales to make the same amount. It seems from the comments and emails I have gotten, that I could have made 45 possibly.

The app store is pretty fun to work with, once you get past the certificate stuff. Now I get to focus on user feedback and make version 1.1 better in the areas people like. Possibly a pinball machine type level.

6

you got a sale sir :P!