Welcome to the Devlog, and other new stuff!

Hi folks, and welcome to the very first Geekabyte Games devlog! Here we will be posting updates about the development progress of our new game KASPLAT, from development challenges and hurdles to new features and lots more! So make sure to keep up on the game's development and be sure to check out our Facebook and Twitter pages for a heads up when a new devlog comes out.

This week we have made loads of progress on the (very) early prototype of KASPLAT. We managed to get a lot of the basic game mechanics implemented. Balloons of all sizes and colors now fly up into the air ready to be splattered when you tap on them to send a dart hurtling their way. We have a new, albeit quite basic main menu and you can now pause the game and restart the round with the new pause menu (screen shots below).

One of the biggest challenges we faced this week, was how to track how many points the player received from splattering a balloon. The aim of the classic game mode is to create larger splats of the same color by bursting same color balloons near each other for a bigger points bonus. After lots of fun beating my head against the desk and a little code magic we managed to create a working solution. Each time a balloon is popped and a splatter created, we break the splatter up into loads of squares that match up to a corresponding grid that cover the whole screen. This grid matrix keeps track of what color is currently filling which bit of the screen at any given time.

Of course the player will never see this grid, all they see is dripping splats of delicious color. However its implementation was a major hurdle this week and we are glad to have it working. The next step will be to check a splatter for any adjacent splats of the same color and give the player a points bonus if they join same color splats together into bigger ones. 

Stay tuned next week for more updates on the score tracking and lots of other new (and more exciting) features that are in the works, including powerups and special bonus balloons!