After some cosmetic changes in last week’s update, I added more functionality this time around, and tweaked the gameplay a little bit to make it more challenging.
More importantly, I’ve published the app as a closed Alpha version on Google Play. Find out what’s new after the jump.
Social Integration
In addition to last week’s Google Play Games Integration that added a social and a global ranking system, for the latest version, I added support for Google Play Games achievements. There are 11 achievements to go for, and I made sure they’re challenging.
Unfortunately, I could be wrong, but it seems that Google’s own Unity plugin for Google Play Games do not support retrieving leaderboards information yet, so at the moment, to view the chart, the app will have to use the built-in Leaderboards UI.
This also means the app won’t be able to “see” the rankings as they are, preventing me not only from designing my own UI, but from customizing the game experience by showing the player what score he/she should aim for.
For this purpose, I looked for alternatives. Luckily, I found a Unity plugin that simplifies the Facebook integration into Unity. Sure Facebook has official support/SDK for Unity, but the plugin makes it that much easier, especially if, like in my case, what you’re targeting is a simple leaderboards system.
With the Facebook integration active, you can quickly see the top scores (among your friends only) right after each game. There’s also an Invite and a Brag button. Brag posts to your Facebook wall, allowing you to tell your friends just how awesome you are at flicking. This includes a link which doesn’t work right now, but would someday point to where the game can be downloaded.
Invite allows you to invite a friend to play the game. Once that friend activates the notification, the app will open if he/she has it, otherwise he/she will be brought to the Google Play store to download it.
In addition, while a game is ongoing, the player will be shown the next player on the leaderboards based on his/her current score, giving him/her a target.
Buttons and Fonts
I did a little bit of housecleaning and aesthetic changes, more for legal purposes than anything else.
In particular, I redesigned most buttons to have a shadow and shading effect. Plus, I used different fonts, not only in the button designs but almost everywhere. In previous versions, I used what fonts I had on my PC, but now I used open source or free to use fonts.
Music and Sounds
I re-calibrated the sound effects I used, made some louder, some softer, while some, I had to remove altogether.
I also finally added background music at select portions of the game. I used three free-to-use music from three awesome artists (I won’t mention them here but they’re definitely going to be credited in-app).
I loved the music I used during the actual gameplay. It sounded seamless and exciting, and when I added a little twist – the tempo speeds up as the time runs down – it became so much better. You’ll see what I mean in the video below.
Hoop Flick 0.18a
As I mentioned, I did a few Gameplay tweaks. I realized the game became significantly easier as you figure out how to flick properly. It introduced a new danger – the game won’t end if you keep extending your time!
I had to think of new twists just to shake things up at higher levels. I implemented one idea and immediately felt its impact. At approximately 2120 points, the backboard disappears! This forces you to make sure you’re not flicking too strong or the ball will just sail away.
It sounds like a small deal, actually, since to reach that score, you’d have to be good at shooting Perfect Shots (which are neither strong nor weak) in the first place. But just the added pressure of knowing that shooting a bit stronger than needed will definitely cause you to miss, will mess with your mind.
I also made the balls more bouncy. This is a work in progress, I think they’re too bouncy right now, but definitely more realistic than before. This change also made the game harder.
Finally, there was something bothering me about shooting the ball long in the game. The ball always bounced in. There were no cases when it bounced back strong, like what we see from actual basketball games.
I then realized that in versions before, the hoop sticks from the right side of the screen (which is also the backboard), but this was wrong. A basketball ring isn’t immediately next to a backboard, there’s a small support or bridge. When I added this to the game, I was satisfied at how the balls behaved near the hoop, but it also made the game significantly tougher. Seriously, it took me three tries to breach the first checkpoint (which is only at 60 points) after resetting the game.
It’s important to note that the addition of this “backrim” also significantly increased the use of the teammate. This is because the ring is now closer, leading to more “long” shots from you. It’s also closer to your teammate, allowing him to catch more missed shots.
Alpha
Finally, I uploaded the app to the Google Play store as an Alpha test version. I actually uploaded a version last week (0.1) and kept updating it, but only shared it with my recruited testers recently. The current version, 0.18a, has just gone live as I was writing this post.
Hopefully with their feedback and experiences in playing the game, I can gauge and adjust the game’s difficulty and its achievement system, and get rid of bugs in the process. I’m sure they’ll have some interesting suggestions as testing continues, too, and I’ll be sure to write about them in the coming weeks.
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