We recently picked up Unity 3.5 iOS and Android licenses in Unity's recent give-away, so we're now all set to make the breastfeeding app a reality in the next few months! We'd already started researching engines and platforms for our next projects (not just the breastfeeding app, but all non-XNA games in the future), and Unity was the top choice, so to save money and get to work sooner is a massive boost for us as a small, cash-strapped team.

We have to say an enormous "Thank you!" to the Unity team, and it's a real source of excitement at the moment to know where we're going next - and that we have great tools and community support to do it with. We'd suggest you get yourself over to www.unity3d.com right now and get the licenses for yourself before April 9th.

While you're at it, get yourself copies of the excellent books "Unity 3.X Game Development Essentials" and "Unity iOS Game Development Beginners Guide" from Packt Publishing (www.packtpub.com) and you won't go wrong.

In a post-nuclear-war-ravaged world, the only remaining living things are cockroaches. Then, suddenly, a robovac factory is hit by a lightning bolt and the plant fires up. The automated factory starts churning out the little cleaners and slowly, over time, through countless minor improvements to the AI design, their network routines fuse into a rudimentary cloud communication system. With the factory now full to bursting with cleaners - yet spotless - the cleaners spill out through the overwhelmed doors and venture out into the world to find it over-run with dust, dirt... and bugs. Their mission: to clean the world. For the cockroaches: they must survive.

We're all go for Dream.Build.Play now! Got our registration in on time and we're excited to be taking part. Less than a month to submission, and it's going to be tough to get everything done by then, so we're hoping for a really solid version of the basic game with no holes and major flaws. Leaderboards and social features like that won't be implemented for the DBP submission, so that takes some of the workload off, but we still have a whole bunch of art left to make and some important code features also.

For everyone reading this post on XNALastDance.com, best of luck to you all!

In other news - and the reason there's no new screenshots in this post - we're overhauling the level editing system and moving from just slapping a texture on a heightmap to using a proper 3D mesh set-up. Still keeping the heightmaps underneath, but having a much better-looking presentation and a far superior system for making the levels. Will be able to work within Blender and see our changes, make them instantly, export the new heightmap, get sweet textures... Ahh, it'll be lovely! This was something we'd always planned for post-launch, but it's become such an issue that it had to get done sooner. We're got the basic system sorted out and our code side of things is completed, but there's a bit of a problem on the Blender side at the mo - it's spitting out a 210MB .x file for level 1 ;)

We've also replaced all of the HUD buttons with really nice new versions, our front end system is mostly done, the credits screen is in (always a nice milestone!), and we've now got the fourth enemy in the middle levels... We've been busy since the last update.

This weekend we'll be nailing the new level set-up, adding in loads of new audio, finishing off the front end (just text positions, really), getting in a fifth enemy, and hopefully getting some rather special code into the game. No hints yet as to what that will be. It's also been a little while since we made a 360 or WP7 build, so we'll be updating them and testing everything is still okay.

Lot more details in the next post, including a complete breakdown of our plans for the game and exactly what it will contain.

More big updates since the last post. Our new artist, Laurie, has been hard at work overhauling all of Daniel's crappy place-holder art with much nicer models and textures, and we think the game is already looking a lot better for it - just need to get the ground texture painted properly to get a much better look and feel before we really start thinking about offering a demo for playtesting. The game has been polished a lot, but we've also done a lot of back-end work recently to optimise and just generally clean stuff up - the code is now much nicer and there are far fewer assets shipped in the game package now.

We now have proper phone controls (tap/drag/pinch/back button), Stuart W has done music for every level and lots of sound effects throughout, sound support for on the phone, a stack of gameplay balancing changes, a lower and more angled camera view to give a more "action" viewpoint, some interface tweaks, all the new models and textures, plus a whole bunch of bug fixes.

Time for some before-and-after images...

The all-important Nest:

The hero Cockroach:

The Attack Tower stronghold:

The Defend Tower, which chases Cleaners across the map (rear):

The Defend Tower (front / side):

The Drill Tower, which mines for resources:

So, hopefully you'll agree with us that they're all looking a lot better now!

Next up is implementing our new front end system and nailing down level 1. Stuart R is also working on our save/load system for gameplay progress and your high scores, plus implementing leaderboards for the  two modes, so hopefully that will be done soon also. Laurie has now upgraded all the models we want to keep from the old placeholder stuff and is now starting work on new buildings for level 1 - once a few of them have been done we can get the ground texture repainted. And Stuart W is off on a two-week holiday. The lucky sod...

Um, been a while since the last update, eh?

So what's changed?

Front-end menus have been designed and are being implemented at the moment; dead cleaners can now be harvested and give you metal to use in beefing up your towers or repairing your nest; a proper pick-ups system is now coded, so in the fairly near future we'll have random power-up pick-ups spawning around the map for you to collect; there are even more enemies coming at once, plus an extra spawn point per map for them to mix things up; big gameplay balancing; level 1 has actually been changed a fair bit since the "final" version in the last post - there's now lots more buildings and routes for the cleaners to get to you.

And, most important of all, we have two new team members. We have a very talented audio designer who is giving us great new music at the moment and will provide full sound effects over the coming weeks, plus a new artist starting next week, so hopefully soon the models are all going to get overhauled and we'll get a lot more created also. We might well look for a second artist soon, so if you're based in or around Dundee, can do great 3D modelling and are looking for a project to gain some experience, get in touch via contact [at] obskewer .co.uk.

Once the new front end stuff is in place and a good few of the level art assets have been upgraded, we'll get a video done - promise! ;)

Wow, it's been a while. Had a couple of team issues (which have now been resolved) and Dan now has a day-job at YoYo Games, so progress has definitely slowed recently. With Xmas holidays coming up and people settling into their new routines, hopefully the pace will pick up again soon.

So what have we achieved in the last month or so? Well, the game has had a bit of a gameplay pass and it's now faster with around 2.5 times the original number of enemies; we now have cleaners staying on the map and being harvested for metal, which will soon be used to bolster your towers and heal your nest; it's been optimised a bit; and the graphics have been resized to fit on the phone better; we have our design nailed down for later levels and gameplay elements, plus a strategy for IAPs and the definitive list of release platforms. We're also in talks with an audio developer to join us in January so we can get cracking on adding in some more elements. Hey, it's not much, but it's still an improvement.

We are now looking for an artist to join us also, so if you're interested This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it us and send some work samples and a CV. You'll need to be able to do some low-to-medium-poly 3D modelling (ideally in Blender), plus 2D work for creating high-quality model textures and also menu screens. If you have 2D animation skills for cutscenes that would be a huge bonus. Ideally also, you'll be located in or near Dundee, but online is okay for the right applicant. This position is offered for experience/CV/fun purposes only at the moment, there's no wage. But you do get to join us during an exciting project and hopefully get a game out in fairly short order which has your name included. We're up for more than one person joining, so if you can do some stuff and not others, let us know anyway.

Damn those particles! They look so good on the PC and Xbox, but because the phone doesn't allow custom shaders we can't use them on that yet. Dan's spent a bunch of time trying to fix it without writing an entirely new secondary particle system, but no joy so far. We'll nail it at some point, but for now they're simply turned off if you're playing on the phone.

We're getting a lot of good responses when showing off the game now and people enjoy playing the game on the phone, so it's very encouraging that people are "getting it" - especially where we're still a good way from releasing and still need to polish a lot. We'll have more time for development from now on as well, so progress should start coming thick and fast. If you'd like to give us feedback, This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it

Anyway, fresh screenshots, like we promised:

Mouse over the image and click the handles to scroll through the slideshow.

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• Here we have a few towers placed, then increasingly populated (the number in the circle above the tower shows how many roaches are inside) and the tower at the top eventually showing light damage.
• Cleaners of all three current types invade and head for the nest.
• You can see the Antibacterials' green poisonous gas cloud and the Carpet Washers' stream of scalding-hot, soapy water whipping around them.
• A carpet bomber is fired to clear the enemies out a bit.
• The nest moves away from its attackers a bit in the final couple of shots..
• You can also see the new buttons for mouse/touch controls. They also dim when you don't have enough population or can't use an attack because it's recharging, etc. These don't function as buttons on the 360, but are still there for player information.

Next up is getting the level layouts a lot better (actually placing things properly in level 1...) and then making sure save/load works at all times.

Pretty particles, group sessions, mice and Windows Phone 7: that's what the last couple of weeks have been about.

We had our first group work session on Sunday the 16th. Cake and sandwiches were provided. We've had a few meetings before, but had never actually sat down to work side-by-side, so it was really nice to get some good progress, discussion and instant feedback. Stu's particle changes are now in and do indeed look great, so now cleaners attack with a nice particle effect and towers show their damage much nicer. We've still lots got more things to add effects to (hey, gotta re-use the code...), but it's already made a nice impact on the appearance of the game.

Speaking of appearances, Mike has been working hard on a lovely poster and web banner for the game. We all got to see it on Sunday, so it was nice to have something we can soon point to and use for describing the game. Will get flyers/postcards and business cards made up once we have the final poster image. The poster has a really nice retro b-move style and the banner is a little comical battle scene. They'll grace this page when they're ready.

Also, Dan has been hard at work porting over to the phone, initially as an early test and spurred on by a new phone purchase. Seeing as it worked well in the emulator, we've now added WP7 support into the main solution, so it looks like we'll launch on the Windows Phone Marketplace at the same time or very shortly after we roll into XBLIG-land! We'll get it tested on the phone shortly, as there was one big problem still to fix at the time...

...But now it's largely fixed. We've put mouse control into the game (the phone uses "mouse" as its feedback using just the same set-up as a real mouse) and now the camera moves nicely around the map as you move the mouse (and, hopefully, as you swipe the screen). Actions are controlled via mouse clicks (screen taps).

Whoops, no update for almost a month. Shame on us! Still, we've gotten a lot done in the last month:

• Remodelled the cockroach a bit and gave it a new texture and basic animations. Now much smoother and looks far better in the game.
• The cleaners are getting a make-over at the moment. Lovely new textures and a clean-up of their geometry.
• Scaled the first map up and now have custom sizes for all the others.
• All maps are now completely separate and can have custom spawn locations, dimensions, ground height values, etc., and the game won't fall over any more.
• Towers now show damage particles as they lose health. A puff of smoke... Constant smoke... Raging inferno!
• Cleaners have particles as they move, attack, and are killed.
• Cleaners and roaches now behave properly around each other. Cleaners kill roaches; roaches caught in the open run away.
• For a while cleaners wouldn't bother attacking the roaches, but it turned out we'd forgotten to change one variable for another - d'oh!
• Defend towers now return to their original position after killing an enemy. Along the way, they also look out for any nearby new targets.
• All-new HUD icons.
• There is now consistent lighting directions and amounts set per level.
• Entities that leave the map are now removed and the player;s score is updated as appropriate.
• Xbox and PC versions both now run in 720p.
• A new camera control system to suit the larger maps - it now moves around the map at a fixed height, RTS-style.
• A whole bunch of gameplay balancing!

Things are really moving now. Had a week or so off after the last post for various reasons, but last week we got back into full swing. There's been only minor visual changes to the game, but a lot of fundamental behind-the-scenes upgrades and optimisation.

• We now support multiple levels, with scores and stuff saved out at the end of each.
• There are now 9 maps in the game (all place-holder at the moment) and all of them have wave patterns already, so you can play a full game now!
• Nest movement is now fixed so you can move more than once.
• Moving the nest to the edge of the map now correctly starts the next map (you can see the new green edge marker below).
• A long time crash if you clicked anywhere outside the map, which we thought was going to be a major issue, has been fixed.
• Adding to that, any attack you mistakenly fire outside the map will now be caught and placed at the edge of the map instead.

Anyway, some new screens. Here's the entire of the first testing wave in the game and a look at all the special attacks and finally the nest moving toward the edge marker. Hopefully, by the next post we'll have gotten a few more kinks worked out and prettied it up a bit, and then it'll be video-worthy!

Mouse over the image and click the handles to scroll through the slideshow.

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