Adobe Flash EOL

Well, Adobe has given us some poor news a while back.

Even though it had become evident over the past few years that flash was a dying platform, they finally set the timer for the true end. According to the Adobe blog post found here, flash hits end of life in 2020. This means the end of the platform that all of our games are made in (only exception being that one test 3D first person shooter, never mentioned on the blog).

While this news isn't greatly unexpected, it means a difficult change for us here at Time Bending Games. As lead developer, college has slowed development on Battle Ball and others, as can be noted by the long time between small releases. Additionally, Co-Developer Nick Jensen has (mostly) moved on to a career in professional software development, having little time or ambition to continue his projects (mostly referring to SpaceShipCraft).

Q:   Is it the end????
A:   THIS IS NOT THE END! The bad news stops here, as plans are still being made. In fact, last week I worked on implementing a whole new update check system for Battle Ball in an attempt to shift towards a standalone game. With the change in market, players are looking to different outlets to game. No longer do we see the era of web browser based games. Instead, we are seeing a migration back to downloaded games, in the form of the now giant Steam.

Q:   So you are moving to steam? Is that the future?
A:   Not exactly. What I do know is that we need to get out of browser development, and have it happen as quick as possible. While Adobe did mention the end of Adobe flash, it mentioned that this has no bearing on the end of Adobe Air. As some of you may know, Battle Ball and Space Conquest are now on ActionScript 3, and are perfectly publishable to Adobe Air (and thus, standalone exe and mobile apk format). This is the future of our games. If all goes according to plan, I am going to try to get all of our projects running on ActionScript 3 and have them published to exe format and (hopefully) mobile. Steam, however, is a whole different can of worms. Steam charges $100 to publish, an amount of money I can't afford to invest so heavily in games I make no money from.

Well that's all for today,

As always, Cheers. Even cheers to the bad news :)

Jordan

Space Conquest v.6

What has happened?? Is this the apocalypse? Have the walls caved in on reality? No my friends, this is actually a Space Conquest update, with the last update over 4 years. We had pushed it to the side for quite a while, and when we tried to revisit it about 2 years ago, effort seemed futile because it was written poorly, had bad performance, and was in an outdated language called ActionScript 2 (Just like SpaceShipCraft still is, hint hint).

However, ActionScript 2 days are gone for Space Conquest. With this version, we have migrated all of the code to ActionScript 3, enabling the future option of exe versions, full-screen, and mobile development. Additionally, through the conversion to ActionScript 3, we have done some rudimentary code cleanup to make the project somewhat manageable (more on that in the next version). As a byproduct of the conversion, we have seen a much more stable frames per second, which is very encouraging.

Here are the release notes:

• Code migration - as mentioned above, it is running on AS3.
• Code cleanup - this release decreases the amount of lines of code dramatically 
• Level addition - this release has added 4 more levels, all of which are unique and add some great new enemies to fight.
• Main Menu - Space Conquest now has a title! Additionally, we moved the buttons to the bottom to reflect a more balanced main menu.
• Cursor - the cursor now changes depending on if you are clicking, as well as changes between menu and regular game-play.
• Balancing - this game features a ton of balancing. You can find this in about 6 different achievements, where we have lowered some of the pack pickup requirements, while increasing a few of the damage dealt achievements. Also, we have started off new games with more health, faster health upgrades, more energy, and slightly higher fire-rate. A few more balances were made to other upgrades as well.

As with any major change, there may be some bugs in this release. We tested pretty thoroughly, but I'm sure a few bugs slipped through the cracks. Please help us exterminate them. Until next time,

Cheers,

Jordan

SpaceShipCraft

Hello Everyone!

As many of you already probably know about, we have a game called SpaceShipCraft available on our main site.


But why haven't there been any posts about it?
I feel that it is now time to mention its existence as the extent that the project got to surpassed our expectations and now deserves a mention on the blog. We do not currently have a versioning system in place for the game either, which also contributed to me not posting any updates about it. However, these reasons are no longer strong enough to not give it a good mention. Here is an overview of the games mechanic, and some possible future features:

Game features:

• Fully designable, paintable, and expandable ships. Our ship design system includes a wide array of spaceship parts, meant to have full customization through independent key binding.
• Ship editor - Ship editing takes place on a 32 by 32 grid, with the only restriction being all parts must connect to the bridge, and the ship must have a bridge (bridge being the 'command center').
• Online multiplayer - The main focus of this game is online multiplayer in which you face off in free for all with your ship against everyone else's. This is where your design starts to really matter, and design efficiency really starts to shine.
• Physics engine - albeit inefficient in rendering, the game has some very 'lifelike' two dimensional physics, all thanks to my brothers efforts. This makes the game both difficult and really fun. The physics extends not only to maneuvering the ships but for bullets and collisions too, allowing for real-time collision and part destruction. This is the heart of what makes the game fun.
• Import system and ship sharing - Not only can you save 10 ships locally, but you can share them using the import/export feature. to accompany this, we have created a global google doc to let players try others ships. This document can be found at this link: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1M17L8X5wY_ubVdjId0elQZoOWq6d0VPoujsF_dXt4FY/edit?usp=sharing

Development Status:

Currently I would like to consider this my brothers project. He was the lead developer on the physics of the game, while I assisted in menus and did most of the server side extension coding. He also helped with the game concept, as to what parts we wanted to be available to the player, how to balance game-play, and what we wanted for the future. I was in charge of all of the in game art, from parts to the star parallax to the (rather basic) menu layout.

We did work on a development version that introduced multi-room online gaming, but the future development has been put on hold since our lives have become more busy.

I hope we will someday be able to return to development of this promising game, but for now, I would like to leave at least a shout-out to its existence. Like always, feel free to comment with any suggestions you have.

Cheers, 

Jordan

Battle Ball v0.9.110 Beta

Well, all I can say is it has been a while. A long while. College has stunted our progress on our games. However, I was able to get this update polished off finally, and it has some pretty cool features. Here goes:

• Make skills tab flash at 5+ points
• Shine to the Battle Ball logo
• Smart wall collisions
• HUD goes translucent when the ball is behind it
• Smart enemy collisions
• Smart portal awesomeness

This update was focused on implementing a new collision system, as well as some new rendering techniques I learned that can have some really cool effects. Of course, I cleaned some old code up too that was really bugging me.

Cheers,

Jordan

Battle Ball v0.9.109 Beta

Hey guys. 'Nuther update! Here are the notes:
Features:

• Is performance really a feature?
• MOBILE PERFORMANCE!
• Im calling that it a feature. Heck ya.
• RAM usage at 1/2 of previous release.

Bugs:

• Fixed boss button roll over handler
• Fixed while dying, switching levels you still die again.
• Fixed when killing a boss, unlocking a new level, and chosing level select when already in the level select menu, the game broke.

Be on the lookout for LOTS of bugs, I re-wrote the entire rendering method.

Cheers,

Jordan

Battle Ball v0.9.108 Beta

New update rolling out today for mobile and browser.

I just love saying those two in the same sentence :) Integrated mobile browser in one codebase.... no versioning issues.... Easy release....

Anyway, I'll stop drooling on my keyboard. For now. Have some release notes:

Changes:

• Joysticks (mobile) - control the ball and turret with joysticks. (beta!)
• level unlocked menu - shows up when you unlock a new level. It gives a short description and a picture of the level.
• background - has a cool texture. tiny change but has a big effect on the 'feel' of the game. (added background panels, but they are disabled)
• Halloween themed logo - BEWARE!

Tweaks:

• Visual - hud bars have a grey-ish background gradient now
• Gameplay - adjusted boss xp values

Bugs annihilated with Raid (no copyright issues intended):

• Application activate deactivate is better hopefully.
• Fixed level 6 background color
• Fixed xp bar scale
• Fixed tutorial not showing if you click the achievement or upgrade in game notifications.

Cheers,

Jordan

Battle Ball v0.9.107 Beta

Great. I forgot to change the GameisMobile boolean to true for the mobile release, thus v0.9.107. yippy 2 updates in 1 day.

Battle Ball v0.9.106 Beta

Woo update after a while!!  If you want, you can take a survey on Battle Ball via this link:

http://goo.gl/forms/VFBysaVVW8

Blah blah blah, here are the release notes:
Features:

• Tutorial - introduces basic gameplay and menus
• Clear data - button in save load menu, allows you to reset all save slots

Bugs:

• Fixed respawning on same level breaking everything
• Fixed TBG logo not weird box

Cheers,

Jordan 

Battle Ball v0.9.105 Beta

Small update out today. The changes are as follows:

Features:

• Increased value of killing (most) bosses
• Added pause menu to multiplayer
• Tweaked Small Button Color in Multiplayer
• Added settings menu
• Volume Slider
• Quality - Low, Medium, High
• Background Detail - Low, Medium, High
• Particles Slider
• Desktop Only:
• Control Settings - WASD or Arrow Keys
• Mobile Only:
• Control Settings - Tilt or Joystick (Preview)
• Accelerometer Calibration - (Preview)
• Credits
• Diagnostics - log that shows any issues battle ball encounters, or used for debugging
• Deleted mute in pause menu
• Deleted background adjustment in pause menu

Bugs squashed:

• Fixed xp generator and health generator not on ball
• Fixed pause button in multiplayer breaking everything (mobile)

Cheers,

Jordan

Battle Ball v0.9.104 Beta

Incremental update for Battle Ball out today! You may ask, why skip v 0.9.103? The reason we did this is because when publishing to the Google Play Store, the app got flagged as insecure due to it running on an old version of adobe air. This forced me to get a new version of adobe air, and increment the version number on mobile. So, here we are at good ol' 104 due to that. Anyways, this minor update includes:

• Multiplayer - The previous version had a very small glimpse at the upcoming multiplayer. This version expands on that preview exponentially:
• Server side accounts - added a new create account and log in mechanism, allowing battle ball to save data to the server so you can play your multiplayer account from any computer.
• Rooms - you can now create a room (with a few settings) that online pplayers can join from the lobby.
• Room Interactions - you now have the ability to see a players readiness, kick players (if you are the admin), and start a game.
• Multiplayer Gameplay - a very minimalistic preview of online gameplay is bundled with this version. You have the ability to move and aim as well as see all of the other opponents. Shooting and Scoring is not yet possible. The game concludes and puts you back in the Muliplayer Menu.

• Singleplayer - Minor improvements to the ball visuals and movement itself.

Remember, if you have an android phone, you can join the Battle Ball Beta on the Google Play Store, just follow this link and opt-in to the beta program:

https://play.google.com/apps/testing/air.com.TimeBendingGames.BattleBall

Cheers,

Jordan

Battle Ball v0.9.102 Beta

Fixed some important flaws from the last update, as well as some cool new features:

• Added main menu
• Includes single player, multiplayer, settings, and enemy index. As of this release, singleplayer works, multiplayer is being built, and settings and enemy index do not do anything.
• Redid save system:
• Added autosave functionality, occurs when you level up or when you quit.
• Saves are loaded from the main menu, decreasing confusion associated with the old system.

Bugs:

• Fixed portals not working.
• Fixed upgrade indicators not displaying after loading a different game.

Battle Ball v0.9.101 Beta

Another very minor update for Battle Ball, but completely different for us.As of this update, Battle Ball is now written in ActionScript 3. Big deal right? This means that the updates for mobile and browser can be syncronized easily, providing faster updates and less confusion. To further increase syncronisation, the version labeling of Battle Ball versions has been changed. Without further jibber-jabber about useless complicated backend stuff, here are the changes that will actually affect you:

Features:

• Updated GUI - all of the buttons feature an updated GUI that decreases file size and increases legibility.
• Changed all done buttons to say back, and moved them all to the left side.

Bugs Squashed:

• hud was behind spikes
• on level 4 u could shoot through the spikes
• tri shot turret's bullets wouldn't move
• bullets missed changed to bullets fired in stats menu
• reset skills destroyed boost recharge
• overall stats was not loading correctly

Battle Ball Mobile

Over here at Time Bending Games, we have made a few changes to Battle Ball Mobile beta testing. As of today, anyone can join the program by following this link on their android device:

https://play.google.com/apps/testing/air.com.TimeBendingGames.BattleBall

This means easier opt in, which provides more feedback for us, and thus more updates and tweaks! Wooo!! One thing to note, this blog will *most likely not* be posting updated versions of Battle Ball Mobile. The release notes can be found on the google play store. for a history of updates, contact us and we will try to send you a list of all previous recorded updates. Until next time,

Cheers!

Jordan

Battle Ball v.91 Beta

Not as major as the last update, but smooths lots of things over. Here are the latest and greatest features implemented and bugs squashed:

Features:

• New Upgrade System:
• Max levels and indicators
• skill points can be added or minused
• additional upgrades for pickups, health generator, and xp generator.
• Achievements Menu:
• Redid Icons - Shiny!
• Replaced Achievements - accommodated for the loss of slow time and changes in the upgrade system
• Achievement click noise for reward and regular
• Dropped Slow time
• Decreased all turrets health on boss 10
• Killing a boss now adds to kills.
• Portals are a lot smarter (depreciated the portal timer)
• Pickup achievements add a static amount to pickups instead of doubling worth
• Killing boss 5 and 10 add a static amount to pickups instead of doubling worth
• Decreased the health generator's power
• Decreased the xp generator's power
• Boss 6-10 explosion sound when killed
• Bullet Speeds can now vary
• Boss Homing bullets are now black, and home in on the ball better
• Added notification for saving, loading, and clearing save slots
• Major performance enhancements!

Bugs:

• Fixed side sliders only hit inner ball.
• Fixed the boss music loop
• Fixed the boss music, and background sound still playing after clicking the upgrade and achievement notifications
• Fixed a turret on boss 7 having too much health
• Fixed 3 turrets on boss 9 having too little health
• Fixed incorrect health bar length on bosses 6-10
• Fixed resetting a save slot then loading gives 5 free initial skill points
• Fixed health generator generating health after the ball is dead
• Fixed Boss 5 homing bullet not working
• Fixed Achievement 21-24 reward

Battle Ball v.9 Mobile

Here at Time Bending Games we have just released the first ever beta version of Battle Ball to the Google Play Store. The features of the mobile version are exactly the same as the browser version at this point, but will most likely fall behind the main version with future updates.

Since it is in beta, you will not find it in the store just by doing a search for it. Unfortunately, it is only tested on a group of people. To join in the fun, send me an email tiuipuv(AT)gmail(DOT)com and I will add you to the group of beta testers.

Cheers,

Jordan

Sky Drive v1.31

Figured it was time for a nice polishing update to cover up the big 1.3 update a while back. Though there are not many new huge features, this update is sure to smooth out a lot of gameplay issues. This update includes, but is not limited to:

• Made 2 more platforms in starting area
• Added 2 additional platforms
• Made the 4 edge platforms longer
• Added color to helicopter shot text
• Made shooting a player give score and display text
• Made pickups give score and display text
• Slowed the helicopter down
• Increased helicopter spawn rate
• Increased vertical range helicopter spawns in
• Reduced helicopter score worth in Arcade
• Made parachuter be affected by speed
• Added wins count to the Summary Menu in Arcade mode
• Added total score  to the Summary Menu in Campaign mode
• Added 2 targets to shoot at in Campaign Mode
• Added 2 levels, randomizes between the 3.
• Different levels have different colored platforms.
• Added Settings Menu, and moved Animations and Always Day into it.
• Added Mute Setting.
• Kongregate Only: Added another stat, targets shot
• Removed 4th of July theme.

Bug Fixes:

• 2 overlapping platforms at same height acted like a wall
• Main Menu text was selectable
• Helicopter score text was selectable
• Helicopter didn't animate on main site

Battle Ball v.9 Beta

Firstly I would like to say..... BATTLE BAAAALLLLLLL!!!!! Just, WOOOO!!! Anyway, this is another one of those spooky updates pumping out the Time Bending Games factory. This is the biggest update Battle Ball has ever had since initial release. The entire game has been rewritten at its core, so that caused the most delay. So here are the notes:

• New Enemies are green!
• Added bosses 5-10 - Hexagonal boss, with awesome intro animation, sliding out turret holders, and one kick butt center turret. Warning: Boss 10 is really difficult, as he seems to be mysteriously juiced up with a nice xp generator!
• Added levels 6-10 - Some of the spikes have ends. These levels are all green enemies, with some awesome tri-shot tank enemies and stationary shooters!
• Added cheats
• Added Achievement Notification
• Added Confirm Button for Saving, Loading, and Clearing Data
• Added level kill quota - 50 kills on a level will fill the quota, turning the level button gold, and gives the player a skill point.
• Added covers for spike intersections
• Added xp Generator for killing boss 10
• Added version number to lower right corner in pause menu
• Changed spawn system (not visible)
• Changed menu system (not visible)
• Changed level system (not visible)
• Decreased Reward for Distance Traveled achievement
• Decreased Requirements for Distance Traveled achievement (from 1,000,000 to 200,000)
• Increases Difficulty faster in levels 1-5
• Increases xp earned from kills in levels 1-5
• Moved the fps indicator towards HUD and behind menus
• Added logo - themed for Halloween!

Bugs that be squashed:

• Fixed HUD not showing totals.
• Fixed side enemies rotating while timeslowing during respawn animation.
• Fixed sounds not working because of the loading bar.
• Fixed Health Generator not being right on the ball (delayed).
• Fixed Boss 4 and 5 side turret bullets showing even when not fired.
• Fixed The distance traveled achievement to take the right amount of distance.
• Fixed Health Generator staying on screen after ball is killed.
• Fixed boss 5 not appearing after being killed once.
• Fixed Bullets staying on screen after ball is killed.
• Fixed Slow time not affecting Health Generator.
• Fixed Slow time not affecting the background enemy spawner.
• Fixed Achieve All achievement still being locked, and reward not giving anything.
• Fixed Slow time not affecting respawn animations.
• Fixed enemy spawn jumping.
• Fixed the infinite growth and failure to spawn some enemies would encounter.
• Fixed boss music loop after the intro it would skip on slow computers.
• Fixed the boost achievements not saving how many boost packs were collected.

Not that much info right? Sure. Not all changes are listed, mostly because the list was created more recent than the changes, so for those not listed, I'm sorry for not putting them here (not really). Accompanying this update (or more like battle ball v.87 ish) is being tested in a select group of mobile phones, with sweeto-neeto-kinda-nifty tilty functionality. The mobile may be released to the google play store at version 1.0 (can't imagine how much longer it will be till then, if history is any indicator, 2 and a halfish years :P ). Curious about Space Conquest, or Sky Drive? Cool. As for Space Conquest, we have just level 20 to design and implement, and pwoosh, factory starts pumping out a new update (for the very, very small fee of free). Sky Drive is still in the idea gathering phase, as well as the data collection phase for those who play on kongregate, so no update is in the works yet. Anywho,

Happy Halloween! and ...

Please comment with any suggestions you have!!!

(ah the traditions that don't matter) Cheers,

Jordan Jensen

Christmas Wallpapers

Here are the official Christmas Time Bending Games Wallpapers:

• 1920x1080
• 1440x900
• 1366x768
• 1280x1024
• 1280x800
• 1024x768
• 800x600

Happy early Christmas!

Jordan

Halloween Wallpapers

Here are the official Halloween Time Bending Games Wallpapers:

• 1920x1080
• 1440x900
• 1366x768
• 1280x1024
• 1280x800
• 1024x768
• 800x600

Happy early Halloween!

Jordan

Sky Drive v1.3

Happy 4th of July from Time Bending Games! (At least close there in to the 4th, haha) Firstly, I would like to thank all of those on freesound.org for letting me use their sounds in my game. Also, thanks to Joe Wagner from flashkit for the fireworks animation! Here is one of the biggest updates ever for Sky Drive, hope it improves game-play tremendously, especially for single-player. Improvements include, but are not limited to:

• Changed to Multiplayer/Singleplayer categories
• Arcade Players starting locations changed
• Arcade Players starting locations now shuffle
• Arcade Scoreboard automatically scales to number of players
• Arcade Scoreboard puts players in order of score (highest to lowest)
• Help Menu automatically scales to number of players
• Help Menu background changed to yellow
• Added Pscioed and MonkeyBarrelMan to Credits
• Added support for menu transitions
• Added a score indicator for when a helicopter is shot
• Decreased Arcade Fire rate powerup to 16 seconds
• Major performance increases
• **Logo - Themed for 4th of July!
• Kongregate Only: A slew of new stats! from 3 stats to 15 stats, including separated arcade vs career stats.

Added career menu:

• back
• save/load (10 save slots)
• upgrade (with buy and upgrade)
• stats (with 7 stats)
• instructions
• continue/start

Sounds:

• Button Press - occurs when a button is pressed (duh)
• Player Bullet Fired - occurs when shooting
• Player Bullet Hit - occurs when a player is hit, randomizes between 6 sounds
• Player Gravity Flip - occurs when you change your gravity
• Menu Music - music that changes depending on what menu you are in
• Powerup - occurs when you pick up a powerup
• Atmosphere - occurs during gameplay

Bug Fixes:

• Fixed bug: logo cloud edge no longer appears at the end of the animation
• Fixed bug: powerups didn't respawn in new locations on the following run
• Fixed bug: powerups causing way more lag than needed during singleplayer
• Fixed Arcade bug: Player 1 powerups would carry over to the next run
• Fixed Arcade bug: Pressing enter would cause some vehicles to spawn incorrectly
• Fixed Arcade bug: Player 3 randomly spawning out of the playing area
• Fixed Arcade bug: Player 1 randomly spawning higher than normal

Wow, talk about taking up screen space. That is the longest release notes we have ever had. Cool. Another thing of note is that the kongregate version is starting from a clean slate, so I will be contacting the kong developers so they can remove the old Sky Drive. I will then upload the latest and greatest with no low ratings! This process will probably take a few weeks, so give it time. As always,

Please comment with any suggestions you have!!!

Cheers,

Jordan