iOS indie developers writing every day about their stuff.

Game Design Sensibilities

Alexander Okafor
paradeofrain.com

I’ve been playing a fair number of board games lately. It’s interesting because the design of those games I feel are a whole different world compared to modern video game designs. In a way, I feel board games are a ‘purer’ game design in some aspects. You’re not tied down in presentation, cut-scenes, and other [...]

Outwitting the New Year

Alexander Okafor
paradeofrain.com

That’s probably the most non-sensical post title I’ve every come up with. Anyway, just wanted to  do a quick update post on Outwitters. I’ve got a few longer-form entries in the works but I’m letting them cook a little bit before posting. There’s a lot of moving parts right now in trying to get this game [...]

Outwitters Progress and Disk Access issues in VM’s

Alexander Okafor
paradeofrain.com

I’ve been slacking lately on the blog unfortunately. In any case, Outwitters is still chugging along as I chip away at a large to-do list. We’re still not feature-complete, which is a bit disappointing. Yet, the core game is playing more smoothly than I predicted it would be at this stage so that’s a plus. [...]

The Indie Spirit

Alexander Okafor
paradeofrain.com

I’ve been slow on the blog updates lately mostly because the times I use to write were taken up with me being out of town. Just got back from an awesome weekend trip at MLG Orlando. For those that don’t follow that area of gaming, MLG stands for Major League Gaming, and is essentially a league [...]

Outwitters Dev Battle Report

Alexander Okafor
paradeofrain.com

Oh, It’ll Be Out By…. Hmm, even now as I look back on what’s been done on Outwitters, I’ve learned a *ton* of new things in regards to game development. I’m not too excited about having only 1 game to release this year (if we even make *that*). Hell, we even planned on having 2 [...]

Getting Production Data Out of Google App Engine And Into your iOS App

Alexander Okafor
paradeofrain.com

This following post is probably going to be useful to an extremely niche audience: anyone developing a multi-user iOS app that has a GAE backend. I’m currently working on Outwitters and debugging turn-based games on the local dev server (dev_appserver.py) is really quick and painless. The problem arises from the nature the game. It’s a [...]

Gameplay Choices in Outwitters

Alexander Okafor
paradeofrain.com

We’re still balancing Outwitters gameplay. When thinking about changing, removing, or adding gameplay I try to keep two aspects in mind, choices and unpredictability. I’ll speak to the choices aspect today, as I’m still trying to grapple with that whole unpredictability thing in a turn-based perfect-knowledge setting. When we set out to create Outwitters, we [...]

“Srs Bidness” Mode Engaged

Alexander Okafor
paradeofrain.com

I’ve been making a ton of progress on Outwitters lately. Although when I step back and look I still see a mountain of work left to do. But I *do* feel like I’m whittling away slowly at it. All of the core gameplay has been implemented for local play. Online play works in a non user-friendly manner [...]

Crazy Busy And A New Work Style!

Alexander Okafor
paradeofrain.com

Wow, Friday almost flew right past me. I’ve been working on Outwitters practically non-stop. A lot of the major ‘components’, as I like to think of them, have been figured out and implemented in some sort of fashion. Now I have to make this big herculean effort to get it all integrated and seamless: 1v1 [...]

Observations of the Casual Mind

Alexander Okafor
paradeofrain.com

Keep in mind, a lot of the rambling below is in the context of me being neck-deep in working on Outwitters, which is a strategy board game. I’m constantly thinking of ways to present games, their systems, and their objectives to people. Notice I said people, not gamers, or casual gamers. Sometimes I even look around [...]

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