The target aspect ratio for Rebuild 3 is widescreen 16:9. Rebuild 1 and 2 were 4:3 which is pretty normal for Flash games that have to appear on sites like Kongregate with ads and stuff around them. But the PC/Mac and mobile versions of Rebuild 3 will support glorious fullscreen, where 16:9 is the new norm. Check it:
My dubious hobby/addiction to making colorful graphs
So the plan is to design an interface that fits snugly on 16:9 iPhone5s and wide PC screens, but scale and move around to fill more square screens. Here’s a few ways we might do it:
Concept art for Rebuild 3 at 16:9 and 4:3Alternate concept with broken sliding hudConcept with menu down the left, taller menus.
I hope my addiction to mockups leads to something useful. Adam’s doing the same thing on his end, finding inventive new ways to convey a ton of information without looking cluttered. I want the game to feel natural at any resolution, so you don’t feel so much like you’re buried in an endless stack of menus. Which… come to think of it, is not a totally inaccurate description of the game.
After an exhaustive search for a Rebuild 3 artist, sifting through 150 applicants and agonizing over the decision for months, I chose the art and style of Adam Meyer (of Steamroller Studios and Crystal Clear Art). When he’s not working with me on Rebuild 3, Adam’s got a zombie game of his own on the go – the beautiful Deadwood with a super unique art style involving wooden people.
As for the style of Rebuild 3 (tentatively called “Gangs of Deadsville”), we’re going to go for something cleaner and more cartoony than Rebuild 2… but not nearly as cheesy as my stickmen from Rebuild 1. Here’s a rough mockup of what we have in mind:
Adam’s mockup for the new look to Rebuild 3.
The new characters have so much… character! They’ll have mix & match features like earlier games, and a bunch of new clothing options. Hipsters, geeks, cops and cowboys – I can’t wait to make my last stand with these adorable bastards. I’ll leave you with some of Adam’s survivor sketches:
Concept as envisioned by user Pentagon on the Rebuild 3 wiki Now that Word Up Dog has finally launched, I’m starting development on Rebuild 3 in earnest. I’ve been through most of the Rebuild 3 wiki to collect and organize ideas that have been simmering there for months. It’s not too late to add your own suggestions, especially for things like new items, techs and survivor perks.
My next most pressing task is to find an artist for the game. I have several offers from friends who’d like to do pieces of it, but am hoping to find a professional artist able to devote a full (paid) year to the game and do everything from concept sketches to UI to promo art. Rebuild 3 will be a PC downloadable + mobile + browser game with more bells & whistles than the first two. Iād like this new game to look friendlier than Rebuild 2 but not as dorky as Rebuild 1, and Iād prefer bizarre and stylish over the ordinary. We’ll have fun with it! :D
Applicants should:
Have past experience on other games
Have played Rebuild 2 or Rebuild mobile
Design slick, functional and complex game UIs
Draw awesome zombies and other characters
Draw cool and readable buildings/terrain
Animate basic walking and actions
Be self-motivated to work from home
Put UIs together in Flash Pro
(Bonus) Produce vectors either from scratch or via trace
Word Up Dog‘s coming to mobile this Thursday! Now for the very few of you who actually played the original Flash version (available here), I’m gonna tell you bout the changes I made. The most obvious one was the addition of Sara Gross of Two Bit Art to the team. She turned my janky blobbish characters into super pimpin funkmasters. By comparison anyway.
The Lightnin (formerly Lamp) Lizard got some serious mojo.
I resisted change in the UI but added a sweet clock for the bonuses, and generally made everything bigger so it’d be easier to see and read on bitty little phone screens. I changed the default aspect ratio from 4:3 (800×600) to 16:9 (iPhone5), but the game stretches and pads to fit any device.
The Dog left pastel country fields and donned a phat tuque.
Gameplay-wise I took out the idea of lamps and limited sight radius so you can see the whole screen all the time now. I added two more levels and a unique element to each one like vines, vending machines, dancing bugs and lava. And I took out adventure mode, which was a single superlong level that changed the deeper you went. It really needed some design work although it was my favorite way to play, and I’ll put it back in if I get enough mobile sales.
You can see a lot more in the game now.
The bulk of my time on this was spent totally rewriting the graphics engine in Stage3d/Starling and making a hundred other little performance improvements. Those things you don’t even have to think about when writing a browser game for PCs but suddenly become make-or-break on an iPad 1.
The mobile version of Word Up Dog is so improved it’s practically a sequel, but I think of it as version 1.5. I’d like to go back and upgrade the original Flash version now… but ironically it runs slower now on some computers because of the Stage3d. The dance continues!
There are 7 levels in the new improved mobile Word Up Dog, each with it’s own bling-bling in the form of growing vines, dancing bugs, lava, ice and letter-spewing fire-hydrant shaped gashapon machines.
Some things like the gashapon make life easier – you can feed it letters to exchange for different letters. Others are challenges to be overcome, like the vines that take as much energy to dig through as regular dirt, but grow back after a few minutes.
When I wrote the original Word Up Dog two years ago, I was planning to make it a free mobile game with in-app purchases. You’d pay to unlock levels 2-7, and maybe to buy powerups and wildcards. I like demos and want as many people as possible to be able to play my games, but it seems that indie games are getting burned by free-to-play lately. I’ve decided I’m better off charging $1.99 to start and having halfprice sales as often as I can.
