Fula Fisken

Last week we released a huge update where we transformed skins...

Tue, 21 May 2013 11:20:00 +0200

Last week we released a huge update where we transformed skins into real ships with different stats and unique weapons. Hopefully this will create a more diverse gaming experience and retain players in the game.

New patch! This time we have added an upgradable cargo, to...

Fri, 08 Feb 2013 14:28:00 +0100

New patch! This time we have added an upgradable cargo, to upgrade it you need to find specific space junk in the game or with the expensive flux currency.

Check out our new awesome crew portraits available in Astroflux....

Thu, 31 Jan 2013 13:37:00 +0100

Check out our new awesome crew portraits available in Astroflux. They were painted by the talented Daniel Walsh.

The last month we have been working on a new solar system and a...

Sun, 23 Dec 2012 19:16:27 +0100

The last month we have been working on a new solar system and a redesign of the artifact view. We have also planned for the future.

New solar system:
- Sarkinon
- 2 new bosses
- 3 new weapons
- 7 new enemies

New artifact view:
- Mass recycle
- Better overview
- Better summary

Vibrilian is open! Load of new enemies, how about some Blood...

Mon, 29 Oct 2012 14:00:24 +0100

Vibrilian is open! Load of new enemies, how about some Blood planktons? Or Blood Macrofags? Also Deamons, Locust Eggs, Fire Moths, Electro Blobs, and the new boss Chelonidron.

We will reward first player 1000 Flux to take down Chelonidron and posting a video on Youtube showing it. Just make sure to post a link on the Astroflux forum to the video. Let the bug hunt begin!

Before / After on our Starling port This is what we have been...

Sat, 01 Sep 2012 13:08:18 +0200

Before / After on our Starling port

This is what we have been working on the last couple of weeks and now you can see a preview in a before and after shot. Hopefully you will notice which one is after ;-)

Porting the game to Starling was not that difficult, but it took time and we had to choose whether or not to keep the native vector graphics or not. We chose to go all in for Starling and removed almost every native flash component. Which in the end will be a good decision because every piece of graphics end up in a sprite sheet and thus reducing memory costs and messy code.

Stay tuned and we will post more previews!

Last week we released timed missions and it turned out to be a...

Tue, 28 Aug 2012 14:00:55 +0200

Last week we released timed missions and it turned out to be a huge success with over 2500 missions played within 24 hours. Timed missions creates a time limit on regular game play and is an unlimited resource generator. You can also earn 0-3 flux by completing timed missions, the amount of flux is not set in stone and we might tweak it in the future.

So far there are missions for level 1-15. The next step will be to implement more high level missions, within level 15-30. After that we will see what happens.

Watch our new gameplay video from the Mitrillion solar system...

Sun, 05 Aug 2012 15:36:41 +0200

Watch our new gameplay video from the Mitrillion solar system with both PvE and PvP gameplay.

Great Scott! We have so much going on here, the Astroflux team...

Fri, 03 Aug 2012 21:01:55 +0200

Great Scott!

We have so much going on here, the Astroflux team is working like crazy these days. So, today we have one the the biggest updates to Astroflux since the dawn of time.

1. Mission system
2. Weapon changes
3. Improved experience for new players

You can check the patch notes here: http://forum.astroflux.org/viewtopic.php?f=6&t=217

And you can of course play the game here: http://www.astroflux.net

Astroflux update: We have a brand new design for the crew...

Sat, 30 Jun 2012 16:52:21 +0200

Astroflux update:

We have a brand new design for the crew selection page when starting a new explore. We made a more compact, business card like design for the individual crew members to let you get a better overview of what they are up to. The levels is hopefully more highlighted with the highest one in the brightest colour.

We also made the sorting better by now starting with the available crew members on top. Before we did not even show the crew members out on a mission (to save space) but think this give you a better view of all of them.

Also, we added a test version for you to try that uses the whole browser space to let you view more of the game at once. This is a big step for us towards a full screen, graphic accelerated version of the game that should dramatically boost graphic performance and making it possible to add even more particle effects and such.

Have funsies!

New skins! Today we released new skins that we think are really...

Wed, 20 Jun 2012 17:54:31 +0200

Basic skins

Premium skins

Luxury skins

New skins!

Today we released new skins that we think are really cool and we hope you will enjoy them. Except making your space ship cool buying a skin will also support and speed up the development of this game.

Thanks for playing!

This is our home made boss editor that we made during an Xdev...

Wed, 06 Jun 2012 14:57:14 +0200

Trigger system for the boss editor

The next stage of the boss

This is our home made boss editor that we made during an Xdev camp last year. Hopefully we will get time to create some more of that cool content soon.

http://xdevcamp2011.wordpress.com/2011/10/30/boss-editor/

We just released our first game trailer ever! Go and play the...

Tue, 05 Jun 2012 12:17:30 +0200

We just released our first game trailer ever! Go and play the game @ http://www.astroflux.net

Here are some new screenshots from Astroflux. We are getting...

Tue, 29 May 2012 14:53:00 +0200

Lightning action in Durian solar system

Bugspray anyone?

Explore and discover new artifacts.

Here are some new screenshots from Astroflux. We are getting closer to an official release now.

Is your life as a space captain tough and do you feel like a...

Fri, 25 May 2012 18:55:00 +0200

The new fancy tractor beam in action

2x XP is twice as good

Is your life as a space captain tough and do you feel like a noob? Then you should look forward to get your hands on the new tractor beam or experience booster that we are developing.

Astroflux

Fri, 02 Sep 2011 16:46:00 +0200

We are darn happy to finally present what we have been working our asses off with the latest months.

I’m talking about Astroflux, a casual arcade real-time MMORPG space shooter experience for social platforms such as Facebook, Kongregate amongst others. Basically we want to capture the fun and craziness in arcade space shooters and combine that with a social leveling experience. And also, keeping it casual with focus on having fun when playing rather than just starring at your skill levels.

We are currently playing the game in pre alpha in our office and frankly, we are having a BLAST! I”m just now watching the newly added rear gun (or the fart gun as we call it) in action which is a poisonous cloud designed to make it harder for enemies, human or not, to follow you. That one along with 5 or more unique weapons will be available in the alpha version.

What about the release date? No idea yet and guessing seems pointless, right now we are focusing on getting the alpha version done. And we are almost there, probably a week or two to go. After that, we’ll aim for a closed beta, followed by a public beta.

Want to know more? keep an eye on our tweets for minor changes and our blog for more in-depth stuff.

Good luck and have fun out there gamers!

♥ Fula Fisken

stefan svebeck: Text Effect Component in Flash AS3

Tue, 24 May 2011 21:42:23 +0200

stefan svebeck: Text Effect Component in Flash AS3:

stefansvebeck:

I did this component in Flash AS3 when we were having a hax evening a few days ago.

Use example:
var stf:ScreenTextField = new ScreenTextField(); stf.x = 100;
stf.y = 100; stf.textArray = [ [ "Far away in the galaxy...", "A long time ago nothing existed but far away in the galaxy...

Kolleagues is now available on Android and iPhone.

Mon, 09 May 2011 14:14:33 +0200

Kolleagues is now available on Android and iPhone.

Share screenshots with Sharekit and cocos2d on iPhone

Tue, 05 Apr 2011 16:18:00 +0200

Posting screenshots on Facebook and Twitter is a great way to show high scores and make your game known to the world. The problem is that writing code for authentication and poking around the different APIs is time consuming. Here is where Sharekit comes in handy. It is an open source library that add share features for many social media sites.

Setup Sharekit

There are a few things you need to do to get sharekit up and running.

First go to sharekit and follow the installation instructions for step 1 and 2.
Go to http://www.facebook.com/developers/ and create a Facebook app. When the app is created click on “mobile and devices” in the left hand menu and change application type to “Native App”. Save the changes and keep the window with application ID open, you will need it soon.
Go to dev.twitter.com/apps and create a Twitter app. “Application type” should be set to “Browser”. If you don’t have a url for the game set “Callback url” to whatever you want.

Open SHKConfig.h and fill in the keys from your newly created apps.

Take screenshot in cocos2d

Manu Corporat has provided code for grabbing screenshots at the cocos2d forum. You can find it here. Paste the code into CCDirector.m. You can now grab a screenshot simply by calling:

//grab screenshot
UIImage *image = [[CCDirector sharedDirector] screenshotUIImage];

Add share buttons

Now you are ready to start sharing. In your .m file add

#import "SHKItem.h"
#import "SHKTwitter.h"
#import "SHKFacebook.h"

and methods for adding share buttons

-(void)showShareMenu {
    CGSize size = [[CCDirector sharedDirector] winSize];
    
    CCLabelTTF *share = [CCLabelTTF labelWithString:@"Share on" fontName:@"Helvetica" fontSize:24];
	share.position = ccp(size.width /2, 80);
	[self addChild:share];
    
    CCMenuItemSprite *fbItem = [CCMenuItemSprite itemFromNormalSprite:[CCSprite spriteWithFile:@"facebook.png"] 
                                                       selectedSprite:[CCSprite spriteWithFile:@"facebook.png"] 
                                                               target:self selector:@selector(shareOnFacebook)];	
    
    CCMenuItemSprite *twitterItem = [CCMenuItemSprite itemFromNormalSprite:[CCSprite spriteWithFile:@"twitter.png"] 
                                                            selectedSprite:[CCSprite spriteWithFile:@"twitter.png"] 
                                                                    target:self selector:@selector(shareOnTwitter)];

    CCMenu *shareMenu = [CCMenu menuWithItems:fbItem, twitterItem, nil];
    [shareMenu alignItemsHorizontallyWithPadding:10.0f];
    shareMenu.position = ccp(size.width /2, 40);
    [self addChild:shareMenu];
}

-(void)shareOnFacebook {   
    //take screenshot
    UIImage *image = [[CCDirector sharedDirector] screenshotUIImageFromHeight:200];
        
    SHKItem *fbItem = [SHKItem image:image title:@"Check out my highscore!"];
    [SHKFacebook shareItem:fbItem];
}

-(void)shareOnTwitter {
    //take screenshot
    UIImage *image = [[CCDirector sharedDirector] screenshotUIImageFromHeight:200];
    
    SHKItem *twitterItem = [SHKItem image:image title:@"Check out my highscore! #BigFish"];
    [SHKTwitter shareItem:twitterItem];
}

The only thing remaining is to give Sharekit access to a UIViewController. The easiest way is to add a UIViewController property and set it on init.

-(id) init
{
	if( (self=[super init])) 
	{
		//ViewController for share.
		self.vc =[[UIViewController alloc] init];
		[[[CCDirector sharedDirector] openGLView] addSubview:vc.view];
		[[SHK currentHelper] setRootViewController:vc];

		[self showHighscore];
		[self showShareMenu];
	}
	return self;
}

Example project

Here’s a working cocos2d project. Just add your API keys to SHKConfig.h. The code for screenshots has been altered slightly to only take part of the screen area as screenshot. This way the share button will not be part of the image.

Google App Engine - Remote backup, local restore

Mon, 04 Apr 2011 14:41:00 +0200

Writing this script yourself is not a big thingy, but sometimes it’s just nice having it done already so you can focus of your real project. We have had a lot of use for this when creating Sudoku and Friends.

The script allows you to backup the whole project or just a single database entity and then restore the data to your local datastore.

Before using the script though, you need to enable the remote API for your application. Do that by adding the following to your app.yaml:

- url: /remote_api
      script: $PYTHON_LIB/google/appengine/ext/remote_api/handler.py
      login: admin

Then we are good to go. Here is the script:

#! /bin/bash
echo -n "App ID: "
read -e APP_ID
echo -n "Kind (hit enter for all): "
read -e KIND
echo -n "Email: "
read -e EMAIL
current_datetime=$(date '+%Y%m%d_%H%M%S')
filename="backup_$current_datetime.txt"
echo Starting backup for $APP_ID to /$APP_ID/$filename

if [ "$KIND" == "" ]; then
	echo Backing up all entities...
	appcfg.py download_data --application=$APP_ID --url=http://$APP_ID.appspot.com/remote_api --filename=$APP_ID/$filename --email=$EMAIL
else
	echo Backing up $KIND
	appcfg.py download_data --application=$APP_ID --url=http://$APP_ID.appspot.com/remote_api --kind=$KIND --filename=$APP_ID/$filename --email=$EMAIL
fi

echo backup finished, starting restore...

echo -n "Enter local port?: "
read -e PORT


if [ "$KIND" == "" ]; then
	echo Restoring all entities...
	appcfg.py upload_data --application=$APP_ID --filename=$APP_ID/$filename --url=http://localhost:$PORT/remote_api --email=$EMAIL
	
else
	echo Restoring $KIND
	appcfg.py upload_data --application=$APP_ID --filename=$APP_ID/$filename --kind=$KIND --url=http://localhost:$PORT/remote_api --email=$EMAIL
fi


echo moving logs to /$APP_ID/logs
mv *log* $APP_ID/logs
mv *sql3 $APP_ID/logs

echo restore to http://localhost:$PORT/ finished.

If you are new to Bash scripting, here is how to use it:

Save the script to like /backups/backup_restore.bash
Open the terminal, browse to the backup dir
Fix permissions with the command: chmod 700 backup_restore.bash
Run the script by typing ./backup_restore.bash
Watch the magic happen!

note:
You may get a warning about not having descending indexes on some of you models. It will work fine if you don’t, but adding those will speed up downloading quite a bit. Add the following index to your index.yaml for the models lacking the index:

- kind: SomeKind # change this name
  properties:
  - name: __key__
    direction: desc