Lite version of Westbang was approved by Apple, so now you can test the casual difficulty of the game on your iPhone or iPod touch for free. The full version of Westbang has three difficulties: good, bad and ugly. The lite version allows you to protect several banks on the good difficulty (bandits are a little slower and if your sheriff dies, you can try the level again).

Note that the 1.0 version of Westbang has issues with music and sounds, there is static during playing. We are aware of this problem and 1.1 update which fixes this problem was already submitted to Apple and should get available soon.

But there is simple temporary workaround: in the options menu lower music and sound volume to minimum (but not to mute). This reduces the static and makes the sounds to play at normal level.

The lite version of Westbang and the latest update of Archibald’s Adventures are not affected by this bug and should be working fine under 3.0 OS.

Boovie…

Our new action game Westbang for iPhone and iPod touch is available on App Store now. The approval process took 10 days and we are happy that the game made it without problems. Check out the trailer:

Westbang is a fast and funny rendition of a classic game concept! Fight many enemies, test your reaction and compete for the highest score on a way to become a legend of the old West!

To celebrate release of Westbang, our previous iPhone platformer Archibald’s Adventures is on sale now for a limited time on App Store.

Hope you will enjoy the game :) Have a great day!

Boovie…

Hello,

Here is the source code of one of our bigger game - Larva Morus. Larva Mortus is an action game with a horror atmosphere. It uses Torque Game Builder 1.1.3. I publish the source code as it is.

Please read my first game source post about my programming skills!

Game URL: http://larvamortus.rakeingrass.com/

Used engine: Torque Game Builder 1.1.3

Game type: action

Source code: DOWNLOAD HERE and EULA

Tovy..

We haven’t updated the blog with some fresh news for some time, but don’t worry, we are still alive and working on something

First of all we are proud to announce, if you haven’t noticed already, that Larva Mortus is available on Steam now. You can visit the game’s page here. The free demo is almost identical to the demo from our site, but the full Steam version contains support for several achievements. They aren’t anything extraordinary, but this was our first game for steam and we are happy we have been able to implement at least something for the release.

Being the first of our games for Steam, we are eager to see how big market is the Steam for independent developers like us. I would mention that few year ago we tried to offer Jets’n'Guns to Steam, but we were rejected. Maybe the Steam was not so indie-friendly that time. But the success (or failure) of Larva Martus will show, whether we will be trying to get more of our games on Steam.

When talking about reaching multiple platforms, I would like to say few words about our experience with PDA and Pocket platforms. Undercroft was developed only for Windows Mobile, while Archibald’s Adventures was ported for both Windows Mobile and old Palm OS. The conclusion is simple: we won’t be developing for Windows Mobile or Palm OS anymore. The old Palm OS is dead for some time, so I wasn’t suprised here (porting Archibald to Palm OS was because of nostalgia than anything else). But Windows Mobile was disappointment for us. Undercroft was not so bad, but Archibald’s Adventures was a flop. It’s a little sad for us because many limititions and restrictions in the game was caused by the requirement that the game must run on Windows Mobile. I don’t think that the main problem is in the game itself, but getting a game to customers is really hard. The web sites which sell windows mobile software are really terrible. The forms for uploading games were not working, no reply when trying to contact support, terrible documentation for developers, even design of the webs are often ugly. Now I know why Apple’s iPhone and App Store is such a success and everybody is trying to create its copy.

So no more games for Windows Mobile from Rake in Grass. We will see if Microsoft’s App Store (ups, of course I meant to write Marketplace will change anything, but I doubt it will change anything for us. I don’t think we would like to bother again with supporting several resolutions and different devices when we have iPhone with its simple OpenGL, hardware accelerated graphics and nice resolution.

So what’s coming next? This year will be probably “iPhone” year for RiG. We still have plans for some bigger game for PC (and we will see how the Steam will go), but we want to make some dent into the iPhone market as long as it is still possible for independent developers, before the market gets occupied by big publishers.

RPG fans should not miss our port of Undercroft for iPhone and iPod touch. It will probably take some time before the port is completed, because Undercroft was designed for 320×240 resolution and that is really small compared to the iPhone resolution so entire user interface and inventory needs to be redesigned. It is also possible that the game will contain update with new content, which was never released on Windows Mobile, but we are still not sure if this will come with the first release.

But the game which will be released before Undercroft and which is almost finished is Westbang. Inspired by some great games from 8-bit and 16-bit era, this is remake of Westbang game created by two of Rake in Grass members before the Rake in Grass was formed.

The main purpose of the game is test and finish our new small engine we are preparing for our next games. That’s the reason we have choosed not-so-complex game, but we hope the game will be funny anyway. The main gameplay is simple, but we concentrate on stylish atmosphere with gorgeous graphics and nice western music. The game will also include online top scores.

That’s all for now, have a great day!

Boovie…

Hello,

Here is the source code of our another game - Phantasia 2. Phantasia 2 is a casual action game. It contains three different game modes (Phantasia, Arcanoid and Bubbles?). It uses Torque Game Builder 1.1.3. I publish the source code as it is.

Please read my first game source post about my programming skills!

Game URL: http://www.300ad.com/phantasia2.php

Used engine: Torque Game Builder 1.1.3

Game type: action

Source code: DOWNLOAD HERE and EULA

Tovy..

On 8th Januray 2009 Archibald was released on iPhone App Store. It took almost two months from the time the game was running on our iPhone to the time is was released on App Store. But we are happy Archibald finally made it

Hello,

Here is the source code of our game - Styrateg. Styrateg is a turn-based strategy game with a strong RPG features. It uses Torque Game Builder 1.1.3. I publish the source code as it is.

Please read my first game source post about my programming skills!

Game URL: http://styrateg.rakeingrass.com

Used engine: Torque Game Builder 1.1.3

Game type: strategy

Source code: DOWNLOAD HERE and EULA

Tovy..

Finally we have finished Palm OS port of the Archibald’s Adventures game. Few weeks ago I was decided not to bother with the Palm OS platform, although the game’s engine was 90% Palm OS ready. The game was randomly crashing on my Palm Tungsten E and if you have been ever developing for Palm OS, you know that debugging is really painful. Also the life of the Palm OS platform seems to be at its end.

But once we finished the Pocket PC version of the game, I thought to myself that it would be shame not to invest few more days into finishing the Palm OS version. More than two years ago when I’ve got first idea about the game, having fresh new Tungsten E in my pocket, I was eager to make some game for it. So at the beginning the game was aimed mainly for Palm OS, with intention of porting it to Pocket PC platform later. But things often don’t go as intended.

Initial graphic concept of the game

Because development for Palm OS wasn’t really easy (everybody was waiting for Palm OS 6 and for easy way of making fully ARM native application - which sad to say never happened), we decided to re-aim the game for PC, Mac and Pocket PC, letting the Palm OS version stuck in “we will see later” state.

So with Pocket PC version completed, I have decided to give the Palm OS one more try. We don’t expect many (any?) sales here. Finishing the game for Palm OS was just more a matter of making it done and beating the problems with the plaftorm than anything else

So we hope there will be at least few people who will enjoy the game on the Palm OS, even if the requirements of the game are relative high.

Also note that the Palm OS version of the game has all features included, no feature was stripped from the game. This includes:

• 8 different music tracks (MODs)
• more than 80 ingame sounds
• all 114 levels

There also few restrictions of the Palm OS version:

• movement in the game can be controlled only by stylus, hardware buttons are not supported
• only low-resolution graphics is included, I think there isn’t Palm OS powered device with VGA resolution 480×480 or higher anyway

Boovie

Hello,

Here is one of my oldest game prototype created in TGB. I called it Redneck 2D and it is a 2D sci-fi shooter. The game was created in 3 days, but the source code is really terrible

You can download the game with source at http://blog.rakeingrass.com/resources/redneck_with_src.zip

You can see a gameplay video here:

Game info:

Used engine: Torque Game Builder 1.3 (or 1.1?)

Info: action game prototype created in TGB in 3 days

The game source contains tons of bugs, it’s not programmed well. It was one of my first tests with TGB. The system is very simple. Levels are created in standard TGB tileeditor (I think from version 1.1 or 1.3) and scripted then.

Controls:
A,S,D,W - moving
mouse - aiming
left mouse button - fire
1-6 - weapons (a lot of weapons, try to push more times)
space - throw grenade
alt-F4 - QUIT

- Doors and their parts are destructible. But in case you don’t destroy them, you can see, that they work (including cards opening)
- I think they are more then 1 types of grenade (3-4?), but I’m not sure how to select them
- if you open a console, the aiming will not work then and you must quit the game
- I used similar system in our later game Larva Mortus, but I reprogrammed it from 100%, so I don’t recommend to use any part of this source in any game

Tovy..

We are proud to finally announce Archibald’s Adventures for Pocket PC and Windows Mobile platform. You can now enjoy the game even on your handheld devices. The mobile version includes:

- All 114 levels from the original game
- Support for both low-resolution and high-resolution devices, including but not limited to 240×240, 320×240, 320×480, 480×480, 640×480 and 800×600
- Support for any screen orientation (landscape, portrait)
- Support for Pocket PC 2003, 2003SE, Windows Mobile 5 and Windows Mobile 6 powered devices

Of course you can try the demo version, which includes 30 levels from the game. The game requires stylus and touch screen.

If you have already ordered PC or Mac version of the game, you don’t need to buy the game again, although we would appreciate any support. Just use the registration code from your PC or Mac version and it will unlock the mobile version. Although we know that this decision can make the game more subject to be pirated, it just feels right to us.

The game supports virtually any screen resolution and orientation. The minimum supported resolution is 240×240. If your device’s display has smaller resolution than 480×480, the game uses low-resolution graphics (tiles 25×25 pixels). If your device’s display is 480×480 or bigger, the game uses high-resolution graphics (tiles 40×40 pixels, same as PC and Mac version).

For now only English version of the game is available, but we are working on locatization for other languages too. Czech and Russian versions are already finished, German and French are in progress. New Archibald’s Adventures release with all languages is planned at the beginning of 2009.

Along with the multi-lingual version we plan to release update with at least 50 new levels. But don’t expect some easy levels for kids, that will the hardest levels in the game

For those of you who are wainting for the iPhone version: altough the game is completed, we have run to problems regarding Apple and App Store, so the game won’t be released on App Store sooner than in Q1 2009.

Boovie