Ingredients

Jul 1, 2013 at 3:07 PM
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PocketCake Ingredients
By Cathie Sims
LavaCat launch July 27th, 2013 on Google Play. Building games for devices like Android requires a different approach than you would use for desktop PC games. Unlike the PC market, your target hardware is standardized and not as fast or powerful as a computer with a dedicated video card. Also, the features available in Unity differ slightly from those of desktop PCs.
First of all we wanted to develop the game with the minimal possible team. In our PocketCake office we have Parth Patel, as game programmer, and Kim Allen as graphic artist. Parth and Kim both graduated from Full-Sail University in Winter Park, FL. So with this small team, it was clear to us that we want to focus on developing the game itself and not implementing engines and tools of our own.
So, we decided to look for an engine with a good support for tools. LavaCat is a 2.5D game, or 3D engine with 3D physics (e.g., Unity3D). Unity is a cross-platform game engine with a built-in IDE developed by Unity Technologies. It supports our development for Android, Flash and Windows. The game engine is downloadable from their website in two different versions: Unity and Unity Pro. And of course, most importantly, we wanted the engine still in development with an active community.
The game engine's scripting is built on Mono, the open-source implementation of the .NET Framework. Parth uses UnityScript which supports code written in C#. Starting with the 3.0 release, Unity ships with a customized version of MonoDevelop for debugging scripts. Unity also has the ability to set continuous collision detection for individual bodies; a really important feature to us because we have some thin obstacles and fast moving objects in the game.
We feel Unity’s complete toolset, intuitive workspace and rapid, productive workflows help users to radically reduce the time, effort and cost of making interactive content. Unity is a fully integrated development engine that provides gorgeous out-of-the-box functionality to create games and other interactive 3D content. We use Unity to assemble our art and assets into scenes and environments; add lighting, audio, special effects, physics and animation; simultaneously play test and edit our games, and when ready, publish to our chosen platforms.
Other awesome engines, libraries and tools
It’s not just Unity that makes LavaCat purr. Kim uses Autodesk Maya for 3D modeling and animation; Photoshop CS6 for 2D texturing and drawing concept art as well as menu user interfacing; Zbrush for 3D sculpting and texture painting; and XNormal for mapping high resolution 3D on a low resolution 6-model. Each of these is equally important to making the game pristine.
For the audio, we chose Ableton Live 9 Suite. We highly recommend Ableton as well. This software creates, produces and performs music. Live’s Session View is a unique sketchpad for writing, improving and performing music. The Arrangement View is a powerful, linear music production environment. Use of Ableton Live 9 Suite is not completely free, but it’s very inexpensive for our developers.
LavaCat of course, also uses tons of additional open source libraries that do not play as big a role as the ones afore mentioned. However, this should give the general idea that we used a LOT of ready-made engines, libraries and tools to develop LavaCat. So, therefore, 95% of the time we were able to concentrate on just developing the actual game itself.
Conclusion
All in all, we highly recommend using Unity for any 2D and 3D game. It was easy to learn, use and modify. Without the engine and the awesome community, LavaCat would not have seen daylight this early. And with Unity, we have the possibility to bring the game to other platforms too in the future. Thank you for the awesome engine and all the support!
 
Jul 1, 2013 at 3:10 PM
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Tl;dr: use unity

Also I thought this was going to be details on the game and I was so proud but no it was just more background and the internals of the game that no one cares about
I am disappointed

But yeah still looking to find out what the hell lavacat actually is
 
Jul 1, 2013 at 5:41 PM
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What even
 
Jul 1, 2013 at 6:34 PM
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Lady, please take this as a benevolent, constructive criticism. You need to motivate people to read your text - you need to give to receive. For example take our game: Cave Story. I played it - I liked it. Only then I started to care in what programming language it was written, how to mod the game, care about the life of it's author, learn about it's develepment and background...you need to give to receive.
 
Jul 1, 2013 at 6:36 PM
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See, this is what we get for showing sympathy for this type of person. They don't care about the forum, they don't care about us, they don't care about what we have to say. They're just going to keep copy-pasting blocks of text as long as we'll allow it. This is barely above the level of a spambot and I'm pretty sure if they had the technical knowhow on how to acquire and run one they wouldn't hesitate for even an instant. Hell, highheelgamer posted this exact same thread in two different subforums on this very site!

This is the same block of text that's on their slapdash blog, website, and been posted around any website they think they might get away with it at. Bonus points for being full of empty marketingspeak word-vomit that says as little actual useful information in as many words as possible.

I'm not opposed to promoting one's self. And in the past we've had a fair share of threads by people who've done just that. But this level of blatant self-serving postwhoring is absolutely sickening. It shows absolutely no compassion or regard for those around them and betrays a need to put themselves above others by any means necessary. You outright ignore any criticism or negative feedback aimed towards you because I'm sure you believe that you're in the right no matter what you say or do, and I find those to be the most pestilent people to interact with. You can't argue with them, and you can't reason with them, because nothing you ever say will have value unless it aligns with what they believe is Good and Right. Carrotlord was like that, and look what happened to him.

What I want you to realize is that if you buy this game the only thing you'll be supporting is this sleazy, overly aggressive used-car-salesman marketing tactic. They've told us nothing about the game itself, why we should care about it or the people who made it. Everything about this to me reeks of trying to make a "Quick Buck" on the mobile games market. Because if they can't even put the slightest bit of effort into honest promotion, then what makes you think their product will be any better?

highheelgamer, you disgust me. I know you won't give a damn about anything I've just written, but I hope that anyone else who reads these threads might be given reason to think twice before buying your product.
 
Jul 1, 2013 at 6:59 PM
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How could I not buy this game, now that I know the names of the people and software used to create it? That's like 200 times more important than any information about the kind of game it's going to be.
Also, posting people's real names and jobs on random forums is a great marketing technique.
 
Jul 1, 2013 at 8:42 PM
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inb4 actually a spambot
 
Jul 1, 2013 at 9:21 PM
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Yeah I don't care
You already called Noxid stupid so I therefore don't give a sh*t
 
Jul 1, 2013 at 9:33 PM
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Dear highheelgamer, ... We do not use Android, sorry

We use Pixel. That is the best for our needs. It runs Cave Story
We also have great cats, we don't need lava cats, no sir. thanks

that is all


The interesting part is how much we've responded D:

So in that regard, job well done... Sadly though, I will not be purchasing any LavaCats
 
Jul 1, 2013 at 9:46 PM
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I'm just going to throw this out there that if you Google highheelgamer you'll get the same exact thread on different forums. :p
 
Jul 1, 2013 at 11:02 PM
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Noxid said:
This is the same block of text that's on their slapdash blog, website, and been posted around any website they think they might get away with it at.
 
Jul 2, 2013 at 1:33 AM
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I prefer my cats to not be lava.
 
Jul 13, 2013 at 10:32 PM
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Don't spam, and Show screenshots. We know absolutely nothing about the game.
 
Jul 13, 2013 at 10:39 PM
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That's pretty much everything we've been saying in this thread, thanks for bumping it
 
Jul 16, 2013 at 6:14 PM
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Hey, sorry! I used to get an email every time someone responded, but for some reason I don't. I have been busy writing more on the crunch time. I am trying to get the word out there.
Yes, I see your point on give and take. When I have more time I do plan on reading and commenting on other posts. Again, I am a single mom with 2 kids, working part time. When the boys go back to school I will have more time in the office to do so.
Launch is July 27th and it is free. So, I am giving something to you &/or your kids. Information!!
Enjoy LavaCat at Pocketcake.com
 
Jul 16, 2013 at 7:48 PM
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highheelgamer said:
So, I am giving something to you &/or your kids. Information!!
But you didn't. That's why we're making fun of you. Also

highheelgamer said:
your kids
No one here has kids, but we like to think of the autistic prepubescent mongoloids that register so frequently as our own.
no we don't
 
Jul 16, 2013 at 11:38 PM
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We're bad parents
Please take our kids away from us
 
Jul 17, 2013 at 10:53 PM
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Why would a Single Mom be showing off her company's game on this forum site? Also, I swear shes either a 12 year old or a spam bot. EDIT: I was wrong, she is probably some weird person lost in the depths of the internet.
 
Jul 17, 2013 at 11:04 PM
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Parkraft123 said:
Why would a Single Mom be showing off her company's game on this forum site? Also, I swear shes either a 12 year old or a spambot.
More conclusive proof that highheelgamer is indeed, a 12 year old.
 
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