Box2D (the great physics engine that looks after all those seesaws, pinwheels, catapults, and bombs that the Rolandos encounter ) is perfect for all those out there working on 2D games. When I started working on Rolando there were a few things that took me a little while to integrate, as the normal testbed would not compile on the iPhone, and the renderer was incompatible.
I’ve just added a port of the Box2D testbed to the project, which should hopefully help anyone that is planning on using it on their iPhone projects – you should be able to just build and go. Its got an OpenGLES renderer, and allows you to use the touchscreen and accelerometer to interact with the environment. Here’s some instructions on how to interact with it:
On the first screen, choose the test project that you would like to run.
Drag an object around the environment using your finger, or just drag on an empty part of the screen to pan around.
Tilt the iPhone to affect gravity.
Double tap to return to the projects list
I hope this of use to any budding iPhone developers out there!
You can download the Box2D engine (including the iPhone testBed) from here.
(note) For some reason the embedded video sometimes plays back at enormous speeds :/
It’s always great to get feedback, so if there are any Rolando players out there that have really strong feelings about any of the game, any elements or mechanics that you loved or hated, anything you LOVED doing or found frustrating, and above all any levels or worlds that really stood out as being super-fun or frustrating, do let us know! Did you prefer the puzzle-solving or the platforming? Did you like the bonus levels or guiding the prince?
If you could leave a comment on this post with any thoughts you had, HandCircus will love you forever.
Freshly baked! We’ve got some great little wallpapers for your iPhone courtesy of Mikko – why not dress up your background with a taste of Rolandoland?
Wow, what a week! Personally, this has certainly been one of the most amazing weeks of my life. Its so awesome to see so many people out there enjoying Rolando. With over 400 reviews in the AppStore and an average rating of 4.81 stars, we really couldn’t have wished for a better reception.
One of the first reviews was Pocketgamer’s, which gave it a perfect 10/10, the first time they have awarded an iPhone game their Platinum award.
And to top it off I’ve had the huge honour of being given a place on Edge’s Industry Heroes List for 2008. Sitting on a list with so many personal heroes is just amazing.
So a huge thanks to everyone for your patience and support! Time for a little bit of rest over the holidays, but HandCircus will return in the new year.
Whew! Well it may have taken a while longer than expected, but I’m overjoyed to be able to say that Rolando is now available! Huge thanks to Mikko Walamies for bringing Rolandoland to life with his wonderful, charming illustrations, to all the guys at ngmoco for all of their input and amazing support, and to awesome talents of Mr Scruff for sculpting Rolando’s musical landscape.
The video above is from the guys at TouchArcade, and shows a nice playthrough of one of the shorter levels in World 2.
I can hardly contain my own excitement, as there’s less than 24 hours before Rolando is released! The launch trailer above shows off a few new mechanics – check out the light beams.
As always, the latest info, screenshots and all the movies can be found on the ngmoco Rolando page.
As we build up to Rolando’s imminent, pre-xmas release, I’ve been doing a little spring cleaning with the HandCircus site. All of the old portfolio (pre-Rolando) has been moved over to my personal/contracting blog, so be sure to head over there if you are looking for something that is no longer here.
From now on this site will be 100% HandCircus! Expect news and updates on Rolando and all future games. I do apologise on the lack of updates over the past few weeks, but things have been so very busy getting Rolando as good as it possibly can be. We’ve had a chance to get Rolando into the hands of more people and feedback has been so positive – we really can’t wait to get it out there and its really not going to be long now!
As soon as I have any more definite details to share I will post them up on here ASAP.
The site has also undergone a little bit of prettifying to celebrate. Hope you like the new lick-of-paint
I missed posting this while I was out in the US, but here’s the most recent trailer for Rolando, showing a longer play session and puzzle elements as well as the pop-up map!
This months Edge Magazine has a great article on the current state of iPhone gaming, talking to developers about their opinions of the gaming potential of the device and the current state of the App Store. Several Rolandos have sneaked their way onto the page too!
Well the entire HandCircus East-London studio has migrated temporarily to the sunny shores of San Francisco to spend some quality time with Rolando’s publisher, ngmoco. Progress this week has been amazing, seeing so much refinement and polish being applied to the game, and ironing out of some of the few remaining issues and bugs. We had two-days of focus groups on Monday and Tuesday, which were hugely valuable in getting last minute feedback.
We also now have a localised version of Rolando, and as Chris mentioned over at the ngmoco blog, the little Rolandos look even cuter speaking Japanese
Hopefully we will have more details over the coming week or so, but we are still very much on course for a holiday 2008 release.
