February 2009 Archives
Well, after many months of hard work and constant derailments due to client work, we finally released Light Riders (previously Light Bikes). It was first shown at iPhoneDevCamp 2 where we created the first version of it in 12 hours. Let's just say it had to be rewritten :) It now uses a 3D engine we are creating in house called Hurricane. On the iPhone, it utilizes OpenGL ES. For the first version of Light Riders, we used 2D sprites for the bikes and explosions. It has a simple camera over a 2D plane for the board. We really focused on the Multiplayer aspect on this first version. We would love to hear feedback from everyone on it. It supports up to 4 players on LAN now and a new update in the works will support internet play. We are really working hard on the Multiplayer pieces. We want to see 3 vs 3 and 4 vs 4 Team Death match in your hands :) Blue team, this is blue leader...
For the next version, we already have our 3D bike models completed. If you have watched any of the videos, you will notice 3D bikes. Those are the same models we are using in the upcoming 3D update. Our competitor has an upper hand with their 3D view, at least for now ;) I only wish I could show you what is coming for Light Riders. It's going to be insane. I can not wait for everyone to get these new updates. I can say, the video is a hint on what is coming your way :)
If you have any thoughts or ideas, please go over to http://iphonestudio.dsmedialabs.com/, and shoot us some feedback through our contact form. We are always looking at how we can improve our products.
I will be posting some new iPhone development tutorials here soon. It has been nuts here at DS Media Labs. DS is a small studio of friends and we have developed 20+ iPhone apps in 9 months. I would say we have been pretty busy.
We need to come up with a different name for our game Light Bikes. As most of you know, LightBike is now taken. We need to rebrand our game and want to allow the users to vote on it. So please head over to Touch Arcade and vote! NOW!
So, back at iPhone Dev Camp 2, we entered the competition with a TRON style game for the iPhone. We called it Light Bikes. Since iPhone Dev Camp 2, we have rewritten pretty much all the code and the game uses a 3D engine. We are using OpenGL and OpenAL. It supports 4 players over WiFi. Each player uses a separate device.
The first version we are doing has a overhead camera view. We are putting in support for different camera views for 1.1. The game will mostly likely be pushed to the App Store this weekend.
It came to a surprise a few weeks back when we seen another company stole our name (LightBike) to ride on our coat tales with all the websites and press we had generated over the past few months.
Pretty sad if you ask me. So, because of this, we are going to be rebranding our Light Bikes game as Neo Riders.
Be looking for reviews on Touch Arcade and other sites for Neo Riders.
UPDATE: I have removed the statement about the source code. I was contacted by Pankaku, Inc and they have assured me that they built their version from the ground up. I apologize for posting information based on a source that was incorrect.
