游戏邦注：本文作者是Alan Jack，文章以Maciej Czekala视角叙述其制作《Roger, The Flying Pig》游戏的有趣故事。

游戏构思

我萌生这个想法已有段时间（游戏邦注：就是从斜坡抛掷物体，看它能飞多远）。随后就出现想要学飞的小猪这个角色。我制作这款植入“跳跃”按钮的时间机制作品是受现有类似游戏启发，但我觉得游戏需要更多互动，所以我想到添加抛掷食物环节，以鼓励小猪从挂满气球的斜坡上跳跃下来。和我的所有想法一样，这很有趣，但只有尝试才知道其最终效果如何。

Pig from zapadroid.com

游戏建模

我很幸运拥有“Construct”这个有效建模工具，这个工具我之前用过。它十分契合这个项目。基本构思短短几小时就逐步形成，基本模型和模块也陆续诞生。但基本模型十分粗糙，令人难以产生情感共鸣，所以我便用Inkscape拼凑些许基本图形。这个耗时相对较久，画小猪不是件容易事，但大概2天，我就建成一个有趣而美观的模型。初步体验之后，我发现游戏十分有趣，所以我希望将其投放至手机平台。

融资开发

开发的第一步就是筹集资金启动项目。我决定瞄准某初创大众融资网站，在上面做广告，宣传游戏是富有潜力的iPhone/Android游戏开发项目。此外，我还一面寻找程序员和美工，因为我对这两方面工作不是很擅长。事情进展得并不顺利，我找到对项目感兴趣的程序员，他表示能够每周抽出5-10小时，但我一点儿资金也没有。我感觉这个项目最后会无疾而终。

Roger, The Flying Pig from wordpress.com

游戏发行商

但就在那时候，有个发行商发邮件给我说愿意发行这款游戏！我反复声明我没有资金，但他们表示有足够资金支持项目开发。这一切太令人兴奋了，不仅因为我的游戏获得认可，这还是我首次同发行商合作。

此时我们协商8周后交出作品，而我甚至还没有自己的团队！更糟糕的是，我的程序员告诉我他无法同我共事，因为他在其他地方的工作任务加重了。这是个危机局面，我必须快速采取行动。

我知道自己无法在短时间内学会Objective C和Java语言，投身这两大手机平台（iOS和Android）。所以我开始瞄准中间软件。从中我发现ShiVa，但研究表明，这个软件十分复杂，特别是就2D游戏而言，所以我开始坐立不安。另一个解决方案是CoronaSDK（游戏邦注：跨平台游戏开发工具包），这个工具使用Lua语言，看起来简单多了，潜心书本教程2周后，我已能够着手制作游戏。至于美工部分，毫无选择，我不得不自己完成。

制作初级阶段

我没有Mac，所以我买了部iPhone辅助测试工作，然后就开始制作。几个礼拜后，我逐渐将原型转移至手机平台，和PC版相同。发行商对此很高兴，开始提供众多反馈。我开始大幅润色游戏构思，但保留促使游戏富有趣味的核心机制。

Roger, The Flying Pig from mobileappy.com

合作分歧

不幸的是，我对发行商给出的反馈并不满意。若照发行商的意见，游戏将会同我的最初想法天差地别。更糟的是，他们一直拖延，试图达成更令他们满意的合约。而我对于他们施加的压力开始失去耐心，感到不快。

游戏测试

为了获得更直接反馈，我开始让认识的人玩这款游戏。事实证明这是非常重要的信息。我很快发现游戏的跳跃环节需融入更多互动。亲眼目睹别人体验这款游戏让我发现游戏存在的众多问题，我意识到所有问题需在发行前解决。

跳过发行商

就像同专业发行商讨论游戏一样，我发现他们要该改变的内容太多，若我满足他们的要求，这将会是款截然不同的游戏。我感谢发行商提出的每点意见，但我决定同他们分道扬镳（游戏邦注：这并非最佳时机）。

游戏发行

但游戏此时已步入发行阶段，所以我不得不自己处理Android和Apple Store平台入驻工作。这颇为振奋人心，不久游戏便提交至两大平台，很快它们就和玩家见面了。

总结

总而言之，这是我的宝贵经历。在这个过程中，我提高了自己的设计技能，充分了解游戏开发和游戏发行工作。我决定将项目进行到底，继续推出续作。虽然当中偶尔出现失败和挫折，但总的来说，这是份相当宝贵的经验！（本文为游戏邦/gamerboom.com编译，如需转载请联系：游戏邦）

Roger, The Flying Pig: An Indie iPhone Game Post-Mortem

by Alan Jack

Maciej Czekala is a fellow Games Development Masters student at Abertay University, where he is currently operating as Studio Producer for the entire class, overseeing 3 projects at once.  In his spare hours during the last semester, he produced an iPhone game called “Roger, The Flying Pig”, which has been receiving positive reviews since it launched.  With English being his second language, he asked me to help him translate & write up the interesting story of the game’s development:

In the beginning: Concept

I had the idea in my head for some time – a game where you launch something from a ramp and see how far it can fly.  The character of a pig who wanted to learn how to fly came quickly after.  I took a cue from similar existing games to create a timing-based mechanic with a “jump” button, but I felt it needed more interactivity, so I had an idea that you could drop food, that would give the pig a boost to his jump, from balloons that hung over the ramp.  Like all the ideas I had, it was interesting, but you never know how something will work until you try it!

Prototyping

Luckily I had a very useful prototyping tool called “Construct” that I had used before.  It was perfect for this project – I had the basic idea up and running in just a couple of hours with basic shapes and blocks.  The ugliness of the basic shapes made it hard to get a feel for the game itself, though – so I used Inkscape to knock up some basic graphics.  This took a bit longer – Pigs aren’t easy to draw – but in about 2 days I had a prototype that felt fun and didn’t look completely horrible.  After playing around with it for a while, I decided it was really fun, and I wanted to take it to a mobile platform.

Funding Development

My first step in development was to get funds together to start development.  I decided to look at a new crowd-funding website I’d found, and advertised it on there as a potential iPhone/Android game development.  In the meantime, I went looking for a programmer and artist, as I’m not too skilled in either area.  Things looked difficult – I had found a programmer who was interested and could spare 5-10 hours a week, but I didn’t have a single dollar donated to the project.  I felt like it wasn’t going to go anywhere.

Publisher

Just then, I got an email from a publisher who was willing to publish the game!  I reiterated to them that I didn’t have any money to fund it myself, and they assured me they had the money to fund it all themselves.  It was all very exciting – both to be getting recognition for my game, and to be getting experience of  working with a publisher for the first time.

At this point, we agreed I would deliver the finished game in just eight weeks … and I didn’t even have a team yet!  To make matters worse, my programmer told me he couldn’t work with me any more due to a rise in his work commitments elsewhere.  It was a crisis situation, and I had to act quickly.

I knew there was no way I could learn Objective C and Java in time for both platforms, so I looked into alternate middleware solutions.  I found ShiVa, but research showed it to be rather complicated, especially for 2D games, and I began to get nervous.  Another solution presented itself in the form of CoronaSDK.  This used the Lua language, which looked very easy – and after just two weeks with tutorials from a book I bought, I was ready to get started on developing the game.  As for the artwork … well, there was no way around it, I’d have to do that myself.

First Build

As I didn’t have a Mac to work on, I bought an Android phone for testing, and set to work.  After a couple weeks, I had the prototype up and running on the phone, identical to the PC version.  The publisher was pleased to, and started offering a lot of feedback.  I refined the idea considerably, but was able to retain the core mechanics that had made the prototype so much fun.

Trouble In Paradise

Unfortunately, I wasn’t happy with the feedback I was getting from the publisher.  It was getting to the point that it would become a different game from the one I had set out to make, and to make matters worse, they were still dragging their feet trying to come up with a proper contract.  I was becoming increasingly impatient and uncomfortable with the pressure they were putting on me.

Playtesting

In order to get some more direct feedback, I started getting people I knew to play the game.  This proved to be an invaluable source of feedback.  I quickly found that I needed more interaction in the game during the jumping sequence.  Seeing people play the game in front of me really opened my eyes to a lot of the problems the game had, and I realised everything that needed done before release.

No More Publisher

As good as the experience of discussing the game with a professional publisher was, I felt they were asking for too many changes, and it would become a different game if I made the game the publisher wanted.  I appreciated everything the publisher was offering me, but I decided to part ways with them– it just wasn’t the right time.

Release

The game was ready to publish by this point, though, so I just went through the Android and Apple Store formalities myself.  It was really exciting, and before long my game was submitted, and then published!

Conclusion

Overall, this was a great experience for me.  It really helped me expand my design skills, and gave me an understanding of developing and self-publishing mobile titles.  I’ve decided to carry this forward and keep working at it.  Despite the occasional pitfalls and troubles, it was a great overall experience!（Source：gamasutra）