Talking Tom Splash Force is a mobile game developed by Ocellus Studio in partnership with OSome Studio, for Outfit7. It was released on the Google Play Store and the App Store in some countries in April 2019.
I worked on this project from September 2018 to May 2019, in a team composed of 3 other programmers. I had the opportunity to develop many aspects of the game, detailed below.
- Communication with Outfit7 and integration of their tools in the game
- Build system, data management, optimisation and shader
- Gameplay development
- UI development
Inspired by Bow Master and Angry Birds, Splash Force is a turn-based game. The player controls Tom and his friends, fighting the naughty raccoons which have kidnapped some inoffensive animals. With the keys and coins got after each fight, Tom will be able to set them free of their cages, and rebuild their home!
The most interesting point on which I worked is the terrain system. If you want to know more about it, don’t hesitate to read the dedicated article!
I also contributed to many other tasks, like:
Communication with Outfit7 and integration of their tools in the game
- Integration of several functionality of the Outfit7 SDK like: analytics, cloud save, in-app purchase, ‘rate this app’ screen.
- Code push to Outfit7.
- With the QA team, solving of some problems before the release of the game.
Build system, data management, optimisation and shader
- Writing of an automated build script, including a detailed check tool of the final export, in order to keep an eye on the size of the game, to detect irregularities and avoid unpleasant surprise.
- Data management: the use of asset bundles to load and unload the game assets in memory, save of the player progression…
- Optimisation of the game graphics performances, and writing of the different surface shaders required (thanks a lot to Jeremy Lesage for his help!).
Gameplay development
- Integration of the ‘tap abilities’. After shooting a projectile, the player can tap the screen to trigger the special ability of his weapon: the projectile speeds up, explodes, or divides up into multiple projectiles.
- Management of the projectiles impact behaviour. They can bounce, stick on the ground before divide up, or wheel on the ground before exploding.
- Tool to add easily the visual effects of the projectiles, while taking care that the explosion sizes are the same visually as the one applied physically on the objects.
UI development
- Development of the character selection screen.
- Writing of useful functions which take account of the notches and several screen ratios.
- And a bunch of details, like the integration of the Android back button, or the pop up ‘you don’t have enough coins’!