Toytles: Leaf Raking Progress Report – Scene Transitions

Here’s this week’s progress report for new updates to Toytles: Leaf Raking, my family-friendly leaf-raking business simulation available for iPhones, iPads, and Android devices.

Get it at the Toytles: Leaf Raking page.

Last week, I reported that I took a bit of a break due to moving my website.

Sprint 18: Screen transitions & time-based dialogue

• Fix mistakes for Thanksgiving dialogue
• Create screen transitions when moving about town
• Create screen transitions when entering/leaving yard
• Story progression when finishing a yard (unique monthly client dialogue w/ difference between clear/uncleared yards

I did 7.75 hours of game development last week, which is almost 3 hours more than average. All of those extra hours came on the day my household lost Internet access. I decided that it was a forced PTO day for the day job, and I worked on game development for 4 hours.

It felt great to get done in one day what would have taken me an entire week normally.

I fixed a few mistakes in dialogue that I caught after releasing v1.4.4, which were mainly typos or weird visual problems in which text overflowed the box it was supposed to be in. These fixes took almost no time.

But implementing screen transitions between the neighborhoods took up the lion’s share of the time:

Originally, clicking on one of the navigation buttons instantly took you to the neighborhood, but now with the sliding transition, I think it helps to give the player a sense of space in the town.

It might seem subtle, but I think it has a huge impact on the feel of the game. And I am happy that I was able to focus on it instead of spreading the work throughout the week.

Years ago, I was given feedback that the button presses themselves need to give the player feedback, and it is in my backlog list of enhancements. Other backlog items include animations when earning money, changing time, sliding in/out the modal overlays, changing the brightness of the screen (and lights and shadows) based on the time of day, and showing the player’s character on the screen. All in due time.

I did not get to work on the transition between the street-view screen and the yard screen, nor did I work on the new dialogue, but they are what I intend to work on this coming week. You know, assuming the U.S. Presidential Election this week doesn’t result in civil unrest.

Thanks for reading!

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