Escaping Blocks is an infinite platform scroller game of a stickman character in a collapsing pixel word. The player then has to escape the collapsing world by running fast and gaining enough space behind him, to avoid the steep fall down with the falling blocks of the pixel world. Along the stickman’s way is some springboards, which help the player gain distance from the collapsing world, by giving him a speed boost and jumping a large distance away from the ever following death.

The game is in the same genre as games such as Tiny Wings, in which the player is not required to concentrate all the time, to play the game. Escaping Blocks increases in difficulty which means the player therefore will have to become more concentrated, if he/she wants to aim for some of the more difficult achievements in the game. That is why Escaping Blocks is both a relaxing and challenging game.

 

Would you like to become a beta tester? Then send me an e-mail at Casper2602@hotmail.com !

 

Current features:

– Score System.

– Achievements System.

– Game Center integration with online Achievements and Leaderboards.

– Settings panel (Sounds, Music, SFX).

– Automated and interactive tutorial (At first-time startup & in settings panel).

 

 

NOTE: This is concept screenshots of the game, not the final result!

Update 1

  

Update 2

Added new score system and stamina system.

Sound system has also been fixed to use regular stereo instead of 3D audio which caused problems.

Several graphics have been re-done for sharper quality, including the highscore bulletin and the restart button.

The alignment of the text (score etc.) has also been tweaked.

Update 3

Added interactive tutorial.

Added an achievements system.

Several new sound effects added or changed to create more diversity.

Basic pause system added with score and energy points summary.

Sound settings system has been reworked.

   

    

Update 4

Added a restart button on the pause page (For some reason that got left out..)

Added a Credits page by clicking on the Copyright at the bottom of the screen on the menu page.

 

Changelog:

v. 0.0.1
– First complete version.

v. 0.0.2
– Simplified tutorial added for testing.

v. 0.0.3 (First public beta test)
– Complete tutorial added.
– First testing in public for feedback.
– Terrain generation working seamlessly on iPhone 4 with actual build (Ad-hoc provisioning) instead of developer-build.

v. 0.0.4
– First loading screens added.
– Added a genstate alarm switch at game/room start, to change the genstate to a continous terrain generation instead chunk generation.

v 0.0.5
– Tutorial tooltips formulation changed/corrected.
– New sound effects added to stamina, springboards and death.
– Running sound effect removed (So far for testing in new public release).

v 0.0.6
– iPhone 6/6+ splashscreens added.
– All iPhone splashcreens updated with same scaling.
– Added an achievement system with an achievement page at the start menu.
– Tutorial button has been moved to settings page (replaced by Achievements button).

v 0.0.7
– Two new tooltips added in the tutorial at the end, before the last tooltip. This is to help the player understand the goal and the mechanics better.
– A banner has been added to each achievement sprite to help divide each achievement from one another and so the player understands the overall page better.
– An achievement title has been added to the achievements page.
– Achievements now automatically scale their positions between the player and the title at the top.
– Fixed the audio system that didn’t save the user settings. The audio settings are now stored in an ini file.

v 0.0.8
– Added a basic pause system with Score and Energy Points summary.

v 0.0.9
– First public beta testing through Apple TestFlight.

v 0.1.0
– The page arrows on the achievements page is now only visible, if they can go to the respective page (ie. if they can go a page back).
– Fixed a bug where the springboards would not spawn if you were on the menu long enough. This was caused by the genstate switch for continuous terrain generation conflicting with the springboard chance.
– Changed the first-time startup check, so the game doesn’t mark the game as launched before completing the tutorial. This is to ensure that the player goes through the tutorial before playing the game, in case of a crash or closure.
– Optimized terrain generation for a more precise and less terrain generation to counter CPU usage and FPS drops on older devices and devices with larger screens such as the iPad, which will generate more terrain overall.
– Added a Restart button on the pause screen.
– Added a Credits page when clicking on the Copyright at the bottom of the screen on the menu.

 

Experimental for next beta testing!

– Added random gaps between the terrain generation where a player can fall through. The player then has to swipe upwards in order to jump over the gap.
– Tweaked the players movement on upwards going hills for better collision checking when jump over a gap.

 

v 0.1.1
– Removed the experimental gaps because the game would get too far away from the original idea of a relaxed game. The gaps would make the game too demanding and caused problems with the swipe system for some reason, which wasn’t worth the time fixing for something too experimental.

v 0.1.2
– A minor delay to be able to click the “Play” button has been implemented so you cannot click before the fade to the menu has ended. This is also to ensure the terrain generation initializes correctly.
– The “Springboards” are now called “Booster Boards”.
– Changed the first Score achievement to require 2500 score instead of 3000. This is to introduce achievements earlier and reward the player on the way, instead of 3 achievements in a row (score 3k, 5k and 3 booster board jumps came right after eachother.)
– Changed the “Have 100 Energy Points” achievement to “Have 250 Energy Points” because 100 Energy Points was too easy to achieve along with the rest of the first tier achievements. Changed is the same reason as the previous achievement change above.
– Credits page text changed to the basic font due to blurryness in the text from settings in Photoshop. The text is now much more sharp!
– Splash screens are now sharp on all devices again.
– Last build before official release.

v 0.1.3
– Fixed the player movement on upwards going hills to not get stuck in the blocks.
– Added a new sound effect when swiping.
– Added a new animation when swiping.
– Added credits to MauSSBB on the credits page for the character graphics.
– Graphics improvements.

v 1.0.1
– Official Apple App Store Release

v 1.0.2
– Added a minor shadow to the score in the corner to ensure a consistent theme throughout.
– Added animations to the highscore board and restart button upon death.
– Changed the upwards running technique back to original code due to a bug with the stamina system.
– Deleted the 10k and 35k score achievements and added 75k and 100k instead due to the highest score achievement (50k) being too easy to accomplish.
– Updated Credits page with “More to come..” for later features and possible difficulty modes.
– Added Google Analytics to keep track of achievement and score progress and overall playthroughs.
– Deactivated the debug switch which was accidentally enabled in previous App Store build.
– The game now saves the achievement progress when restarting through the pause page.

v 1.0.3
– Fixed the automatic pause system when the game is put in the background, so the game won’t pause when at the menu.
– Fixed an issue that allowed the player to jump forever in-air while the Stamina button was present.
– Fixed the achievement progress uploading to Google Analytics so the achievements saves once they are earned, instead of when the game is finished. The game accidentally uploaded the players’ progress every time the game was ended/restarted, regardless of whether or not the player actually had earned the achievement. This caused overflood in the analytics.
– Fixed the score uploading to Google Analytics to now recognize the score properly.
– Fixed the terrain generation to prevent too many downwards going hills, to make the game more difficult and require more attention.
– Tweaked the player movement on upwards going hills to not get stuck in the blocks when jumping. Tricky and time consuming to fully test, so time will see if it works flawlessly. So far no stucks.
– Re-implemented the random gaps in the terrain, with the swipe system now properly working with the jumping code.
– Re-implemented the extra energy points when jumping off a booster board due to terrain generation changes.
– Added new analytics events including launch time and session time.
– Achievements system reworked to better allow new achievements in the future with a new name system. Old one was “rewardnumber” ie. reward5, where the new one allows a category as “rewardcategory_number” ie. reward2_3.

Currently only working in Sandbox developer mode due to Apple-side bug!
– Added GameCenter integration with Highscore and Achievements Leaderboards.
– Added a Leaderboards button on the Achievements page.

v 1.0.4 (To be released due to complications with Apple)
– Added random gaps throughout the world to avoid. This is to require more attention from the player and keep the game more active at any point of the game.
– Fixed the jumping to not allow hovering when running upwards and avoid the speed penalty.
– Fixed a bug that would create a pause menu on-top of another pause menu, when paused and minimized/set on standby.
– Tweaked the player movement on upwards going hills to not get stuck in the blocks when jumping. Tricky and time consuming to fully test, so time will see if it works flawlessly. Last fix still had stucks, but still less than initially. So far no stucks.