Smart Tiles is a logic-based strategy game where you merge identical tiles on a square grid to create higher-value tiles. Plan carefully, analyze your moves, and reach the top by achieving the tile with the highest value. Fast-paced yet engaging, it’s a brain-teasing challenge with strategic depth.
I developed the game from scratch in just a week. My goal was to finish it in five workdays, but it ultimately took seven. Most of the extra time went into the “small stuff,” like game balance and minor polish. The background music and sound effects were sourced from Sonniss.com, which recently released 30 GB of WAV 44kHz audio for public use.
Originally, I planned to release the game on Facebook Messenger, but versions for Android and iOS came out “automatically.” The development was done on macOS, using my own C++ engine – yes, for macOS, from macOS.
Worms Zone – a game about worms, or slither.io on steroids
At first, I didn’t even think of making a game. I just wanted to try implementing smooth worm movement – where the segments don’t follow the exact path given by the player, but behave more naturally. Yes, it’s a bit more complex and requires more calculations, but the movement looks much nicer and more interesting. My first tests were done in a Java-like language using Processing. After about an hour, I had a working prototype – a project on GitHub.
Watching the worms eat “apples” in my prototype, I decided to move forward with developing a full-fledged game.
I first rewrote the worm movement algorithm in C++ and then began refining it. The most important part was to pass the “coiling test” – when a player curls the worm into the smallest possible loop. Most games of this kind fail here: the worm’s tail stops moving, and only the head and a few segments follow, which looks awful.
Once I had an algorithm that passed the coiling test, I ran into a new issue: long worms had many “invisible” segments hidden behind others on the screen. Time to refine the algorithm – the tail still follows the head, but the number of visible and calculated segments decreases. When the worm moves straight again, the segment count returns to normal.
Then came the small details: when boosting, the worm should lose mass, becoming shorter and thinner. When moving normally and eating goodies, the worm should grow in both length and width. These details turned out trickier than they seemed at first – always a nuance, and here there were many 🙂
Game development and gameplay evolution
Worm bots were added to the arena, and their AI gradually improved. The first versions of the AI were, frankly, terrible. Now the bots are much smarter – and sometimes even cheeky.
I experimented with the interface. Unfortunately, I’m no designer or artist, so the result is what it is.
Gradually, support for different platforms was added – iOS, Apple TV, Android, Android TV, Web, Linux, Facebook Instant Games, OK, VK, and more. Since development was done on macOS, that was the first platform the game worked on.
I implemented multiple control schemes – mouse, remote control, gamepad, keyboard.
Gameplay evolved with new power-ups: a temporary worm extender; a radar showing other worms on the map; and a 5x multiplier for rapid growth and score boosts.
Balancing gameplay is still ongoing. I haven’t yet found the ideal parameters for arena size and maximum worm count; worm growth and weight loss rates; and the cost of skins and customization.
Over time, the game accumulated various features. Skins with textures were added, and I wrote a simple Photoshop plugin to make textured skins easier to create. It was very basic – it automated only a small part of the process, so some steps still had to be done manually.
A few technical details
All sprites (UI, skin elements, effects, power-ups) are stored as separate files. During the resource build stage, atlases and descriptions are generated – all done via the console. Yes, I love the console. The atlas packer, of course, is my own.
I also wrote a simple shader implementing a “circular indicator” to show remaining power-up time. I based it on one of my older shaders available on ShaderToy. Nothing fancy – it could have been done without it.
The game supports multiple languages: English, Russian, French, Spanish, Vietnamese. Adding a new language is no problem — you just need to order a translation. The game uses the free Google Noto TTF font, which contains glyphs for many languages, and the required character atlas is generated at runtime.
Way of Tanks is a tank runner game with endless gameplay and diverse tracks. Players control a tank using swipes, keyboard buttons, or Apple TV gestures, aiming to cover as much distance as possible without hitting obstacles or dying in boss battles.
The tank can switch lanes, shoot, and even jump over trenches – yes, it’s that kind of modern tank! The game features various power-ups that temporarily enhance the tank’s abilities: agility, super shots, doubling collected coins, or the ability to break through obstacles.
Players can also use coins collected during runs to purchase new tanks or upgrade existing ones. There are four tanks in total, each with unique stats and capabilities.
With the permission of Ogurec Apps, I took on porting Way of Tanks from Java to iOS, tvOS, macOS, Linux, and Web, using my old but familiar and convenient game engine. The game is now ready to be handed over to its owner, though I retain the source code of both the game and the engine.
The game is already available in the browser – Way of Tanks. Hopefully, it will soon appear on the Apple AppStore for iOS, tvOS, and macOS. As for Linux, the decision rests with Ogurec Apps, but I really hope they won’t mind.
Road Fighter is an arcade racing video game developed by Konami and released as an arcade machine on December 7, 1984. Later, versions were released for MSX1 computers (1985) and the Nintendo Entertainment System (1985 in Japan, 1991 in Europe).
In 2003, Retro Remakes organized a “remake competition,” where participants were challenged to recreate a game from scratch in a short time. The team Brain Games decided to participate with a remake of Road Fighter for MSX.
What I did
The source code of the game was available on the Brain Games website, which I used. I informed the original clone author about my work – amusingly, he was happy and said he was looking forward to the web version.
First, I did a small code refactoring to make the game compile with a modern compiler using the “modern” version of SDL 1.2. Then I performed a larger code refactoring – dividing the code into logical parts and making it readable (here, my favorite VIM and clang-format were very helpful). Next, I had to make fixes to the sge library code required by the game.
After that, I ported the game to Linux and macOS, and six months later, I finally completed the port to Web.
Main challenges
The Web version was the most troublesome. At first, the game wouldn’t run at all – this was because the main loop needs to be slightly different for Emscripten (and generally for any properly designed architecture).
The next issue was clearing the screen (or filling it with black). You can’t just use zero; the zero must have an alpha of 0xff.
Later, the game seemed to freeze when loading a level – it turned out it wasn’t frozen, just very slow to load. I had to make many optimizations, mainly related to direct access to SDL surfaces. I solved this by removing Lock/Unlock calls from the main loops.
Another problem appeared when the car spins after a collision and skid marks must be drawn. Drawing lines was extremely slow, and they were never cleared even when off-screen. Moving the lock outside the loop and clearing the line list solved the issue.
I also improved file system handling, video and audio initialization, and music and sound loading. There were many changes – too many to remember. Anyone interested can compare the original game (the first commit) with the current master branch.
I might eventually add save-state support for the Web version. It’s not hard – synchronizing the “local” file system before reading is sufficient. IDBFS is perfect for this, but I haven’t gotten around to it yet.
Not all zombies are equally useful. Crush them all, but be careful – some zombies aren’t quite ordinary.
The rules are simple: tap a zombie to kill it and use power-ups wisely.
All the artwork was purchased from specialized stock sources. There was nothing unusual during development – I was just making another game.
The only exception was the button. I had to make a change in the engine – adding a new event to the button widget, which was needed for the power-ups. I could have created a specialized widget instead, but I decided that extending the functionality of the standard button would be useful for future projects.
One of the early games developed in a small team at Synesis. It’s a hyper-casual game where the character is controlled with just a single tap on the screen. The player’s task is to tap at the right moment – tap too early, and you lose; too late, and… yep, you lose again.
I can’t recall many details about the game – I’ve forgotten most of them. I do remember there were some issues with the game mechanics. It lacked clarity and transparency for the player, which left mixed impressions overall.
Both the game and the engine were written in C++. It was still the first version of the engine, though already significantly improved.
What I do remember well is that I really liked the character – both the design and the animations. In that regard, the team did an excellent job. The same can’t quite be said about the rest of the game.
Simply another clone of Fist of Fury. I really liked the game’s dynamics, style, and animations. Development went smoothly and quickly, and I can’t recall any major issues during the process.
Like most of my other games, this one was created by a small team at Synesis. In-game purchases were not implemented, but the game did include ads – judging by their appearance, they were provided by Chartboost. Coins needed to unlock characters dropped randomly from defeated enemies.
or maybe Death Jump… who remembers these names anymore?
We definitely overcomplicated things – it says Hop on the icon, but Jump in the menu.
A rather interesting hyper-casual game with endless gameplay. I really liked this one – fun mechanics, a nice setting, and good animations for both the character and the platforms he hops on.
The rules are simple – you know the drill: tap the screen at the right time, collect the red-and-yellow soul orbs – they’re needed to respawn.
Both the engine and the game were written in C++. It was made by a small team at Synesis. If I remember correctly, there were no real difficulties during development – everything went smoothly and quickly. That’s how it usually goes when you actually like the game you’re making.
By the way, this game would have worked perfectly on Android TV and Apple TV in landscape orientation. I’m pretty sure I even created builds for tvOS and Android TV at some point.
It seems the game now only survives on my iPhone and Android devices.
Another classic arcade-style game inspired by bar machines often found in pubs to entertain tipsy visitors.
The original arcade game – Ice Cold Beer, developed by the well-known Japanese company Taito in 1983, served as the main source of inspiration.
The player’s goal is to roll a ball into a specific hole on the playfield. To do this, the player controls a horizontal bar holding the ball using two levers connected to the edges of the bar. Tilting the bar left or right allows the player to guide the ball to the desired location.
This was one of the last games I developed together with a great team at Synesis.
The game was built on a new, reworked engine, which fixed issues from the previous version and introduced an updated API. Box2D was used for physics simulation, although it wasn’t strictly necessary given the simplicity of the gameplay.
I also created a test build for Android TV and Apple TV, designed for gamepads with dual analog sticks. Unfortunately, such controllers are quite rare on these platforms, so the TV versions were never released.
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