We have new art for TippleTop, the game which helps the children’s charity The DreamHappy Foundation. We have a couple of new team members, 3D artists, which we will be adding to Team TippleTop shortly. Lucilla Lischetti has been busy creating concepts for the the Witches Table stage which you can view later in this post. Chrissy Underwood has also been helping out by creating more concepts for the Castle Courtyard stage.

Nick Pittsinger has perfected the wonderful music compositions he is creating for TippleTop. He has recently finished the main menu music and Witches Table music. Nick had a major software upgrade and will be creating SFX for the game.

Gavro Krackovic, who is our new GUI designer, has a new GUI design for us, we aren’t able to show it just yet as we are tweaking the final colors.

New TippleTop Concept Art

Below you will find our latest concept works from Lucilla and Chrissy.

Witches Table (Back view and Stackpad view)

Below we can see a few of the props for the Castle Courtyard stage.

We are in need of additional talent!
3D Modelers (3DsMax preferred, 08+ versions)
C++ Programmer

You will need to be able to spend eight hours a week or more to this project. Please contact us with your portfolio if you are interested in joining our team.

Thanks for reading! Feel free to comment and make sure to add us on Twitter and Facebook!

We would like to add that the DreamHappy Foundation is gathering a lot of blankets with the Comfy Quilts project. If you believe you can help out, please do! The project aims to gather blankets for orphanages and family shelters.

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We have been busy developing this great game which helps the children’s charity The DreamHappy Foundation. Lucilla Lischetti has been busy creating concepts for the the Witches Table stage which you can view later in this post. Lesley Fersztman is continuing to create 3D assets for our Toy Room stage. Chrissy Underwood has been a huge help kicking out concepts left and right for our upcoming Castle Courtyard stage and Elson Carty is developing a great castle mesh and environment props.

Nick Pittsinger has perfected the wonderful music compositions he is creating for TippleTop. He has recently finished the Castle Courtyard stage tune.

Software Engineer, A. Botorabi is implementing the Tipper (game monster) A.I. which is going really well!

We have a new team member, Gavro Krackovic who is our new GUI designer.

New TippleTop Concept Art

Below you will find our latest concept works from Lucilla and Chrissy.

Witches Table (and evolution)

We may edit the castle you will see down this post to have an interior, if so, here are a few concepts detailing the interior.

New TippleTop 3D Art (Some are works in progress..)

Below you will find the castle Elson is working on.

Below is a toy train which Lesley is developing.

We are in need of additional talent!

Writer
3D Modelers (3DsMax preferred, 08+ versions)
3D Rigger/Animator
Jr. C++ Programmer
SFX Designer

You will need to be able to spend eight hours a week or more to this project. Please contact us with your portfolio if you are interested in joining our team.

Thanks for reading! Feel free to comment and make sure to add us on Twitter and Facebook!

We would like to add that the DreamHappy Foundation is has launched a new campaign, Comfy Quilts, which aims to gather blankets for orphanages and family shelters.

While we will be working on TippleTop through the month, we will continue this blog in January. Fun Spike Games would like to thank you all for checking out our development blog and wish you all the best of holidays.

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A great deal has been accomplished since our last update. We are tweaking the Space Cake stage and have started to develop and design the Toy Room, and Castle Courtyard stages.

We have two new TippleTop team members. We would like to welcome Elson Carty who is handling light concept work and heavy 3D development. We would also like to welcome Chrissy Underwood who is creating stacks of concept pieces.

A. Botorabi has been integrating the A.I. into our Tippers. We have our little guys running up and stealing player blocks and running off with them. We have a ways to go before we can release a video of them in action.

Nick P. has been busy creating great original scores for our stages, including expanding the Space Cake music into a three minute score. We will have demonstrations of these scores in our upcoming videos.

Jim E. and Lesley F. are doing a great job working hard modeling and texturing the Toy Room.

Will W. (the guy who writes these updates…) is busy with contracts, designing stages, other game design, battling lighting issues and many other tasks.

The rest of the team is working on designing and creating the upcoming stages, some of which you can see below.

New TippleTop Concept Art

Lucilla L., Chrissy U., Matt B. and Elson C. have been busy creating concepts for our upcoming stages:

Toy Room

Castle Courtyard

Power-Ups

We have a few roughs for our power-ups. These are not finalized as we are testing the waters with the art direction and particle effects of the power-ups.

We are in need of additional talent!

Writer
3D Modelers (Maya or 3dsMax, 3DsMax preferred, 08+ versions)
GUI Artist
3D Rigger/Animator
Jr. C++ Programmer
SFX Designer

You will need to be able to spend eight hours a week or more to this project. Please contact us with your portfolio if you are interested in joining our team.

Thanks for reading! Feel free to comment and make sure to add us on Twitter and Facebook!

Sneak Peak on What’s Next

Join the forum discussion on this update

Fun Spike Games Creates Charitable Video Game

Game developer Fun Spike Games is creating a family friendly video game which aids the children’s charity, the DreamHappy Foundation.

Bethlehem, Pennsylvania – November 22, 2010 – Video game developer Fun Spike Games is creating a family friendly, casual game for charity. The developers will donate a portion of the game’s proceeds to the eastern Pennsylvania based 501(c)(3) public charity for children, the DreamHappy Foundation

The charitable title, TippleTop, will include whimsical play stages where the player must stack blocks of various shapes and protect their stacks from being knocked down by enemies called, Tippers. The game will feature a number of entertaining game modes that can be unlocked as the player progresses. Fun Spike Games hopes to release TippleTop in 2011 for personal computers and possibly additional platforms.

The TippleTop development project is a great opportunity for students and professionals to gain experience and to build their resumes while helping to raise funds and awareness for the DreamHappy Foundation. “The volunteers who work on this project are truly extraordinary. They are spending many hours a week on this game, the proceeds of which will help us to create a better world for children.”, says the game designer and Chairman of the DreamHappy Foundation, William Weaver, “Due to team TippleTop’s hard work, dedication, and passion for gaming, the game is coming to life in only a few short months.”

Lead Software Engineer at Fun Spike Games, Ali Botorabi, states, “I am pleased with how smoothly development is going, especially with the restrictions that come with being an unfunded start-up. We are hoping that will be changing soon. Even in early development stages, the game is a great deal of fun to play and it is all for a good cause. I believe that the more fun the game turns out to be, the more proceeds will be generated for the DreamHappy Foundation, which in turn helps more children in need.”

The public is invited to watch and participate in TippleTop’s development on the Fun Spike Games development blog and forum located on their website. The developers welcome comments from the public and community to help improve the game.

About The DreamHappy Foundation

The DreamHappy Foundation is a not for profit, 501(c)(3) public charitable organization. Their goal is to bring joy to children in need. The DreamHappy Foundation achieves this goal by developing and maintaining campaigns that provide educational materials, toys and other items for families in need, Non-Profit Organizations (NPO), Children’s Health Organizations (CHO), orphanages, schools and local communities.

http://www.DreamHappy.org

About Fun Spike Games

Fun Spike Games is dedicated to creating unique games for the casual and dedicated video gamer. Fun Spike Games released Angela’s World for the PC, Mac and iPhone in early 2010. This game was received with praise for original and fluid game play. Fun Spike Games is looking forward to providing entertainment for years to come.

http://www.FunSpike.com

For interviews, please contact:

William Weaver, Chairman of the DreamHappy Foundation

1275 Glenlivet Drive, Suite 100
Allentown, PA 18106-3107

Phone: 1.484.224.3028

http://www.DreamHappy.org

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This week we have been in full development, working on concept creation, 3D development, level design, music development and beginning to code Tipper (in-game enemy) AI.

Will W., Erick R., Matt B., Lesley F. and Jim E. have been busy designing, creating concepts and creating the 3D environment for our next map in development, the Toy Room. We want our players to be immersed in a room full of giant toys, as they stack and battle off the Tippers.

Nick P. is working away, editing our existing music compositions and creating a new three minute track for the Toy Room. We should have a video displaying our music in a week or so.

A. Botorabi is rarely getting sleep, as he’s working on learning new sets of tool and beginning to code our Tipper AI.

Concept Art

Below are concepts of the upcoming Toy Room.

3D Development

Below are 3D mock-ups from Jim E. of the upcoming Toy Room and items found therein. The size of the room is not to scale and will be more square.

If you did not catch our video from last week, please check it out below:

We are in need of additional talent!

Writer
3D Modelers (Maya or 3dsMax, 3DsMax preferred, 08+ versions)
GUI Artist
3D Rigger/Animator
Jr. C++ Programmer
SFX Designer

You will need to be able to spend eight hours a week or more to this project. Please contact us with your portfolio if you are interested in joining our team.

Thanks for reading! Feel free to comment and make sure to add us on Twitter and Facebook!

Join the forum discussion on this update

Another note, our next video will have less jerky camera movement as it’s been noted that it is bothersome. Also, I’ll try not to have a cold.

Skybox

We mentioned a skybox in the above video. A skybox is a set of images which are put together to create a complete sky, or sphere around the play stage. The skybox for the Space Cake stage is almost finished. We’ve posted a few concept pieces of the sky below:

We still have a long way to go on TippleTop and have started on developing a new stage which we’ll announce on our next post.

We are in need of additional talent!

Writer
3D Modeler (Maya or 3dsMax, 3DsMax preferred, 08+ versions)
GUI Artist
3D Rigger/Animator
Jr. C++ Programmer
SFX Designer
Additional Composer

You will need to be able to spend eight hours a week or more to this project. Please contact us with your portfolio if you are interested in joining our team.

Thanks for reading! Feel free to comment and make sure to add us on Twitter and Facebook!

Join the forum discussion on this update

We have a new TippleTop team member:

Nick Pittsinger, Composer

This week we focused more so on code and preparing our first Alpha than the graphic elements. The Alpha build has been finished a few days before Nov. 1st, which was the date we gave ourselves. We are very pleased with this. This weekend we are cleaning up some code, files and adding a non-intrusive GUI.

We do have a few new art pieces to show.

Concept Art

Erick R. is helping to develop our Cloud stage, in the spirit of the children’s charity we are donating a portion of the game’s proceeds to, the DreamHappy Foundation.

Erick also created another quick sketch of our Cake stage. We may edit the stage with some of these ideas in mind at a later date.

3D Development

Jim E. and Lesley F. have developed a few of our blocks which the player will use to create their stack and defend from the Tipper enemies.

Not rendered.

Code / Mechanics

Lead Software Engineer, A. Botorabi, has updated our current internal build to v0.4.3-r54. (Videos to come soon!)

Code and Mechanics Added

Added GUI Elements.

Added newer music from recently added composer.

Added block targeting system for easier stack building.

Added media compression agent.

Object manipulation was adapted: rotating a block around Z axis needs now X key pressed + mouse wheel, other keys are ctrl and alt + mouse wheel for rotating around other axes.
Fixed a problem with blocks which could no longer be moved by player.

Added splash screen.

Added Copyright notice to menu screen.

Fixed the problem with progress calculation while building stack, now after placing a stack the progress is calculated.

Removed the automatic camera switch on beginning to place objects.

Now camera zooming is also available during block placing.

Added automatic camera switch to Ego when beginning to place blocks.
Added starter for Cake level.
Setup Stack entity in Park and Cake level.

(Yeah, we’ve been busy. )

Sneak Peak on What’s Next

We are in need of additional talent!

Writer
3D Modeler (Maya or 3dsMax, 3DsMax preferred, 08+ versions)
GUI Artist
3D Rigger/Animator
Jr. C++ Programmer

You will need to be able to spend eight hours a week or more to this project. Please contact us with your portfolio if you are interested in joining our team.

Thanks for reading! Feel free to comment and make sure to add us on Twitter and Facebook!

Join the forum discussion on this update

Before we get to the eye candy, we have a few notes:

First off, we would love it if  you would register on our forums.

We are in need of additional talent!

Art Director
Writer
3D Modeler (Maya or 3dsMax, 3DsMax preferred, 08+ versions)
GUI Artist
3D Rigger/Animator
Jr. C++ Programmer
Sound Effects Designer
Composer

You will need to be able to spend eight hours a week or more to this project. No, this isn’t a paid gig, but it’ll help boost your career and there is a lot of room for artistic freedom/expression. Please contact us with your portfolio if you are interested in joining our team.

We have a new TippleTop team member:

Lucilla L., Concept Artist

Now to the new content!

Concept Art

Erick R. created yet another amazing gameplay action illustration. We see the player (the round guy) holding the cube with his energy powers while the Tippers chase him down. Unfortunately for the player, his stack seems to be falling, probably due to those nasty Tippers tipping it over.

Matt B. re-designed Ancient Wonder map adding a lot more detail and an interesting play environment. This map contains two Stack Pads for players to stack their shapes on, which is an idea we’ve been kicking around. We’ve coded the idea, tested it and love it!

Erick R. has finished designing the Lush Forrest stages as seen below. This is a smaller stage for quick stack building and fast Tipper (monster) battles.

And now onto the delicious cake we’ve so tempted you with in our blog title…

Lucillia L. came up with this awesome idea of having a Cake stage (We are still working on a name… your ideas are welcome!) which was grown by the team with additional illustrations by Lesley F.

3D Development

Jim E. has started to develop the Cake scene, base model and props.

Cake Stage

Props

Candycane (Two test models by Jim E. and John A.)

Cherries

Lollipop

Birthday Candle

Gingerbread Man

Cookie Pad

Here we have our Stack Pad in cookie form, created by Lesley F.

(nom, nom, nom…)

Code / Mechanics

Lead Software Engineer, A. Botorabi, has updated our current internal build to v0.4.0-r33.

Code and Mechanics Added

Stack Pad Entity Code

Multiple Stack Pad Code

Scoring Mechanisms

Shape (Block) De-Spawn Code

Additional Item Manipulation Code

What’s Next

This next week we will be finalizing the cake stage, implementing all of our code/mechanics into our first Alpha.

Thanks for reading, feel free to comment and make sure to add us on Twitter and Facebook!

Join the forum discussion on this update

First off, we have a great new website  and we would like all of you to register on our forums!

We have new TippleTop team members:

Jim Emmanuel, 3D Development

John Antrobus, 3D Development (Congratulations on your new baby boy!)

Now to the new content!

Concept Art

Matt B. created this new Snow Stage, which is a winter wonderland stage including an ice pond for stacking and ice cavern of mysterious purposes.

As seen from inside the ice cavern.

Erick R. is currently working on both the Lush Forrest and Clouds stages as seen below, these concepts are still in development so these are not the finals.

3D Development

We have made good progress with our Tipper development. Tippers are the in-game enemies which try to knock over the player’s stack.

Conceptualized by Erick R. and Matt B., 3D development by Jim E.

The Evil King (or Evuhl…)

The Jester

pTipper

The Abominable Land Shark

Our first Alpha build grows ever closer as we are locking in our first stage, camera controls, player controls and item manipulation code. As noted by Lead Software Engineer, A. Botorabi, our current build, 0.3.5-r24 contains:

Initial client loading.
Basic GUI elements containing, Play Game, Settings, Credits and Exit.
Player, Block and General Physics.
Easy to use player control using mouse and keyboard for walking and flight.
Natural player camera (3rd person) including camera occlusion handling.
Object, starting with cubes, manipulation and placement.
Player inventory including two slots.
Loading and saving player and game settings.

The game plays really well. We’ve had people, casual gamers, sit down and play the current build, without seeing the game before and pick up the controls very easily. The graphics are really fun, yes our poly counts are low and our textures are simple but the mechanisms in the great engine we are using really make the world “pop”. It has a great vibrant feel. We will be able to show the game to the public very soon!

Stay tuned.

Join the forum discussion on this update

Please take a few seconds to register on the new forums.

The new site features a new Media page and Team page for TippleTop, an area to sign in via the sidebar and the new Dev Blog.

We invite everyone to join our new Twitter and Facebook pages.

We have a huge TippleTop dev blog update coming out soon and any other exciting future announcements!