CoderHump - Latest Comments in Tweaking your game with Google Spreadsheets

Re: Tweaking your game with Google Spreadsheets

Ben Garney — Mon, 15 Jun 2009 14:29:39 -0000

What we will probably do is just store a dump of the RSS data in the game and have the tweaker apply it right away rather than fetching it from outside. We could also go in and hand-apply all the values, but I'm only doing that if I absolutely have to. :)

Re: Tweaking your game with Google Spreadsheets

MightyCicero — Sat, 06 Jun 2009 14:12:49 -0000

A bit late for a reply but I was wondering about your release strategy with this XML thing.

Do you plan using the google feed on the released version of your game or do you plan on packaging the xml file with the game? Or integrating the final tweaks into an internal structure in the .swf?

Re: Tweaking your game with Google Spreadsheets

Ben Garney — Fri, 15 May 2009 15:02:48 -0000

It was just editing what was in the game. The issue was that it was a little cryptic, and too tied to the internal structures of the game. So the designer was faced with this deep tree of weird fields.

The Google approach is way better because data is laid out sensibly, and most designers are good with spreadsheets already. Plus you get the whole cloud/collaborative thing.

Re: Tweaking your game with Google Spreadsheets

Dale Beermann — Fri, 15 May 2009 09:25:45 -0000

well it's certainly easier not to build the UI in the first place... I'm really more interested in the proof of concept rather than the actual use I guess :) Especially since we don't have designers...

When you were using the custom UI was it in fact hooked up to the Google Spreadsheet, or was it just editing local data?

Re: Tweaking your game with Google Spreadsheets

Ben Garney — Tue, 12 May 2009 17:56:01 -0000

Actually, that's a really good point. For our designers, the Google Spreadsheet UI is actually easier to work with than the custom UI we built originally. So I think that wrapping it would actually hurt productivity (at least for us). If your designers find Google Spreadsheet intimidating, then a custom UI might be worth it.

Re: Tweaking your game with Google Spreadsheets

Dale Beermann — Mon, 11 May 2009 23:33:53 -0000

so next step... a UI layer that lets you tweak the parameters for Grunts, editing the data in your spreadsheet at the same time. Doesn't seem like their API allows it unfortunately, although I haven't dug that much.

Re: Tweaking your game with Google Spreadsheets

Alex Ionescu — Wed, 22 Apr 2009 10:25:20 -0000

Thanks for sharing!

Re: Tweaking your game with Google Spreadsheets

Luna Drift — Thu, 12 Mar 2009 21:25:26 -0000

really... really... really cool!

Re: Tweaking your game with Google Spreadsheets

The 1nteger — Wed, 04 Feb 2009 13:56:57 -0000

Clever stuff! Gotta love Flash and web 2.0 :-D

Re: Tweaking your game with Google Spreadsheets

Ben Garney — Tue, 03 Feb 2009 23:11:29 -0000

It only takes a little bit of time to make an awesome Flash game... So give it a try! ;)

Seriously, though, Google Spreadsheets is awesome. We use it and the rest of docs daily.

Re: Tweaking your game with Google Spreadsheets

Ben Garney — Tue, 03 Feb 2009 23:09:21 -0000

@zoombapup: Cool - integrated with Torque or your own stuff?

Re: Tweaking your game with Google Spreadsheets

Ben Garney — Tue, 03 Feb 2009 23:09:00 -0000

Heheh - it's amazing how much can go into even a simple game! It's really cool seeing how it comes together now that all the pieces are there to make it fun.

Re: Tweaking your game with Google Spreadsheets

Ben Garney — Tue, 03 Feb 2009 23:08:21 -0000

Thanks John! :)

Re: Tweaking your game with Google Spreadsheets

zoombapup — Tue, 03 Feb 2009 16:14:53 -0000

Nice idea. I just hacked together a similar deal using TinyXML and Libcurl. Took about an hour, mostly trying to get libcurl to link properly under VS2008.

Re: Tweaking your game with Google Spreadsheets

David Wyand — Tue, 03 Feb 2009 01:06:03 -0000

Hey Ben, thanks for pointing out an excellent use for Google Spreadsheets. I'm not sure how I missed that one. :o)

And congrats on getting the PushButton Engine to the public beta stage. If I had more time that's certainly something I'd like to check out.

Re: Tweaking your game with Google Spreadsheets

johnhattan — Mon, 02 Feb 2009 20:54:37 -0000

That's quite clever. Much nicer than reading CSV :)

Re: Tweaking your game with Google Spreadsheets

Mich — Mon, 02 Feb 2009 18:58:32 -0000

Wow. Very clever usage: "It has built-in revision tracking. You can edit it simultaneously with someone else. You can access live data in XML either publicly (like we did) or privately via their authentication API." That is just awesome.

Btw, 200kb worth of tweaks for Grunts? Good lord! I'm really getting hyped now

Re: Tweaking your game with Google Spreadsheets

David Blake — Mon, 02 Feb 2009 11:42:16 -0000

This is a great use of Google Spreadsheets. I've been looking at this for my job at ISU with some of the data that we work with on the lab team. Very cool work!

Re: Tweaking your game with Google Spreadsheets

Ben Garney — Mon, 02 Feb 2009 02:06:15 -0000

Thanks, James! :) I hope it saves other people time, too!

Re: Tweaking your game with Google Spreadsheets

Ben Garney — Mon, 02 Feb 2009 02:05:55 -0000

Oh, cool. JSON is good - and that's a really neat example of what you can do with it.

I do wish there was a way to access the API directly from Flash (ie a valid crossdomain.xml), even if it required an API key... That would save some trouble.

But Spreadsheets still rocks. :)

Re: Tweaking your game with Google Spreadsheets

Pamela Fox — Sun, 01 Feb 2009 18:19:15 -0000

Awesome use of spreadsheets! You can also use the JSON output of the public/values feed, which I find a bit easier. It'll basically look like a database. One example of using that is here:
http://gmaps-samples.google...

Re: Tweaking your game with Google Spreadsheets

James Urquhart — Sun, 01 Feb 2009 05:21:54 -0000

I like the spreadsheet approach, especially after seeing it used quite sensibly in Startopia. Taking it to the next level with Google Spreadsheets is nothing short of amazing!

Re: Tweaking your game with Google Spreadsheets

Jeff Tunnell — Sun, 01 Feb 2009 03:26:03 -0000

As one of the designers, I am LOVING it!