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[santaragione]

Sorry guys if we are a bit "silent" in these days, but we just got back from a fair in Essen (Germany) and now we're heading to a new one in Lucca (Italy) to promote our new boardgame "EFTAIOS" ...we'll be back full time on Fotonica by the 1st of November; as always though, thanks for your support, it keeps us going!

[santaragione]

HELLO EVERYBODY!
New Build is up, as always you can play it here: http://santaragione.com/fotonica/FOTONICAWEB/5b.html

NEW FEATURES:

Difficulty settings! Now you can choose to play PURE or COMPLEX at 80% of speed, 100% or 120%!


FIX:

Delay when jumping should be reduced : D

@RCIX: Do you feel annoyed as in too much shaking or you'd rather not have any animation? I think some animation helps understanding what is happening, old builds dod not have them and felt really dull.

@neon: Valentinel is much more difficult not being one button though: I searched it on the web it seems really cool.

@tesselode: Yes it is easier in complex mode (apart from the "girder of death"), pure si more for getting a perfect score. Do you feel we should keep this complex/pure thing in the final game?


@Sparky: thanks for the suggestion but our code is a mess, in fact it's much more complex than that to introduce your check so for now I used a small workaround that should make the game feel more responsive, does it work?

OK now off to LUCCA GAMES http://lucca2010.luccacomicsandgames.com/, do you guys feel we should start a topic on our boardgame? It's Indie but not video!

[Loren Schmidt]

Hey, good luck at Lucca! I'd love to see a thread about your board game- I'm very interested in board games and board game design, and I think a lot of other people here are as well. (I'm not sure which subforum it would best fit, but I've seen one or two other board games here in the past, and they were well received.)

I think jump does feel more responsive now. I know what you mean about the code base- I've had a few projects where things became such a tangled mess that making seemingly small alterations was nightmarishly involved It's too bad, because I think if the jump were totally instantaneous it would have a positive effect on the feel of the game. But it sounds like you've done what you can.

Personally, I don't mind the screen shake. I think it helps make the jump feel more physical, and I like it.

I've made it a bit further into the level now. I saw what I believe was the finish line once, but I didn't quite make it there. This is neat, keep it up!

[tesselode]

@tesselode: Yes it is easier in complex mode (apart from the "girder of death"), pure si more for getting a perfect score. Do you feel we should keep this complex/pure thing in the final game?

I think so. The pure and complex modes provided interesting and distinct graphical styles.

[RCIX]

@RCIX: Do you feel annoyed as in too much shaking or you'd rather not have any animation? I think some animation helps understanding what is happening, old builds dod not have them and felt really dull.

I think a very light shaking would work, just not "medium earthquake everytime you jump or land".

[santaragione]

Hey, good luck at Lucca! I'd love to see a thread about your board game- I'm very interested in board games and board game design, and I think a lot of other people here are as well. (I'm not sure which subforum it would best fit, but I've seen one or two other board games here in the past, and they were well received.)

I think jump does feel more responsive now. I know what you mean about the code base- I've had a few projects where things became such a tangled mess that making seemingly small alterations was nightmarishly involved It's too bad, because I think if the jump were totally instantaneous it would have a positive effect on the feel of the game. But it sounds like you've done what you can.

Personally, I don't mind the screen shake. I think it helps make the jump feel more physical, and I like it.

I've made it a bit further into the level now. I saw what I believe was the finish line once, but I didn't quite make it there. This is neat, keep it up!

We came back yesterday night at 4am, right after the last day at the fair O__O
It went very well as we sold out! We'll certainly make a topic on the board game then:

@ EVERYBODY what section would be more appropriate for a topic on a completed indie board game? Announcements?

@RCIX: jumping is just a "look at your feet/what's underneath you" when you jump. Landing is still a bit too shacky it's true, we can try and bring it down a bit.

We'll work on new features (MUSIC!) and a new level in the next two/three weeks. Also, we are trying to fix the menu, do you think that having it usable with the mouse is a good idea or would it ruin the whole "you release the button to act" commitment?
Also: how do you feel about the 3 difficulty settings? should the difficulty affect the scoring?
Thank you as always for trying the new builds.

SR

[santaragione]

Hello everybody just a note:

we are working on a random level generator and a dynamic music system.

We've been silent for a while because we are building a demo for another game on the 23rd.

More stuff next week!

[tesselode]

Sounds awesome.

(saying this just to let you know I care)

[santaragione]

Sounds awesome.

(saying this just to let you know I care)

much appreciated tesselode!

this topic need some screenshots though...













and, a white one (sorry I really liked this one XD )

[santaragione]

So: a new Fotonica build is shaping up, now that we’ve finished “that other project” ( almost ) ...we are free to come back to our dear OneButtonExtravaganza...we're planning to do 2 new lvl and soon a random generated endless mode!

I’ll let you wonder what the alternative control scheme is.

[santaragione]

HELLO PEOPLE!  NEW BUILD OUT!



TRY IT HERE:
http://santaragione.com/fotonica/FOTONICAWEB/5b.html


RELEASE NOTES:

1- PLAY WITH ANY BUTTON! (All joystick supported! Play With mouse supported!)

2- NEW CONTROL SCHEME! (Inspired by "you know who")

3- LOCAL SCOREBOARDS! (Now you can beat your own best scores, yay!)

4- NEW ONE BUTTON MENU! (This time it's actually usable! Please give feedback!)

5- NEW MOUSE MENU! (HEH, it's about time)


COMING SOON:

NEW LEVEL "CAIROLI" AND "INFINITO" MODE.

Thanks as always for trying it out: please let us know what you think!

SR

[deathtotheweird]

just gave it a bit of a play-through and so far I much prefer the auto-run controls, and the mouse menu is much appreciated 

[santaragione]

A new build is up for you to play, with a new level!!...this should be an easier one, let us know what you think. Game is also available on Chrome store now.

We also added a small (very small) bar, on the left side of the screen, to tell you how far in the level you've made.

Just pure for now, in a week or so the complex should be available; working on some tube architecture to connect all platforms, since now platforms are much more distant from each other than the previous level.

ciao!

[mokesmoe]

It's really hard to jump right after getting an orb. You should make them less screen-obscuring.

[santaragione]

It's really hard to jump right after getting an orb. You should make them less screen-obscuring.

you're right, but that should be part of catching the orbs...what we'd like to achieve (even if I understand it might get pretty frustrating) is to use orbs as a bonus as well as a malus; bonus because you get a bonus score, malus because it makes it harder to see where to jump right after catching one. Another use of orbs is to put them in specific positions, so to suggest a certain path.

What we might do to solve, partially, this kind of problem, is to introduce 3 different shapes for orbs/bonus (like pyramid/cube/sphere), but with the same bonus score; this would mean a shape (triangle) for the "land here" orb, a shape (cube) for the "jump here" orb, and a shape (sphere) fot the "floating" orb.

[Helmeted]

Love it. I'm terrible at it though. Since you're using Unity, It would probably be a good iPhone game, or Android.

Out of curiosity, how are achieving the vector look in Unity? Using the Vecrosity plugin or faking it with textures and shaders or something else?

[santaragione]

Love it. I'm terrible at it though. Since you're using Unity, It would probably be a good iPhone game, or Android.

Out of curiosity, how are achieving the vector look in Unity? Using the Vecrosity plugin or faking it with textures and shaders or something else?

it's achieved mainly with an outline shader, but it behave very differently from model to model, also the materials assiged to every model change the ammount of lines represented...it requires some time to fix it up on every model you put in the level editor, to get the right effect...I'm sure there are many different ways to achieve it though.

as of now, working on some Cairoli Complex models, just a hint:



ciao 

[MrPhil]

Good work, I like the game.  I sometimes press the button at the wrong time because I have trouble telling when I am on the ground and when I am "flying."

[santaragione]

Good work, I like the game.  I sometimes press the button at the wrong time because I have trouble telling when I am on the ground and when I am "flying."

Do you mean you have trouble understanding when you land?  As in: you press the jump button before landing to make consecutive jumps? so that the next jump fails?
I STRONGLY suggest that you use the normal control scheme instead of the atomic one, as you'll get used to press the button mid-air to land rapidly and release as soon as you hear the landing noise (CHA-KLANG!) Also, in normal, if you press the butt and you don't see falling blue particles that means you are on the ground!

I'll put here the chrome web store link in case any of you want to use our fake install: https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/fdmpmlflcbdpdlpdhockojnbpgcdpjhi

[santaragione]

New screenshots form our new complex level: CAIROLI.