next »

[qubodup]

Hello,

Nikki and the Robots is a cute physics platformer. It is in development and mostly open source. Alpha versions are available for public consumption.


Recently it was bumped to version 0.3 and a level contest was started (win full version once it's finished + one t-shirt, ends 7. July 2011).



0.3 Changes include:

• Battery counter and timer inside levels
• High-score display in level selection and level-end screens.
• Bugfixes! One of the most horrible ones prevented linking robots to terminals in the editor.
• Player-configurable controls
• Death zone (lower limit for levels)

Please test-ride this release [get it here] as hard as you can and make awesome levels for the contest! (Or spread the word if you know somebody who makes awesome levels.) Bugs are kindly asked to go to Launchpad or our IndieDB forum or simply this thread here .

[Average Software]

Seems to work fine for me (Slackware Linux 32 bit).

A few comments:

I love being able to freely resize the window (I wish more games did this) but I really wish it would scale the game to fit the window size, rather than just cropping the viewable area.

The game should pause when the window loses focus.

I really don't like it when games hide my mouse cursor.  It's disconcerting when I'm trying to close the window and my cursor vanishes on the way to the title bar.  I would least add an option for turning this off.

[Kiwisauce]

I just tried it out, and I like it so far. It was pretty easy (except Greenland AAAAARGH), but I can see a lot of potential for cool physics puzzles, and I love puzzles. Adding more types of robots will definitely help make things more interesting. I compiled a list of problems that I noticed when playing through the demo:

- I noticed a weird, subtle horizontal line graphical artifact going across the screen, especially when the screen scrolled vertically. Not sure if there's anything you can do about that easily, and it wasn't too bad.
- I'm sure you're aware of this, but the jetpack robots can't be righted if they get in certain positions, which forced me to restart levels several times. Somewhat annoying.
- Could you add a quick way to restart the level when you get stuck or die?
- Are you planning on having music or sound effects?
- The success screen is a little jarring when it comes up immediately after pressing the last switch. Even after making a note of this I was still confused on Countdown when the level suddenly ended after I collected a battery... but I figured out what happened. Maybe fade the level out into the success screen?
- It seems a little weird that you can bounce pretty high off of platforms, even though the springiness of them isn't that high. I was able to break a part of Platform Commander by bouncing off of the platform to the right of the start without using the terminal.
- The fact that switches aren't pressed when just the side is held down is slightly annoying. In Celldrop I got the last battery onto the switch, but it didn't actually trigger it...    It worked fine the second time though.
- It seems that you can't push blocks if you're right next to them and have no velocity, even if you are holding down the arrow key.
- Maybe you should make platforms stop a lot more quickly/jerkily when you turn them off? It wasn't immediately clear to me that I was turning them off/on by pressing ctrl.
- Greenland... this level has a few problems . The first part was pretty boring, and then the jumps just get ridiculous with respect to how long the level is and having to do the first part over again each time. Near the end (I think it was near the end, I actually gave up on that one) there was a blind jump, and I failed to correctly guess where the platform would be. All the other levels were excellent though!
- I briefly tried the editor, and trying to use H to test the level crashed the game for me. (I'm running Mac OS X.)

Anyway, that's a long list, and I'll put it up on your forum too, but I did enjoy the game and look forward to seeing more. And as a side note, I like the kitty grab mechanic - I thought it added a lot.

[qubodup]

@average thanks for the feedback!

I love being able to freely resize the window (I wish more games did this) but I really wish it would scale the game to fit the window size, rather than just cropping the viewable area.

It sure would be nice to be able to chose between either of these but that's not likely to happen..

The game should pause when the window loses focus.

Will talk about it to the team.

I really don't like it when games hide my mouse cursor.  It's disconcerting when I'm trying to close the window and my cursor vanishes on the way to the title bar.  I would least add an option for turning this off.

Probably can do. :)


@Kiwisauce thanks for this massive feedback block! :)

- I noticed a weird, subtle horizontal line graphical artifact going across the screen, especially when the screen scrolled vertically. Not sure if there's anything you can do about that easily, and it wasn't too bad.

Doesn't ring a bell.. Any way to show us a screenshot or video of this?

- I'm sure you're aware of this, but the jetpack robots can't be righted if they get in certain positions, which forced me to restart levels several times. Somewhat annoying.

Not sure about the priority of this task but it will be tackled.

- Could you add a quick way to restart the level when you get stuck or die?

Should do, yes.

- Are you planning on having music or sound effects?

Yes, there might be some bfxr sfx in the game soon. Not sure about how soon music will arrive. We might have to look for a music person in the near future.

- The success screen is a little jarring when it comes up immediately after pressing the last switch. Even after making a note of this I was still confused on Countdown when the level suddenly ended after I collected a battery... but I figured out what happened. Maybe fade the level out into the success screen?

Jarring. I agree.

- It seems a little weird that you can bounce pretty high off of platforms, even though the springiness of them isn't that high. I was able to break a part of Platform Commander by bouncing off of the platform to the right of the start without using the terminal.

Physics are fun, aren't they? :D But reports on physical effects that feel broken are welcome!

- The fact that switches aren't pressed when just the side is held down is slightly annoying. In Celldrop I got the last battery onto the switch, but it didn't actually trigger it...    It worked fine the second time though.

I made that level, I should be able to fix this and make sure it works 99% rather than 95% of the time by editing it a bit.

- It seems that you can't push blocks if you're right next to them and have no velocity, even if you are holding down the arrow key.

Hm..

- Maybe you should make platforms stop a lot more quickly/jerkily when you turn them off? It wasn't immediately clear to me that I was turning them off/on by pressing ctrl.

Physics variables is something we have to review, yes..

- Greenland... this level has a few problems . The first part was pretty boring, and then the jumps just get ridiculous with respect to how long the level is and having to do the first part over again each time. Near the end (I think it was near the end, I actually gave up on that one) there was a blind jump, and I failed to correctly guess where the platform would be. All the other levels were excellent though!

I feel your pain..

- I briefly tried the editor, and trying to use H to test the level crashed the game for me. (I'm running Mac OS X.)

Oh. Do you remember whether you had a Nikki object in the level? It crashes for me if I don't. This will be fixed ASAP.

Thanks again for all these reports! I'll go through them with my team today or tomorrow!

[qubodup]

For people who were having extremely slow motion during gameplay: update the game and it should run smoothly from now on!

Please let us know if there are any problems.

[mcc]

I thought this looked really neat (visually it's gorgeous and very inviting), I'm not so sure about the platforming mechanics. Nikki's jump seems unusual how high it is, the walljump and corner grab seemed a little hard to get the hang of. I only played a few levels but it seemed like the ones that had me the most interested were the ones where the puzzle/robot mechanics were emphasized and Nikki's movement was mostly a drive for the puzzles. It also helped when levels were in a confined area (Nikki doesn't move very quickly so levels with long walks, like Greenland, got boring). Very curious to see where you go with this.

- I noticed a weird, subtle horizontal line graphical artifact going across the screen, especially when the screen scrolled vertically. Not sure if there's anything you can do about that easily, and it wasn't too bad.

Doesn't ring a bell.. Any way to show us a screenshot or video of this?

What he means is, you have vertical tearing. I got it too and it was pretty distracting. I think you need to turn on some kind of vsync.

- I'm sure you're aware of this, but the jetpack robots can't be righted if they get in certain positions, which forced me to restart levels several times. Somewhat annoying.

Not sure about the priority of this task but it will be tackled.

The problem I had was that if a robot landed on its head, it was stuck forever. When I tried the robot tutorial level I found it almost impossible not to get into this state.

[qubodup]

On June 6th we started a level design contest. It runs until July 7th and everybody is welcome to submit as many levels as they like. Text and video tutorials are available.

We received ten levels so far via email, webchat and forum:

[full size]

To test them, you have to unzip the archive [mirror 1 | mirror 2] to the following directory:

WINDOWS: %APPDATA%\nikki-free-levels\userLevels\

LINUX/MAC OS X: ~/.nikki-free-levels/userLevels/

Just copy the path into Explorer's (CTRL + L) or Filer's (CMD + SHIFT + G) location bar to enter that directory.

Read the full announcement here.

Looking forward to more submissions!

[qubodup]

On June 6th we started a level design contest. July 7th is the deadline and everybody is welcome to submit as many levels as they like via email, webchat or forum. Text and video tutorials are available.

Since releasing the first batch, we received nine levels (one of them in two versions):



To test them, you have to unzip the archive [mirror 1 | mirror 2] to the following directory:

WINDOWS: %APPDATA%\nikki-free-levels\userLevels\

LINUX/MAC OS X: ~/.nikki-free-levels/userLevels/

Just copy the path into Explorer's (CTRL + L) or Filer's (CMD + SHIFT + G) location bar to enter that directory.

You're welcome to submit levels here in this forum as well!

[qubodup]

The levels we received so far made us want to give a little more in return, so we'll throw in two more shirts for the best level designers.



So submit cool levels before July 7th is over and win one of three shirts and one of ten pre-order copies of Nikki and the Robots. Check out the previous entries hereand here.

For rules, check out this announcement.

We only have two shirt styles, so if anybody has ideas for new stuff to print, let us know.

[qubodup]

Soon after the end of the first level contest we released Nikki and the Robots 0.3.2, which you can download here or via the update menu option of your copy.

[video links: Vimeo | YouTube]

The new features are:

• New Patrol Robots, which will make Nikki fail the level when touched
• Jetpack Robots are more forgiving and easier to control
• No more editor crashes when Nikki has not been added
• Signature checks for updates (heightened updater security - not gameplay-relevant

A few words about the contest judging: we will announce the winners in approximately ten days. We received some last-minute levels and are very thankful to all level builders who shared their works.



Patrol Robot

We hope that the Patrol Robot is fun to work with. You can get in touch with players and builders on IRC and the forums.

[qubodup]

The contest results are in! And a new update, which you can download or get using the in-game updater.


[video links: Vimeo | YouTube]

The winners are
* Julian (for Greed) [Shirt + Game]
* sauer2/C. Hackenberg (for lootninja, hanoi, powergrid and obstacles [Shirt + 4xGame]
* Jukkeri (for Trick Series 02) [Shirt + Game]
* pixma (for robopractice) [Game]
* 2048 Terrabit (for Robot Race) [Game]
* Marius Ghita/mhitza (for stairway to heaven)[Game]
* 3sdras (for Geronimo) [Game]
Congratulations to the winners and thanks to all who submitted levels!

New in 0.3.3:
* Added 30 levels from the first level design contest (in standard levels/03-contest1)
* Jetpack robot physics tweaked again
* Level names are now sorted correctly

[qubodup]

Video: 0.4 changes [Vimeo | YouTube]

We released Nikki and the Robots 0.4.0 (0.4.1.1 actually), which you can download here or via in-game updater.

The new features are:

• New robot: Cannon! It shoots cannon balls that disappear after 10 seconds
• Players can download and upload levels in the main/editor menus
• Author name and license agreement added for saving/uploading levels
• Sounds added for menu, jumping, buttons and batteries
• Last level switch to be pressed now blinks green
• Added "transient" switches (won't stay pressed)

Some news not directly related to the release:

• There now is a Joyride Labs Reddit, a discussion forum with a social web touch
  
• The compile instructions on our wiki have been updated, let us know if you run into trouble!

[qubodup]

We want to allow to preorder the storymode very soon but before talking about business plans, let's take a look at the levels in the story mode first!

We used some of the level contest entries as a basis to create story levels. Lootninja by sauer2 for example:


Original Lootninja Level, as included with the latest release


"Upgraded" Lootninja Level

Some of the steps when "upgrading" a level are the addition of...


background, skyline and info/data terminals...


shadows and characters...


hidden areas...

... and new content in general. Most "upgrade levels" are larger and require more time to do a 100% run than the originals.

Here is a big screen of a different, jetpack robot-heavy level, which is not based on a contest entry:


Codename "Jetpack Intro" (1920x1200)

We're nearly done with all the levels for episode 1 but some bugs, the preorder website and paypal integration will probably not allow us to release before January...

I wonder what the best date for releasing in January is...

Original blog post here.

[qubodup]

Episode 1 of the story mode is ready to be released and we are very excited! This will also mark the first public beta version.

We will start selling the story mode using a pay-what-you-want model, which is strongly inspired by the Humble Indie Bundle (which on the other hand was inspired by a World of Goo sale). After one week we will then set a fixed minimum price.

When you buy the game, you pay for the game as it is, but will also get all further episodes and updates for free. With each further episode, however, the minimum price will increase for new buyers of the game. The sooner you buy, the less you pay, hooray! This is similar to the Alpha-Beta-1.0 price increments of Minecraft.



Right now we are working hard on the presale website and we hope to be able to release Nikki and the Robots' story mode until mid February.

In the next post we will tell you some more details about episode 1, in which Nikki's great adventure begins to unfold.

Original post here

[qubodup]

Here is the new Nikki and the Robots 0.5 Beta(!) release (download here).


video: Nikki and the Robots 0.5 Changes and Story Mode Peeks

We're working on a preorder web page, which is open source under AGPL and hosted here.

The changes explained in the video (and some that were left out) are as follows:

• Game:
  • Info terminals instead of text bubbles in tutorial   
  • Falling tiles take a little longer to start falling   
  • Batteries have a little less mass   
  • Switches are easier to trigger   
  • Added laser robots and laser endpieces   
  • Cannon-robot sounds   
  • Boost sound for jetpack robot
• GUI/OSD and Controls:
  • Added keyshints in game mode   
  • Allow configurable game keys (jump and context) to control the menu   
  • Main menu will notify you about the availability of the story mode   
  • Mac OS X: default jump key is space   
  • In-game OSD shows total number of batteries in level   
  • "..."-bubbles when nikki can start npc/computer monolog   
  • Added "retry level" menu item to failure menu
  • Added retry-option to pause menu (and major refactorings to AppState stuff during levels)
• Level editor:
  • Added gray level template   
  • Better layer insert and delete control
• Other:
  • Game art sources added to source code repository   
  • Bugfixes on Linux, Mac OS X and Windows that prevented many users from running the game