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[Sigz]

Oh man, I love this already.

[Chris Pavia]

Yikes, it's been awhile! The last few weeks I've been focused on the hunt for a new job (which I start tomorrow!), and trying to spend more time behind the camera than behind the computer.

Here's an early version of the main menu:

When the scene starts the vines quickly grow in and the leaves sprout out. I've got the animation in, I'll post a video of it in action at some point. The title treatment is an approximation of what the final version will be, but it needs to be cleaned up. Each leaf is a level which you can touch to start, but I'm still working on what I'm going to use for the iconography (numbers, roman numerals, dots, etc).

And here's a pic I took at yesterdays game jam:

[kitheif]

Oh wow.. That looks beautifully traumatizing with all those poly lines 

[Chris Pavia]

More work on the main menu:



And some video of it in motion: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K5bo55ummuM

Each leaf is it's own level, the circular graphics on each leaf represents it's difficulty. Only the first few levels are available at first, so things won't look quite so busy for a new player.

[Chris Pavia]

Making levels, 5 down 45 more to go! Hoping to have the game playable on device in the next few days.

[Chris Pavia]

Made some decent progress this week!

-Implemented 4 more levels (9/50 total)
-Faxed some paperwork to Apple for our developer account. Once they get back to us we should finally be able to build to device!
-Figured out how the boss fights will work design-wise
-Started concepting the 5 bosses
-Just ate a tasty garlic pickle!
-Drew up a storyboard for the trailer/intro cinematic:

[Chris Pavia]

Progress this week:

-Finished 3 more levels (13/50)
-Started coding the first boss fight
-Finished concepting the 5 bosses, as seen below (colors may not be final):

[Chris Pavia]

Rawr.

[Chris Pavia]

No update last week since I was out of town, although I'm sure no one noticed

Progress this week includes:
-Got the game running on my iPad (as shown in the pic below). Definitely needs some heavy optimization though, I had to disable the vines for now to get the game to run at a playable framerate.
-Gathered music and SFX reference
-Implemented the level complete screen, so now you can progress from one level to the next.
-Implemented the game over screen so if you lose you can restart the level
-Added in the moon logic. The moon acts as a timer and moves into an eclipse position in front of the sun over the course of the level. Once it eclipses the sun, all the enemies on screen are destroyed and the level complete screen pops up.
-Started rescaling some of the gameplay elements for the iPad. The game plays differently on the iPad than it does on my PC (obviously), so I'm rescaling things to make it feel better with the iPad's physical dimensions.

To do for next week:
-Continue rescaling stuff
-Put a visual indicator in the main menu/level select screen to show which levels are boss levels
-Put a cursor under the player's finger so they know exactly where their projectiles will go.
-Implement thorn attacks. As the player grows their vines they'll sprout thorns (already implemented). Some thorns have a low chance of attacking enemies that pass by.

[Chris Pavia]

Progress made for the week:
-Added gameplay to the vines. For each vine, there are several thorns that have a low (~10%) chance to strike any enemies that fly by too closely, instantly killing them.
-Vines also sprout blooms as they grow.
-Blooms spawn energy that the player can collect by dragging it to the avatar at the bottom of the screen. Energy is used to activate the player's super attack. The energy decays quickly if left in the gameplay field, forcing the player to make quick decisions about what is important at the moment. Normally, whenever the player isn't firing a weapon they are charging up for the next shot (longer charge = bigger coverage radius). But if they want to gather energy, they have to decide if it's more important to continue charging up for the next shot, or release it and gather the energy, meaning they'll have to use a much smaller shot next which requires more accuracy.
-Added a trail under the player's finger for some better visual feedback.
-Scaled objects for the iPad, generally making the game harder, since touching the screen is quicker and easier than mouse interactions.

To do for this week:
-Add HUD for the energy the player gathers
-Implement the new attack used when enough energy has been gathered (I'm thinking a huge laser beam type visual, since it's shape contrasts nicely with the round projectiles the player normally has. It's width is determined by how long the player charges it up).
-Start implementing the scoring system.

As for the scoring system design, here's what I have so far:
Because the levels are pretty short (start at 60 seconds, progresses up to 3 minutes), I wanted to have a lot of flexibility for how things are scored, although it remains to be seen if the system is understood by the player.
-An enemy is worth a base amout of points based on its type, such as the standard enemy being worth 10 points. This value increases up to 2x value as the enemy gets closer to the bottom of the screen (closer to player = more threat). So if the player hits the enemy right before it would have hit the player, it would be worth 20 pts.
-Next, the value is modified based on the size of the shot the player used to kill it, up to 2x (smaller shots require more accuracy in leading the enemy). So using the smallest size shot to kill the previous enemy right before it struck the player would increase it's value to 40pts.
-Using one shot to kill multiple enemies gives an additional bonus, although I haven't worked out the details yet. I'm thinking of adding a system where if the player fires a shot and the new shot overlaps a previous shot, it will 'recharge' the previous shot making it stay on screen longer. So a good player can use this feature in conjunction with the multiple kill modifier to build up some big scores. Mainly I just want a way for players to build up a large multiplier over time.

[Chris Pavia]

I got an unquenchable urge to animate this week, so I ignored what I was planning to do and started working on the intro cinematic/trailer. There is a bit of story/metaphor to the gameplay, so it was fun to finally start setting it up. I'm currently about 75% done with a 1st pass, although the remaining 25% is all pretty FX heavy. I'm doing it all in engine, as well.

Hopefully I can show it off at Tigjam 4 and get some feedback before I start the polish-pass.



This is a chase scene.

[Chris Pavia]

Accomplishments for last week:
-Completed the rough version of the intro cinematic and got some great feedback/criticism at TIGJam
-Found a musician for the cinematic and boss fights (at least)

To do for this week:
-Plan out the changes for the final version of the cinematic while I wait for some music
-Implement HUD for energy gathered from vines
-Implement another level or two

[shojin]

-Found a musician for the cinematic and boss fights (at least)

So does that mean you're still looking for one for the gameplay music?

[Chris Pavia]

So does that mean you're still looking for one for the gameplay music?

I currently have someone working on a demo track for the gameplay music to see if they can hit the particular style I'm going for. I'll post an update once that gets sorted out one way or the other.

Thanks for the interest!

[shojin]

Sure thing. Looking good so far mate. :D

[astrofra]

Gorgeous!!!!  

It reminds me the style of the Druillet-Moebius era :







http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_5tXpSsIz6Bo/TOy6QZxgB_I/AAAAAAAAAf8/_UwkwfTw0hM/s1600/Druillet3.jpg

http://www.noosfere.org/caza/kado/images/caza_fe_frogue_1024.jpg

[Chris Pavia]

Thanks for those images, they're going straight in my reference/inspiration folder

[Sam English]

Looking great, Chris!

[Chris Pavia]

Thanks Sam! (Don't worry, I'm eager to get back to Zodiac Gate after this project so people can hear your awesome musics)

[Ashkin]

This is so pretty