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[Montoli]

Most Recent Update: Sunday January 15


Overview:

Hello again TIGSource!  It's been a while!

I've been working on a new game for a bit, and it's finally getting to the part where I'm feeling less embarrassed to let people see it.  So!  Dev Log Time!

The game is called "The Elements of Magic", and as should probably come as no real surprise to anyone who has followed my last few games, it is another Shmup. This one is a bit more traditional than Negative Spacecraft was, however.  It should still manage to do at least a few neat things, even if the design isn't quite so far "out there" this time.

The basic story is one of a young magician trying to learn how to become a wizard.  Rest assured however!  I am very aware of exactly how trope-filled and cliched this is, and am taking steps to try to make sure that it ends up at least a LITTLE more interesting than that.

Gameplay-wise, it is sort of like a loose cross between an intricate pattern-based shooter, and megaman.  There are levels that you can go to from the main "hub", and upon completing them, you earn a new weapon with unique and (hopefully) interesting properties.
Also, I'm trying an experiment with it, in terms of multiplayer.  It currently supports up to 4 players, but all players are not equal!  One of the players is always the "main player", and everyone else is a small, indestructible helper, looking sort of like a magical equivalent of the options from Gradius.

The helpers can attack (although they're nowhere near as strong as the main player) but they also tend to have useful secondary skills that can help keep the main player alive.  (Small, localized bullet clears, creating walls to hide behind, shields, etc.)  One of my design goals is to make them useful and fun, without trivializing the game.  (I don't want a Sonic 2/3 "Tails" scenario, where the optimum strategy turns out to be something unfun, like having the main player hide in a corner while the options do all the work.  Hoping for something more asymmetrically co-op, like the hawk in 8 eyes.

Basically, this game is my attempt to make a shmup that I can play with my friends who think shmups are too hard.  Since the helpers are indestructible, their main goal is to help the main player.  So if they're good, then great!  You can do awesome!  If they aren't... they can still be helpful, and they probably won't actually HURT anything.  So yeah.  This is a game that I hope passes the "can I play it with my mom" test of accessibility.

Anyway!  I'm enjoying working on it a lot, and it is getting fairly fun!  Wish me luck!

[Montoli]

First update!
Since it's a log, I figure I'll start out with at least some details about what I've done this week.

Answer:  Several things!

• Finally finished the last couple of things I needed to call my cut-scene script engine "done".  Now I can add pointless exposition to distract people from the otherwise exciting boss fights!  (Don't worry, they're fully skippable. )
• Tweaked up the phoenix boss fight a bit.  Made some of the attacks a little smoother.
• Did some scripting for the dragon/phoenix fight.  It is getting cool!  (My goal is to get that completely scripted by the end of this weekend.)
• Exchanged some emails with the guy who is going to be doing music for me.  Hooray for music!

   

[deathtotheweird]

it looks reallly good. the art and the concept both.

not made in flash this time? looks like the xna icon?

[eigenbom]

Royal whales, nice!

> Wish me luck!
Good luck!

[SundownKid]

That is a cool-looking art style. The GUI looks a bit barren, though. I think you could try using a more medieval-looking font - this site has a lot of them.

[Montoli]

it looks reallly good. the art and the concept both.

not made in flash this time? looks like the xna icon?

Thanks!  Yeah, this is my "maybe I should finally get around to learning XNA" project.  On the downside, the windows-only bit sucks, but am really digging the overall faster execution and better hardware support.  (Can finally realistically target 60 fps while still having interesting stuff going on.  And shaders are fun!)

That is a cool-looking art style. The GUI looks a bit barren, though. I think you could try using a more medieval-looking font - this site has a lot of them.

Yeah, the GUI is almost entirely placeholder.  It is in desperate need of an overhaul; it just hasn't gotten one yet.  That said, those fonts are rad, and I think I may have to snag a few, since that is a much better selection of gothic fonts than I had.   Thanks!

Royal whales, nice!

Technically, that is, in fact the PRINCE of Whales.

[BattleBeard]

 TWILIGHT SPARKLE?

[Theophilus]

Nice art style, looks fun.

[Montoli]

the windows-only bit sucks

I don't think so. If you're doing this to learn a new piece of technology don't focus on shipping it out to every platform. Save that for your "maybe I should get around to learning multi platform development" project. XNA is a crazy powerful tool, and is worth your time figuring out in my humble opinion. Once you know it you can use it for nice prototyping, mobile and console games, or the real deal (ie: this).

Looking good so far. Keep it up.

Well, it definitely sucks when compared to a lot of other options I could have taken.  Flash, being basically cross-platform for free.  Or Python + PyGame.  Or even C++ with SDL or openGL would have been easier to port later, if I wanted to.

But you're right, as far as "hey let's learn a language" projects, it's not bad.  And it does look like a pretty solid setup for prototyping.  (Usually I use flash for that, but this looks around as fast, with the added benefit that I can read joysticks. )

[Montoli]

TWILIGHT SPARKLE?

I, uh, think you might be thinking of the Elements of Harmony.  Sorry, these are magic.  Easy mistake to make!

[noah!]

Dang, from the screenshots this looks superb. The art style looks wonderful (and readable to boot!), and I think it meshes with the concept really well. Looking forward to seeing how this progresses!

[eigenbom]

Technically, that is, in fact the PRINCE of Whales.

oh no u didn't..

[ActualDog]

The art style on this is fantastic; I'm really excited to see it in motion!

[Montoli]

Dang, from the screenshots this looks superb. The art style looks wonderful (and readable to boot!), and I think it meshes with the concept really well. Looking forward to seeing how this progresses!

Haha, the art style is deliberately chosen to try to make my [ultimately fairly simplistic] drawings look cooler than they actually are, through the creative application of shaders and post-process.  It's basically the Geometry Wars trick, except I figured "glowing neon lines against a black background, with some accumulation buffer tricks thrown in" were getting overdone, so tried to come up with something people hadn't seen as much of.

Glad it seems to be working! 

Technically, that is, in fact the PRINCE of Whales.

oh no u didn't..

The art style on this is fantastic; I'm really excited to see it in motion!

I'm actually really pleased with how it looks in-motion.  The paper textures don't follow the bullets, but rather work sort of like magical cartoon plaid shirts and are more static.  I really like how it looks, but... I'm also admittedly really biased.   Hopefully everyone else likes it as much when they get to see it in motion as well!

(One unfortunate side effect I've noticed though is that videos tend to make the paper texture almost impossible to see.  Everything just turns all blurry. )


Quickie update:
Spent the weekend writing cut scenes.  Do you know, when you have a cut scene engine that just takes plaintext scripts and animates them on screen with little faces, it is really really easy to blow your whole weekend making imaginary people have imaginary conversations?  True story!  It reminds me of how much fun my friends and I used to have with those old "make your own comics by drawing art around and filling in word bubbles".

Anyway, as a result, didn't quite finish the dragon boss scripting over the weekend like I wanted to.  Hopefully this week!  Then I can move on to the "fun" of dealing with menus and UI.   (Protip:  Writing UI is not actually that fun!)

[st33d]

Love the art style.

The conversation looks a bit South Park though. The rest of the artwork feels nice, papery and abstract, and then I've got this Canadian from South Park in front of me and the text is on an alpha'd box instead of paper as well.

I think If you added the constraint to your art that you weren't allowed to put features on faces then it would keep it papery, and less drawn-on. You can still use body language to communicate their emotions.

[-Rob-D.]

I've never been too big on shmup games but you've caught my attention with the paper look and gameplay description. I agree with st33d about dropping face features, though, and his other comments about the cutscene screenshot. It just doesn't look as papery as it should.

[Montoli]

This is good feedback.  Honestly, the portraits are the part of the art I feel weakest about right now (well, aside from UI, but I KNOW that is placeholder) and wasn't really sure what to do.  They're big enough that my shader-tricks don't obscure them as much, so it's easier to see how simplistic they are.

I'm a little worried that no face might make them a little creepy, but I will give it a shot next time I get a chance.  (Easy to test at least.)  I agree that they probably need SOMETHING though.

(Also, the black text box DOES have a texture pattern, but I've been thinking it might be better a different color.  It was originally black for reasons that, upon reflection, no longer even apply, so I'll probably experiment with that too this week.)

Yay feedback!  Thanks!  (And thanks to everyone who has said they like the art style while we're at it too.  Knowing when things are looking ok is also helpful!  But knowing when something isn't working is super valuable!)

[Montoli]

Update!

Spent the week working on tweaking levels, boss attacks, and some basic bugfixing.  Got a good start on my in-game menus too, although they're not really far enough to show.  (Right now they're just 4 words on the screen, with the highlight changing based on key presses - not too exciting yet.)

One thing I AM happy with though, is that I finally got around to cleaning up the UI sidebar a little bit.  I'm still not completely happy with it (The word "Concentration" looks at the size I had to use for it to fit.  (I'll probably give it another pass this weekend.)  Still though, I feel it is a big improvement over what I was using before, and no longer have to be QUITE so quick about reassuring people that the UI is placeholder.  (Old picture, for reference!)

Still haven't gotten around to doing much new with the cutscenes (haven't even had a chance to try erasing everyone's face yet) but I figure that's slightly lower priority right now anyway.  There will be plenty of time for that in a week or two, but right now I'm trying to get things in to shape for an IGF entry. [mostly because I find it a good way to force myself into motivation, rather than any hope of being nominated]  So for now, the title screen, pause screen, and input selection screens are all higher on the list.

Still though, happy with my progress!  I'm ALMOST exactly where I figured I'd need to be by this weekend in order to get everything done, so that's a good sign, at least!

Anyway - Onward!

[Montoli]

Guess who has a fancy new pause menu!  Here is a hint!  It is me!

Also, some misc other polish - Slightly revamped UI (visible on the right) and some under-the-hood fixes.  Also, I now support screen resolutions other than 1024x768.  (My composer was having trouble running at full speed on my laptop, but it apparently runs fine at 640x480)  I hope people won't actually run at these terrible terrible resolutions unless they have to, but probably nice to provide the option at least!

Anyway, bed time. (Way past bed time, truth be told.)  More to do tomorrow!

[Montoli]

Well, got a new title screen.  Or really, just a title screen at all.  It looks a little better in motion (all the motes drift up from the book and do additive blending on each other) but it still feels a little barren.  I'll probably want to deal with it later, but for now I'm mostly just content to have something there.

Spent a lot of time doing boring UI stuff, but it's boring UI stuff that needs to be done.  And the game feels better for having it done which is nice.  Looking forward to finishing it and not having to think about UI again for a bit though.

Also, started adding music!  Which makes things feel... cooler.  It probably makes it at least 20% cooler.

7 hours plus some change until IGF deadline...  Crunch crunch crunch!