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[GroZZleR]

Teddy Bear Picnic Massacre

Released
Play it on Kongregate or Newgrounds

Description
I've begun work on a simple shooter themed around one teddy bear not being invited to the annual teddy bear picnic and taking his revenge out on the other bears there.  We started work on this last Wednesday and are hoping to have it wrapped up by next Wednesday at the latest.

It's a Flash game that will seek sponsorship and then (eventually) be released for free for everyone to play around the web.

Team

Game Design and Programming
A. Scott McCallum (www.grozzler.com)

Art
Kandi Maciejewski (www.artbykandles.com)

Audio
John Hughes (www.twune.com)

Media

Here's some of the basic gameplay (complete with layering issues and Mount Bearmore):

[ITS_Mike]

Wow, that's quite impressive! It reminds me of Naughty Bear.

Two weeks is quite a short development cycle.  How did/will you manage it?

[SirNiko]

I like the animated background. It's a small thing that gives the game a leg up on the typical flash platformer.

Are there any other animations, though? It's hard to tell if the player is avoiding damage or if he just doesn't show it.

There's not much else to say without actually getting to play the game.

[GroZZleR]

Progress for the day:

- All weapons are now functional (pistol, smg, shotgun, assault rifle, sniper rifle, minigun) but still no way to collect them while playing.

- A variable height terrain system so you can't shoot everything across the screen without moving.  It's generated with random values right now so everything is jagged but will be smoothed out later.

- Parallax backgrounds (too exaggerated I think).

- More enemy types like this adorable yellow bear who tries to stab you to death with his ice cream cones



This is our main menu:

Wow, that's quite impressive! It reminds me of Naughty Bear.

Two weeks is quite a short development cycle.  How did/will you manage it?

Thank you very much -- I'll pass the compliment on to the artist.  I do this full time for a living (making Flash games) so a two week development cycle is 160 man hours for the artist and myself.  It should work out for such a simple shooter as long as I avoid feature creep (hard!).

I like the animated background. It's a small thing that gives the game a leg up on the typical flash platformer.

Are there any other animations, though? It's hard to tell if the player is avoiding damage or if he just doesn't show it.

There's not much else to say without actually getting to play the game.

My first big game, The Summoning, had completely static backgrounds and I was dogged hard for it in the comments.  I make sure all my backgrounds have some animation now.  Lesson learned!

I'm still working out how to show someone is taking damage.  For the player, I think I'm going to flash the screen red.  For the bears, I'm playing with spawning some fluff (rather than blood).  You can see it in the .gif above but I think it looks more like popcorn is exploding out of them.  

[ericmbernier]

Hey Grozzler! Things are looking good so far. The animated "Massacre" text on the title screen is a very nice touch. Also, I think the fluff in place of blood makes sense, but I do get the popcorn vibe myself

I love the animated touches on Mt. Bearmore,  but something seems lacking in their faces. I'm not entirely sure what, but they come off as very plain compared to the rest of the art. I'll keep my eyes peeled on here, and FGL for updates.

[Conker534]

Not enough fuzz spewing out everywhere!
Looks cool.

[GroZZleR]

Friday and Saturday progress:

- Weapons now hitscan for collisions to ensure only targets along the same height are hit.  It was actually a lot easier to shoehorn into my entity system than I thought.

- A gift box will periodically spawn that you can collect a new random weapon from.

Which fluff (blood) effect do you think looks best?  Left, right, both or neither?



Not many gameplay elements left to do, hoping I can wrap that up tomorrow.

Hey Grozzler! Things are looking good so far. The animated "Massacre" text on the title screen is a very nice touch. Also, I think the fluff in place of blood makes sense, but I do get the popcorn vibe myself

I love the animated touches on Mt. Bearmore,  but something seems lacking in their faces. I'm not entirely sure what, but they come off as very plain compared to the rest of the art. I'll keep my eyes peeled on here, and FGL for updates.

Less popcorn and more fluff blood in the new .gif?  Re: Mount Bearmore, do you mean the lack of lines / wrinkles on their faces?  She had more features originally but hated the way it looked and smoothed it out.  If there's not it, let me know and I'll pass it along.

Not enough fuzz spewing out everywhere!
Looks cool.

How's the new fuzz look?  Thanks for the kind words.

[Conker534]

Better, cute art style :D

[ITS_Mike]

I kind of like the right one, but the left seems to be pretty much the same as the right except there is less fluff.

[GroZZleR]

So.  Many.  Little details.

- Resolved the layering issues.

- Weapon system no longer deals damage to enemies off screen.

- Hitscan raycast now correctly fires from the barrel of each equipped weapon rather than from the player's centre of mass.

- Bears have a random chance to drop a gift box (which contains a new gun for the player) when killed.

- Jetpack bear spawns bubbles for propulsion and drops his jar of honey when killed.

- Bear corpses blink out of existence rather than disappearing suddenly.

- Ranged enemies lob their projectiles at the perfect velocity to land at the player's feet.

- Tons of other small things.

Gameplay is about 90% there but not quite perfect yet.  I'll need another day or two to tie it all together and get it where I'm happy.  Kandi, the artist, unexpectedly lost a couple of work days having to move a friend out of their apartment.  We're shooting for Friday over Wednesday to finish the remaining tasks: upgrade menu, options menu, retry menu and any minor miscellaneous items.  Even two days late, I'll be pretty happy with a 12 day turn around.

In most games I make, I like to create "credits avatars" that theme the people working on the project around the game.  Kandi knocked it out of the park this time:

[ericmbernier]

The new fluff on the left looks much better!

Mt. Bearmore came off as plain to me, due to lack of details in the faces. It's not a big deal, as it still looks good in its current form.

[GroZZleR]

Welp... we definitely missed the mark for getting it done in two weeks.  It's mostly my fault.  I spent the weekend tweaking the gameplay (movement speeds, damage, etc) trying to get that perfect feeling.  The only major feature missing is the upgrade menu, so hopefully I can get it sorted by tomorrow.

What do you guys think is better, the hero in front of the enemies or behind them?  In front improves clarity of position / movement but I find behind more aesthetically pleasing and creates a stronger emotional feeling of being out numbered.

[rundown]

hero in front plz. Otherwize you would probably get confused where your bear is.

[ericmbernier]

Definitely in front.

[karlozalb]

Definitely in front.

I agree

[pmprog]

What do you guys think is better, the hero in front of the enemies or behind them?  In front improves clarity of position / movement but I find behind more aesthetically pleasing and creates a stronger emotional feeling of being out numbered.

My thoughts exactly, and on that basis, I'd be tempted to put the player at the back.

[ericmbernier]

What do you guys think is better, the hero in front of the enemies or behind them?  In front improves clarity of position / movement but I find behind more aesthetically pleasing and creates a stronger emotional feeling of being out numbered.

My thoughts exactly, and on that basis, I'd be tempted to put the player at the back.

It also runs the risk of frustrating the player and having them quit in favor of another game. Since this is a Flash game, that is something to consider. Nobody likes to take blame for their actions. I wouldn't be surprised if players blamed the fact that they can't see themselves as the cause of their death.

[ITS_Mike]

I kind of like your "hero" being in the back.  If I were playing the game, I would just jump to figure out where I was.  Giving the player a reason to leave is definitely a concern though, so I don't know 

[GroZZleR]

Took a long time to find a sponsor but it's finally out!

http://www.kongregate.com/games/GroZZleR/teddy-bear-picnic-massacre

http://www.newgrounds.com/portal/view/628854/

Let me know what you think.

[ITS_Mike]

Congrats on the release!

The game is fun  Jumping feels a bit floaty, but that was the only bad thing I noticed.

P.S. The machine guns are REALLY fun!