next »

[Mauricio Gomes]

Hello Tig!

This is the devlog of a game that the development actually started a long while ago.

It is "Nono's Adventures in Amazonia" the idea it will be a franchise in the future, with several games of "Nono's Adventures in <insert some interesting place here>".

This is current version Nono:

This is the current version banner:


So, what the game is about? Well... the game always had the intention to be a game for 4 year old children, that is more or less educative, and with adventure games inspiration (example: Full Throttle). But over time the design varied a lot, including being just a hidden object game, to the one currently available to the public that is excessively complex (for example it has a photo system, plus minigames, plus normal gameplay, and some other gimmicks, that confuses lots of people).

The version currently available was made with Corona SDK, but the Corona company behaviour and some technical issues made us decide to switch to Gideros SDK

Currently Nono's Adventures is being fully rewritten, also the rules are somewhat simpler (no photo system for example) and more adventurey and less hidden object.

The current state of development is that the new engine can load stuff using coroutines (the original game just froze up any time something was loading, and sometimes the OS killed it because of that), and I can navigate between scenes (but back button support for Android is broken, I need to fix it).

We are not in testing season yet for the new version, but when we get there, I will welcome some Tig people to our Apple Ad Hoc list... (of course, Android is a non-issue, we can just send apk files around or upload the beta to Google Play...)

Also Gideros SDK is seemly planning to add desktop support, if that happen I will see to make desktop version of it too

[Mauricio Gomes]

Alright, what happened:

First, we had a veeery long meeting, with everyone of the project, I like the new direction so far.

Also we decided to re-create the main character, the new character proposals look promising, I don't know if I can post them here or not, so I won't for now, if I get allowed to post them, I will.

As for the coding, the first basic internal prototype is done, it can load saved games, load the assets, display things on the screen, handle memory, that sort of basic engine stuff, the next milestone is a fully functioning first level.

The first step to make that, will complete the item and inventory system, the previous prototype did not had one, so the "solution" was just click at the objects in the screen in the correct order, this was VERY confusing, and people usually won levels by doing stuff randomly, also people never felt smart for finishing a level, so now we decided to have items and inventory, although still somewhat simple (you have not much items at the same time for example, we will do our best to design levels so that you never have too much items at once)

[Mauricio Gomes]

Here is the first proposals for a new Nono...

If anyone here want to comment on them, feel tree to

[Mauricio Gomes]

Inventory system coding is ongoing. We are also making the first scene, without animations, so we can test the entire gameplay and basic code.

This is how the first scene prototype will look. Part of it is already implemented in-game (yes, with pencil drawings as placeholders).

We don't designed a new interface yet, this is why we are using stuff from the previous version as interface.

[Mauricio Gomes]

Hello again TIG!

We had some issues (ie: I had to move, and some other games to release, and the company in general was busy with other things) but we finally could make the second prototype.

This is how it looks now:



Note the main character is missing, also there is no animation, so I won't make a GIF of this.


The gameplay is complete, ignoring minigames that is. The engine that handle the puzzles, puzzle solving, whatnot is fully done, now the game need us to finish minigames, add animation and sound, and polish in general, still this is expected to take a while, specially creating the minigames.

Also this is the current idea for the main character design:




By the way, I want opinions on comparison between the old and new art style (don't worry about offending people, the artist is the same).

[Mauricio Gomes]

The crossroads of destruction and oblivion!

Oh, actually just happened that we will have to decide to use less resolution for the animations, allowing us to stuff more frames in the memory, or use hi-res animations, but with less frames...

Dillema, dillema, dillema...

[Philipp_S]

Looks really pretty. Will those characters be animated?

[Mauricio Gomes]

Yes!!!

One of the company owners is a animator, and we think not abusing his skills would be a great shame

Seriously, I have a associates degree in animation, and using it to judge what we found for the budget that we had, this guy I am very sure is really, really, really good.

[Mauricio Gomes]

Looks really pretty. Will those characters be animated?

Yes!!!

One of the company owners is a animator, and we think not abusing his skills would be a great shame

Seriously, I have a associates degree in animation, and using it to judge what we found for the budget that we had, this guy I am very sure is really, really, really good.

Now to prove myself... a GIF!!!



For those wondering our choices (that I mentioned earlier), we have choosen to use more resolution and less frames, the result is MUCH better, using less resolution was making stuff look very, very, very blurry on some devices, impossible to understand the image.

Also we decided that Retina screens will NOT use Retina animations, otherwise they end having not enough VRAM very fast.

So, small devices, small anims, medium devices, medium anims, big devices, medium anims (but big backgrounds and interface).

[Mauricio Gomes]

Today our artist called us to show how his work on the main character is going, here it is

Most testing of our new character:




Old character on first scene:



New character on first scene:



Feel free to voice your opinions!

[Mauricio Gomes]

Whoa! Now there is the MAP EDITOR!

Lots of things cannot be edited art, and as you can see my programmer art in the map editor menu is totally awesome...



What I am doing on that screenshot is edit the click area, the white rectangle around the monkey is its actual sprite size, it is too big to be left click-able (and might introduce issues, like overlapping other things and making them impossible to interact with), the blue shape around it is the click-able area. The circles are the handles to edit that area.

Red on scene are items (the ones that go in the inventory), green is stuff that change level, none is available on that scene because I did not played enough to unlock the exit...

Yes, I can play and edit at the same time (or... sorta same time, I can alternate between play mode and edit mode). This make editing the map much easier in my opinion. (unless you are clueless and don't know how to solve your own map).

Custom engine for the win =D



Also some people might be wondering: Why the hell make a full blown engine? It is because this will be a series with many games (the first is nono in amazonia, but there will be also nono in savannah, sahara, city, whatever other idea we have...), eventually the engine will be good enough so artists and level designers can make the whole game without help of any coder (and at that point me and the coding team will be doing some other game engine for another series, probably a platformer or something like that).

[Mauricio Gomes]

The first and second scene are mostly done (missing is particle effects, and a interactive farm area on the second scene).

So we are now working on the overworld map, and on the minigames.



This is a very incomplete yet version of a math minigame (that was also present on the previous version of the game, in fact the physics got directly lifted from it, since it shares Box2D as Physics engine).

The idea is that each fruit has a value (1, 2, 3 and 4) and to win a level you must put the sum of the fruits on the right side the same as on the left side (so if you have a fruit 1, and a fruit 2, you can win by using a fruit 3).

This minigame was the most popular in the last beta, and it was very liked (and thus why we are lifting it directly from the old beta).

The art is being remade though... (this is still test art though, I only gave the artist the information of what I want today).

[Voltz.Supreme]

Today our artist called us to show how his work on the main character is going, here it is

Most testing of our new character:



Feel free to voice your opinions!

I think the new character definitely has a bit more charm to it!
Are you still sticking to a younger audience? The artwork is very nice but definitely suited to a very young demographic.

[Mauricio Gomes]

Oh yes, our target market is supposed to be kids below 6 years old, with the actual target being 4 years old.

There are many products for older kids (around 7, , and for much younger kids (ie: 2), but four year old kids are mostly ignored, I think because they are too hard, it is not obvious what they like, they are not old enough to more "hardcorey" stuff an 8 year old like, but not young enough for the "stupid teletubby" that you can give to a 2 year old.

[Mauricio Gomes]

Alright, another minigame done!

This one is to teach the fruits, the game shows (note: interface not done yet and is prototype, only the gameplay graphics are "final") a fruit and speaks the name of the fruit aloud.

If you click the correct fruit, the Blue Macaw eats it, if you click the wrong fruit, it becomes unhappy and all fruits fall of the screen.

There is no penalty for not doing anything.





Pardon de very bad quality gif, I used a gif screen cap software and it dropped lots of frames (not only in frame-rate, but I was supposed to record me clicking in total 4 fruits, it recorded only the last two).

[Mauricio Gomes]

Last two weeks we implemented the main character redesign, that reacts to a couple of actions from the player already.

Also the inventory got lots of improvement that I think as interface design you would like to know.

First, the inventory has a scrolling system, we had to decide, scroll with a drag, or using the arrow buttons on the art?

We decided for using the arrow buttons, dragging was already an action to take items away from the inventory, thus we felt that using it to also scroll would be problematic, both in the technical sense, but also in usability sense.

To make sure users can easily scroll, the actual touch area of the inventory scroll buttons is the entire area below the last item and above the first item, not just the tiny arrows.

Decided that, we had to decide, where new items appear?

Currently I am playing Neverwinter Nights, that tend to put items last on the inventory, and scroll your inventory to them so you can see where they are.

The CEO here suggested the opposite, and I ended agreeing with him: putting new items always first, unless the inventory is too big and the user scrolled down a lot, no scrolling would be needed, and the user has quick access to a item he will likely use soon, while items that end in the end of the inventory were probably abandoned there for a good reason, and thus there is no problem in the user not seeing them all the time.

That done, I faced another problem: when I dropped a item on the scene, it was not always clear that I did a valid action. So it was decided that the main character shake his head to show that you did something invalid (for example, trying to kill the poor snake with a vine-clearing machete)



Then what happens if I drop the item on something that I cannot drop a item at all? Then nothing would happen...

Well, the result (that you can see in the GIF above) is that when a item is dragged over a target, it becomes solid again (alpha goes from 60% to 100%).

And when there is lots of stuff near each other, how you know what one you are targeting? The solution for that one, is make the target change colour (becomes darker and slightly transparent).



After this build was done, when thinking what there is to do next, we realised that the Beta is almost done, there is only a matter of balancing the game now, putting minigame rewards, menu screens art, and a secret gardening minigame.

Thus:

[Mauricio Gomes]

Hello!

Well, I stopped updating the devlog because people here never reply, and I got sick (not of TigSource, I mean I got literally physically sick and needed some rest).

Still, the beta is almost really done, we are only doing some finishing touches.

Thus I ask, anyone here will want a testflight copy on iOS? (for Android we plan in releasing the Beta on google play, so anyone can play anyway).

[Slader16]

I'm definitely following, sorry for not saying anything! 

[Mauricio Gomes]

I'm definitely following, sorry for not saying anything! 

Yay thanks!

[Mauricio Gomes]

Hello!

We hit a snag that prevented us from releasing the beta...

We are still moving forward in general (developing parts of the game we never intended to finish by the beta time).

But we need a new sound designer... the snag is that the current sound designer disappeared (he is just... gone... he don't reply any messages or contact attempts, we are not sure what happened to him... also his last batch of files had a terrible quality compared to his past quality...)

So we need a new  freelancer sound designer... So if a sound designer (NOT musician! although if you are both at the same time it is awesome) wants to get a contract... Send me your portfolio.

Please, relevant stuff, I've been getting some portfolios that are 100% 8-bit/retro stuff... I don't need that, I can use SFXR too, I need someone that can make audio appropriate to the game shown here, specially the animal sounds (the previous sound designer sometimes used foley art and even his own voice to pull some sounds...)