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[AleHitti]

I believe today is the day.

[somn]

Hi there. So...making games is hard. I haven't been able to post much at all on here or on our website. I've been too caught up with planning the Kickstarter campaign and working on the KS trailer. However, there is good news... The trailer is practically complete. Tomorrow we will be shipping off the trailer to Joel, who will be scoring it. His track will probably make it 100x more epic (which is needed due to me not being great at making trailers).

But anyway, YES. I think the boring stuff is out of the way. Hunter got me a bunch of new enemies and obstacles this week and I really just want to get back to messing with those guys and making cool levels. Stopping to tile rooms all fancy and show off certain little mechanics has been SO tedious. Almost detrimental to my outlook on work this past week.

Things are looking bright though. I have a lot of ideas and I can't wait to get this thing up onto Greenlight and such. I'm sure it will at least be a great learning experience. Last minute advice is appreciated!

Title screen looks awesome.

Also good luck on kickstarter/greenlight! It must be really stressful. I'll be in your position soon so I sympathize.
I hope it works out!

[Zack Bell]

Title screen looks awesome.

Also good luck on kickstarter/greenlight! It must be really stressful. I'll be in your position soon so I sympathize.
I hope it works out!

Thanks, man! We're pretty stressed and pretty nervous, honestly. Greenlight seems a bit simpler these days, and I suppose we have a shot at IGF nominations? Who knows.

But anyway, your game will do great on Kickstarter. I'll be backing you!

[DocLogic]

Start screen looks fantastic, make sure to post your greenlight/kickstarter links here so I can check them out.

Must be hard to decide what image to use as your greenlight icon, and what rewards to use in your kickstarter...did those things stress you out?

[Zack Bell]

Start screen looks fantastic, make sure to post your greenlight/kickstarter links here so I can check them out.

Must be hard to decide what image to use as your greenlight icon, and what rewards to use in your kickstarter...did those things stress you out?

Rewards tiers and stretch goals were a bit stressful. With reward tiers, you try to stay away from physical rewards that you need to ship (keep costs down), but at the same time, those are the things that I would want as a backer. For example, Tem is putting together an art book and I really want one, so I assume that it may be a popular tier. With stretch goals we have to be reasonable and work within our abilities, but "feature creep" will always convince you that you want/need more. A game never feels done.

I'm sure we'll do a big KS/GL post on our website this week. I'll be sure to link all of that stuff here

[AleHitti]

Start screen looks fantastic, make sure to post your greenlight/kickstarter links here so I can check them out.

Must be hard to decide what image to use as your greenlight icon, and what rewards to use in your kickstarter...did those things stress you out?

Yeah, I was in charge of picking out reward tiers, budgeting, etc. It's a pain trying to figure out when physical rewards start being profitable for us to make while still getting enough money for the game, because production and shipping costs can be steep. I will probably post a list of rewards some time this coming week and try to get some feedback on them It'd be really helpful.

[Slader16]

Is there going to be a tier for early backers?

[Zack Bell]

Is there going to be a tier for early backers?

I believe there are two. Cheaper variations of two of the digital tiers. I think they're the game, OST OR art book, and some misc. stuff. We'll post details soon.

[Zack Bell]

Hi guys,

THE TRAILER IS DONE. At least the visual part is done. It has been shipped off to Joel for audio! We're going to Skype about the music and the direction of the OST. If anyone has input on that front, feel free to speak now 


Also, I'd love to have an open discussion about world design and the overall game flow. I don't mind making drastic changes due to player/community feedback. Hell, I was attached to the original III design, but forum members mentioned that he was a bit too static. The new design has definitely grown on me and I think it was the best outcome for the project.

ANYWAY,

WORLD DESIGN. GAME FLOW. GAM.

Uh, I have messed with several different ideas and there are pros/cons to each. I'd really just like suggestions on which aspects the community would like us to lean towards.


1) Typical, straight-forward, Mario-esque design. An overworld map with levels to complete. In order. Your mission is to reach the end of each level and rescue a survivor. PROS: Simple. CONS: Boring? Not at all innovative.

2) Mario 64 (I realize that I'm explaining all these by comparing them to other things. There would obviously be some twist(s) on the formula). Each level is fairly open. Each level is comprised of several missions: "The six survivors of the frozen hill", "20 red coins in the lava pit", whatever else... PROS: More diverse mission types. CONS: Annoy players who'd prefer a "pure" experience with unnecessary collect-athon stuff. Possibly more time-consuming to design.

3) Kirby and the Amazing mirror/metroidvania-ish. An open world filled with survivors and teleporters to other portions of the map. Teleporters would require 'x' amount of survivors to be accessed. PROS: Allows for many gameplay paths. CONS: Levels need to be designed with the purpose of travelling through them forwards and backwards which is more difficult in a mostly vertical platformer.

And of course, a mixture of any of these ideas and more. I personally like having levels be designed around their specific mission. So one level you'd rescue three survivors. The next you might have to find 17 screws. You need to beat one or the other to unlock the next batch of levels. Alternate level exits open different branches on the overworld map.

BUT YEAH. Discuss, haha 

[Krisjet]

Really looking forward to the Kickstarter, very excite!

I really like your hidden option number 4, with the different level objectives/exits unlocking different levels on the overworld map. I always thought Super Mario World had the best overworld map design; it encouraged experimentation and exploration the most. Maybe you could lift something from their design, where you had hidden objectives that opened up new routes.

I'm sure the trailer will be great, and that you will do well on Kickstarter as well!

[AleHitti]

I honestly like the Mario 64 route the best. Let me explain:

Each level will have different objectives to complete and you can do any at any time, except for those that trigger just when you enter the correct "mission" while on the level menu or something. Other teleporters will unlock after a certain number of batteries have been collected (or astronauts rescued, idk). This works because if people don't like or are not good at certain types of missions, they can just skip it. Mario 64 only required 70 stars to challenge the final Bowser level, out of 120, so that sort of thing can work to "beat the game" and then have more levels or secrets hidden once you collect more batteries.

My only issue with that design is that I don't know how to handle death. Like, does it kick you out of the level? What happens when you collect a battery? Does it also kick you out like M64? If it doesn't then, how do you get out of the level? It's kinda ugly to do it through the menu. Maybe go back to the teleporter where you came in, idk.

Thoughts?

[Krisjet]

I think you could do the same with a Super Mario World approach, where the more esoteric objectives are harder to do but not necessary to beat the main game. The Super Mario 64 route would give the players more choices, but it would probably make the levels harder to create so that the other objectives don't confuse the player.

Since I'm thinking your levels will be relatively small the Super Mario 64 approach just seems a bit ambitious to pull off right. Seems like the game design lends itself exceptionally well to smaller levels, and that the fact that you're using forced vertical screen wrap would make it a pain to create very big ones. If you disagree, or have some cool ideas on how to further explore bigger levels, feel free to disregard this :D

[Zack Bell]

Messing with a lot of ideas. We're kinda leaning towards the Kirby thing. It seems to almost be Fez-like when supplemented with our gameplay/design. My main concern is organization and a sense of "I know where I am". Mostly due to the rooms being connected by arbitrary portals rather than doors/exits in specific directions.

One idea was to give each portal a strength and the rooms would be on a grid. A Teleporter with strength three would be able to take you to any Teleporter within three grid squares that you have previously activated. This could also reduce back-tracking.

EDIT: Realized this is dumb due to essentially being "TELEPORT TO ANYWHERE THAT YOU'VE ALREADY BEEN". Essentially level select minus a menu.

[Zack Bell]

Joel has the finished trailer and is doing a few rough drafts for some trailer tunes. I should have two tracks to play with by late tomorrow/early Friday. From there, if everything looks alright, we should be launching our Kickstarter campaign early next week (a one-to-two day buffer depending on how long it takes to score the track that I pick to better suit the video)!

In the mean time, check out this chubby dude 

[SUPER 91]

Important Update

NEWS

The Kickstarter trailer is complete! Joel put a track to it a lot quicker than expected and it sounds great. We're passing it around via friends and family for now. As long as everything checks out with Amazon Payment verification (annoying process), we should be up and running within the next 4-5 days!

By that I mean both Kickstarter and Greenlight launch.  I think we're all pretty nervous, but super excited as well. Over the next few days we'll just be fine-tuning our reward tiers (below is some of what you'll find in the art book), stretch goals, etc while we wait for verification to come through.

Thanks for your patience!

[AleHitti]

Hey guys! You have been asking about Kickstarter for a while. We are planning on launching our campaign this coming week, so be prepared!

Here's a breakdown of how the Kickstarter funds are going to be used:

[Zack Bell]

SUPER III Kickstarter and Greenlight campaigns launch tomorrow!  ... ...

[TheHollowNight]

Best of luck folks! The game looks super rad :D

[joseph ¯\_(ツ)_/¯]

yo i just wanna say good luck with the kick, hope hunter gets all the $$$

[Indie4Fun]

Your kickstarter starts tommorrow?? nice to know!! I will look arround for some spare $ ;P.

btw, can't wait to see your video!! I'm sure its awesome.