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[Krisjet]

Play the game!
http://krisjet.itch.io/partypillars/

About

Hi guys, this will be my first devlog here on Tigsource. I'm working on the game Partypillars which is a local multiplayer platforming game for 2-4 players. I'm doing the game design, graphics and programming while my good friend Martin Kvale (Teslagrad, Among the Sleep) is doing the music and sfx.

I created the first version of the game for my birthday party in march 2012 and sort of forgot about it but I recently implemented controller support and released it on itch.io for free, and realized in the process that I wanted to take the game further than I originally intended. As of right now there are only two arenas available, and my first goal is to up this number to 8 separate arenas, each with a unique gameplay feature and look. I also have a couple of powerups in mind that I have yet to implement.

Gameplay

The game draws inspiration from a lot of different games, most notably the original Mario Bros game (the one with the crabs), Bubble Bobble and I've incorporated the crazy powerup schemes from games such as Mario Kart and the Smash Bros series. The arenas right now are very small, as I wanted to game to focus on immediate enjoyment and maximum chaos, rather than being a game of primarily skill and precision.
The goal of the game is to collect cake and presents to grow your character, and at the same time avoid having other people jump on your head. When you grow you become a bit heavier and more cumbersome to control, but you accumulate points at a faster rate. The maximum height is triple size, but when you're that big it's harder to avoid other players jumping no your head, and whenever someone jumps on you your size decreases and the other player earns more points.
The game supports controllers and I recommend Firefox as it is the browser with the smallest amount of input lag so far.

You can check out the game on itch.io here: http://krisjet.itch.io/partypillars/

Any feedback would be greatly appreciated! It hasn't been tested extensively "in the wild", only on my closest friends and some other local game developers, so I would love to hear impressions from more people!

[ndke]

Hey! We really enjoyed your game .
The music and sound effects are fitting the graphics of the game.
Here are some things I noticed while playing:

• The "go fullscreen" text is outside the button
• The "go fullscreen" and "normal size" buttons are not on the same height
• When the level ends, you can't read the text that's behind the buttons
• The "press space to go to the menu" text is hard to read because it's white on lightblue

Really enjoyable game! Keep it up

[Krisjet]

Thanks for the comments nkde!

I took them into consideration in my newest iteration. Not sure what browser you were running but I hope this fixes most of them. I replaced the fullscreen button entirely with a new one that looks more like part of the game, and I increased readability of the text. I also added a "join game" screen, which makes it easier to play three players if you're using controllers for example. It also makes it possible to play three vs one team matches.

Full patch notes are available at http://krisjet.itch.io/partypillars

[ndke]

Had some fun again with the game!
There's a thing I'd like to see as an option: some people (including me) have AZERTY keyboards, meaning that when we play with WASD, we need to change our keyboard layout. Of course, this isn't a big problem, but it's always nice to see an option to switch AZERTY on/off .
Any plans on adding more gamemodes or more things?

[Krisjet]

Hi ndke!

Right now my main focus will be on cleaning up the UI a little bit, especially the victory screen, trying to find a good way to make it easier for people to understand the point system, and creating some larger arenas. I've decided to shoot for 8 different arenas in total, and I want each of them to feel pretty different, with one unique item or hazard, and eventually with a unique tileset as well. I also have some ideas for additional power ups that I think will be suitably chaotic, amongst them invisibility, which I think will create some funny and unexpected scenarios.

I might add AZERTY switching in the future, but right now I feel like I have many things to do with higher priority Thanks for the suggestion though!

[Krisjet]

Partypillars v0.4 is out, and it's pretty crazy!



Play it here: http://krisjet.itch.io/partypillars

It's got a first pass of level 3, which is a much bigger arena than the two previous ones, with some new enemies/hazards as well as destructible platforms thrown into the mix! The major work on this update has been the new level content, but I also squeezed in some bugs related to team play and worked a little more on the "join game" screen.

Next I'm going to revisit the controls, try to sharpen them up a bit. Had some local game developers try the game today, and although they seemed to enjoy it, that seemed to be the most common complaint. Some issues, like horrendous browser input lag, I can't really do anything about, but I'm sure I can make the handling seem more precise!

[Krisjet]

Partypillars v0.4a

Play it here: krisjet.itch.io/partypillars/

Graphics
I've made a lot of changes to the graphics this time around, and I like the new look a lot more. I also toyed around with shaking the platform when players land on them, which turned out pretty cool, and I added some particle effects too!
There are no longer enemies jumping around in the background trying to jump at you and come smashing down. The game is way too chaotic for people to notice, and I like the new "meteorite" implementation a lot more to be honest. It's better looking and a lot more "clean".

Tweaks
I added different jump heights, so you have a little bit more control over your character, and the current leader or leaders now have a crown icon over their heads! I also implemented more forgiving jumps, which will make sure you jump even a short timeframe after you've run off a platform. And lastly, now you can play rounds where the person first to get to 3, 5 or 7 victories win the entire round.

Updated Join and Victory screen

The graphics of the join screen have been updated and there is also a brand new victory screen. In one of the next updates I will bring back the old title system, with a lot more titles you can win.

What's next?
For the next update I will be working on improving player motivation with some new systems that will attempt to make the game more competitive. It's quite a big change, so I won't say much about it, in case it doesn't work out, but I'm stoked about trying it!

[Suedeash]

This game is so fun! Do you have any plans for adding server-based mutliplayer anytime soon? That would be insane.

[Krisjet]

Thanks for the high praise! That means a lot 

Regarding server-based multiplayer: That would be my dream feature over all dream features, but I think I would need another programmer for that to ever happen.  I've played around with online multiplayer using node.js a little tiny bit, but especially since I'm using box2d for the physics in this game, it just sounds like a huge hurdle to jump for a one-man project. If anyone is interested in taking a stab at it, or have any tips regarding implementation, I would love to hear it!

[Krisjet]

Pretty stoked about this, so I just had to post a small update. Yesterday I was looking into CocoonJS and after a couple of hours of messing around I got it up and running on OUYA, with controller support and everything!

I will probably start supplying a downloadable .apk on krisjet.itch.io/partypillars/ after fixing a font problem, and an OUYA release is on the distant horizon

[Krisjet]

So I fixed the font issue, and a debug build of Partypillars for OUYA is available for download at the bottom of the page here: http://krisjet.itch.io/partypillars/

I also wrote about my experience porting an html5/ImpactJS game to OUYA on my tumblr: http://krisjet.tumblr.com/post/94704335700/partypillars-on-ouya

Super cool to finally be able to play it on a console, and if everything goes according to plan, I will make it work on a couple of other ones as well :D

[ndke]

Just played this game once again, I really like the new graphics. Great job!

[Krisjet]

Thanks, ndke!

Just wanted to post a short update here on progress.

Experiments
I was trying to mold the experience into something a little bit more skill-based, or at least less random, and I've been prototyping a lot of different stuff. The problem with most of them was that the features I added made me feel like I wasn't making Partypillars anymore, but I was rather creating a Towerfall clone or something along those lines. Ideas I tried were a stock match, where players had 3 lives, I added a walljumping mechanic and a dodge, and started experimenting with usable player items.

Results
The game started losing it's whimsical party-qualities though, so I've decided to go back again to the original design, and try to understand what the problem was. I knew that one of the problems I was seeing was that jumping on players heads was a pretty difficult task when everyone could just keep moving all the time and rack up points periodically.

Solution?
Yesterday in the car I thought of a possible solution, and I'm gonna try it out in the next update, Party Zones, which are the only areas in each level that you will gain points. The tallest players will still earn more points while in these zones, but staying in a designated area and not running around, will make it harder to avoid getting jumped on the head.

I ended up taking a liking to the dodge maneuver, so I'll keep it in for testing to see if it has merit. It gives players an out when they have a person directly above them, and as long as it doesn't make it impossible to hit people in the head I think it might stay in.

Will try my best to post a new build next monday or tuesday!

[8-Bit Ape]

Great presentation and a lot of fun to play! Subbed!

[jctwood]

I was expecting caterpillars for some reason but this looks lovely! The colours are wonderful, I adore anything and everything created for html5 too.

[goob256]

I didn't have anyone to play with but...

The graphics and animations are nice. I had a ton of fun playing Mario Bros. (on the Lost Levels cartridge maybe?) so this would be great for multiplayer on OUYA. Do you have any plans on submitting it officially?

[Krisjet]

Suedeash: Looking into online multiplayer right now actually, got a friend of mine who's a genius with this stuff help me out a bit. Would be awesome to get that working

8-Bit Ape: :D

JctWood: Glad you like it

trentg: Thanks! My plan is to submit it no later than december this year. Should have something fairly presentable by then I think.

I might get a bit sidetracked with creating some Lobby GUI stuff for our multiplayer test, but I should be able to try the new zone-based points system pretty soon. Not sure if I can make my monday/tuesday deadline, especially if I do the LD this weekend, but there's an update coming next week for sure!

[Krisjet]

So, no new build yet, but I've been working on the new points system. Basically the idea is to have "Party Zones" where the players gain points, instead of players periodically earning points all over the map. Concept graphics for the Party Zone:



I also started adding a little bit of jumping-juice after seeing one of Super III's Kickstarter updates (which you totally should back btw: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/super91/super-iii). The small scaling of the sprite during jumping really adds a lot to the overall feel of the jump, it's super juicy!



I thought I'd add some bounce and stretch to the characters when they jump and land, but the engine I'm using, ImpactJS, doesn't support sprite scaling out of the box, so I had to fiddle around a bit to make it happen, creating the world's coolest bug as a result:


I'm thinking of turning this thing into a feature somehow :D

I got it working a short while after and it turned out quite nicely:


I'll have a new build this week, as I'm attending a game testing event with some fellow Norwegian indie devs on Friday. I'm sure I'll get lots of good feedback, and I hope the new points system ends up working out!

[OstMark]

Hey!
Martin here, musician and soundguy on this biz :D Ill be doing some more work to get this game balanced and new tracks during the next update or so and write about the process in this post.

Have a good week!

[Krisjet]

Hi guys!

Had a great playtesting session last friday, and I'm working on the improvements as we speak. The most succesfull new feature was by far the dash/dodge maneuver, which I'm gonna show you in my next post, but the zone-based scoring system also has promise. Right now I will try to make it more apparent who is in the lead and how you score points, and I've got some good ideas about how to go about doing that. Will get a new build out as soon as the new improvements are in place!

While working on the new build I did some more graphical/juice work,
redoing the clouds of dust that the player kicks up behind him as well.


I've also added some more consistency to the platform tilting,
now they don't tilt randomly,
but they tilt according to if you land on one of the edges or the middle.