next »

[Josh Yaxley]

Hi everyone!

It's been quite a while since my last update, but that's because I've been working hard on the latest build of Faerie. I've been collating all the feedback that I've been getting and using it to improve the game for everyone! If you just want the download link, then it's here, as usual:





And if you just want the build note summary, then that is here:

• Josh is now attackable
• Custom dialog boxes
• Can walk off the top of ladders onto platforms (consequence: left/right deadzone reduced from 0.5 to 0.25)
• Can now view and learn about stats from the pause menu
• Made the final boulder obstacle in 1-1 less confusing
• Background trees have been pushed further into the background
• Parallaxes have been adjusted to look better
• Moving spikes in 1-4 are now less obnoxious
• Agility is now slightly less effective
• Sword hitbox is no longer a square, and is now a rectangle that follows the angle of the blade.
• The font for basic text has been changed to a more readable alternative
• Textboxes now appear for dialogue, to make the text more readable
• Players now have access to a "My Deaths" album that can store screenshots of their deaths online
• Added social media integration! You can now share screenshots of your deaths on Facebook and Twitter!
• The game now checks for new server messages, so can inform the user if there is a new update or an important announcement
• The physics fixture of Rockadillo's now updates depending on how "uncurled" they are at that moment
• Very occasionally, you might come across a moondeer that's fatter than usual. Treat it the same! All moondeer are beautiful.
• Decreased the number of dialogs that will be re-enacted after a player has already seen them and then died.
• Added a new playable character: Alien Girl

If you want to know more about what most of these changes are and why I made them, then read on!

First of all, let's talk about the dialog boxes. In the previous builds, I used the standard system dialogs to obtain information from the player. Now, I've programmed in my own dialog system that lets me talk to the player without interrupting the immersion of the game. Let's take a look:



Isn't that much better? This also means I have more control on what the text looks like, or whether or not to include images. I plan mainly on using them to show optional 'help' information, like this one that shows when you select the "?" button next to your current stats in the pause menu:



Some of the feedback that I received was that players didn't know what their current stats were, or even what their stats did, so I'm hoping this will help explain them more in a non-intrusive way.

And, on the subject of stats, I've made agility slightly less effective per point (i.e. it still increases the height of your jumps, but by a lesser amount now). At high levels of agility, a lot of obstacles became easier, almost to the point of trivialisation, so I've dialled it back a bit to make the benefit of this stat more in line with the others.

While we're here: yes, that's a new font. Some people mentioned that the previous font was perhaps 'too' retro, to the point of becoming partially unreadable. This font has more detail, whilst still fits in with the art style, so should be a better choice.

Along the same vein, I've added textboxes to the in-game dialog, so that the text can be read even when the background colours are very close to the font colours. Here's what the textboxes look like:



This picture also shows two other features that are new in this build. I'd like to be the first to introduce you to Alien Girl, who is the first extraterrestial to join the playable character team! Her excess of limbs provide absolutely no advantage in anything, but she looks cool, so there's that.

Also, below Alien Girl in the screenshot is a new portal. This portal has simply been added to help prevent people from getting stuck at this point. Before, you had to roll the boulder backwards through the level to progress, now you just need to roll it through the new portal to get it where it needs to be. Hopefully, this will be a lot less confusing!

The parallaxes of the last build were off, and indeed things weren't even moving in the right direction! They should look a lot better in this build. You might be able to get an idea from this GIF, but obviously you'll see it better if you're playing!





One change that I've been meaning to do for a while is adjusting the hitbox of the player's sword. For a long time, it has looked like this:





Which is obviously unrealistic. I've added code now so that it works as you'd expect it to:





The change will probably be unnoticable to players unless they have really gotten used to the old hitbox. But, unnoticable is good, as people are more likely to notice things if those things are out of place, which is bad!

Now, let's talk about spikes.



The moving spikes in level 1-4 have felt "off" to me for a long time. It is way too easy to die to them by running over them when they're pretty much underground and such. I had to try several different methods for collision checking until I found a solution that works exactly how it should! The short of this, is that these moving spikes are now much less obnoxious, and will be the cause of far fewer frustration-inducing deaths than before.






It is important to me that I am not just aiming to build a game, but also to build a community around it. I want people to talk about different methods to get past certain obstacles or certain bosses, different tactics to speed-run certain levels, or help each other discover any secrets that I'll be throwing into the game. Games are nothing without gamers.

To aid in the construction of such a community, I've added in a few "social media"-related features. Foremost, I've added the functionality to screenshot your deaths, and then upload these to the official Faerie website. All your deaths uploaded in this way will be added to your very own album of deaths!

Check out mine if you want to see what this looks like.



After the death has been added to the Faerie database, players can share their latest deaths on Facebook and Twitter, either in-game, or from the website.





Players will always be able to see their uploaded deaths, whether shared on social media or not, in their own death albums, which are available through a link from the main menu. And, just for fun, they can generate animated GIFs that cycles through up to 30 of their deaths if they want a nice portable reminder of their demise!





This social media integration took up most of the development time of this build, as I had to learn a lot of web programming to help it come to fruition. In fact, GameMaker: Studio offers NO in-built support for Facebook or Twitter (well... there are Facebook functions for Android, iOS, and HTML5, but that's not useful here!). This meant that I had to do most of the handling server side, with the game simply sending HTTP requests to the PHP scripts that I wrote to handle the sharing. No doubt I'll write about it in a dev blog in the future, but needless to say, it took a long time!


Another useful feature I've added is the introduction of "Server messages". Whenever you start the game up, it'll check if there are any new server messages, and, if so, it will show them to you. Very simple, but it means I can inform players about new builds directly, rather than asking them to check online. Once a message has been viewed, it will not appear again for that user. I can also include links in these messages, so that the player has an option to go directly to whatever content I'm talking about. Here's what they look like:





That about wraps up what I want to say about the new build. I could talk a lot about how I implemented each feature and what pitfalls I came across, but that would make this blog too long, so I guess I'll save all of that for future dev blogs (when I get back around to writing those!).



The next three milestones for this project are:

• Mobile support
• Procedural level generation
• Steam Greenlight / Kickstarter

Phew, that was a long post! I really hope people are enjoying Faerie, and make sure to tell your friends about it if you think they might be interested! I don't have funds for any advertising so at this stage I'm relying on word of mouth!


Josh

[Quicksand-S]

I almost didn't check the latest post because your title still says the latest build is from the 15th. Might want to update that.

Most of the changes you've made sound really good. I'm not sure why the deadzone was changed because of your changes to climbing, though...

I gave the new version a try and here are my thoughts:

-Parallax isn't done correctly, not because of the speeds but because it's not tied to the camera. It should be based on view_xview[] (and view_yview[], if you have vertical parallax too), NOT player position. It looks terrible when you take a few steps at the beginning of the level and see the trees move around.

-In terms of the actual movement of the layers, it looks a lot better now. The only issue I see with that is the clouds that move at the same rate as the trees. Maybe they're at the same depth as the trees, but it just comes across strangely because normally clouds like that (ie. non-solid ones) would be far away. There are also some that apparently have a lot less wind on them (like one at the beginning of 1-4) and they show off this issue more.

-The sword changes seem all right, although I felt like I had to be closer to the armadillo (when it's standing) than I used to. Not sure, though.

-I really dislike it when a program automatically uploads things to the internet without first asking me to "opt-in".

-The spikes work better now, but the ones that just alternate between two configurations seem really slow. If they're going to be that slow, then maybe just having to wait for them once is enough. There's no challenge whatsoever (just hold the direction key), so it's just delaying the player's progression.

-The vine worked well, but would probably make sense to only animate the character if they're actually moving up or down.

-I feel like I got caught on edges/corners of things more than I used to, but I'm not sure if you actually changed anything related to that. My agility is zero, so I'm guessing your changes to that attribute wouldn't have affected this stuff.

-In 1-4, if I go to the area where the spike ball rolls down, and then walk back left, the camera dips briefly for some reason.

-A deadzone of 0.25 is right on the edge of what's acceptable for my controller. I think I normally go for 0.28 or something when I set up the default for my own games, and I still think giving people control over their own deadzone sizes would be best.

-The new window graphics look good and the new font is an improvement.


Anyway, I finished the current version. I was really hoping for a secret area in that last room somewhere, but didn't find one.

[Josh Yaxley]

I almost didn't check the latest post because your title still says the latest build is from the 15th. Might want to update that.

Fixed it! Thanks for spotting that ^^


Most of the changes you've made sound really good. I'm not sure why the deadzone was changed because of your changes to climbing, though...

The deadzone change was so that players can hold the stick diagonally while climbing and their character will automatically walk off when they reach the top. If the deadzone is too high then they have to change the direction of the stick when they reach the top of the vine so that they can walk off.


-Parallax isn't done correctly, not because of the speeds but because it's not tied to the camera. It should be based on view_xview[] (and view_yview[], if you have vertical parallax too), NOT player position. It looks terrible when you take a few steps at the beginning of the level and see the trees move around.

I don't know how I missed this tbh. Should be easy to fix.


-In terms of the actual movement of the layers, it looks a lot better now. The only issue I see with that is the clouds that move at the same rate as the trees. Maybe they're at the same depth as the trees, but it just comes across strangely because normally clouds like that (ie. non-solid ones) would be far away. There are also some that apparently have a lot less wind on them (like one at the beginning of 1-4) and they show off this issue more.

I think for the clouds I'm just going to put them all in the background with slow wind speeds. Some of them do look a bit silly.


-I really dislike it when a program automatically uploads things to the internet without first asking me to "opt-in".

Yeah I wasn't sure what the default setting should be. Do you object on a bandwidth point of view or a privacy point of view? At the moment other people can't see your deaths unless they know your device id, which is unlikely - although I think it would be nice to have links on the leaderboards that take you to that players album. In regards to the automation anyway, in the end I just decided "it's a demo and I need the feature tested".


-The spikes work better now, but the ones that just alternate between two configurations seem really slow. If they're going to be that slow, then maybe just having to wait for them once is enough. There's no challenge whatsoever (just hold the direction key), so it's just delaying the player's progression.

Good point. I can probably just speed up the time it takes for them to switch. I normally jump from the rocks just before them to get over most of them anyway which is why I didn't notice 


-The vine worked well, but would probably make sense to only animate the character if they're actually moving up or down.

Good catch


-I feel like I got caught on edges/corners of things more than I used to, but I'm not sure if you actually changed anything related to that. My agility is zero, so I'm guessing your changes to that attribute wouldn't have affected this stuff.

I might increase the base jump speed slightly and play around with that. I think some of the problems might be that the player jumps a tiny bit too short for the common heights that need to be jumped to. If that made sense.


-In 1-4, if I go to the area where the spike ball rolls down, and then walk back left, the camera dips briefly for some reason.

Cannot seem to recreate this :S How far left do you walk back, if you can remember?


-A deadzone of 0.25 is right on the edge of what's acceptable for my controller. I think I normally go for 0.28 or something when I set up the default for my own games, and I still think giving people control over their own deadzone sizes would be best.

I suppose I best put in an option to adjust it, I just don't want to cram too many options in and overcomplicate it - there's already a fair few.


Anyway, I finished the current version. I was really hoping for a secret area in that last room somewhere, but didn't find one.

Hehe :D I have a couple ideas for secret areas/levels/bosses but unfortunately haven't had time to implement any yet :p

Thank you for playing these last couple of weeks, you've been really helpful!

[Quicksand-S]

-I really dislike it when a program automatically uploads things to the internet without first asking me to "opt-in".

Yeah I wasn't sure what the default setting should be. Do you object on a bandwidth point of view or a privacy point of view? At the moment other people can't see your deaths unless they know your device id, which is unlikely - although I think it would be nice to have links on the leaderboards that take you to that players album.

For me, it's mostly a "having control over what my computer does" sort of thing. It probably falls into the privacy category, I guess. I doubt that the screenshots are using much bandwidth, but I yeah, could see that being a concern for some people too.

I'm sure others just won't want all their failures posted online (I feel that way a bit, despite the anonymous nature of things). Maybe a "Take Screenshot" button would be good instead? That would also let people more conveniently upload images of glitches so you can see what's going on. I don't think I've had any interesting deaths, anyway. I'm not sure why anyone would care to see a bunch of images of my character dying on spikes.

I'm curious how my device ID was generated. Seeing that gave the impression that the program scanned my computer hardware in order to come up with a value, which was disconcerting, but maybe you've done it another way.

In regards to the automation anyway, in the end I just decided "it's a demo and I need the feature tested".

That's a good point. I guess it would've just been nice to know that it was automatic without any opt-in/opt-out before trying it, then.

I think some of the problems might be that the player jumps a tiny bit too short for the common heights that need to be jumped to. If that made sense.

Yeah, that seems to be the case.

-In 1-4, if I go to the area where the spike ball rolls down, and then walk back left, the camera dips briefly for some reason.

Cannot seem to recreate this :S How far left do you walk back, if you can remember?

I walked halfway down the hill and then turned back. I think the camera dipped when I got to the cracks in the ground (the boulder warning), but it might have been just after that.

[DustoutGames]

I got stuck on the boulder and teleporters bit after rescuing the first fairy, but I'll be coming back to play more later. I was pleasantly surprised by Faerie. I do have to say that the graphics are not doing you any favors as a first impression. I can see the look you're going for, but a little more consistency would really make it shine. You've got different sizes of pixels in different layers which can look a bit jarring at times, and the green in the ground tiles is a little hard on the eyes. Another point I'd look at is the player animations. One of the benefits to low detail pixel art is that you can take some of the time saved on drawing and put it towards animations. A walk cycle made of stick legs pistoning up and down is only slightly less work than putting in 2 more frames to make a much prettier cycle. I'd made the same point about the sword attack as well. Now, despite my graphical complaints, I feel like you've done a really great job at creating an atmosphere that could really draw a player in. Your music is well done, your sound effects do the job (I did find the "help" a little bit irritating), and the detail you've added in things like "last death" really make Faerie seem like you could make something special.

[{VeTeR}]

I played Faerie for 1h approx, here are my thoughts from design writed while i was playing:

- I like double button press as 'yes I'm sure';
- I dont feel that I make any progress (the maps are only more complicated) [ As a player and as traveler - everything is the same ]
- Most of the enemies aren't any challenge at all; [ They could be set in other enviroment to become more 'dangerous']
- The parralax is moving in oposite way? ; [yup:P]
- The loaction is mostly the same, but there are elements ready to use in for example caves (rocks, round rocks to push, fire, spikes, moving spikes); [ the assets are there ]
- I liked the elements where player need to move round rock to help with opening path; [ jup, indiana jones style but i felt it is right in this game ]
- what are this offering places? ; [ i paid some money, but it didnt saw any change after that ]
- When I approached first black character in game i thought it will be NPC that i need to talk to.; [ it was good if every bad character in a game was black, but here i was in front of something new and deadly and my intentions were to talk to it... ]
- AND: [Window Title] C:\Program Files (x86)\Mozilla Firefox\firefox.exe [Content] Windows cannot find 'C:\Program Files (x86)\Mozilla Firefox\firefox.exe'. Make sure you typed the name  correctly, and then try again. [OK]; [Maybe writing a text on a wall would be a good idea]

[Josh Yaxley]

Hi!

First of all, I need to apologise for not making an update in so long! I've had a few things going on, and it has taken me a while to get to the next stage of development, but now, here we are!

I have just uploaded an Android version of Faerie, which you can download here:

Android (Game Jolt)

GameMaker: Studio actually makes it remarkably easy to port your project to a variety of operating systems, so I technically could have made an Android version at any point along the game's development. The problem lies with the capabilities of mobile devices. Faerie is getting to be quite a complex game, with a lot of behind the scenes objects and all sorts of things that mobile games typically lack. This meant that the game ran pretty slowly on mobile initially. However, I have been hard at work in optimising it.

The core idea for much of my optimisation has been "reduce the number of instances that are active at any one time". An instance is basically any object within the game. Ground, enemies, the camera, trees, spikes. Every instance has to be cycled through every step of the game while it checks for collisions or anything else that can happen to an instance. For a lot of instances, a lot of these processes are unnecessary, and hence a waste of processing time.

There were 3 main methods that I used to reduce processing time:
1) Replace multiple instances with single instances where possible.
2) Replace instances with particles where possible/appropriate.
3) Replace instances with tiles where possible/appropriate.

The first method focused on groups of instances that could be reduced to a single instance that had the same net effect. The simplest example would be my static spikes. Each set of spikes was 32 pixels wide, and then they were placed next to each other to make rows. However, I could simply place one instance and then stretch it across the row instead, and it would work the same. To ensure that it also looked the same, I added this code to the Draw event:



You can ignore the "(image_index+i*7)", as that's for something else (making sure the spikes don't also 'twinkle' at the same time).

The same idea applied to reducing lots of other groups of instances, such as vines and moonbolts.

The second method applied to objects that didn't have much to do except for basic movement. These could be replaced by particles, which are far far faster to execute then instances. I replaced the blood and sprite shatter effects with particles.



Along a similar vein, the third method was for instances that were pretty much static scenery. These could be replaced with tiles, that only need to be drawn at a certain position, and hence skip any heavy processing that bogs down the execution speed of instances.

I did a few other things that helped to optimise the speed, such as disabling the application_surface, and deactivating instances that were far enough out of the view to not need to be used. The result was a much faster version of Faerie, that would have consistent 60 FPS on my Android device.

The problem is that my only Android device is a Samsung Galaxy S5, which has quite good specifications compared to most phones. I could really use the help of people testing it on their own devices, so that I can see how it runs on a variety of hardware.

Optimisation wasn't the only thing that I needed to be concerned about for the Android version. Mobile screens are much smaller than PC screens, and hence I had to make an alternate view size for those. Also, as menu options would be selected via touchscreen, I needed to make sure that they were big enough to be chosen easily.







Finally, I had to add virtual keys to the screen to replace the standard keyboard/gamepad controls that the Windows version uses.



All in all, it was actually quite a lot of work! I hope people are happy with this version, and enjoy being able to take the world of Faerie with them wherever they go!

The next 3 things that I want to add are:
- A new stat system that focuses on finding and enchanting runes
- A new and longer tutorial that better explains the game
- Procedural level generation

I think I will start work on the level generation, as it is the feature I am most excited about right now!

Thank you to everyone for your support!


Feel free to follow me on your favourite social media!




Josh

[Quicksand-S]

Looks like pretty good work. Using a FOR loop to draw sprites like that is, as far as I remember, pretty slow, but with so few spikes in the game I guess it doesn't have a really negative impact. The other changes seem really good.


I don't have an Android device, but I have a few thoughts about your control scheme.

-The controls look like they're too close to the edges of the screen (Maybe they're movable like in some mobile games?)

-The B and A buttons(put in that order because of old Nintendo controllers?) might be more comfortable to hit if they're slightly diagonal, with the right-most button a bit higher up.

-A D-Pad doesn't always have to give the same amount of space to all directions. It might make sense to have left and right be closer together and maybe also larger than up/down (or make up/down smaller). It's important to be able to react and change directions quickly. I don't know exactly how close they should be, though. Personally, I'm probably fine with lifting my finger in order to stop moving but some people might still like to have a "deadzone" in between them.

[Linkshot]

Tried the first few levels on an old laptop, so maybe the game is supposed to run faster than it did. Most notable thing to me was that I fell on the spikes on a branch because I thought they were a fence, oops.

[codejoy]

I played this game for a long time.  I have to say it is just fun.  There are some polish issues here and there from what i played.  I got up tot he big boss and he was driving me nuts so that is where I quite for the day.  The writing is good, its fun!   The graphics are simple yet identifiable with a lot of life in the worlds.  Minor gripes I have are that some things are trial and error to find out if they hurt you:

Tentacle thing almost looked like a rope to climb. 
Spider jumping dude is really hard to see and cheap shots you easily.
The badger guy looked like he might be friendly to talk to...and wasn't

There are some brilliant things I see here:

The armadillo bad guy, I don't think he can die but his areas are just fun.  It was a good set piece and well done and designed.
The use of portals
The design of most enemies.
The social integration... wow time well spent.
The part where a portal keeps recycling a spikey boulder and you have to save a fairy there too.


I was confused what praying to the alter did for me ...

Things that polish could help:
Any non-stationary spikes.  They don't feel tight and should be polished.
The deaths also are such a big thing, maybe more theatrics or specific death animations depending upon what killed you.

This is all just ideas, really I think this game is awesome.  Good work.

[Josh Yaxley]

Thanks everyone for all your feedback, I really appreciate it! I've been a bit busy recently (I'm now on holiday visiting my parents in Houston :D), so I'm sorry for the delay in getting back to you all! Now, let's chat



@DustoutGames

Thank you for taking the time to play!


I got stuck on the boulder and teleporters bit after rescuing the first fairy, but I'll be coming back to play more later.

If you're still stuck here, then here's how to do it:

• When you reach the tree with the portal at the bottom, climb up it.
• At the top is a big boulder, push that off the tree, and then through the portal at the bottom of the tree.
• Follow the boulder through the portal.
• Jump on top of the boulder, and then jump again to reach the portal that you couldn't reach before.

A lot of people got stuck at this point, I'll see if I can make it clearer


I do have to say that the graphics are not doing you any favors as a first impression. I can see the look you're going for, but a little more consistency would really make it shine. You've got different sizes of pixels in different layers which can look a bit jarring at times, and the green in the ground tiles is a little hard on the eyes. Another point I'd look at is the player animations. One of the benefits to low detail pixel art is that you can take some of the time saved on drawing and put it towards animations. A walk cycle made of stick legs pistoning up and down is only slightly less work than putting in 2 more frames to make a much prettier cycle. I'd made the same point about the sword attack as well.

The graphics are my weakest part of the game. I've bought a couple of online pixel art courses that I'm looking to work through when I get the time to. I would really like to be able to do the art myself, as I find it unlikely I'll be able to afford outsourcing all the art (there will be a lot in the final version - 5 worlds worth). Of course I could be completely surprised when I do a Kickstarter and be able to afford it, but I'm not counting on that :p



@{VeTeR}

Thank you for playing


- I dont feel that I make any progress (the maps are only more complicated) [ As a player and as traveler - everything is the same ]

I'm thinking of maybe making an overworld map that shows how you travel through the world each time you complete a level - similar to some of the Mario games:




- Most of the enemies aren't any challenge at all; [ They could be set in other enviroment to become more 'dangerous']

I agree here. Most of the challenge comes from the environment itself (namely spikes and such). I would like to implement some more 'complicated' enemies, that maybe have a couple of abilities and different movement.


- The loaction is mostly the same, but there are elements ready to use in for example caves (rocks, round rocks to push, fire, spikes, moving spikes); [ the assets are there ]

The demo currently only has the "Forest" zone, but the final version will have 4 more: "Cave", "Swamp", "Castle", and "Spirit Realm".


- what are this offering places? Tongue; [ i paid some money, but it didnt saw any change after that ]

Paying money increases on of your three stats (Strength, Agility, and Health). It's not explained very well. In the future I will revamp the stat system so that instead you find runes along your journey and then you pay to enchant these runes to unlock upgrades. I will also code a better tutorial that will explain it.


- AND: [Window Title] C:\Program Files (x86)\Mozilla Firefox\firefox.exe [Content] Windows cannot find 'C:\Program Files (x86)\Mozilla Firefox\firefox.exe'. Make sure you typed the name  correctly, and then try again. [OK]; [Maybe writing a text on a wall would be a good idea]

When did this error occur? When you clicked on something like "My Deaths" or "Leaderboards"?



@Quicksand-S

As usual, thanks for your continued feedback. You've been the most useful person to me throughout this project


-The controls look like they're too close to the edges of the screen (Maybe they're movable like in some mobile games?)

I am hoping that eventually the controls will be movable and resizable. They aren't at the moment, though.


-The B and A buttons(put in that order because of old Nintendo controllers?) might be more comfortable to hit if they're slightly diagonal, with the right-most button a bit higher up.

You're correct about the order, putting them the other way didn't feel right to me. Making them diagonal is an option, I'm waiting on feedback from people playing the Android version but I haven't had much yet!


-A D-Pad doesn't always have to give the same amount of space to all directions. It might make sense to have left and right be closer together and maybe also larger than up/down (or make up/down smaller). It's important to be able to react and change directions quickly. I don't know exactly how close they should be, though. Personally, I'm probably fine with lifting my finger in order to stop moving but some people might still like to have a "deadzone" in between them.

There is a small deadzone in the middle of the D-pad, and the left/right buttons *are* larger than the up/down, it just doesn't show on the screen



@Linkshot

Thank youuuuu :D


Tried the first few levels on an old laptop, so maybe the game is supposed to run faster than it did.

This concerns me. I've been working on optimising the game so that it should run pretty well :/ Would you mind telling me the specifications of your laptop?


Most notable thing to me was that I fell on the spikes on a branch because I thought they were a fence, oops.

Haha when they were too small people didn't notice them, now that they're bigger people see them but think they're safe! I guess it only takes one death on them to realise, but maybe I should make it more obvious somehow.



@codejoy

Many thanks for playing Faerie and I'm really glad you enjoyed it! Makes me happy to read that!


Minor gripes I have are that some things are trial and error to find out if they hurt you

This is probably an important point to be discussed. Part of a player's enjoyment in a game stems from improving their play and learning about the game. If I make everything super obvious and tell people exactly what everything does, then they'll never work it out on their own, and will miss out on the feeling of discovery. I'm against having things come out at you with literally no warning, but I do like the idea of people learning as they play and getting better with each attempt. Obviously, I need to find some kind of balance between letting the player discover things for themselves and frustrating them with unknowing danger.


I was confused what praying to the alter did for me ...

Going to copy and paste the answer I gave above:

Paying money increases on of your three stats (Strength, Agility, and Health). It's not explained very well. In the future I will revamp the stat system so that instead you find runes along your journey and then you pay to enchant these runes to unlock upgrades. I will also code a better tutorial that will explain it.


Things that polish could help:
Any non-stationary spikes.  They don't feel tight and should be polished.

Would you mind elaborating on this point if you can? I have already some a few iterations of changes to them to make them work how I feel they should.


The deaths also are such a big thing, maybe more theatrics or specific death animations depending upon what killed you.

This might be a good idea. At the moment the only thing I have that's close to this is when the player dies to fire or a Moondeer's moonbolt, and the pieces that they shatter into are black (supposed to be burned). What kind of things could I do? Maybe for spikes I could have the corpse collapse on them and be impaled, instead of falling off of the screen. Maybe I could zoom in on a player as he dies or something


This is all just ideas, really I think this game is awesome.  Good work.

I love ideas! Thank you for all your help




If you guys have any friends that you think might enjoy Faerie, please let them know! I could do with all the feedback that I can get, especially on the Android build that I recently released!

Thanks

[Linkshot]

@Linkshot

Thank youuuuu :D


Tried the first few levels on an old laptop, so maybe the game is supposed to run faster than it did.

This concerns me. I've been working on optimising the game so that it should run pretty well :/ Would you mind telling me the specifications of your laptop?


Most notable thing to me was that I fell on the spikes on a branch because I thought they were a fence, oops.

Haha when they were too small people didn't notice them, now that they're bigger people see them but think they're safe! I guess it only takes one death on them to realise, but maybe I should make it more obvious somehow.

When I say old I mean 2008 floor model with these specs


As for the wooden spikes, I'd suggest changing their colour or making them less uniform; more like bramble than stakes.

[codejoy]

@codejoy


Many thanks for playing Faerie and I'm really glad you enjoyed it! Makes me happy to read that!


Minor gripes I have are that some things are trial and error to find out if they hurt you

This is probably an important point to be discussed. Part of a player's enjoyment in a game stems from improving their play and learning about the game. If I make everything super obvious and tell people exactly what everything does, then they'll never work it out on their own, and will miss out on the feeling of discovery. I'm against having things come out at you with literally no warning, but I do like the idea of people learning as they play and getting better with each attempt. Obviously, I need to find some kind of balance between letting the player discover things for themselves and frustrating them with unknowing danger.

It is always a balance!

I was confused what praying to the alter did for me ...

Going to copy and paste the answer I gave above:

Paying money increases on of your three stats (Strength, Agility, and Health). It's not explained very well. In the future I will revamp the stat system so that instead you find runes along your journey and then you pay to enchant these runes to unlock upgrades. I will also code a better tutorial that will explain it.

 

I think this sounds great, though picking up the money *felt* good.

Things that polish could help:
Any non-stationary spikes.  They don't feel tight and should be polished.

Would you mind elaborating on this point if you can? I have already some a few iterations of changes to them to make them work how I feel they should.

To me it was maybe that (now its been a few days) I don't think there was a warning before they popped up.  They go down, come up.  I think a few short frames where just the very tips are up to warn you they are about to pop up would work.  Good to gauge for jumping.

The deaths also are such a big thing, maybe more theatrics or specific death animations depending upon what killed you.

This might be a good idea. At the moment the only thing I have that's close to this is when the player dies to fire or a Moondeer's moonbolt, and the pieces that they shatter into are black (supposed to be burned). What kind of things could I do? Maybe for spikes I could have the corpse collapse on them and be impaled, instead of falling off of the screen. Maybe I could zoom in on a player as he dies or something

All these!  I think the specific deaths would be awesome (And yes I know I say that realizing how much development and asset production this takes!

This is all just ideas, really I think this game is awesome.  Good work.

I love ideas! Thank you for all your help

Anytime!  I really did like the writing to this and the little buddy Faerie's and how the intro story worked etc! Cool stuff.

[Josh Yaxley]

Let's take a brief lore break. Grab a brew and a biscuit, wrap yourself in a blanket, and gather around the virtual campfire for a tale of wonder.

(This is just going to be a basic premise. I have more story thought out, but I don't want to spoil too much!)

Across the nether, there is a world called Faerie, split into two realms, pressed against each other like sheets of paper. When a being from one world perishes, a being in the other world is born, and thus a balance of life and death is always maintained.

At the dawn of time, one realm was fully populated by spirits, and the other was a desolate wasteland. These were the Spirit Realm and the Physical Realm.



One spirit, soon to be named the Eradicator, was twisted and warped. He drifted through the spirit realm, consuming and killing fellow spirits as he went. Each time a spirit died, a plant began to grow in the Physical Realm. Blades of grass, flowers, and trees began to break through the previously barren land. These plants would eventually die, coinciding with the birth of new spirits in the Spirit Realm.



Some of these flowers would grow into child-like forms, with bright hair and light voices. When they were fully grown, they would break free of their roots, stretch out a pair of violet wings, and take to the air. They could breathe, and think, and laugh. They were the fairy folk - the only sentient beings of the Physical Realm.



These fairies could manipulate the forces of magic, and learnt how to commune with the spirits across the realms. One fairy devoted her life to uniting the Spirit and Physical realms. One day, she managed to tear a tiny hole through the very essence of the world, a pinprick in the fabric that binds the realms. It was open for only a fraction of a second, but, in that time, spirit energy poured through from the Spirit Realm. When it entered the Physical Realm, it solidified into a crystal that danced in the light. Seconds later, the crystal shattered into four shards, and scattered itself across the land.



These shards were so unstable that they began to draw spirits from the Spirit Realm into the Physical Realm. The spirits, pulled away from their lives of meditation, became maddened by the world that they found themselves in, and, in their fear, began to attack anything that they could touch.

Fairies would die at the hands of these crazed spirits, causing more spirits to be born in the Spirit Realm, which were subsequently drawn into the Physical Realm by the unstable shards. The land was in chaos.

A group of fairies banded together, with the aim of bringing peace to their once-beautiful world. They crafted a magic sword that could rip through the transcendental flesh of the spirits, but it was so powerful that no fairy could wield it without grave injury. They needed a powerful champion to save their world.

They gathered at the great blossom tree, the first plant to ever grow in the Physical Realm, and a huge well of magical potential. Here, they performed their greatest spell, reaching across the nethers to find a hero from another world, someone who could wield the enchanted sword, and bring balance to the realms.



Your eyelids slump open. Pink petals play in your vision. You blink. An indigo sky between emerald leaves. Golden dust floats upwards. A child with violet wings peers at you. Her face is framed by long locks of coral hair. Her rose lips form around a single syllable.

"Oh..."

[Josh Yaxley]

All the story that I mentioned in the previous post has been scrapped

I have a long overdue development update for everyone, though no new build unfortunately (should I make a separate topic in dev logs for this?).

The new blog entry covers new graphics, the level editor, adventure mode, runes and enchants, and a new enemy system! Enjoy

http://www.indiedb.com/games/faerie