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[SuperSmithBros]

Welcome test subject and thank you for volunteering to the 'Collect or Die' science program.

As a volunteer we would like to invite you to our technology & learning centre where you can enjoy tea and cake before taking on some light physical and mental testing. Please note that although fun and learning are the primary goals of the test program, serious injury may occur. To ensure the safety of test subjects all progress will be monitored via our state of the art CCTV and VHS recording equipment.

Good luck volunteer!

GAMEPLAY:

Collect or Die is a hardcore retro platformer with dynamic ragdoll physics & dismemberment. The goal is simple, collect every coin in each test chamber to advance! Of course its not as easy as it sounds, with over a dozen obstacles ranging from saws and thwomps to lasers and sentries things get tricky fast!

KEY FEATURES:

* Dynamic ragdoll physics & dismemberment
* 40 Levels across 4 stages (more soon)
* Variety of traps/hazards
* Achievements
* Leaderboards
* Epic stickman action!

RELEASE PLATFORMS:

iOS, Android,

OUT NOW:

Paid & Free versions are both available, see below for the links...

GOOGLE PLAY:

PAID: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.supersmithbros.collectordie

LITE: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.supersmithbros.collectordie.lite

APPLE:

PAID: https://itunes.apple.com/app/id944761476

LITE: https://itunes.apple.com/app/id1191378055

AMAZON:

LITE: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B01NH7R189

TRAILER:

DISMEMBERMENT & RAGDOLL PHYSICS:

Dynamic ragdoll physics and dismemberment mean that every death is unique with some unexpected and hilarious results.

THE TEST SUBJECT:

Not just any stickman! We've put a lot of work into making our stickman a unique character with personality.

PRESENTATION:

Collect or Die is presented through the eyes of the CCTV operator watching test subjects progress, heres a look at our 80s style VHS pause screen:

[SuperSmithBros]

DEV LOG: 01 JUNE 2016

Most of the game mechanics and game screens are now complete with the exception of the stage complete and help screens. Im currently working on sweeping up a lot of minor bugs before moving on to level construction.

The main bugs left to fix are all related to the ragdoll physics, the stickman regularly gets his head stuck between tiles and twitches out like a maniac, which is pretty funny but a bit of a pain. Still want to add some extra blood sprays from the dismembered stumps too.

[bdsowers]

I do love the smooth animations for the stick character. This is stuff you used to see on Newgrounds a lot but hasn't translated to games that well.

I get a bit of a "ice sliding" feeling from his movement sometimes. Like his animation isn't quite matching his movement speed. That... could be all in my head though.

Will there be a way to turn off the security camera view? Or will you do something fun with it? I can say as a player, I don't much care for persistent borders around my games.

[SuperSmithBros]

I do love the smooth animations for the stick character. This is stuff you used to see on Newgrounds a lot but hasn't translated to games that well.

Yea I get you and feel the same way. Personally I love stickman stuff but I haven't played a good stick game in years, its heavily inspired by the N-Game / N+ but we've put a lot of effort into making the styling and gameplay unique so its not just an N+ copy/paste.

I get a bit of a "ice sliding" feeling from his movement sometimes. Like his animation isn't quite matching his movement speed. That... could be all in my head though.

Its not in your head, he does slide around a bit at the moment. The animation speed is currently set to a min/max and interpolates based on the player movement speed, its one of the bugs that needs fixing. Its a pretty easy fix, just needs some tweaking.

Will there be a way to turn off the security camera view? Or will you do something fun with it? I can say as a player, I don't much care for persistent borders around my games.

At the moment it cant be disabled, its pretty integral to the lighting and atmosphere of the game. On an actual device its not too intrusive but we'll look to see what feedback is like from beta testing before deciding on anything final... its possible we can add an option to remove the TV border but keep the CRT effects.

A lot of the screen transitions and presentation is based around the TV styling, you'll notice in the GIFs too that there is some RGB split / chromatic aberration, we're currently deciding if this should stay during gameplay or just be and effect for player deaths and menus... most feedback so far has said that it adds to the atmosphere and they like it but I worry its a little distracting.

[SuperSmithBros]

DEV LOG: 08 JUNE 2016

Recently I've been having issues with single pixel and half pixel shifts in sprite sheets, causing some jitters in the animations. Spent hours and hours checking all my positions were rounded... which they were, turned out that my sprite sheet wasnt power of 2 and didnt like scaling :/

So, to fix it I've made a master sprite sheet at 2048x2048... heres a look at the final sheet with around 215 frames:



The red dots are the first frame of each animation for reference.

[SuperSmithBros]

DEV LOG: 24 JUNE 2016

I've been working on the player deaths over the last weeks and things can get gory fast... check out a sneak peak of the new gore which permanently stains a room:

[bdsowers]

Do you keep all the gore in there between playthroughs? That's a really nice touch.

[SuperSmithBros]

 All the gore stays and builds up until the player successfully completes the level Its a mobile game though so there is a limit to how much gore there can be before I remove the oldest blood particles to keep performance smooth.

[brp]

Looks great! Love the animations and blood spatter.
One thing I noticed on the CAMERA font, the R looks like an A. I had to look a few times to see it was an R and not two A's. Nothing big but just something I noticed. Keep it up!

[SuperSmithBros]

Yup, I see what you're saying. Ive found it quite hard to find a font that fits the CCTV style but I'll take another look and see if I can find a better one. I think its really important that the number zero has a line through it too.

[SuperSmithBros]

Sample tile/icon design for the store pages. Still not totally sure what do with the background/border yet since transparency isn't allowed on iOS.

[Think Inside The Box]

Ragdoll physics looks amazing, but on the other hand won't this slow down the pace? In the games like that you kind of want to have a super quick respawn time and from the video it looks like you have to wait for the body to drop then watch player intro animation again. Other than that the game looks great, love VHS style effects.

[SuperSmithBros]

Ragdoll physics looks amazing, but on the other hand won't this slow down the pace?

Yea i'd thought of that so I made watching the ragdoll physics optional, as soon as the player dies they can tap the screen to respawn instantly or watch the ragdoll physics play out as long as they like. I just haven't got up to adding a UI text to explain that yet.

There will probably be some sort of text block that slides in saying 'Subject Deceased, Tap to respawn'.

[voidSkipper]

Ragdoll physics looks amazing, but on the other hand won't this slow down the pace?

Yea i'd thought of that so I made watching the ragdoll physics optional, as soon as the player dies they can tap the screen to respawn instantly or watch the ragdoll physics play out as long as they like. I just haven't got up to adding a UI text to explain that yet.

There will probably be some sort of text block that slides in saying 'Subject Deceased, Tap to respawn'.

If it was me, I'd respawn the player and let them play while the ragdolls are still ragdollin'.

[SuperSmithBros]

If it was me, I'd respawn the player and let them play while the ragdolls are still ragdollin'.

I would love to do that but because its a mobile game I have to be aware of performance issues (particularly on Android devices).

[SuperSmithBros]

Well, its 6 months later than planned and haven't really kept up with the develog here but Collect or Die is now complete We'll be launching on Google Play, Amazon & iOS January 26th. A pay once & play version will be available for £1.49 / $1.99. A 'Lite' version supported by adverts and in-app purchases will also be available for free.

Stickmen are going to die!!

Check out the launch trailer here:

[AGS-GD]

Congratulations on finishing the game, it looks amazing! I wish you guys the best of luck. I'm a huge fan of hard to beat platformers.

Can't wait for 26th to try to get the game and try it for myself.

[SuperSmithBros]

Thanks man, yea I'm a big fan of things like N+, Super Meat Boy and the old hardcore flash games from NewGrounds etc, wanted to make my own version

Hopefully the flash game inspirations show through.

[Smerik]

This looks super awesome!

[SuperSmithBros]

Collect or Die is out... TODAY!

Free & Paid versions are available, go give it a try and make some stickmen die!!

GOOGLE PLAY:
PAID: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.supersmithbros.collectordie
LITE: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.supersmithbros.collectordie.lite

APPLE:
PAID: https://itunes.apple.com/app/id944761476
LITE: https://itunes.apple.com/app/id1191378055

AMAZON:
LITE: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B01NH7R189