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[low key sirius]

Image cred: Cody Harder

Gameplay Vid




Now Available on Google Play!
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Forest Quest
Forest Quest is a pixel art game. You play as Forest, the main character, who has been cursed by Salthazar the Sorcerer to run forever. The only way to break the curse is to find the Torrid Runes, and so you have to fight your way through twenty increasingly difficult levels (with four boss battles thrown into the mix) in your search for the runes. Or, if you don't want to play the adventure, there's always the endless mode, too. You rack up coins as you kill monsters and enemies in your path, and can use them at the shop to purchase items, upgrades, and skins.

Genre
Adventure, Endless Runner, Platformer

Single Player

Developer
Monsters and Company

Website and Social Media
Website
Facebook
Twitter

Team
Ben Grange - Artist, Composer, Writer
Andrew Grange - Lead Developer
Lance Grange - Programmer

Platforms
Android

Soundtrack



Or listen on SoundCloud

Start Date
December 26, 2016

Projected Release Date
Q3 2017

Demo
Play here for web

We've been developing this for a few months now, and as it's a relatively simple game we're nearing completion already. I'm kicking myself for not starting one of these sooner, but since we still have a ways to go, it doesn't hurt to start logging my progress here. Any feedback, comments, praise, etc. is more than welcome!

Here are some images and gifs and videos of things we've already developed. I'll post new ones as they come along.

Levels








Bad Guys




Skins




Map

[low key sirius]

We've been developing Forest Quest since December 26, 2016. Our friends and family all know about it and some of them are helping with alpha testing. But I wish I would have thought to do a devlog sooner. So, for the next few weeks, I'll be posting things we've had completed for months now, intermingled with what we're currently working on. Eventually the posts with slow down, once I catch up to everything. Since the game is almost done, we're aiming for a late summer/early fall release this year, so that gives us a few months to finish up and beta test all the kinks out.

Endless runners can get repetitive, and we wanted to come up with a few ways to combat this issue—to make each level fun and exciting. Keep the players on their toes kind of thing. Canabalt did this really well, and I wanted to replicate it in Forest Quest. For background variation, the simple answer is to vary up the colors, but with a forest, there aren't many colors to work with besides green and brown. And after brainstorming a few ideas, we changed what started out as a completely green map and turned into a season based world (see the map image in the original devlog post) with mountains. The game starts off in spring, which moves into summer and then fall and finally winter.  The seasonal colors gave us the backgrounds we needed to keep things interesting, and adding mountains helped with variety. The backgrounds were no longer monotonous!



Something else we've been working on incorporating is moving pieces in the background. In one level, I put in a flying dragon. You can hardly see it, and the players aren't really going to watch it because they'll be focused on the next obstacle to jump over, but I like what it adds to the overall feel of the background. Check it out below.



You probably followed along with Forest for a few seconds before catching on that the black thing above was a dragon. It's tricky to add subtle things like this without distracting from the gameplay—we don't want to annoy players and have too many flashy things in there that make them lose focus on what's coming next—especially in an endless runner where they can't control the character's forward progress. I haven't added too many dragons—so far they're featured in two out of twenty levels. Thoughts? Should I add more? Or take them out all together?

And although we've got the background variety we're looking for, any other suggestions or tips would be lovely. Do you have any games you love that do this particularly well?

[low key sirius]

The game started out as a true endless runner. I didn't plan to add levels until I started thinking about ways I could make it less monotonous (as you can tell from the last two posts that was a big concern of mine going in). We eventually decided to put the levels in with a really small storyline to give the game some excitement, something to follow along with and give it that RPG feel, where the player can grow with the character. So when we started building the game, we focused only on building the levels and kind of left endless mode on the back burner.

There are still a few kinks to work out, but last night we finished the basis of what the endless mode will be when the game is finished. Like in adventure mode, there are still monsters and enemies to kill, which will eventually boost your score when you die. Your score will determine how many coins you get, which you can use in the shop to get items and equipment. We designed a dozen or so chunks of assets, which the game generates and destroys as the camera moves along, like this:



And here's what it looks like in gameplay:



It took a good bit of scripting to get this to work, and we're really pleased with it. So now, with the next alpha update, the players will have a choice to tap "Adventure" or "Endless" in the main menu and play either one.

[BananaInPajamas]

Very cool. What game engine are you using to make this?

[low key sirius]

Very cool. What game engine are you using to make this?

Thanks! We're using Unity 3D. We learned C# in a Unity course online, and so it was the engine of choice when we started making Forest Quest.

[low key sirius]

The shop was one of the first things I designed for the game, and it's gone through about a half-dozen iterations. Unfortunately I never took screen shots of the old versions, but I'm certain there will be changes to it in the future. I'll be sure to post those changes down the road.

I originally gave pretty boring names to all the items (e.g. "sword" and "shield"), but after some brainstorming we decided to connect all the items with the "Special Magic" title, kind of a play on the idea of collecting a set of armor and items that's found in a lot of games. All the items are a one-time purchase.

Since Forest can't stop running, the shop proprietor made him a treadmill to run on while browsing her wares. Her name is Cauldy Bottler. She makes all the potions and items for you (behind the scenes, of course), and never runs out of stock. However, her cauldron is kind of poorly drawn, and I want to redesign it. Also: I might adjust her sprite sheet and give her a staff or something.



The buttons currently work, but they're gimmicky right now. Once we get them to add coins to the player repository when tapped, and take them away when purchases are made, I'll post an update about that. Lance—the programmer who's scripting the shop prefs—is in Switzerland right now. When he gets back he'll finish up the shop script.

It's also not completely done yet, as you can see the note I've made to myself to put in a button for an ad. It won't be an annoying ad button, and it's completely optional. Just something for the player to tap on if they want to. I hate annoying ads in apps. They make me delete games from my phone. So I promised not to sacrifice game value for quick monetary gain. Any ads in the game won't take away from the gameplay. What are your thoughts on ads in apps, or in app purchases?

[BananaInPajamas]

Very cool. What game engine are you using to make this?

Thanks! We're using Unity 3D. We learned C# in a Unity course online, and so it was the engine of choice when we started making Forest Quest.

Figured it would be Unity. Thats super cool. Do you have a link to that Unity course? I'd be interested in checking it out.

[low key sirius]

Very cool. What game engine are you using to make this?

Thanks! We're using Unity 3D. We learned C# in a Unity course online, and so it was the engine of choice when we started making Forest Quest.

Figured it would be Unity. Thats super cool. Do you have a link to that Unity course? I'd be interested in checking it out.

Yeah, it's on Udemy.
It was really useful, especially for beginners. I hadn't ever programmed anything before and it taught me loads.

[JWK5]

You did the parallax just right, I absolutely love it. My only real criticism is your ground and platforms, due to their light outlines the background (with its dark outlines) overpowers it.

This is because you have a bright backgrounds, so the contrast to that is darkness. So wherever you put your dark lines that is where the eye is going to perceive it to be closer (because it is more defined due to the contrast). Lighten the lines of your background stuff (maybe make it a dark gray) and have your foreground lines (the ground, characters, platforms) be black.

You'll see a big difference in how everything will recede into the distance (like it should) once you do that.

Anyways, keep up the good work!



EDIT: A quick example, but hopefully it shows what I was getting at:

[low key sirius]

You did the parallax just right, I absolutely love it. My only real criticism is your ground and platforms, due to their light outlines the background (with its dark outlines) overpowers it.

This is because you have a bright backgrounds, so the contrast to that is darkness. So wherever you put your dark lines that is where the eye is going to perceive it to be closer (because it is more defined due to the contrast). Lighten the lines of your background stuff (maybe make it a dark gray) and have your foreground lines (the ground, characters, platforms) be black.

You'll see a big difference in how everything will recede into the distance (like it should) once you do that.

Anyways, keep up the good work!



EDIT: A quick example, but hopefully it shows what I was getting at:

Hey man, thanks for the comment! I appreciate the love and the feedback. I'll go in and edit the background assets to have progressively lighter outlines and hopefully that'll fix what you were talking about. I'll post about it when it's done. I'm thinking about redoing the ground pieces as well to match the solid style of the grassy background behind it (rather than the pixellated dirt style). Thoughts on that?

Thanks again!

[JWK5]

No problem! As for your question, I'd say try it and see how it looks.




If you want to create good distance in your scene keep in mind that:


On a light background you work light (distance) to dark (foreground).

On a dark background you work dark (distance) to light (foreground).

On a mid-tone background you can go either way (light to dark or dark to light).

In the distance things are more grayish (due to dust in the atmosphere reflecting light and obscuring things).

In the foreground things are more saturated (vibrant, colorful).

Things are faded/blurry in the distance, and crisper and sharper as they get closer.

If your scene is during the day, the colors will be   warmer  .

If your scene is at night the colors will be   cooler  .

Things are   cooler    in the distance, and   warmer     in the foreground.



This picture is a good example of everything I said above:

[low key sirius]

No problem! As for your question, I'd say try it and see how it looks.




If you want to create good distance in your scene keep in mind that:


On a light background you work light (distance) to dark (foreground).

On a dark background you work dark (distance) to light (foreground).

On a mid-tone background you can go either way (light to dark or dark to light).

In the distance things are more grayish (due to dust in the atmosphere reflecting light and obscuring things).

In the foreground things are more saturated (vibrant, colorful).

Things are faded/blurry in the distance, and crisper and sharper as they get closer.

If your scene is during the day, the colors will be   warmer  .

If your scene is at night the colors will be   cooler  .

Things are   cooler    in the distance, and   warmer     in the foreground.



This picture is a good example of everything I said above:

Thanks a lot! I don't have any technical art training, so that was really helpful. Do you know of any tutorials or courses I could look into that would help with video game art (particularly pixel art)?

[low key sirius]

Thanks to a suggestion from @JWK5, I'm updating the background to keep the focus on the foreground and the main character. I simply changed the outlines of the trees and mountains, growing lighter as they move back. The effect was immediate.

Here's a gif of what it looked like before:



And here's one after:



I love how much just a few outlining changes has brought focus to the foreground.

[BananaInPajamas]

Thanks to a suggestion from @JWK5, I'm updating the background to keep the focus on the foreground and the main character. I simply changed the outlines of the trees and mountains, growing lighter as they move back. The effect was immediate.

Here's a gif of what it looked like before:



And here's one after:



I love how much just a few outlining changes has brought focus to the foreground.

I think the mountains look better but I would make the lines around the light colored trees a lot lighter as well.

[JWK5]

It's looking better. You might also try just using a slightly darker outline of the color that is dominantly filling the sprite chunk. So if you have green leaves outlined (i.e. the whole treetop) use a slightly darker green than the darkest green of the leaf colors to outline the leaves, if that makes sense.

If you post a 1:1 shot (i.e. one where I can easily edit the pixels directly) maybe I can help show you a few things by editing what you are currently working with and explaining how to apply a few techniques to them, if you'd like.

Either way, you're doing a good job and you should keep up the good work!   

[low key sirius]

It's looking better. You might also try just using a slightly darker outline of the color that is dominantly filling the sprite chunk. So if you have green leaves outlined (i.e. the whole treetop) use a slightly darker green than the darkest green of the leaf colors to outline the leaves, if that makes sense.

If you post a 1:1 shot (i.e. one where I can easily edit the pixels directly) maybe I can help show you a few things by editing what you are currently working with and explaining how to apply a few techniques to them, if you'd like.

Either way, you're doing a good job and you should keep up the good work!   

I think I understand what you're saying, so I can try it out and see how it looks. I'm not a brilliant artist, but I want to improve. I'm planning to do a few tutorials on pixel art soon, so that'll help give my art some direction.

[low key sirius]

@JWK5, Here's one of the assets from the background.



Let me know if this is something you can work with and offer technique advice on. If not, I can put together a bigger chunk of the scene. I really appreciate your help!

[low key sirius]

Just started working on a new bad guy this morning. He's going to be featured in the snow levels (otherwise known as The Winterlands).


                          SNOWMAN


He'll launch snowballs at Forest as he runs by, and Forest will have to either jump over the snowballs or slice them with his sword.

Let me know what you think!

[JWK5]

[low key sirius]

@JWK5 Wow, thanks for putting that together for me! That was really helpful. I took a screen shot so I'll have it for a quick reference in the future.

Anyway, I implemented your suggestions, and it looks even better now. Here's the light grey outlines:



and here's the lighter outlines based on the colors of the objects:



If you have any other artistic suggestions, let me know. Thanks again!