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[DanielSnd]

So in the past few days I have:
Made art for a rocket fist shirt:


Updated my portfolio:


Made one or two new env pieces:


And... finally decided on when to get back to streaming :D



So tomorrow I’m finally doing it! I'm streaming again! From 8pm to 10pm pdt, tomorrow wednesday June 17th 2015 you will be able to watch me doing sum arts for the game :D Come watch, ask questions, chat, or just lurk around! I'm hoping at least one person will show up at some point to keep me company xD

[DanielSnd]

Ok, so today I streamed a bit, thanks for the few people that showed up and chatted a bit ^^ It was only about 4 people but it was nice anyways. During the stream I worked a bit on those wall pieces


Today at school the System Administrator was upgrading the computer on this arcade machine they have at the lobby, I was talking to him a little bit and he said he was looking for a 1-button game to put on that machine, so I suggested Rocket Fist, a perfect fit XD


But still there were a couple of problems. The sticks on the arcade can only do 3 directions instead of the full 4 directions (AWD instead of ASDW), so he plugged controllers to it, it's still kind of cool to see it in an arcade shell like that :D The other problem is optimization… The game is pretty damn optimized and runs lagless on my iPhone 5… apparently the computer inside that arcade is indeed less powerful than my iPhone 5 so…

Today I took some time to do a little bit more optimization. I created a little script that hides objects based on the current quality level, so for all the particles and little things that aren't essential, they won't show up if you're at the fastest quality. Also, unrelated, added turning on/off of the joystick vibrations to the option screen.

The arcade was left running the game with the bots for a while, with only 1 real player that wasn't being controlled by anyone… By watching that for a while I noticed a bunch of flaws on the AI. Whenever they were both really close to each other they would start dancing rotating around one another instead of firing, since they were both not being able to find a perfect throw as they danced. Every once in a while they would also keep on walking into a wall for no good reason, and that could just happeng forever. So I added a couple of extra checks to prevent those from happening. If super close to my target and it's not totally behind me, just press the damn button and If I haven't really moved in a while, drop my goal. That should fix those.

So, that's it for now Tomorrow will try the new build in the arcade. If you want to see a bit of the stream recording, you can watch it over here:

[Mixer]

That's awesome. Pretty alien machine, but awesome! I'm surprised it couldn't running considering the machine was being updated! Awesome stuff 

[DanielSnd]

Alright, I need to get back to my old habit of doing a task a day. Things are calming down in the Masters front and I think this is the perfect time to do it.

The things I want to introduce to the game in the month of August:

- Different Game Modes
- Different Levels
- Powerups
- Moving Obstacles
- Hazards

To have different game modes and different levels, I need a menu to access it… So I'm starting with a menu. Today I put this together using elements I already had laying around in my menu.

I need a section to select the Game mode. A sub-section within that depending on the game mode to pick variations of it (Free for All or Team-based?). A Section to pick the arena, then an optional section to pick the number of points, lives, or whatever else the game mode uses for a win-condition.

I believe this layout will work, might still poke at it more later on, but I think it's functional enough. I still haven't implemented it in the code, that'll be my task Friday (Tomorrow it's Full Indie day, will spend my night playtesting there, so probably won't get much done, but as usuall will consider my playtesting session the task of the day xD).

[DanielSnd]

Over the weekend a couple of interesting things happened to the game :D



I went to a Twitch party that happened over here in Vancouver and got to showcase the game a bit, it even got played on the stream (

They start playing the game at 32 minutes, and I appear around 35~36 minutes ). I found a couple of new bugs and got some new ideas, people loved the game, it was great ^^

One thing that a couple of the streamers asked about, as usual is… "Is there going to be an online mode? It would be great to play on stream with viewers!". As usual I explained that it's pretty complicated to program for that and I don’t have the knowledge to do it nor the money to pay someone to do it for me. But I decided to give it another shot over the weekend, I grabbed a copy of a Networking Framework for unity (Forge Networking) and after following a couple of tutorials I decided to try and implement it into the game.



To my surprise, I got something working fairly quickly. I'm starting to feel confident that I can get this done, the developers of this framework are great at supporting, all the questions I had were answered quickly and I totally recommend this framework for any unity user looking to bring online multiplayer to their game ^^

One more thing. I want to release the greenlight this weekend. So the tasks over the week will be trailer/greenlight related.

[oldblood]

Was just thinking about this game the other day. Glad to see you're back at it! Best of luck on the pending greenlight. Masochisia just went into greenlight this weekend... so I know how that prep work goes.

[DanielSnd]

Was just thinking about this game the other day. Glad to see you're back at it! Best of luck on the pending greenlight. Masochisia just went into greenlight this weekend... so I know how that prep work goes.

Thanks! :D Found it and threw a vote your way!

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For the greenlight, that I'm aiming to release on this sunday, I need to show a little more level variation on the screenshots/video… So I'm working on some new levels. Today I made a few extra pieces for one of the new levels I have in mind.


Talking about new levels I have in mind… at  the moment I have a few:

- Level with Uncle Knuckle that attacks now and then (The attacks wouldn't be so bullet hell, It'd easy to avoid him if you're paying attention.
- Level in a threadmill with wrap-around. The level constantly pulls everything into the left side of the screen, whenever something crosses out of the screen to the left it reappears to the right.
- Level giant robots, very very different than anything else, the players are giant robots in this little city, godzilla style.
- Level Underground, floor is dirt with pipes and some leaking pipes forming pools of green goo (Green goo would cause players to slide (less deceleration).
- Level Cold Room, snowy cold room, some parts of the floor are frozen which causes players to slip/slide (less deceleration).
- Music reactive level (Based on Unity3D subreddit post ), I'm thinking of having blocks reacting to sound underneath, with the players in a raised platform with glass floor. It'll be a little bit of a balancing act trying to make the music reactive thing not call too much attention to the point of distracting players from the game. I made a little test with it on the level I already have, of course the raised floor will help to separate and bring the contrast back.



Well, that's it for now, Friday and saturday I'll put a lot of work towards the new levels, I gotta get the materials for the greenlight ready for sunday!

[ernanir]

Loved the disco floor

[DanielSnd]

Loved the disco floor

Hahahah thanks ^^ That was just a test, it's a little bit more discreet now.

This is how the new level actually is looking like Still tweaking colors here and there but it's mostly done.


This time I ended up making the level in Maya, I felt I got more control this way and was able to fine-tune the positions of the pieces as I couldn't before with the tile-editor I was using. It wasn't as easy or fast, but I believe it gave me a better result.


The level plays quite differently then the original one. It does have some open areas but it also has some confined areas. Overall the camera is farther away as the level is a little bit longer horizontally than it is vertically. This level has 2 cool features, the doors on the sides are connected, and things that go into one door will come out the other (both player and fists) which can lead to interesting strategies.


The other cool feature is the floor underneath the raised platform. As I mentioned in the previous blog, it reacts to music and it looks really cool Thiago is working on a special music to make good use of it.



Tomorrow I'll work all day on one or two extra levels for the greenlight trailer. Sunday I'm finishing up the trailer and launching the campaign! :D So excited!

[ernanir]

Daniel,

Just got a random idea.
Maybe the disco-floor can mimic the color of the final winner.

[Mixer]

I love that idea of using the players colour! It would be like a kind of show of award. I definitely think the floors music deco needs to be subtle though, as my eye is drawn towards it, and not the players, in the gif. Awesome stuff though, really.

[ernanir]

I love that idea of using the players colour! It would be like a kind of show of award. I definitely think the floors music deco needs to be subtle though, as my eye is drawn towards it, and not the players, in the gif. Awesome stuff though, really.

Thanks :D Hope Dan likes the idea.
And yes, it does need to be subtle.

[DanielSnd]

Daniel,

Just got a random idea.
Maybe the disco-floor can mimic the color of the final winner.

I love that idea of using the players colour! It would be like a kind of show of award. I definitely think the floors music deco needs to be subtle though, as my eye is drawn towards it, and not the players, in the gif. Awesome stuff though, really.

That is a pretty cool idea indeed :D Could be that the floor takes the color of the last player to get a kill!


Saturday was entirely greenlight-centric and it was very productive! Made a palette variation for the 2p level to make it look a little different, made a lights-out one fist level for a possible special game-mode (To exemplify that we'd have different game modes) and of course, recorded LOTS of gifs!




If you've been vising this devlog, you know I love gifs, and I was so happy to hear that we can actually upload gifs to the greenlight page if they're under 2mb, so most of the screenshots for the game in the greenlight page are actually gifs, which makes it very cool to see. Including the main image that shows up in the search page and the queue :D hopefully it'll catch people's attentions!



I wrote the page itself during the week and had some good friends take a look on it for feedback and proofreading. My first draft was very logical and dry, explaining more about the logic and rational behind the game instead of actually telling how the game feels and why the player should be excited about it. It was pointed out to me by a friend and I fixed it with my second draft, making it smaller and less logical, being more personal adding a joke here and there.

I also recorded a bunch of footage for the trailer, a lot of actual gameplay but also some footage captured with a following camera closer to the characters, which gives a cool point of view :D I sen the trailer to Thiago for him to make music to go with it, but today is Father's day in Brazil and he is going to be away most of the day so I guess I'll only be able to actually launch the greenlight on monday

[jctwood]

Woah guys that isn't just an arcade machine that is the old computer space shell! Basically the forefather of all arcade machines and the first successful product of the founder of ATARI! So amazing, I have only seen it in museums. Very nice looking game though ^_^

[DanielSnd]

Woah guys that isn't just an arcade machine that is the old computer space shell! Basically the forefather of all arcade machines and the first successful product of the founder of ATARI! So amazing, I have only seen it in museums. Very nice looking game though ^_^

Lol nice, I didn't know that it was such a historic machine hahahah, it is a pretty weird looking thing XD
Thanks!


I'm still waiting on Thiago to finish the audio of the trailer So my plans of launching the greenlight on sunday failed… then my plans of launching it on monday also failed… now I'm hoping that I'll finally be able to launch the greenlight tomorrow D: but… it doesn't really depend on me I did everything I had to do.

Today I did another pass on the greenlight page, everything seems to be in order. I also updated the presskit links with the latest information to reflect the greenlight, marketing-wise, we're pretty much set. Other than the trailer that is.


The next big task I wanted to approach after launching the greenlight is the online mode. As I mentioned about a week ago, I made some tests using Forge Networking and got something somewhat working fairly quickly. I want to explore more and see if I can get a full game cycle working with forge.

Going in order, the first task I'd need to tackle for that is including the necessary menus for it. The old menu was getting crammed with everything in one column the way it was, so I decided to break it off, pull the logo to one side and the menu itself to the other. I think it's looking good

I also got the forge headless masterserver working with the help of one of the users of the Forge community :D (Thanks digict!). Instead of the CCU system most of the other networking solutions use, which gets pretty expensive if the game gets popular, requiring hefty monthly payments, having the game set up this way means the only server I need to worry about is the server that keeps the server lists, which is fairly cheap to mantain. The game servers would be hosted by the players themselves And with the help of the master server they can see a list of current servers available and pick one to join.




Today I also had a new cool idea for Rocket Fist. I've been watching some streams of people playing Choice Chamber, and I thought it was quite interesting the way it intereacts with the chat. It reminded me of what #iDARB did with twitter (People could tweet at a specific user with a code hashtag that's available on the game screen and special effects would happen in the game based on what hashtags the users are tweeting at it). I figure I could mash-up the two ideas and have random effects triggered by twitch chat in streamed rocket fist matches :D

I looked for a Unity way of connecting to the twitch chat and found this one, just 2 little C# scripts, fairly easy to use. I made a quick test joining a couple of twitch channels from unity and it's super easy to make it work all one would need to do is to type in the chat name somewhere on the options and turn on the “feature”.

I'm thinking of having a vote come up on the screen every once in a while with 3 or 4 possible effects picked randomly, viewers could vote on which one they want to happen. Also one of the voters that voted on the winning effect would be picked to choose one of the players to receive a random power-up or effect (Maybe they could choose whether they want a good effect or a bad effect to happen as well).

Anyway, it would be fairly easy to implement and would be an extra incentive for streamers to play the game :D which would be good for promotion.

[jctwood]

That twitch concept is just brilliant!

[oldblood]

Don't sweat missing the arbitrary deadlines, especially with things outside of your control. I'm the same way, get really frustrated when I miss my own self-imposed dates-- but Greenlight isn't going anywhere and there really is no magic date to launch. Looking forward to giving it my vote...

[ernanir]

Don't sweat missing the arbitrary deadlines, especially with things outside of your control. I'm the same way, get really frustrated when I miss my own self-imposed dates-- but Greenlight isn't going anywhere and there really is no magic date to launch. Looking forward to giving it my vote...

Great advice. On top of that, your game will be accepted, so no worries. I guess the aim now would be delivering the optimal your package and wow the larger number of people.

[DanielSnd]

That twitch concept is just brilliant!

Thanks :D It'll be pretty easy and I believe it'll be worth it! I've added it to the list of features in the presskit/greenlight ^^

Don't sweat missing the arbitrary deadlines, especially with things outside of your control. I'm the same way, get really frustrated when I miss my own self-imposed dates-- but Greenlight isn't going anywhere and there really is no magic date to launch. Looking forward to giving it my vote...

You're right! I feel like by missing the deadline I set myself and put out there online I'm disappointing imaginary people  (even if it's of reasons outside my control). I should just realize that no one really cares and the ones who do will be happy to see if whenever it's out xD

Great advice. On top of that, your game will be accepted, so no worries. I guess the aim now would be delivering the optimal your package and wow the larger number of people.

Hell yeah ^^ Thanks

[Keith]

The update looks awesome.

As someone who would like to add online to my Unity game, it seems like Forge is great to use. Did you know anything about networking before hand?

I don't, so hopefully it wouldn't be too hard to set up. Can't wait for more. Keep it up.