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[Pemanent]

Android Market/iTunes 

mmm true. It will just be sold through the wp7 marketplace.

[Pemanent]

- Worked on the background tonight. Took me a while to get a good contrast between the foreground and the background without making the whole level feel super dark. Still needs work but much better than black.

- Started level 2 and 3. Here are my thoughts on the levels. I've hardly done any level design so if you have any critiques so far then please I'm all ears.

level 1 - Let the player get accustom to the control and the main idea of the game. Beatable on first try. Player start on the left and ends on the right.


level 2 - Show player wall jumping. Still an easy level but the player will need to figure out the wall jumping controls. Player starts on the left and ends on the right like level 1.


level 3 - I want this level also to be beatable on the first try but not as easily as the others. Here I want the player to see what it feels like to bearly get to the next pond of water before they run out of air. I also introduce different pond locations, player starts on the right and ends on the right as well which is new.


In level 4 I would like to introduce the end pond being off screen. This will force the player to move right into unexpected territory to find where they need to go next. I will probably introduce intermediary ponds here also (ponds which fill up your air bar but don't move to you the next level). This level should be pretty easy and beatable on the first try.

Level 5 this level will introduce some difficulty. If you mess up your jumps here you will run out of air and not make it in time. This level should only be beatable for experienced players. Only one intermediary pond.

level 6 will be a lot like level 5. Somewhat difficult, not beatable on first try. There will be more than one intermediary pond in this level.

I need to work on different background for each level but they will all follow the same theme as what you see here.
Yeah! Decent progress I think. Overall player movement still needs work but its been handling pretty well in these levels. I'm not sure how many levels I want. I don't want this to be a big game so probably something around 25. I will just see what ideas I come up with. There are still a lot of possibilities!

[Franklin's Ghost]

Level designs seem to work well so far in letting the player get used to the game and also progressively introduce new techniques and difficulty.

[Pemanent]

#Ghost
Thanks. I don't think I'm doing to bad considering this is my first real experience with level design.

I made another dev video. Check it out.



Let me know your thoughts!

Also anybody know how to attach a link to an image?

[Franklin's Ghost]

Level designs are looking nice. Only thing I found strange was on level 3 when you finished off on the left side and started level 4 on the left. Think it would work nicer if you started on the opposite side like the rest of the levels. Like the continous feel. Level designs are looking great so far though, so nice job.

[Pemanent]

Thanks Mr.Ghost! At the time I wanted to show the player that the ending pool is not always on the right but in the time since I've grown to agree with you. The player will always end on the opposite side he started.

[Franklin's Ghost]

Sounds good. Also if you want to attach a link to an image you can do it like this

[ url=http://][img]http://.jpg[/ img][/ url]

Just take out the spaces. So just wrap your img with a url

[Pemanent]

#Ghost
Thanks! I'll update my posts.

I just wanted to say that I updated the site again. Added wordpress shenanigans so its not a ton easier to make posts and people can comment and such. I still need to add networking buttons but that shouldn't be too hard.

[Pemanent]

Just a quick update. Added spikes and level 12 which introduces spikes. Its a bit rough of an intro so I might need another level before this to more slowly introduce the spikes.



Also, I had an idea today, that the hardest part of a level should be towards the end, to increase the intensity. So I'll go back and re-arrange the level 'features' with that in mind.

[Pemanent]

General update
- Shortened the air bar so now your thumbs aren't in the way when it gets low.

- Fixed a few small bugs with player movement and world movement.
- Created levels 13 and 14
- Improved a few levels to make the most intense features at the end. Also the player now always starts on the left in all levels.

That is about it!

[Pemanent]

More work done.

- Added golden fish at the end of the level to make it obvious and clear how to beat a level. (He is much shinier looking on my phone. He doesn't look as dull irl like he does here.)

- Reworked level loading so now I am able to move levels around and edit them much easier.
- Fixed a bazzilion bugs in player movement.
- Reworked almost every level to smooth out the difficulty curve.
- Added 4 new levels to more obviously teach player certain skills.

[Pemanent]

Progress has been very very slow lately, this is because of a few reasons.
1. I just started a new part time job so that takes up a lot of time I would have spent on Ninja Fish
2. I ran into some efficiency problems in the game. I am not a very efficient programmer so this is really starting to surface in many areas. Any work I’ve done has been to make the game run smoother.

Not to worry I am still getting in some work here and there! Just the updates might be farther and farther apart.

[Pemanent]

Have made some good progress since my last update. I have some good news and some bad news.

Good news. Some progress!

- Worked with the levels to pretty them up and remove any small issues or inconsistencies.
- Added 5 or so new levels. (can't remember exactly)
- Fixed efficiency problems! Runs smooth now.
- Added bubbles. Which give the player a boost of air. Good for making things a little more intense in the game. Also added a neat effect so they create a very pleasing wave effect when in a line.


Bad news. Got a second job last week. That means even less time to work on this. I'm not sure how I was able to get two jobs in 3 weeks without even trying but I did it.

[Franklin's Ghost]

Bubbles sound like a good gameplay addition. Is there going to be different sized ones depending on how much water you get back?

[Pemanent]

I had thought about that but decided against it with no real good reason why. :/ I feel like I would be unnecessarily cluttering the mechanic by doing that. I could very well be wrong though.

[Franklin's Ghost]

Yeah that's fair enough, think some games work better keeping them simple and not complicating things.

[Pemanent]

I totally agree!

[Pemanent]

- Added keys and key blocks. I'm a bit worried I'm pulling too much from Super Meat Boy. :/
- Added more levels, bringing the count up to 35 now.

Thats about it! Next I'm working on levels for these new keys and key blocks! Should be fun. Oh and I can put as many keys and key blocks combinations as I want. I'm not limited to just one.

[Pemanent]

Been working on levels a ton.
Up to 47 total levels now! My goal is 50. Once I get to 50 I'm going to start polishing stuff and having more people play test the game. Thinking about asking random people at my college to play it. :/ We will see how that goes.

Also talked with another dude today for music. Pretty excited about that. He might do the sound effects also which would be great.

Also also I'm probably going to make a video tomorrow.

[Pemanent]

Feeling pretty good about this right now. Added a lot of little cool polishy effects today.
- water splash animation when you jump in and out of the water.
- bubble pop when you hit a bubble.
- key burst when you touch a key it sorta explodes.

Also started work on the main menu. I will do a video soon!! Since its impossible to play on the emulator its also impossible to screen shot these things. But you'll see in the video.