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[naezith]

I just !LOVE! the graphics of this game, specially the water visuals. Tutorial for waters helped me a lot in my game, I am tweaking it in an unique way now. But it needed/will need hours and hours to make it "ok". Because there are tons of stuff like, I change my water's size like I only draw the part of it which is inside the camera so size changes all the time and that water shader works with 0..1 instead of 0..SizeInPixels, thats why it behaves differently for every size, which makes it weird But yeah I know at the end I will make it all "OK"!

I really like your project, saw your effort and the improvement of the game over time, keep going!

[lobstersteve]

hey
so i finally got around to play the demo and i'll just write down the notes in the order i wrote them down while playing.

• Graphics are awesome. The colors on the first level are really well done (I didn't even mind the clouds i critisized before, because there is so much other stuff to look at)
• The waterfall is too loud. It even hurt my ears a little with headphones, but it's really cool that it's volume is dependent on the distance you are away from it.
• The bow feels really good. The sound, the trace it leaves behind and how you and your enemy stop for a brief moment on impact 
• Overall the nature sounds are good, sometimes ambient sounds are all you need in a somewhat exlorational game, but the rain on the second level was too loud again and i couldn't hear the bow (might be, because the rain was too loud, or it didn't work at all). The flash that stroke while it rained is a cool effect but a little exaggerated again. (Maybe if the display wouldn't turn completly white, it would be more pleasing).
• I think the guy before me already said it (TL:DR lol), but the first level needs some wall to teach you walljumping, because there is no real introduction to it (most people will encounter walljumping randomly, but in the rare case they don't). Maybe with an optional textbox near the wall, so players will know what to do. (Otherwise they could also just go left again, as this is an explorational game).
• The game is also too hard. And by hard, i probably just mean, that it could use more save-points. It already starts really hard right away with the screen, where there is the wolf and 3 bats. Maybe if you put a save point after the battle, when you enter the dungeon, it would already help.

Overall i really liked the game. It reminded me of elliot quest, but seems like it will be less cryptic (which is good). I think due to it's presentation it can make players hooked and keep them playing 

[alwex]

Hi,

@lobstersteve I am glad you finally take the time to try the game! The game really need some checkpoints not to punish the player too much when he die. Maybe a hard mode with no checkpoint can be a good idea for a good replay value. I already planned to add some secret objects that will reveal more about the background and a new game plus with various endings.

I just finish a long battle of two months with my hoster who started by breaking my hostname (tikotepadventure.com) and made it unavailable for two months. I finally get back the hostname but they find a way to crash my server and I lost all the sources of the game with it (they have no backup). Hopefully I have a backup on my computer so that I will be able to continue to work on the game soon, but the update will be more espaced as I will live in the wild of New Zealand for a year and will work on the game at the back of a camper van (I hope it will be a great source of inspiration).

Wish me good luck guys!

[alwex]

Hi all,

It has been a long time with no update, but Tikotep is not dead, it only goes very slowly. I started to work on the level on papper only. All the feedbacks help me realise that the game need some tuning in the gameplay/difficulty to make it more fun and enjoyable. I am working on the shooting arrow system to add more "shooting feeling", like shooting three arrow quickly, increasing shooting power by collecting spirit cell that get out of the monster while they dies.

I am also working on an ice system to create frozen effect and I rework the water system to allow some underwater phases (I love underwater levels since sonic 1 on genesis).

Here is a pic of the icy env and the ice system on it's early stage (no slipery surfaces at the moment)



I also have a hudge work to do on the sound aspect/music of the game. I started to use PXTone to create some piece of music, but I found the feeling a little to old shool for the game.

I go back to work!

[JobLeonard]

Yay! Looking great as always!
That refraction effect on the bottom half of the gif is fantastic!

[alwex]

back to work again, I have worked hard on the special FX with a better god ray shader and a front plan system that blur the tiles to make them feel closer.

Also, a friend of mine started helping with the character design a week ago, I hope it will push Tikotep Adventure to the next level.

here are some new graphics, enjoy!

[lobstersteve]

Hey, you're back. Glad to hear 

[JobLeonard]

What Lobster Steve said!

The depth of field looks great!

[alwex]

Yes I am back! The dev goes slowly but surely, I have two bosses next to be finised. I plan to add about 10 bosses in the final game, still a lot of work to do!

I have also rewrited the water rendering engine, il will add some gif of the new water effects soon.

Here is the level I am working on today:

[ernanir]

It seems you improved your art while you were out.

Way to go

[alwex]

@ernarnir thank you, I try to do my best!

I have decided to rework the water system to allow some underwater levels, I had come with a 3D version of the water reflexion effect, but it was quite hard to do watever I wanted with this version. I will probably search for a solution to keep both kind of water effect (reflection and flat 2D water).

I have also spent a few days disabling all the special FX to track performance issues, after quite a lot of refactoring, the game run now at 250 FPS on my commputer instead of the 60 FPS before refactoring. The problem was the usage of non really optimized shader and too many framebuffers.

Here is the new look of the water and waterfalls, enjoy.

[SolS]

That looks sooooo good! 

[JobLeonard]

Oh yeah, your graphics definitely leveled up!

And it's not like they were bad to begin with

[wizardfu]

lookin gorgeous!

[alwex]

Thank you all,

I am still adding new features on the game engine, I should focus on the maps and level design instead of adding features everywhere

light rays without opacity variations



light rays with opacity variations, there are two layers of light ray on this one



I have added a new particle layer that get processed through a gaussian blur shader to simulate pollen particle really close to the camera. The effect is a bit strange in my opinion, but I am sure I can tune it to obtain something better.



There is also a little black slime on the bottom of the picture, he was not supposed to be here!

[mskalandunas]

Loving this, and have been following your progress a bit.  How recent is the demo?  I just setup my gaming PC so I'd love to play around with Tikotep.

[Kyuugatsu]

I am still adding new features on the game engine, I should focus on the maps and level design instead of adding features everywhere

No dessert without eating your veggies. 

[JobLeonard]

^

As delicious as this looks, Kyuugatsu is right

[alwex]

@mskalandunas unfortunately, the demo is quite old, more than a year now and the game and gameplay has changed quite a lot.

@Kyuugatsu, @JobLeonard taht's true as always. I only have a few hours a week to work on the game (like 4 or 5 hours max), that is the main issue, but I won't give up, stay tuned!

[alwex]

I have developped a tool to quickly mock up 2D levels. The tool is an online one, the idea is to be able to design level in collaboration with other people directly in your browser and to be able to mockup your idea wherever your are, you just need an internet access. I will distribute it for free and it is already available on my github in a early beta version, feel free to use it if you think it can be usefull.



here is the link to my github project

https://github.com/alwex/online-tilemap

I go back to my levels!