TIGSource Forums

Me (http://forums.tigsource.com/index.php?action=profile;u=7531), psoplayer (http://forums.tigsource.com/index.php?action=profile;u=8859) and zachwlewis (http://forums.tigsource.com/index.php?action=profile;u=7812) have begun work in a future Xbox Indie title and it's now at a point where we feel comfortable showing off our progress!

Game Name : MONOLITH

:handpencil: Story :
The story behind Tower Game is one that makes no real sence, but isn't that what makes games like Crash Bandicoot, Sonic or Mario great? Well..that and good game-play. The basic plot of Tower Game lets you take control of a Janitor who's set out on a quest to save a Princess who's been kidnapped by an evil something (we are thinking Scientist right now) who's holding her against her will at the top of a tower...floating above 99 other towers.

:whome: Videos :

:panda: Audio : Why a panda for the audio icon? Why not?!
Samples Coming Soon. Provided By:
(http://i17.photobucket.com/albums/b81/anch0vy/logo-10.png) (http://www.hyperduck.co.uk/)

:blink: Screen Shots :
(http://i17.photobucket.com/albums/b81/anch0vy/Gameplay100213_008.png) (http://zachwlewis.dyndns.org/svn/tower-game/Promotional/Screenshots/Gameplay100213_008.png) (http://i17.photobucket.com/albums/b81/anch0vy/Gameplay100213_009.png) (http://zachwlewis.dyndns.org/svn/tower-game/Promotional/Screenshots/Gameplay100213_009.png) (http://i17.photobucket.com/albums/b81/anch0vy/Gameplay100213_010.png) (http://zachwlewis.dyndns.org/svn/tower-game/Promotional/Screenshots/Gameplay100213_010.png)
More screens will be added later, for now check page 5 for over 20 sexy images!

:smb00: Art/Sprites :
(http://i17.photobucket.com/albums/b81/anch0vy/character_attack.gif) (http://i17.photobucket.com/albums/b81/anch0vy/character_run.gif)

:handanykey::epileptic::handanykey: Things We Are Working On :

● Variations to game play.
● Upgrades.

:handthumbsupL: :) :handthumbsdownR: Test Build Release :
This test build is pretty out of date now as everything for the game has been rewritten but if you want to get a basic idea of how the game will work it's worth a poke...

The file you are trying to access is temporarily unavailable. :handshakeL: :tiger: :handshakeR:

Yeah I think they've started moderating their files so I added a mirror too till they've passed the file as ok :)

Rapidshare not working either. Wow, you've overloaded 2 servers already. Congrats!

Haha bad sign considering this threads only gotten 47 views! :P

I'll add another now, any recommendations for hosting sites?

Added two new mirrors! :facepalm:

Ok, I like this. It has a lot of potential. Even this little non-game demo was a lot of fun (for the few minutes of play time that is was).

I love the graphics and the way the character moves.

My two criticisms are:

(first)The first jump took me a few tries to get across until I figured out that I had to actually step most of the way off the ledge and then jump. Maybe you should make the gaps a little less wide is what I'm saying.

(second)I want more! I can see this becoming a joyful exploration game type of experience. I'd like to be able to easily see certain areas that are not so easy to get to. That would be fun.

Yeah the jump is under powered right now, we are fixing this. We've decided to go for a quicker jump rather than a higher one thus we don't have to raise the whole floor above giving you less of a view. It should be fixed in the next pre-release we put on here :)

We are toying with visibility, trying to make the tower big without being over whelming, we also don't want to zoom out too much and make some things (like spike floor) harder to see. We've got a selection of tiles we are adding in now, once we have them in and can see how easy to see they are at what sizes we should know how much of a view we can give to tempt the player into risking a few lives to get more gold (we also have full intention of rewarding some exploration with Easter eggs, cause come on, who doesn't like finding an Easter egg in a game?!)

REALLY glad you enjoyed it though, I've been nervous since I uploaded it encase someone said it was unappealing!

Here's a question for all you :tiger: s out there: Would you like code examples and implementation walkthroughs and tutorials for this kinda' stuff? I know there's a ton of XNA-related resources out there, but I wouldn't mind putting some text or video tutorials for the kind of stuff I'm creating or for documenting my workflow. I'm learning tons of tricks and shortcuts as I go (this is my second serious XNA project), and I'm all about improving the community.

Also, you're welcome to download the game from our version control server (http://zachwlewis.dyndns.org/svn/tower-game/Releases/TowerGame001.zip) as long as you promise not to kill the little thing. That link should be good forever. :)

I thought it was fun, but the jumping was very slow. The jumping and landing lag bugs me when I want to jump quickly.

The jump speed will be fixed in the next release :)

Well we finally came up with a name. Not wanting to mention Towers in the title because we don't want to come across as a Tower Defense game we've gone for the name
(http://i17.photobucket.com/albums/b81/anch0vy/logo-8.png) (http://i17.photobucket.com/albums/b81/anch0vy/logo-9.png)

That's Monolith if you've mistaken the tower for just a tower and think it's called Monolth.

There's a new version out (available here (http://zachwlewis.dyndns.org/svn/tower-game/Releases/Monolith001.zip)). It adds random tiles for a more decrepit feel of the tower and tightens up the janitor's controls for stage three.

WE NEED YOUR OPINION!

Hi sexy people, we need your opinion on something!

Recently a design choice for Monolith has appeared, this would allow me to make the tiles look much better (as it'd have more space to toy with than the current 4x24) but it will mean giving up the stair-case system we currently use in place of a jumping and climbing system. I can't decide which way to take the design so I'm coming to you guys for your thoughts. If you've played the recent release you know what the current game play is like.

Glad you asked. :) Actually one of the first things I noticed about the game was that I liked that I could just walk....... for a while before I had to jump.
So, one vote for keeping the stair-case system.

I can't play the new build. It gives me a message "You cannot start application TowerGame from this location because it is already installed in a different location." I deleted the old build already.

I had that too, but uninstalling "TowerGame" in the "Add or Remove Program" (in the control panel) thingy should work.

Whoops sorry didn't notice there were new messages, and wehay on the log getting to Page 2 :D didn't think we'd get any interest. Yeah the Add/Remove Programs thing should do the trick dude :)

I'm still toying with a game-play style change allowing for bigger blocks which would allow much more graphical detail and creativity, I have some blocks knocked up on my other computer I'll put on here soon to hear the views on.

We are currently thinking about ways to keep the whole 'climbing a tower' thing fresh considering the game will be 100 of these things long, any ideas? things you'd like to see?

I have been thinking about the pros and cons of larger blocks.

Pros:

• The concepts I've seen are fucking gorgeous, and now I've got an erection
• They would make the towers much taller for the work we put into them
• They would make the random algorithm much simpler (since an entire character can fit inside one of the tiles), making my life easier
• The would allow for a more "jumpy" game (we'd probably add wall-jumps and climbing up corners)

Cons:

• We'd be straying from our source inspiration, making it harder to take more gameplay element directly
• Stair-climbing would be gone (and that was a bitch to implement properly)
• Might make the tower look less tower-like and more floating-block-like (although, I'm sure it won't be terrible

These were just quick ideas I had and may not apply upon further discussion, but it's what I had on the top of my head.

I may have found a way of fixing this problem with a half way solution, I just need to have a word with Zach as soon as his Erection is gone, make sure it'll actually work, if so we'll be able to enjoy the best of both worlds. Otherwise I have a second idea which I'll pitch to him, should have some news soon :)

I'm on vista so I don't have 'Add/Remove Programs' but I found the equivalent and uninstalled it. I didn't think of that since it didn't even tell me it was installing something in the first place.

Personally I'd prefer large blocks.

On my computer I use an auto updating build so in truth I didn't know it installed ether lol sorry about that dude.

Thats

Flat Tiles - 1
Block Tiles - 1

Hooray for version control! But, yeah, you'll have to uninstall the original version before XNA will allow you to install a new version.

I'm going to mess with the large blocks and throw that up. I'm interested in how they'll look.

how about making the camera follow the player? on the build I played as soon as you got to the top your character dissapeared until you fell through a hole...

That's on it's way :) we wanna fix up some other stuff before that so it should be implemented within the next few versions we release :D

Yay!

Just thought I'd show off some early designs for the chunky blocks we MAY or MAY NOT be using. I've come across some issues I'll need to discuss with Zach which could be the clinching decider. I do love these blocks and find them fun to make (it's like making my own building blocks...as if I am some kind of god...FEAR ME MORTALS!  :handshakeL: :o :handshakeR:) so if we can't put them into Monolith they will be in my (and possibly Zach's if he's interested) next game :D

(http://i17.photobucket.com/albums/b81/anch0vy/tiles-1.png) (http://i17.photobucket.com/albums/b81/anch0vy/tiles.png)
Click to see full size

Ignore the collection of grids, this is a messy preview I found on my hard drive and due to all my pixel work being made in Flash I have to make pixel grids which I forgot to remove from the image. Whoops.

Finally got a chance to work on this bitch. Added the larger blocks, better collision, parallax scrolling, and other things. Here's a billion screenshots!

(http://zachwlewis.dyndns.org/svn/tower-game/Promotional/Gameplay100210_001.png)

(http://zachwlewis.dyndns.org/svn/tower-game/Promotional/Gameplay100210_002.png)

(http://zachwlewis.dyndns.org/svn/tower-game/Promotional/Gameplay100210_003.png)

(http://zachwlewis.dyndns.org/svn/tower-game/Promotional/Gameplay100210_004.png)

(http://zachwlewis.dyndns.org/svn/tower-game/Promotional/Gameplay100210_005.png)

Pretty cool! Also, what's this? A WILD PLAYABLE DEMO APPEARS! (Monolith alpha 2) (http://zachwlewis.dyndns.org/svn/tower-game/Releases/Monolith002.zip) To play it, you'll need to uninstall your previous versions through the Windows control panel.

Timbo should update the first thread with this once he reads it. Also, what can I tell you fine ladies and gentlemen about this? I'd like to do a videolog, but I've no idea what to talk about! Let me know!

I finally get to actually play this :) The 2nd link you gave me didn't work either, lol.

Anyway, I thought the new blocks looks really colorful, though I thought it's a pity you lost the stairs. It set the game apart from the usual platformers for me. You guys were asking for opinion earlier about blocks or panels, and my vote would probably go with panels. But must it really be 4pixel high? That's gonna be a really pain for the visual department, lol. As for the tower's height... maybe it can be shorten with climbing ropes and bouncy stuff... like clouds or sort.

If you guys are going for the blocks though, I suggest having curvy corners for at least a pixel. Right now, they look very flat, which is such a waste, since you guys have this really nice rotating efx.

Btw, is the idea running to the top of the tower while the platform below falls apart? I wanted to do that for Tobe back then, but we ran out of time. It would be really cool though.

Sadly using platforms any bigger than 4 pixels high started to cause issues with the smooth stepping up that Janitor was doing (I'm sure Zach can explain why better in his up-coming video log) and a 4 pixel panel as you probably know gives you so little room to make it look good. I do appreciate the feed back you gave last time mate I must admit after you voiced it too I decided maybe avoiding the Fez visual style was pointless so as you've no doubt noticed things are looking a bit more Fezy in this build lol.

We already have the sprites for Ropes and with luck they'll be in the next release. As for bouncy things, weirdly that never crossed my mind, I keep getting called a Feature Creep by Zach recently for wanting to stick more and more into the game so he may hit me for it but I'll see if we can add bouncy things :D this also begs a question which I'd love to hear feed back on...what bouncy things? Sonic has springs, Crash Bandicoot had turtles and boxes, Mario has Mushrooms, what should Janitor use?


Ah good point. I've just transferred over from using Flash to using GraphicsGale for my sprite work, this means I have to redraw all the blocks anyway so I'll toy around with rounded corners and effects to make them feel more real :)


Well we were thinking of having the tower falling down below Janitor as he climbed but a few people have said they enjoyed the feeling of exploration in the early test build, even though this wasn't our intention people liked it and I'm concerned throwing in a time limit via the tower falling down may destroy that fun. Although (once again if Zach doesn't punch me for being a Feature Creep) I may see about throwing in some 'collapsing tower' levels every now and then as one of the ways to break up the repetition of the game a little :)

Although if we do use the idea please don't sue us :beg: lol

This is the best thing that's happened since we started the project. :P

The main reason why the blocks were originally 4 pixels tall was purely for the art style. Each sprite is upscaled 400%, so the 24x4 platforms become 96x16 platforms in the actual window. Timbo could draw the platforms at 96x16, but the tiles will look much less chunky that the rest of the art.

I can implement stairs with whatever height we choose to use, but it starts to look odd as the stepsize increased.

Since the map is designed on a grid, I'd like to keep the grid as large as possible. Right now, it's set to a 24x24 grid (16x22 player), allowing map creation to be more straightforward (a player can fully fit inside one block, so as long as there's a 1-tile gap, the player can pass through). With the smaller tiles, a player takes up 4 tiles vertically and 1 tile horizontally, so it's much more confusing trying to keep that in account.

I also think some of the frustration is the level design itself. I only slightly modified the actual map since adding the larger tiles, so the parts that were stairs now became painful jumpfests (this slow gameplay should be avoided in actual, real maps). Most of the vertical translations should be done either with ropes, springs or little back-and-forth platforming parts (like the little jump area shown here (http://zachwlewis.dyndns.org/svn/tower-game/Promotional/Gameplay100210_003.png)).

I like the large tiles, and I like the stepping, but I'm having a hard time visualizing how we should implement both of them. If anyone has any ideas, I'd be more than happy to hear them.

Finally, I'm planning on filming a video devlog with some recorded gameplay and my beautiful face talking about aspects of the game, and I'm wondering what kind of things you'd be interested in. Do you want small video tutorials technically detailing how I accomplished some of the things in the engine, or do you want a longer, less technical video just showing what we've got and some of the concepts we've toyed around with? Or, do you even want an inside look into this little game experiment?

Cheeky shit :P

Toilets?
Greasy stains?

lol they don't have to have a direct connection to the fact he's a Janitor considering Plumbers and Mushroom, Hedgehogs and Springs, and Bandicoots and Boxes/Turtles don't seem heavily connected.

I uploaded a little video of how cool the game is. (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ckKAw8qAsgo) :tiger:

You should be able to climb so high that you see stars and planets etc.

Just sayin.

nice. In fact, you should go from land to sky to space to sky to land again (another planet).

I also liked the "toilet spring". Janitor sits on it, and the flush push him up high. Or just uses it like a teleporter. Would be great.

And 1 thing I missed previously - the tower in the logo kinda looked like a penis. I'm not sure if it's just me, but I sees it Everytime. I suspect it's got to do with the last 3 flight of stairs actually.

Now I can't unsee it.

This is maybe irrelevant, but if Janitor swings his mop on a mossy block, could it become less mossy?  (You could get bonus points for how clean the tower is after you finish)

Wow, stick Zach's mug on the internet and suddenly looooads'a feed-back :D keep this up and next time he'll belly dance...but only if your good :-X

Right, first of all god damn you rayteoactive :( mokesmoe‽'s right, now you've pointed it out we can't un-see it lol Luckily with the redesign of the tower I'll most likely have to redesign the logo also before we release the game (as the two towers in no way match anymore) but if you notice penisyness again don't corrupt our innocent minds with your filthy one :P

As for backgrounds the original plan was to have if that level 1 would see Janitor heading up from the ground, then every 10 towers the sky would get darker till for the last 10 or 20 towers he's in space, I do like the idea of it somehow landing on another planet but I'm not sure if we'll be doing that (meanly because we need the top of the last tower for our EPIC BATTLE!).

The toilet idea is worth looking into, I do like the idea of him sitting on it for some kind of benefit be it to teleport or refilling his health. Have to see if we have time to put it in later down the line (as right now the key things to get into the game are the core game-play elements).

Interesting idea there JR Hill, I do like this but it's a call for Zach to make just cause it sounds kinda code heavy (it may not be but I know NOTHING about code) and he's got a fair chunk of work within Monolith as it is. If Monolith 2 comes out one day little features like this would have to work their way in of course :D

Yeah, I was getting phallic vibes from your logo as well but being new and all I didn't want to be a jerk. ::)

I don't know your core vision for the game because I'm not you.  I will say, though, that if you're worried about redundancy (and with 100 planned levels I can understand why) then continually introduce something new to the player over the course of the game.  Super Metroid keeps giving you better weapons and movement abilities.  World of Warcraft keeps giving you new spells as you level up.  Halo introduces progressively more daunting enemies in progressively more complex combinations.

Because your game is a platformer I'm going to reference Yoshi's Island (which, incidentally, is my personal favorite platformer of-all-time).  Just when you've got the game under control it throws something new at you, all the way to the end.  You got jumping down?  Now shoot eggs at that winged cloud.  You shooting eggs well now?  Okay, give this spring-ball a try.  Spring-balls not giving you much trouble I see.  Well Touch Fuzzy Get Dizzy!  I could go on: platforms that move in the direction they're rotated, flipping spikes, fade-away walls, vehicle transformations.  The point is that the game is always asking the player to learn a new mechanic and it ends up feeling like eight platformers in one.

You may not like the games or the specific examples I mentioned but they're all successful for a reason: they did something to hold people's attention.  Like I said, though, I don't know what your vision for the game is so ultimately do what seems best to you.  Hopefully I gave you a little something extra to think about, though. :beer:


P.S.
Love the developer video.  Very professionally cut and I really enjoyed getting such a personal tour of what you've got so far.


P.P.S.
I also want to add that I sort of like the slower jumping.  It reminds me of Shadow of the Colossus in that the jumps feel like they have some real force behind them.  I imagine faster jumping would be great to but I don't think it's necessarily bad the way it is.  At any rate, I've rambled long enough...

Welcome to TIG! :) and don't worry, I'm too busy not forgiving rayteoactive for pointing it out first... :handshakeL: >:( :handshakeR: lol


I think you raise some good points, we are close to moving into the phase where I get to make way too many bad guys and have to animate them all *tightens the noose* so if you (or anyone else) has an idea for a monster we can include in the game feel free to say! I'd like to bring in a new monster every tower or two (excluding boss towers where your objective will just be to climb like hell) meaning I need more ideas than I can come up with alone so your help would be appreciated.

On the whole thing of upgrades we actually have a plan for that :D at the beginning of each tower you'll start in a small room with a save point, some health (or a toilet) and the guy we only know as Merchant. Merchant will give the player a new line of funny dialog at the start of each tower but also will sell Janitor upgrades for his mop or ability to jump (who knows maybe there will be a quick jump ability). These will be paid for with the coins and loot you collect climbing the tower (also the incentive to explore a tower even if the way to the top seems easy). We hope this will allow players to slow the difficulty curve of the game by upgrading Janitor to cope with the new challenges (thus playing though the game once is wise before you take a serious stab at it cause you don't wanna upgrade your mop attack then find out you could have done with a jump upgrade). If you can think of ideas for upgrades please let us know also! (I'm thinking of adding a Dance Upgrade which will have no use but to make Janitor dance...why? BECAUSE I CAN!  >:D)


All feed back is appreciated and even if we don't show it theirs a good chance we took it on board...then mocked it behind your back and ignored it...but still, we do appreciate all opinions, ideas, and cash made payable to Timbo J. :handthumbsupL:


Zach gets all credit for his work there even I was impressed, wait till I do a video, no fancy background like Zach! You get to see a messy bedroom and the wonderful background sound of a snoring dog!


Damn now I wanna make a Colossus level...sadly there were no penis shaped Colossus...

Right, I'm in the process of toying with some logo ideas for Monolith after the penis incident (even my own Mum said "oooo! That's a bit phallic isn't it!" ...something no man should have to hear from his own mother...) so how about this:

(http://i17.photobucket.com/albums/b81/anch0vy/monologo.png)

Now I have no plans of this being the final version, just throwing something out there to get feed back to work from, so give me your feedback you sexy people! :beg:

That's funny, that's the exact same thing your mom said to me last night.

Only a bit phallic? Something's wrong with you man.

I like it, but I also see this:

(http://timeforcute.com/cute/2010/02/finger-gun.png)

By the way, what kind of music are you looking for?

Haha Zach I gotta side with mokesmoe‽ here, you should see a doctor if your only a BIT phallic...also all these times you've refereed to your 'girlfriend' I didn't know you ment my mum!

Thank god JR, when I scrolled down and saw red lines I thought you'd found another penis (this thread can't take any more wang...just like Zachs mum). As for music, Not too sure, we've been kinda focused on getting the game it's self running before we were gonna think about music, also as nether of us are musicians whoever we dragged kicking and screaming on board would probably be presented with a level and asked to make a tune that they feel fits it. 

lol, tim-bo-jay is cursed

How about something like this?
http://timeforcute.com/cute/2010/02/explore.mp3

Or maybe this...
http://timeforcute.com/cute/2010/02/strawberry-cream.mp3

I wanna contribute to the game since I played Nebulous as a little kid and this is so lovely in graphics and implementation. :-*

I am :( I just think I suffer from an innocent mind while your all dirty pervs who see penises in everything...EVEN PENISES! :wtf:


I love the tunes although I'm not sure if their the style we are looking for, their quite...well as your site hints at, Cute. For Monolith I imagine we'll want up beat mario-ish music...I'll talk with Zach though, see if he's ready to start thinking about bringing on someone to make music :)

I like the music. We'll also need some sound effects. It may be good to get them in early just to ease the integration.

How about you talk with Timbo online, and we'll get something rolling!

Your contributions are awesome, and we really appreciate it!

Do you mean mario-like as in longer, or in instruments, or in mood or what?

I guess in tempo, something upbeat, longer (people will hopefully be exploring these towers for extra treasures so a short looping tune will get to people after a while) and as for the mood there will be varying moods, for example a boss level (the ones where the tower will be falling from under you) will need a quicker more panicky tune where as a normal tower will need something that says 'I'm on an epic quest!' but can be varied ever so slightly so every 5 or 10 towers we can change the tune, not radically but enough that the player wont become annoyed by the loop.

I guess THIS (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7s_yjFU6_JQ) is kinda the tune i had in mind for Monoliths basic tower music (something like this, obviously not this exactly lol) may help a bit more than my rather awful attempt at explaining lol

Ahhh I suck at chiptunes. :P Idk I'll mess around with pxtone a bit and let you know if I make anything good.

I really look forward to it dude :D

You might want to consider a more abstract design for your logo.  Maybe create something of a spiraling upward swoosh symbol to convey the idea of the rotating tower?  At this point, though, I imagine your first concern is the game proper. ;)

If I think of any great enemy ideas I'll be sure to share, but I'm really eager to see what you've come up with (implemented in a playable build, of course).  Also the pseudo-RPG upgrade system sounds like a great idea!  Purchasing mop upgrades is...inspired.

Keeping an eye on this thread and looking forward to updates.  Best of luck!

Better logo, only problem is, that to me theres a bit of a clash of pallets. I think you either need to make the blocks more drab (like the janitor) or make the janitor more colourful.

I don't know, I still don't see the penis in the logo. :P

Today, I'm going to try to get climbing ropes in the alpha. We'll see how that goes. :)

lol someone will highlight it any time now :P

Also looking forward to taking a poke at the ropes and seeing if Janitors climb animation works or if he looks like he's humping

Gameplay video for Monolith alpha 3 is available. (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z8Rw67Rc1Qc)

You may also download and play the third alpha version of Monolith. (http://zachwlewis.dyndns.org/svn/tower-game/Releases/Monolith003.zip)

Additionally, here are lots of pictures.

(http://zachwlewis.dyndns.org/svn/tower-game/Promotional/Screenshots/Gameplay100213_001.png)

(http://zachwlewis.dyndns.org/svn/tower-game/Promotional/Screenshots/Gameplay100213_002.png)

(http://zachwlewis.dyndns.org/svn/tower-game/Promotional/Screenshots/Gameplay100213_003.png)

(http://zachwlewis.dyndns.org/svn/tower-game/Promotional/Screenshots/Gameplay100213_004.png)

(http://zachwlewis.dyndns.org/svn/tower-game/Promotional/Screenshots/Gameplay100213_005.png)

(http://zachwlewis.dyndns.org/svn/tower-game/Promotional/Screenshots/Gameplay100213_006.png)

(http://zachwlewis.dyndns.org/svn/tower-game/Promotional/Screenshots/Gameplay100213_007.png)

(http://zachwlewis.dyndns.org/svn/tower-game/Promotional/Screenshots/Gameplay100213_008.png)

(http://zachwlewis.dyndns.org/svn/tower-game/Promotional/Screenshots/Gameplay100213_009.png)

(http://zachwlewis.dyndns.org/svn/tower-game/Promotional/Screenshots/Gameplay100213_010.png)

(http://zachwlewis.dyndns.org/svn/tower-game/Promotional/Screenshots/Gameplay100213_011.png)

(http://zachwlewis.dyndns.org/svn/tower-game/Promotional/Screenshots/Gameplay100213_012.png)

(http://zachwlewis.dyndns.org/svn/tower-game/Promotional/Screenshots/Gameplay100213_013.png)

(http://zachwlewis.dyndns.org/svn/tower-game/Promotional/Screenshots/Gameplay100213_014.png)

(http://zachwlewis.dyndns.org/svn/tower-game/Promotional/Screenshots/Gameplay100213_015.png)

(http://zachwlewis.dyndns.org/svn/tower-game/Promotional/Screenshots/Gameplay100213_016.png)

(http://zachwlewis.dyndns.org/svn/tower-game/Promotional/Screenshots/Gameplay100213_017.png)

(http://zachwlewis.dyndns.org/svn/tower-game/Promotional/Screenshots/Gameplay100213_018.png)

(http://zachwlewis.dyndns.org/svn/tower-game/Promotional/Screenshots/Gameplay100213_019.png)

(http://zachwlewis.dyndns.org/svn/tower-game/Promotional/Screenshots/Gameplay100213_020.png)

(http://zachwlewis.dyndns.org/svn/tower-game/Promotional/Screenshots/Gameplay100213_021.png)

(http://zachwlewis.dyndns.org/svn/tower-game/Promotional/Screenshots/Gameplay100213_022.png)

(http://zachwlewis.dyndns.org/svn/tower-game/Promotional/Screenshots/Gameplay100213_023.png)

That is all. :tiger:

Hey, I saw this game with similar concept. Thought you might wanna check it out too.
http://mggameserver6.funorb.com/torchallenge/8005/game.ws?js=1 (http://mggameserver6.funorb.com/torchallenge/8005/game.ws?js=1)

Nice work with the ropes.  I'm starting to understand what you meant about being able to "explore" the towers.  My only complaint is that the "snap" onto the ropes is so sudden.  You probably already plan to refine it but I feel compelled to share anyway.

I made it to the top!

And... there were two suns. :o

Wow, that is pretty much the same basic mechanic, although without sounding bitchy to competition I hope our game will be more fun than that one :) (I got bored by level 2) Thanks for the heads up though, it's good to know that there are others and what we have to compete with (luckily at this point we are the ONLY people releasing a game on Xbox Indie which uses this mechanic so at least in that market we are 1 of a kind)


Yeah this is my bad, I made the sky the same size as the background to loop, at the time it seemed like the correct way to do it but I soon realized it meant the second something went out one side of the screen it came in the other, by final release the backdrops will be twice as wide to fix this issue :)

I'm not sure how to fix the snap, unless I just don't let the player get on the rope unless he is exactly on it. That would stop the snap. I can do that, actually. I'll see how it plays out. The only problem is, we always keep the player in the center of the screen (to make it look right), so there's going to be a bit of a pop. How much is up to the code, I suppose.

looking cool, but has it been mentioned that the monolith in the logo is very phallic? I think it's mostly because of the clouds, i'm not sure they are necessary. also the lines circling the monolith are borderline vein-like at a distance.

Our gamma entry was originally called monolith, i did some logos for it, maybe this would help:

(http://dl.dropbox.com/u/1350983/Picture%2042.png)
not great, but maybe it'll spark some ideas...

Awesome design mate :) and it may have been mentioned once or twice about the wangyness of our logo :(

I think I may draw some ideas from your logo design if you don't mind :D

I'm putting the logo on the back burner for now though while I make some bad guys (proving more tricky than I thought to keep them varied) but expect Logo Version 3 before the end of the month I hope (and if you guys find something in the shape of this one...I'll kill this adorable panda...:panda:)

Hey guys and gals, it's 3:44am so this will probably make little seance so I'll keep it short, just wanted to announce that we will be working with the handsome duo Dan and Chris from Hyper Duck for the audio side of Monolith. We have a mutual love for each others work which is always a bonus and have come to an agreement over who gets to keep the kids in the future...we get to keep Superfly but only because he was deprived of oxygen at birth and they get to keep Nathanial...I'm sorry what the hell am I talking about? (although kudos if you get the reference)

*ahem*

So yes, all music and sound effects for Monolith will be handled by Hyper Duck :D I'm excited to see how this goes!

This game just got quite a bit better with this last update.

Albuquerque is a fun place to visit, but I don't think I'd want to live there.

Hyper Duck is win. I hope to have a simple music track in the next release. :)

I would definitely keep the snap.  Rope climbing can be frustratingly clumsy in platformers and the snap really streamlines the process for a player.  It is visually jarring, though.  I see two potential options.  I'll admit I'm not much of a programmer and you may not be able to implement either of these with the system you've got setup but ignorance has never stopped me giving advice in the past! ;)

After the player enters the "climb rope" state instantly snap their actual position to the rope and slide the character's sprite closer to the player's actual position (along the X axis) a little bit at a time per frame until it's aligned.  The sprite's Y position would likely stay equal to the actual Y position.  I can picture this in my mind and I think it would look very smooth, though you'd probably have to disable the ability to drop off the rope until the X positions were equal so the sprite didn't get "stuck" trailing the actual position off the rope.

The other option (and you may want to consider both) is to "loosen the camera".  Basically just have the view centered on a hidden actor that's always moving towards the character actor at a speed (pixels/frame) just slightly faster than the player's top speed.  You could accomplish the same thing by just using some clever math to update the camera's position, too.  It's usually pretty simple to implement and gives everything a more natural feel.

I don't know if either of those are feasible or how they'll look with your production style but hope that helps at least a bit.  If you wanted some legitimately informed advice you could always hit up the technical forum, too. :gentleman:

<3

aw man, this game gets better and better each time I visit the thread. You guys are putting my productivity to shame!

(also, timbo, what's up with the constantly changing sigs?)

Thanks dude :D and in truth Zach needs most of this credit, I just keep making the job harder with silly mistakes lol Blame him for putting you to shame! *runs away*

I dunno, I get fidgety and procrastinate a lot, you should see my MSN pic, it's different every day, my blog has been redesigned about 10 times in it's life and this is the 3ed version of the blocks in Monolith, I'm awful for changing stuff :(

that's a very good thing. keep changing/experimenting until it's the best it can be. (except for the procrastination part)

BTW, I had a thought about the logo... what if you did this with the type, or rather just this idea...

(http://dl.dropbox.com/u/1350983/Picture%2087.png)
You could make the letterforms 3D (like the blocks) as well. This is a real rough job done in literally 1 minute, but I think the idea could go somewhere...  :beer:

The same thing with the letters vertical could look pretty cool I think.

@jump: I could try the eased snap like you mentioned. I don't really like the idea of allowing the player to get away from the center of the tower, because I'm afraid it would throw the visual effect of scrolling around the tower off. I'll give the eased snap a try and see how that turns out.

@aeiowu: I like that idea. Especially with our blocks making up the words. That would look cool.

I'm just going to leave this link to the Monolith development weblog here. (http://zachwlewis.dyndns.org/monolith/)

I gotta say coming up with a new logo isn't going swimmingly. I've loved the ideas on here but remaking them with the Monolith Blocks is proving far from easy (and raises questions over how it will look when re-sized smaller). I'll focus on getting the logo finished tomorrow then it's back to making oodles of monsters (and some GUI graphics) so if you have any ideas let me know :D

I'm trying to think of what the actual opposite of a janitor is.

Or maybe enemies that are based on trash...

Boss:
(http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/7/7e/AEOrangeOscar.jpg)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oscar_the_Grouch

I love those monsters. Great job! I can't wait to see what the yellow blob one and the grey floaty jellyfish one do.

I'm a fan of exclamation mark Cthulhu face.

(http://i17.photobucket.com/albums/b81/anch0vy/totallynotgrouch.png)

Think we'd get sued?

I dont think so  :whome:

but then again, you might..b
anyway, I think the jim henson company will have too much fun playing to care.
they're only homages anyway.

After banging my head against the wall of arc length for the past few hours, I've got a passable version of camera easing implemented to reduce the sudden snap when climbing ropes. I'm currently uploading a video of it in action, and I will share it as soon as it's finished.

Zach has done a video as mentioned above but can't access TIG right now so HERE (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lYCf7U4dzLE&feature=player_embedded) be the link. You can also check it out at our own Dev.Log which Zach CAN access...I smell favoritism there...tisk tisk tisk!

Oh and Zach has given the green light on almost all the monsters I've posted (only the Fuzzy Yellow Blob is in question due to some tricky issues with my idea for them so re-thinking them now). As I finish the animations for each monster I'll post a little Bio here for it :D

I can access TIG, I just couldn't access our own DevLog. I think the DNS didn't propagate to this machine. It's all good now. I can access both.

n i c e !

Yesterday I got the rope snapping much tighter and modified the player's movements while on ropes. There's now much more bounce when jumping from rope to rope, which allows for further jumps without looking terrible.

I started working on enemies as well, but about two hours into it (and twenty "This is fucking stupid"s later), I realized that I'm probably going to have to rewrite the movement and update functions, which should be fun.

I'll post my ideas on how to handle Cartesian movement around a cylindrical grid if people are interested.

Just thought I'd put this here for people who tend to not check the first post unless we have a new release for download.

Ah. This'll be to do with the npc collisions then hmm?

Yeah. :facepalm:

I never thought Monolith would get a little following. I had always planned it as a fun throw away project, but now shit's getting serious, so we're cleaning everything up.

Starting over is hectic.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uThVLtclSOQ (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uThVLtclSOQ)

Might want to warn people with epilepsy about that video before hand lol. Luckily I thrive on those types of videos, but I think one of my eyelids is stuck closed.. (just awake)


AND YES, I enjoyed it :D

I  like. You should have that as the intro to the game (maybe slowed down a bit) and then fade your names up in the foreground...

At least you decided to recode it early in development.

 :handshakeL: :epileptic: :handshakeR:

 :handanykey: :screamy: :handanykey:

Come on Mecha, give us some sweet techno beats and we can ship this bitch.

This is me, working like a bitch that I served last night. (I did no bitches, last night.)

I actually have some stuff already, but that'll be for you guys to check out soon, just gimme a while to recover :) (broken hand, one handed typing FTW.)

I'm typing one handed right now, too. :eyebrows:

Woo hoo, the game is done! Upload it to XBLIG NOW! :durr:

 :monoclepop: BAW GAWD THAT IS TWISTED! And I will stop derailing the good ship Monolith now. Carry on with relevant monolithic references, unless all of this is going in the game.

Oh...oh god...just reading this page has violated me sexually... :'(

*ahem* back on track, I've been working on a design document for the game after a telling off for randomly throwing in features too late into development causing the game to become a mess, anyway, I've got the basic enemies (including a pirate AND a ninja...maybe even a Pinja) and been working on pickups. What kind of upgrades would you guys like to see in the game? Obviously I won't be able to use some ideas if I feel they'll break the gameplay or something but all ideas are welcome :beer:

Hey nice work guys, I hadnt seen this game before, somehow i missed it ??? .   Just wanted to drop some encouragement, it looks really awesome!  Ill be watching closely for now on.

Pirate AND a ninja    :handanykey::addicted::handjoystick:

Also, how about themed levels? like a pirate ship themed level with pirates in...

Hmmm would be hard to make a tower look like a pirate ship :P lol I'll give it some thought but right now I'm trying to get the basics written up and then I'll flesh it out.


Thanks dude :D

Glad we're back on track. :)

To reward everyone, I'll leave this programmer commentary of the engine rebuild over here...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tE-ShqTczfk (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tE-ShqTczfk)
http://zachwlewis.dyndns.org/monolith/2010/02/21/videolog-monolith-engine-reconstruction-and-enemy-ai/ (http://zachwlewis.dyndns.org/monolith/2010/02/21/videolog-monolith-engine-reconstruction-and-enemy-ai/)

Good to hear you guys are doing what's best for the game, even if it means taking a few steps back.  Also, maybe I'm just weird but, I'm really enjoying these developer diary videos.  It's just cool to see what fellow enthusiasts are working on.

Keep it up!

We've already gotten it back to feature parity with the original version... I guess it hardly feels like taking steps back when we manage to rebuild the whole thing in a weekend. Coming next: different tile types (sticky tiles anyone?) and more enemies.

New videolog! This one has zombies in it!

http://www.youtube.com/v/8KYcWihhZsY (http://www.youtube.com/v/8KYcWihhZsY)
http://zachwlewis.dyndns.org/monolith/2010/02/23/videolog-the-frozenslick-tower-of-unyielding-undeath-thats-ice-and-zombies-to-you/ (http://zachwlewis.dyndns.org/monolith/2010/02/23/videolog-the-frozenslick-tower-of-unyielding-undeath-thats-ice-and-zombies-to-you/)

It looks pretty cool and smooth looking.

My brain wants more contrast between the sky and the ice zombie though. Maybe that's just my prejudice about ice zombies.

There are contrast issues, especially when an enemy "fades out" after being hit. Since we're going to have multiple backgrounds depending on how high you climb, we may have to have different sprite colors to contrast properly with the tiles and the backgrounds as we go.

Also, yes. You are severely prejudiced. Ice zombies are zombies, too!

But in no way are they snowmen :( last time I'll try sticking a carrot in one...

MOP-FOO!

Never underestimate the power of industrial cleaning supplies.

New devlog. We've got a map editor.
View the videolog on the devlog. (http://zachwlewis.dyndns.org/monolith/2010/02/28/videolog-i-may-not-be-a-cartographer-but-i-can-make-bitchin-maps/)
Or on YouTubes. (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qE_EiNOqhxo)

While working on the map editor, I started working on an unrelated problem, so I wrote about it.

Read about forward thinking and content generation on our Devlog. (http://zachwlewis.dyndns.org/monolith/2010/03/01/forward-thinking-and-content-generation/)

Looking awesome mate :) as soon as I have everything installed and setup I'll start toying around with the builder!

Also once I've actually woken up (yes it's 12:30 and I'm just waking up...fear my laziness) I'll get all this sexy content on the front page of the Dev.Log :D

Nice! also, happy st davids day timbo!

The hell?! It's St. Davids day?!

Don't tell any other Welsh people I forgot, they'll kill me...slowly... :o

I wrote a little article explaining how I create my videologs. (http://zachwlewis.dyndns.org/monolith/2010/03/03/on-making-memorable-media-my-videolog-process/)

Well we now have a 9 day old layer of dust over this Dev.Log although time to give it a little kick. I've updated the front page to include the new videos Zach has posted :)

I've also just gotten access to the rather sexy level builder. Obviously it's an early build as half the games content isn't actually working yet but it's giving me a feel for how fun and surprisingly easy it is to make levels. The challenge will be in making a large number of fun and ever more challenging levels though. Any ideas or advice is welcome on level design (not so much objects and enemies, but what we can do with what we have so far, which has been shown off in the dev.log videos) is welcome :-)

Thanks to some handy work by Zach and Noah towers will vary in side not only in their hight but how wide they are too allowing for some insanely wide levels or some weirdly thin ones (the thinner a level the harder it is against enemies due to less space to run, but wider levels can be more tricky for run&jump challenges).

I'll be dedicating this weekend to getting the rest of the enemies drawn and animated ready for Zach and Noah to add them in, once this is done I'll be recording my first video log in which I'll explain each enemy to you as well as showing off some of my less than skilful level building powers (we may also have a treat or two in the game by then I can show off too).

Oh and...

Great work so far on this, I watched most of the videos and this is looking mighty good. :)

We've got some editor footage. It's so fresh, even Timbo hasn't had a chance to stank it up.

YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ar_x5gzIu_s

Devblog: http://zachwlewis.dyndns.org/monolith/2010/03/13/videolog-live-editor-creates-and-saves-your-hopes-and-dreams/

I hope you enjoy! <3

Dude, due to bad sleep I thought I'd pop on my netbook to check out TIG quickly and noticed you'd updated...jesus that's a major jump O_O if it wasn't 6:25am (and I haven't slept yet) I'd be at my PC giving the new build a go :D I'm not sure what our future plans for the map maker are but if based on what you was saying we will be releasing it to the public to play with maybe we should kick off a competition once the editor is finished (and has all monster types, traps and keys added) to see who can build the best level, no idea of the prize but I'm sure one or two of the dev.log readers would be interest right guys? :)

Anyway, time to attempt sleep again...ergh...

G'Night Internet!

Wow, map editor looks suhweet and simple. I can imagine some very challenging jumps on the skinny levels.

I was actually thinking the exact same thing. I've been messing around with super skinny maps, and blind jumps from a gap to a rope on the opposite side of the world are super fun to play with. I see lots of challenging maps being designed around this mechanic.


Noah and I were actually talking about that tonight. Since we're going to have 99 towers, I think it would be awesome to crowd-source some of it. It would be cool to get the users in on the development process and see the kind of maps they want to play.

Once we have a bunch of maps (and see the kind of challenges people are crafting), we can take the inspirations behind them and wrap them in our style for release. That way, a player could be jumping from rope to rope while dodging falling zombies and think: "Hey, that's my trap!"

I envision the first few maps of each tower being rather simple, just introducing the mechanics, then ramp up to Meat Boy difficulty by the end. I don't want the barrier of entry to be too large, but I still want it to be a challenge for gamers of all skill levels. It'll be a balancing act, that's for sure.

That zombie is incredibly adorable.

Where did this go!?!

FEAR NOT! The Monolith has not fallen!

I got a new job and had to move so I went MIA for a month or two, and Zach is drowning in work right now (I think the same applies to Noah also). Even if I have to get them addicted to crack and then with hold more crack till they code THIS GAME SHALL BE FINISHED!

It just may take longer than previously planned :-) hope to have an update sooner rather than later <3

Yeah... I've got two weeks left of class, but after that, we're good to go. :)

Understood!  My artist partner is currently crunching for finals week, too.  Looking forward to seeing some updates from fellow XNA homies!   :handanykey:

I also want to make a brief update regarding the development of the game. I purchased an XBOX360 for testing and stuff. I've gotten another project (http://forums.tigsource.com/index.php?topic=11732.0) running on my XBOX successfully, but it seems as if some of the libraries we're using in Monolith to save and load maps (ISerializable, I'm looking at you  :-X) aren't part of the XNA framework.

If we had a development XBOX from the get go, this would be a problem. It's actually not too big of a problem anyway, since the saving and loading functionality is pretty well encapsulated by my loader class, but it is kind of a disappointment not being able to click "Deploy" and play some Monolith. :P

I suppose that's the most interesting thing that's been going on in Monolith as of late. Well, that and getting the map editor in a few people's hands to see what they come up with (spoiler: they don't understand that a rope connects to a block and is not designed to float in midair). As always, we'll keep you posted with new builds and features both here and on our development log (http://zachwlewis.dyndns.org/monolith/) (if I can ever get Timbo to post on the damn thing).

Ok ok I see a hint in there Zach about me updating the official blog once in a while :-P I'm actually toying with something at the moment which if it works out will result in a major update on there from me (including a video! YOU WILL SUFFER MY SEXY WELSH ACCENT!). Also I'll grab you on G.Talk sometime to check a few things, based on that we should have some basic news I can update with :D

Also something for on-lookers to look forward too is that soon after everyones finished their Uni stuff we should have some demo tunes up on here from those sexy men at HyperDuck, I'm genuinely excited about hearing what they come up with :D