TIGSource Forums

Features:
- Randomly generated guns (better guns generated based on how far you get)
- Crazy Zombies
- A buttload of various monsters
- Explosions
- Retro platformer aesthetic
- Crazy hard bosses
- Awesome special weapons
- A whole bunch of love

Videos:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tSUIgT2a3KY
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qISkhElvXVw
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bR_7Q4R2O60
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lnSIanc254I
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TI7BY0iiiwA
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RZvat3dyHHE
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ww8HGYAyJH8
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q1R-0B3PEgI


Builds:
http://voltic.site90.com/?page_id=48

Sample Pics (read on for more):
(http://i.imgur.com/VrylK.png)(http://i.imgur.com/M3pSV.png)(http://i.imgur.com/Ugzex.png)(http://i.imgur.com/7N1lN.png)(http://i.imgur.com/5NFkL.png)(http://i.imgur.com/VLDvH.png)

---

Original First Post


So, we've (my friend zigzag (http://forums.tigsource.com/index.php?action=profile;u=53426) and I) just started working on a new project. It's a little bit like 2D Call of Duty zombies, but not really. I just wanted to work on something where its really satisfying to jump around / shoot / kill everything.


Progress is gonna be slow for a while since I'm in the middle of University Exams right now, but in the holidays this should move along a lot.

Any suggestions RE: monsters / game names / gun ideas are welcome!

Features Added:
- New Tileset
- Interface buttons can be repositioned as the user wants


Only a little bit of work today as procrastination from study. Did a quick grass tileset, not happy with the pillar thing he's standing on. It's also a real challenge to get the character / zombies visible in this colour scheme. The zombies have been caught in a rather unfortunate animation frame, just so you know.

Considering some kind of effect surrounding enemies to make them show up... But it might look strange.

Looks great! What are you making it in? You mention CoD Zombies but it looks very platformer from the screenshots at least. Is it survival gameplay? What's the level goal? Kill x zombies, reach the exit, survive x minutes, or ....? Randomized guns sounds like a really awesome standout feature. Multiplayer?

We're making it in good old MMF2, despite its limitations it's got alright multiplatform support going and it's good for working with my friend who's not exactly a programmer. He can lay out / change maps and add basic features without me etc.

CoD zombies is a bit of an inspiration in a vague way. I just used to play it a lot with my friends, but the idea is wave based survival combat, with each round bringing more varied enemies and better / more random weapons. Maybe periodic boss rounds? Not all fleshed out yet.  >:D

Multiplayer's pretty hard to pull off on iOS, for a computer release we should be able to get Co-Op in though, I love playing survival things that way.

It's looking great! Are you thinking of including other gear or will loot only be weapon based?

I would love a defend the base mode, kind of like old school AVP, it would be great for quick bursts of zombie slaying while commuting or on a lunch break.

 :handmoneyL: take my money, seriously; take my money.  :-*

Haven't thought about what other loot to, uh, loot yet! But I love being able to collect stuff. I don't want to RPG it up with complex armor etc though, so I'm not sure what the best angle is?

Definitely keen on a defend the base mode, that's a great idea.

(http://i.imgur.com/7T3Cc.png)

Managed to get a new enemy type in to the game tonight (a little hopping work that features in almost all my games, with a temp sprite), and get collectable coins working.

Coins are going to be used for buying guns that aren't random (just good if you don't wanna gamble with random guns), ammo, upgrades etc. The game will be free on iOS so the In App Purchase option for coins means we could have a little income - I'd rather have more people play the game than charge for it straight up... But I want to try and avoid the iOS gaming crap that comes with IAP's, none of this BUY YOUR HISCORE stuff. Nothing will be able to be purchased that couldn't be earned.

(http://i.imgur.com/hJrW1.png)
The coins flying to the display are sort of visible here, it's an effect best seen in motion.

(http://i.imgur.com/eJkKV.png)
 :o

Interesting style and aesthetic! The gameplay sounds mighty wonderful, to boot. Keep up the good work -- I'm keeping my eyes on this one!

I'm totally super duper interested !! If you go for the defend the base mode, you definitely need turrets/barricades/mines/etc.

Definitely, I will most likely be working out the details for standard survival gameplay before I get around to defend-the-base modes though.

Features Added Today
- Made "Jump Pads" for rapid vertical changes (I foresee frantic sprints to these to escape a hoard, but some enemies will be able to use them).
- Added multiple weapons and the framework for all guns
    - Gun stats: Damage, Effect, Bullet Speed, Fire Rate, Spread, Number of Bullets per shot, Automatic or not, Bullet Type (purely visual)
    - Leads to fun things like rapid fire 6 bullet shotgun (pictured below)
- Guns can be changed between by swiping left and right at the top of the iPhone screen

(http://i.imgur.com/gbPks.png)
Jump pads / a shotgun

(http://i.imgur.com/7UTvR.png)
Crazy guns bro

The current gun display is temp, and the actual gun you hold will change with different weapons.  :handforkL: :durr: :handknifeR:

No coding work today (too busy studying) but a page of notes on a new enemy type idea and some gun doodles. Nothing special, just keeping this up to date!

(http://i.imgur.com/7mk7Vs.jpg) (http://i.imgur.com/7mk7V.jpg)

Click for my full scan, basically the enemy crawls on the ceiling, and if you're underneath him he'll drop on to you (or try to). If he finds himself on the ground defenseless for too long he'll jump back up and keep trying.

Tossing around the idea of a "Boss Round" every X number of waves in the main mode. Couple tablet doodles below:


Mostly studying and talking about design... Exams are over in a week so, aside from consuming copious amounts of alcohol  :beer:, development should take off.

Nice looks pretty cute, I like the colours.

Hello! I'm the other half of this development team, so I thought I would add to the devlog. At the moment I'm doing a lot of planning and rough idea work and drawing a LOT of dodgy sketches to get ideas to paper before I forget.



Anyway, I will probably post a lot less than Ben (vivavolt) but will keep an eye on this thread. Super keen to hear feedback/suggestions!  :)

Features Added:
- Bullets can now have gravity
- Bullets can bounce off walls and floors
- Bullets have lifetime limits
- Random guns got crazy
- Planning on adding sine wave bullet movements

Below are some different bullet tests, combining bouncing/gravity, negative gravity, ridiculous spread / bouncing etc.

(http://i.imgur.com/aIxOl.png)(http://i.imgur.com/qZCfx.png)(http://i.imgur.com/KmlwH.png)(http://i.imgur.com/QxMRX.png)(http://i.imgur.com/pxBIR.png)(http://i.imgur.com/EzciO.png)(http://i.imgur.com/FJuk6.png)

Madness! I really hope you keep some of the crazy ones in for the later levels. Although will probably be hard to balance... maybe with a limited ammo count.

There's going to be randomly generated weapons that you pick up and use until you run out of ammo (although we haven't decided on ammo refills or a lot of that stuff yet), so there will always be a (very low) chance of getting an amazing weapon. Initially, everything will be pretty weak though and ramp up.

Briefly skimmed over this, but it looks really interesting. I love the graphical style and everything - it's too bad that you're limiting it to mobile devices - OH WAIT, PC'S THERE TOO, AWESOME. :handthumbsupL: :durr: :handthumbsupR:

If you were to put online capability in there, too, that'd be absolutely sweet.

EDIT: Suggestion for a monster - a flying tapeworm that flies across the screen horizontally. It'd go at least one way off the screen and part of one back before you can take one down.

No big news today (both of us are super busy for a little while with exams), but here is another enemy design.

I also spent some time working out the wave mechanism. It should work out that instead of getting hundreds of pointless enemies that will just be cannon fodder, you get more and more higher difficulty monsters. Provided you never die, this means that at the moment you can probably reach up to wave 1000 without any lag issues on the device due to excess enemies. On the PC version this isn't really an issue so we can muck about with this.

Do you think that not having hundreds of enemies in the main game mode will detract from the experience? Or is it more fun to bring down stronger enemies?

Exams are over! Didn't get THAT much done today due to being hungover and not waking up at home / having to do some web design work.

Features added today:
- Gibs / Particles when enemies are killed
- A new type of enemy, a big wandering guy with no eyes inspired by Ricky's (zigzag's) concept

I've recorded a little clip of me running about killing some stuff, it's running a little slow (45-50 instead of 60fps) due to the screen recorder and the animations are a bit broken due to me playing with the keyboard controls.

http://youtu.be/tSUIgT2a3KY

I want it to feel as satisfying as possible to hit and kill enemies so, suggestions?

Liking the video gameplay. Game is looking really good. One thing I didnt realise at first is when you went on the jump pad I didnt realised at first why you went up so high. Would be clearer if there was some sort of visual feedback when using it.

Looking great though. Nice job :gentleman:

Yeah it needs animation / an effect / I was thinking of adding an arrow to it? But I wasn't sure how to do it tastefully? Maybe little arrows that fade in and out above it... I figure worst comes to worst though, once you've used the pad once by accident you'll understand.

Features Added Today:
- New Zombie AI, simple wander behaviour normally and when shot they run towards the player
- The big smashy dudes wander and attempt to crush you
- Health can actually be lost
- The heart on the HUD beats faster / slower depending on your health
- Implemented the interface for gun switching, gun crates will spawn after every round in various parts of the map and you can swap out your weapons (sometimes crates will be ammo topups instead, since you don't always want to throw out your gun)
- New giant zombie and crawling zombie enemies (same AI as the original zombies right now)
- Redraw worms to have a less cute face and a gaping mouth full of teeth instead

(http://i.imgur.com/8g9aB.png)
You can see the big zombie here, and the crawling one is in the pit in the corner - I'll make him bigger later I think.
(http://i.imgur.com/AGkyU.png)
I Had some fun with these animations, but I'm not very good at pixel art especially with respect to animation so it's going to be a bit of a challenge being the artist for the project.
(http://i.imgur.com/TDlsC.png)
The text alignment is off here, I need to keep working on making it look nice - looks more like a debug console than a real game interface.

EDIT: Got a bit more done...

(http://i.imgur.com/yBXd7.png)(http://i.imgur.com/6CNUS.png)
Skeleton dragon is implemented, and there's a YOU'RE GONNA DIE border that shows up now. Also when you avoid damage for a while you can recover health now.

Features Added Today:
- Completed redone skeleton dragon AI, works much better
- He breathes fire
- You can get hurt by everything (though, no death)
- Drew a little "landing" animation for the character
- Started mucking around with icons instead of labels for gun box popup, not done with it and not really happy still... I have no idea what the best presentation is here.

Video is coming once it uploads to YouTube... Could be a while there.

(http://i.imgur.com/Z8bbX.png)(http://i.imgur.com/nP7Zd.png)(http://i.imgur.com/ZRJU5.png)

Can we haz playable demo/build/alpha/beta/ceta/whatever?  :handmoneyL: :handmoneyR:

You definitely will when I've got waves implemented properly (as opposed to instant spawning of every enemy type) and weapon generation done. I.e. when it moves from testing ground to a bit more of an actual game. I really want to get everything feeling spot on from an early point, so feedback from you guys will be vital.  :gentleman:

New video is up, crappy Australian internet took 2 hours to get this on YouTube! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qISkhElvXVw (maybe turn your volume down pre-emptively, sound effects are loud and temporary)

The graphics looks really cool so far, keep up the good work !

stunning !

it looks sooo good :D

I'm not a big fan of the skull's trail (those big orange & red boxes), it stands out a bit too much for my taste ^^

It's actually him breathing fire at you, having trouble with the matching the style for the effect (as you said, it sticks out a bit stylistically). I might have another go later... Not sure how to do it best still.

We're also thinking about a proper name for the project at the moment, so the thread / project may be renamed very soon!

Not much to show everyone today, I'm on holiday (skiing) until tomorrow so all you get is a quick concept sprite for an enemy I talked about earlier.

(http://i.imgur.com/FH3QU.png)

We've been looking at the name (The) Fear Machine (the "The" being optional), it has a lot more interest to it and still describes the hordes of unpleasant enemies we are going for. Maybe we should call it Super Fear Machine RX: The Killinating [Turbo Edition] to fully express the retro feel :biglaff:.

The day's only half over but I decided to write about what I've done so far!

Features Added Today:
- Worked on the gun popup display, much happier now (screenshot below)
- Changed the fire effect of the skeledragon, and tweaked his behaviour (you can actually fight him without getting hit now, it's just hard)
- Started work on a titlescreen (also shown below)

(http://i.imgur.com/cRHjU.png)(http://i.imgur.com/M3pSV.png)(http://i.imgur.com/hhgsB.png)

Once again I'll just add, I'm not an artist by trade so any criticism is welcome on all my programmer art!

Looks much better with the coloured stats. Much less like a wall of text.

Features added today:
- Weapons boxes now work completely, next up is the generation algorithm for random guns
- Drew some different gun bodies, so you can tell you've actually changed guns
- Implemented independent ammo supply for each gun, hadn't even realised that was wrong before (pistol has infinite ammo)
- Added some new background elements for interest
- Tweaked the gun popup display a bit

Coming up next:
- Display image of the gun in the box
- More gun shapes / colours
- Gun generation
- Enemy generation based on waves
- Death
- Running out of Ammo
- More enemies!

We talked it over and have, for now at least, settled on (The United States of) Nightmerica for the game. There's a bit of conceptual backstory behind the USA theme, but I see it as a combination of cheesy, retro, 80s sort of naming and a good indicator of the type of game this is still. We don't want it to be taken too seriously, etc.

(http://i.imgur.com/YrqFL.png)(http://i.imgur.com/6cdVm.png)(http://i.imgur.com/zVhws.png)(http://i.imgur.com/jgRq3.png)

Video also available at: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bR_7Q4R2O60  :mockangry:

Ricky and I actually got together today, so we made some pretty good progress!

Features Added Today:
- Thought about (at length), designed (in a spreadsheet) and implemented gun randomisation
- Working from our previous spreadsheet for enemy spawning, we implemented correct handling of waves
- I drew a bunch more gun and bullet images
- Added the ability for bullets to move in sine waves or spirals
- Added a new enemy, known as a Cranberry between us (he divides into two smaller versions of himself on death)
- Redesigned the test map a little, making for more circuits to run around
- Cut out some excess code / objects
- Got around 60fps performance on an iPod Touch 4, and iPad 1 which is good
- You can run out of ammo now
- Tweaked the HUD, to be less obtrusive and show more game

So, big list above, we spent a lot of time working on a function for generating the different stats of random guns based on the round. It got complicated:

(http://i.imgur.com/2fk49l.png) (http://imgur.com/2fk49)
(http://i.imgur.com/gnrWyl.png) (http://imgur.com/gnrWy)

This is basically just us developing a probability distribution that worked... Took some tweaking!

(http://i.imgur.com/Oehmjl.png) (http://imgur.com/Oehmj)

This is the round number spawning spreadsheet, this is also a bit messy.

(http://i.imgur.com/q5qo3l.png)(http://i.imgur.com/gB4bNl.png)(http://i.imgur.com/V9S01l.png)

The interface tweaks and the new enemy, he gets mad when you shoot him.

(http://i.imgur.com/Cm21js.png) (http://imgur.com/Cm21j)
When you mess up the spawning code... River of zombies.

(click for embiggening)

Not too much new stuff to add.

Features Added Today:
- Redesigned the map a bit more, picture of test map included
- Finished spriting and implemented a new type of enemy, spiders jump on to the roof and back down again when they feel like it, they're pretty hard to fight
- Added a "nearest" enemy indicator system, which is really good for tracking down those last few enemies in a round but, not sure if I like how it looks
- Worked on the title screen a bit more

We're really quite close to a demo version being up, I just wonder how much interest there is in giving us feedback on that?

(http://i.imgur.com/MBFHpl.png)(http://i.imgur.com/yuJkLl.png)

(http://i.imgur.com/nMuajl.png) (http://imgur.com/nMuaj)
The map, right now. There are gonna be a few of these, though. The prawn blocks are spawn points for enemies, don't ask.

You have no idea how much your game reminds me of one I worked on about a year ago.
Of course I'd love to try this and give feedback.

Oh yes!
I like the look of this  :P

Not a shocking amount of visual progress today, but a huge amount behind the scenes.

Features Added Today:
- Weapons cost money to pick up now, which already adds a huge amount of balance to the game
- The interface includes indicators describing whether the gun is better than your current weapon
- New display elements highlight the new various options weapons can have
- Zombies can now climb slopes in a minor coding victory
- We implemented a new enemy that can chase you through most parts of the map (he isn't sprited yet, though, just a box)
- Messed around with some new tiles, not sure if they'll even make it into the game in any incarnation

This is basically the first one of my own games I haven't gotten sick of while in early development, it's still fun. Which I think is a good sign!

(http://i.imgur.com/Ugzex.png)(http://i.imgur.com/IONEp.png)
(http://i.imgur.com/2qa8y.png)

Next Up:
- A visually significant getting-hurt effect
- Death
- More enemies
- Optimisation (for iOS performance, MMF is pretty shit at that)

Features Added Over the Weekend:
- New hurt effect, it's pretty clear when you're getting beaten up now
- New enemies, black ghosts that chase you around
- New bullet types (images) and images for guns with effects
- Ammo crates are in, gun crates, ammo crates, special gun crates or something we haven't thought of yet spawn each round at various parts of the map.

When you unlock a new effect on a weapon (by reaching a certain round) you have to go through a "special" round. These rounds only allow you to use your pistol, which will have the new effect added to it and you will have to fight new enemies in a different way to usual. The black ghost enemies are accompanied by unlocking the Fire effect at wave 10.

A decent amount of work went into optimising the enemy behaviours, however this project has officially made me declare that I no longer want to work in MMF2. It's great for fast prototyping but, there are so many annoyances.

(http://i.imgur.com/7N1lN.png)(http://i.imgur.com/c33Sx.png)(http://i.imgur.com/kaLMA.png)

(http://i.imgur.com/7OJ9X.png)

New video should be coming soon to show off everything and then, an alpha demo!

wow, so pretty style

 :o

At the moment we are implementing effects for weapons, which we are still toying with:
- Fire will deal more damage to enemies.
- Ice will temporarily stop enemies moving or hurting you.
- Exploding effects will have an area of damage...
- Lightning effects will also have an area of damage, with more damage depending on the number of enemies affected.
- Wind effect will push enemies back.

Does anyone have any other effect ideas or have any feedback on these? They're important for the game balance but its one of the areas we aren't completely in love with...  :-\

Thanks, that means a lot coming from you, given how pretty your game looks.

Today we implemented the first on the "special rounds" and made some diversity in the types of zombie you encounter early on. No pictures right now, I'll post a full update when I have the time!

Okay! Proper post, today I just fixed some minor bugs and added golden "special" gun crates. These will hold weapons that don't fit the mold of random guns, like mines, grenade launchers etc.

(http://i.imgur.com/MMZL6.png)

We got a title screen in too!

(http://i.imgur.com/VrylK.png)

I also worked on the effect before special rounds occur, it's hard to see in screen caps though.

(http://i.imgur.com/CF2Hd.png)
(http://i.imgur.com/5NFkL.png)

Which is why... I bring you TWO videos!

Video 1: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lnSIanc254I
Video 2: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TI7BY0iiiwA&feature=youtu.be

Features Added Today:
- New Crates for Health and Weapon Mods
- Weapon mod crates randomly change one stat of your current weapon, and are cheaper than gun crates
- New zombie subtypes, they don't all look the same now


Game's actually playable for the most part now, a few more interface and crate tweaks and we can do a public alpha build.

The new crates lead to me creating new spawn points for crates, and an icon for them. I also had to write the following giant steaming pile of poop in MMF because it's too dumb to handle objects not existing all the time.

(http://i.imgur.com/pfd2z.png) (http://i.imgur.com/YzVfw.png)

Here are some normal screenshots showing off health crates etc.

(http://i.imgur.com/kHRKa.png)(http://i.imgur.com/DeaFm.png)(http://i.imgur.com/VLDvH.png)(http://i.imgur.com/uxmlO.png)

Eeugh. MMF doesn't have any scripting, huh? That's kind of tough to deal with, I'd imagine.

Anyway, the shrimp's well-drawn. What does he do? The game's looking fun!

Damnit, stop making me want to work on MafiaDuDes.

Nice game!  Cool name to!

You have access to Python and Lua interfaces but only when developing for the PC... So yeah, I'm thinking about trying out Unity for some future projects.

The shrimp is just a developer-eyes-only graphic haha, they mark the places where enemies / crates spawn which I mistyped as prawn once.


Work on it!


Thanks  :)

-

Today I just rigged the game to support joystick controls, which feels really nice actually. Really happy with how that feels, I played for a good 15 minutes just enjoying my own game which I don't think I've ever done before. Tonight I'll try and get special weapons or mods in!

Ah, I see. A lot of people seem to like Unity - it seems like quality software.


That is a good feeling, isn't it? Right up there with implementing something for the first time and having it work right out of the box. That's probably the high points of programming.

EDIT: Oh, and it's good that you rigged the game to support joystick controls. What kind of joystick do you have? Do you plan on having bind-able joystick controls?

I've got a generic Logitech one, shaped exactly like a 360 one though. I intend to test that it works with the 360 controller at some point, and yeah bindable controls are planned. Shouldn't be too hard.

Features Added Today:
- Revamped the first post in the thread
- Implemented weapon mod boxes
- Added cost and purchasing to ammo / health packs
- Tweaked joystick / button placement
- Changed HUD a little bit

(http://i.imgur.com/4zBdP.png)(http://i.imgur.com/4o9no.png)

Big list!

Features Added Today:
- Made coins counters flash and purchase button will not appear if you have insufficient coins
- Made the first special weapon, mines
- Implemented a new purple cyclops enemy that follows you around in burst of movement
- Created demolition spiders, they are similar to normal spiders except they fire projectiles, do more damage and are stronger
- Created dinosaur enemy capable of following you and jumping over walls / obstacles
- Implemented a special stage for unlocking fire weapons, you begin in the dark and there are two torches you must light up using your pistol, once it is light enough your weapon gains the fire effect which does more damage
- If you get far enough, regular zombies become red zombies, which are just stronger and more powerful

There are also lots of tweaks and balances recently, and there will be many more to ensure the difficulty is sufficient. I also spent a good amount of time trying to work out what exactly future projects might be developed in, I've already got high hopes for Unity, and I spent some time with the free Construct classic today which is pretty nice - aside from the single platform export.

If anyone has the time or an option I might not be aware of please let me know, I'm looking for ability to export to Mac/PC/Linux from one environment mainly but Android/iOS is a bonus. Probably prefer scripting to visual logic.

(http://i.imgur.com/sNjFQ.png)(http://i.imgur.com/wydcQ.png)(http://i.imgur.com/qoYT8.png)(http://i.imgur.com/FBdzu.png)(http://i.imgur.com/KH10V.png)(http://i.imgur.com/OmJnR.png)(http://i.imgur.com/O6DlH.png)(http://i.imgur.com/YM76K.png)

Hey, you! Yeah you! The guy with the game!
I like this.

Thankyou!

Features Added Today:
- Added in the pre-game menus to set your starting round and in future manage your guns / map to play / game mode
- Added in death! (finally)
- Saving your coins over multiple plays now works
- Fixed some bugs with special rounds
- Added a new special weapon - the sword (you can see it in the videos below)
- Fixed some enemy movement bugs leading to them getting stuck inside walls

We are aiming for an alpha demo for you guys by the end of this week (!!!). Still to come are more special rounds, implementation of unlocking certain features, more enemies and more maps! (more maps may bring more gameplay mechanics other than jump pads)


VIDEOS
>:D >:D >:D http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RZvat3dyHHE  >:D >:D >:D
>:D >:D >:D http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ww8HGYAyJH8  >:D >:D >:D

(http://i.imgur.com/im0IMl.png) (http://imgur.com/im0IM)(http://i.imgur.com/m550Xl.png)(http://i.imgur.com/GJmFql.png) (http://imgur.com/GJmFq)(http://i.imgur.com/2V0Yvl.png) (http://imgur.com/2V0Yv)

I've started taking screencaps at the games native resolution to save myself time. Hope it's not too annoying to view the JPEGGY thumbnails from IMGUR. The full res linked pictures are clean.

This game is looking really really cool.
As for the boss' sprite, perhaps the Carrion Queen (http://images1.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb20120610115536/bindingofisaac/images/e/e1/260x185-400px-Carrionqueen.png) from the Binding of Isaac could be an inspiration.
Also, since the sword has a big handicap (it's range), maybe you should make it very powerful, so that it would take most common enemies down with a single hit.

Yeah, it's looking pretty good. I agree with tchassin - The sword could be longer (since it seems actually difficult to hit enemies with it), and should probably be a one-hit KO for weaker enemies.

Did you think about adding the ability to shoot upwards? If not, then maybe you should give the spider that was jumping and shooting arcing beams a bit of a wait to allow the players to shoot at him when he lands.

Yeah I only just put the sword in and it's super unbalanced, I'm gonna increase the range / duration / power of the attack because it's basically
impossible not to get hurt right now. Thanks for the suggestion RE: appearance, that could be really cool actually! I'll try spriting it tonight.


Same goes here regarding the sword, thanks for the suggestions - its obviously pretty useless right now haha.

Shooting upwards has been a tricky one, it makes complete sense on the computer but on iOS it's very easy to accidentally aim upward / not (depending on what you're doing). I'm not really okay with having different controls on pc vs iOS so I may have to just tweak enemies as you suggested. It's a tricky design descision though...

Although, guns with negative gravity have bullets that shoot upwards to compromise this!

Today's list might not seem like much, but I did a fair bit behind the scenes

EDIT: some bizarre bug happened with export causing the game to behave really unpredictably, it's beyond my control and is another shortcoming of MMF2. I've had to roll back to last night's version and recode all the points below - sans the new enemy type.

Features Added Today:

• Rewrote zombie AI, it's twice as efficient now. It was eating up a lot of CPU doing collision checks before so it's a bit better now. There are a lot of them though, and MMF is shit.
• Added a pause functionality to the game, this was pretty trivial for once actually.
• Modified the sword, as pictured below the slashes now move away from you and persist for longer, it's quite powerful too. I beat a whole round without taking a hit.
• Fixed a weird bug where you could fuse a special weapon and a gun in a box and create some crazy hybrid.
• Changed the appearance of weapon mod crates slightly as pictured below.
• I also added a new enemy type, a bomb enemy that bounces around, settles then explodes leading to more bouncing.

Mod boxes are designed to be a bit of a gamble, as you can see below they put stats up or down. And can add or remove gun effects. It's a good way to fix a crappy gun or break a good one!

(http://i.imgur.com/AE03E.png)(http://i.imgur.com/aPUAu.png)(http://i.imgur.com/QHdUZ.png)(http://i.imgur.com/SDnRx.png)(http://i.imgur.com/XdmB9.png)(http://i.imgur.com/wmZpZ.png)

I also spent more time on this:

(http://i.imgur.com/VHG8i.png)

Than I am proud of. You swing from the poops by your tongue, it's a gameplay prototype.

Okay, so, news time.

THE ALPHA VERSION IS READY(ish)

You can grab it from this page: http://voltic.site90.com/?page_id=48 which is on our temporary website. Please take care and read the information provided, it's very much alpha software.

Here are some images from the latest build:

(http://i.imgur.com/HnKPz.png)
(http://i.imgur.com/EsNhd.png)
(http://i.imgur.com/ccT8i.png)
(http://i.imgur.com/9aEpl.png)
(http://i.imgur.com/wtE6k.png)

I tried it on Wave 235.  Unfortunately I didn't do too well. :3

That's commitment to testing! Ben and I both tried round 1000. You get raped by fire-breathing skeleton dragons within seconds.

Yo viva!

Staying true to form, I'm here to make a post saying "good god this looks so amazing, please let me do music or sound effects for this  >:D"

<3

Keep making bitchin' stuff!

Sorry for the radio silence, uni just went back and I've had a whole bunch of stuff to sort out. That doesn't mean game stuff isn't happening!

I have a whole load of images for you guys today, so I'll probably just post them then explain after each screenshot what you're seeing.

(http://i.imgur.com/8CUmv.png)

So here is the beginnings of me having customizable controls! The framework for that's pretty much all done for keyboard remapping, joystick is next.

(http://i.imgur.com/9PdF9.png)(http://i.imgur.com/iITIX.png)

This guy is a new enemy, he wanders about pretty harmlessly but when you kill him, he explodes pretty violently and shoots out some particles. They're a bit hard to see here, but in game they flash and are pretty clear hazards.

(http://i.imgur.com/4ArAQ.png)

This is another new enemy, he leaps around from wall to wall while spinning.

(http://i.imgur.com/59zSB.png)

This shows a change to the way ammo (and health) crate work. Now they are infinite, and you can buy as much or as little health/ammo as you like by "charging up" at them.

(http://i.imgur.com/GgzSY.png)

There are two new special weapons, the rocket launcher and the grenade launcher. They're very powerful and do splash damage.

(http://i.imgur.com/Lu3nZ.png)

Bit hard to see here, but I've done some new gun images to add to the diversity.

Okay so, the alpha testing went pretty remarkably well I think. We got quite a few people interested and got good feedback. TouchArcade seemed to really like the look of what we've done so far so that's always good!

We have a big list of features to work through, and a lot of things to consider based on people's comments.


Thanks man! We've actually already had someone hit us up about music but if that falls through I'll definitely try and get you on board / we have some other projects we're keen to do after this that fit your vibe pretty well I think.

I'm currently in the process of moving out so, that's taken up a lot of my time lately. However, the work continues!

Features Added This Week:
- New enemy designs
- New enemy spawning / round system
- Fixes & improvements to saving, store and coin collection

(http://i.imgur.com/vJZl9.png) (http://i.imgur.com/QHOYn.png)

Here are all the enemy designs so far:

(http://i.imgur.com/j5DCK.png)

---

I'm also very proud to announce that FRACTURES has come on board to provide music and general audio for the project.

You can check out his work here. (http://fracturesmusic.com/)

Brand new gameplay video, development is going well. FRACTURES music has come on board to provide the soundtrack and sound effect, check out http://fracturesmusic.com (http://fracturesmusic.com).

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xbfbyhai6xA (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xbfbyhai6xA)

Follow us on twitter @VolticGames for frequent updates. And remeber, alpha available here: http://voltic.site90.com (http://voltic.site90.com)

Sadly, this post might not be TOO exciting. We've been working a lot on the store / unlockable weaponry and improving the interface / effects.

Features Added:
- Special Weapons can be purchased to be used as starting weapons!
- It's much clearer which slot you're looking at in the armory
- The special weapons store exists (along with new icons for every special weapon)
- There are also better current gun indicators in game
- Special weapon crates use the new icons
- Ice weapons work, and will spray snow flakes when they connect
- Electricity weapons work, and sparks fly out electrocuting surrounding enemies on contact

Each of these dot points corresponds to the images I'm posting below!

(http://i.imgur.com/XEKr8.png)
(http://i.imgur.com/tQW1W.png)
(http://i.imgur.com/jk3we.png)
(http://i.imgur.com/Wetmv.png)
(http://i.imgur.com/qCvcn.png)
(http://i.imgur.com/k47Fq.png)
(http://i.imgur.com/NAvdM.png)

So, we're actually getting close to feature complete for one arena! Need to implement upgrades, more enemies (can you ever have enough?) and some special stages. But then it's all gonna be balancing, then more maps!

Features Added Today:
- New effect: Heal, when a bullet hits an enemy you will receive a health boost
- New effect: Random, every bullet fired has a different effect at random. It's pretty awesome.
- Fix: Health is now capped at a maximum
- New guns in store using new effects
- New upgrades store where you can purchase upgrades and unlocks that aren't just about guns
- New special weapon; meteor strike


(http://i.imgur.com/EVnRq.png)
(http://i.imgur.com/ew3FN.png)
(http://i.imgur.com/XTMvp.png)
(http://i.imgur.com/XsVY1.png)
(http://i.imgur.com/Ujwh0.png)
(http://i.imgur.com/JOEkj.png)

Features Added Today
- Three new special weapons!
- Turret, defends itself (currently invincible too)
- Meteor strike calls a meteor from above (previewed last post)
- Molotov cocktails!
- Enemies now have some colour variations (can be seen a bit in the below pics)

(http://i.imgur.com/DNvJw.png)
(http://i.imgur.com/yigy2.png)
(http://i.imgur.com/jNRzp.png)
(http://i.imgur.com/I31WP.png)
(http://i.imgur.com/B7v4C.png)
(http://i.imgur.com/NnGKF.png)

AW YISS

Also new:
- Dinosaur Boss (to unlock special weapons)
- Another Boss (in progress, to unlock ice effects)

All in all we are getting really close to iOS release and PC release will follow with more features and stuff.

Features added:
- New Bosses!
- Began work on the intro sequence (no pictures sorry!)
- More upgrades, you can upgrade your special weapons now (turrets etc.)
- Getting pretty close to a feature complete version!
- Still need more enemies, always more enemies...

(http://i.imgur.com/ZChv2.png)
(http://i.imgur.com/qDTGf.png)
(http://i.imgur.com/Vonvw.png)
(http://i.imgur.com/udgjx.png)

New bosses are pictured above!

Sorry for the brief entry, I have exam(s) to study for.

Looks very cool and fun game.
I especially like the random guns, they will make it a lot more interesting.
Oh, and how many bosses are there, because it seems like there are lots of them?

At the moment there is one for every gun effect to unlock and one to unlock special weapons, so there will be six in total (I think?). The bosses are themed after the effect you unlock.

Upgraded the 'heart' boss to be more terrifying. Other than that we redid some of the engine and implemented choosing your sidearm. Some point soon we're going to think about a beta, it's just a matter of getting to a point where we're happy with it. Probably around summer (in Australia) holidays  :beer:

(http://i.imgur.com/gquLg.png)
(http://i.imgur.com/RETXX.png)

Sadly it's been a while since my last update, and there's not even that much to show since we've been doing a lot of bug fixes lately. The game is basically feature complete now, the bosses need some tweaking then we need to design the other maps.

After that, we're probably all set for the iOS release milestone!

So; since I can't screenshot much of what we've done lately here is a new youtube video:

(http://i.imgur.com/wn4qx.png) (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q1R-0B3PEgI)

After spending much time with my head on my desk, I have successfully got the game to adapt to iPhone 5 screens and iPhone 4 screens dynamically. iPad support will either be another battle, or a separate version of the game at this rate.

Regardless, enjoy the pictures that look rather unimpressive but make me super happy.

iPhone 5:

(http://i.imgur.com/ydGaz.png)

iPhone 4:

(http://i.imgur.com/I7GBq.png)

Excuse the minor pixel errors on the borders etc. I kind of rushed to post about my success!

The position of the controls looks like a bug, but it's because I have their positions saving and loading now so you can manually adjust them in the options. I need to make the default positions for the iPhone 5 still, though.

I just saw this for the first time. It looks pretty stylish, moves well, and I like where you're going with the art. I look forward to seeing more updates.

Ricky here: creeping ever closer to release on iOS, although we are planning to revamp it a lot for PC.

Just a few updates such as starting the tutorial...
(http://i.imgur.com/hvE5j.png)
(http://i.imgur.com/BJEbO.png)

... and polishing the bosses
EDIT: The fader object was off by 22 pixels, but that's fixed
(http://i.imgur.com/5amFa.png)

Also, we have new music (which we think is great!) and new special weapon: the ICE SHIELD.
(http://i.imgur.com/uqjc3.png)

Keep your eyes peeled.

Are you planning to make a mode with static levels and little to no randomness?

Not really at this stage. We haven't done much randomness in games before so this game was supposed to be a bit different, to make at least. The maps are not random and the waves are procedurally generated with increasing difficulty not properly random.

I've spent today getting the new music in and writing a new music engine, as well as starting work on some new maps.

We also finally laid out exactly when and where each weapon, upgrade, pistol etc. gets unlocked in game. We're aiming to keep it interesting with almost any progress unlocking new things for you to try.

The main hurdles left now are getting the finishing touches on everything and doing the tutorial / maps. While Ricky and myself are in the middle of exams right now, we should be looking at a release in the coming weeks if all goes to plan.

(http://i.imgur.com/iXVmu.png) (http://i.imgur.com/Qcihy.png)

I've also included a video showing some of the new music off etc.

(http://i.imgur.com/bthtL.png) (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F9918nVHoEY)

Sorry about the long silence, but we are back now. Just implementing upgrades and fixing bugs so not really any screenshots to show at the moment. We are almost ready to release for iOS!

Long time no update. That's in part because not that much has happened, everything has just been bug fixes and balancing. Many boss tweaks etc.

But, at long last we have a release date! And a teaser trailer:


We're so happy to actually be (basically) done here, the next few weeks are going to be hectic though. Ricky is already back at University and I will be back on the 25th of Feb, and we have another game release coming BEFORE this.

Anyway, have some nice pictures we may or may not have released before (I forget).

(http://i.imgur.com/3i9Vwt3.png)
(http://i.imgur.com/ejaNgcZ.png)
(http://i.imgur.com/hOmsLLK.png)

I have realised our date was a bit ambiguous (but not really since the date had passed) for our American friends, so I've had to update all that rather hurriedly. I'll update the video later...

In other news, we made it to number 50 on indiedb and number 2 on slidedb.

(http://i.imgur.com/WFhnlJM.png)

Which is pretty cool.

This is looking very nice, looking forward to its release  :)

Nightmerica has finally been submitted to the App Store!  :toastL: :waaagh: :toastR:

So... Now we wait a little while before doing a million press related things, that I never really understand and never really seem to show many results.

good luck with that! cheers :beer:

Our gameplay trailer is done!

(http://i.imgur.com/HKpAaEk.png) (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_ahePYrE2Kw)

This shows some pretty good variety in terms of what you'll see in the game, but it doesn't show anywhere near the full content (there are some surprises to be had).

Alex Kunzelmann has kindly put together a (p)review of Nightmerica! He had some very kind words to say about it and we're very thankful for his interest. He's also clearly an awesome dude since he's from Brisbane originally, check out his channel: http://www.youtube.com/user/TangentsLP

(http://s22.postimage.org/vpdjov1fl/Screen_Shot_2013_02_28_at_11_18_46_AM.png) (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y22g9tOBxbg)

We're getting very close to release now! Which is pretty exciting, so the publicity push is coming... Which is probably my least favourite part of game development but hey, it doesn't last forever!

Nightmerica is officially live in the App Store!

Reactions have been pretty positive so far, we'll keep updating  this thread with info / actual updates we release. But please, check the game out here:

(http://media.indiedb.com/images/games/1/19/18323/auto/h9tsA1o.png) (http://voltic.com.au/Nightmerica)