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Title: Friendship Club: a hyperactive bullet hell party game. Post by: Gwinnell on June 22, 2014, 08:56:29 AM Hi all!
It's been a while since I posted here. I've been advised to start posting our game's devlog here instead of just on our blog (http://timmybibble.com/blog/), so I'll start with an introduction to the game and to the team. I'll try to post screenshots, concept art, or other musings here once a week. If that doesn't work out, there'll definitely be the more long-form fortnightly update posts. (http://timmybibble.com/_files/blog/8/fastest-game-ever.gif) 200% speed GIF. Game Description: Monsters! Mayhem! Imaginary friends do nightly battle for the favour of their creator! Who will endure? What will be left of them? Come with us as we venture into the mind of young Timmy Bibble in... TIMMY BIBBLE'S FRIENDSHIP CLUB! Friendship Club is a local-multiplayer bullet-hell arena shooter for PC and Mac. Play as one of Timmy's four best (and imaginary) friends. Chud - a beast from the mountains. Old Man Ricketts - a prospector driven mad by his lust for gold. Shakey Jake - a ninja, bandit, skeleton... thing. The Canardinal - a duck from the Vatican! Fire bullets that bounce forever, catch them with supreme agility, headbutt your opponents into the 1950s. Be the best friend ever for little Timmy! Key Features:
Team: Friendship Club is a collaboration between two tiny studios based in the UK, Force Of Habit and Clockwork Cuckoo. Force Of Habit (@forcehabit (http://forceofhab.it)) Ashley Gwinnell (@ashleygwinnell (http://twitter.com/ashleygwinnell)) - code Nick Dymond (@nedymond (http://twitter.com/nedymond)) - audio & production Clockwork Cuckoo (@cuckooclockwork (http://twitter.com/cuckooclockwork)) Sophie Humphries (@sophump (http://twitter.com/sophumph)) - art Tom Boot (@tomcando (http://twitter.com/tomcando)) - animation Other bits: Early alpha / Greenlight trailer: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cHHfUlOROrM (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cHHfUlOROrM) FAQ: http://timmybibble.com/faq/ Pre-order for early/alpha access, the latest builds, fortnightly updates: http://timmybibble.com/buy/ Try the 24-hour jam version: http://timmybibble.com/jam/ Newest screenshots/gifs: Title cards used in the trailer (linked above). (http://timmybibble.com/_files/blog/7/titleCards.png) New arena mockup. (http://timmybibble.com/_files/blog/6/saloon-mockup.png) Added bullet casings to the game. (http://timmybibble.com/_files/blog/6/bullet-casings.gif) Character silhouettes show when hiding behind walls. (http://timmybibble.com/_files/blog/6/stencil-buffer.gif) (How do I resize the images to fit in the forums properly?) I'm happy to answer any question about the game you might have, so fire away! :) - Ashley Title: Re: Friendship Club - a multiplayer bullet-hell arena shooter. Post by: Gwinnell on June 27, 2014, 06:45:49 AM First update here on TIGS - woo! Just like the last time (http://timmybibble.com/blog/devlog-a-bit-more-build-4) (which was only posted on our site), this update contains a lot of smaller changes while we work on finishing up the new arena -- The Wonky Wagon saloon.
The last two weeks have been super busy. The game has another layer of polish, with new dash and headbutt animations, as well as what can be called nothing other than "shonky walls". There's also a proper (but still basic) options screen.
We also exhibited at Radius Festival in London for a day, which meant having a bunch of new people playing (and praising) the game, catching up with game developer pals, and speaking live on the internets. Below is a picture of our table there, and here is a link to mine and Tom's silly faces on the livestream (http://www.twitch.tv/radiusfestival/b/540285765). (We're on at ~2:37:47.) (http://timmybibble.com/_files/blog/9/radius-table.jpg) To quickly finish this one up, here are some musical sketches / ideas / things (https://soundcloud.com/forcehabit/tbfc-early-sketches-no-level-01) that Nick has put together recently. 16th June - 27th June Code
Art & Animation
Audio
Press / Promo
Misc
Let us know what you think! Here on TIGS, Twitter (http://twitter.com/forcehabit), Facebook (http://facebook.com/forcehabit) or wherever. Take care now! :) - Ashley Title: Re: Friendship Club - a multiplayer bullet-hell arena shooter. Post by: Quarry on June 27, 2014, 07:02:14 AM Add width=700 to image tags, e.g. [img width=700]
Title: Re: Friendship Club - a multiplayer bullet-hell arena shooter. Post by: Gwinnell on July 05, 2014, 08:39:13 AM I missed posting here last week due to being at Games Britannia up in Sheffield (UK)!
Most of the things that have changed since last week have been more "under the hood". For example, the game now utilises a Z axis even though it's completely 2D. This is used for proper depth sorting, and for collision detection. We wanted to put objects on top of and under other objects, and allow them to bounce off the floor, and so on. It wasn't impossible with just x and y, but it would have meant defining specific rules for specific objects, and then modifying the screen y. It's easier this way, and better this way. An example of this new depth sorting happening when shooting objects off of tables! (Vine) https://vine.co/v/MUxQgHl20PE A bug where touching wagon wheels would spawn gibs indefinitely. (Vine) https://vine.co/v/MFVmxjwz0ea Is there a way to embed Vines on here? *Shrug* Catch ya next time! \o Title: Re: Friendship Club - a multiplayer bullet-hell arena shooter. Post by: Gwinnell on July 14, 2014, 03:56:17 AM A sketch of Chud (one of the characters) in a totally different style to the game. Because why not? :)
- by sophumph (http://twitter.com/sophumph) (https://pbs.twimg.com/media/BsVzRvNCYAAdMe0.png:large) Title: Re: Friendship Club - a multiplayer bullet-hell arena shooter. Post by: Gwinnell on July 16, 2014, 10:59:35 AM I know nobody here asked for wallpapers, but here are some anyways. 1080p! :)
Chud (http://timmybibble.com/_files/blog/11/chudTitleCard.png) (http://timmybibble.com/_files/blog/11/chudTitleCard.png) The Canardinal (http://timmybibble.com/_files/blog/11/theCanardinalTitleCard.png) (http://timmybibble.com/_files/blog/11/theCanardinalTitleCard.png) Old Man Ricketts (http://timmybibble.com/_files/blog/11/OMRTitleCard.png) (http://timmybibble.com/_files/blog/11/OMRTitleCard.png) Shakey Jake (http://timmybibble.com/_files/blog/11/shakeyJakeTitleCard.png) (http://timmybibble.com/_files/blog/11/shakeyJakeTitleCard.png) Title: Re: Friendship Club - a multiplayer bullet-hell arena shooter. Post by: The Translocator on July 16, 2014, 01:14:13 PM Really nice. ;)
Title: Re: Friendship Club - a multiplayer bullet-hell arena shooter. Post by: QOG on July 16, 2014, 05:44:25 PM This looks really great. Seems like victory might be a little to determined by initial placement though?
Title: Re: Friendship Club - a multiplayer bullet-hell arena shooter. Post by: Gwinnell on July 17, 2014, 01:29:26 AM This looks really great. Seems like victory might be a little to determined by initial placement though? Sort of. We're finding that a lot of the time, social dynamics come into play and people go for the person who's currently winning. It is something that we need to tweak a bit more though. We've got a game mode / toggle for "standoff" which places characters right next to each other, and in "trick shot" mode players need to be positioned so that they don't have a direct line-of-sight. Title: Re: Friendship Club - a multiplayer bullet-hell arena shooter. Post by: Gwinnell on July 29, 2014, 03:01:55 AM Saddle up, varmint! Friendship Club's first major feature update is here! Get bar brawlin’ in a totally destructible new arena “The Wonky Wagon”, rootin’-tootin’ in an updated “Quick Draw” Standoff mode, or, well, simply bear witness to all of the commotion from afar.
Rather than waffle on about how freakin' great it is, we've created a trailer, some GIFs, and revamped our Greenlight (http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=254848856) page. For the next two weeks we'll be doing a big marketing push, but until then... enjoy! :toastR: New Trailer: (http://timmybibble.com/_files/blog/13/trailer-f.png) (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yck32fxfSNM) New Screenshots / GIFs: Destructible terrain in The Wonky Wagon. (http://forceofhab.it/press/friendship_club/images/destructibleTerrain_saloon.gif) Procedural level generation for The Wonky Wagon. (http://forceofhab.it/press/friendship_club/images/proceduralGeneration_saloon.gif) Still screenshot of Bullet Hell. Perfect for a bar brawl! (http://forceofhab.it/press/friendship_club/images/bullethell.png) Still screenshot of new QUICK DRAW standoff mode. Some idiot (Nick) misfires their gun! (http://forceofhab.it/press/friendship_club/images/standoff.png) For completeness, here's a GIF of procedural generation in Timmy's Bedroom. (http://forceofhab.it/press/friendship_club/images/proceduralGeneration_bedroom.gif) You can be playing this already if you have $8 USD / ~£5 GBP to spare... (http://timmybibble.com/_files/blog/13/widget-f.png) (http://timmybibble.com/buy) Yes please, go and vote? (http://timmybibble.com/_files/blog/13/greenlight.jpeg) (http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=254848856) The full release notes / changes for this build are as follows: 14th July - 25th July -- THE WONKY WAGON -- ART
CODE
AUDIO
BUG FIXES / OTHER BITS
MISC
...WHEW! Title: Re: Timmy Bibble's Friendship Club - a multiplayer bullet-hell arena shooter. Post by: Gwinnell on August 11, 2014, 02:21:46 AM (http://timmybibble.com/_files/blog/14/tbfcGreenlitGeneral.png)
Two weeks ago when we released The Wonky Wagon (http://timmybibble.com/blog/major-update-the-wonky-wagon-build-7/) we said the next release would be lighter on content. This was because we blocked out two weeks to do some marketing, emailing, press and things. Perhaps by pure chance, or perhaps by virtue of writing almost 40 personalised emails... Timmy Bibble's Friendship Club has been Greenlit for Steam distribution! Hurray! Thank you to everybody who voted - this is super awesome and means the world to us. The main two things added to this build are loading tips and new Quick Draw countdown timer graphics. That's all for now, below is the full changelog. - Ashley, Nick, Tom & Sophie 28th July - 8th August DESIGN
(http://timmybibble.com/_files/blog/14/teamSelect2.png) (http://timmybibble.com/_files/blog/14/teamSelect3.png) (http://timmybibble.com/_files/blog/14/teamSelect5.png) ART
(http://timmybibble.com/_files/blog/14/hats.png) CODE
MISC
KNOWN BUGS
Title: Re: Timmy Bibble's Friendship Club - a multiplayer bullet-hell arena shooter. Post by: Gwinnell on October 06, 2014, 02:51:41 AM An odd one this week! The team has been split up all over the world (and we're only now just getting back into the swing of things), so this is a post about i52 and PAX.
i52 To kick it off, i52, or Insomnia52 to give it it's full title. It took place at the Ricoh arena in Coventry almost 4 weeks ago. We were there for 3 days in total, showing of Friendship Club. (http://timmybibble.com/_files/blog/15/stand.jpg) We added big TV and a cool new sign to our stand this time round. The sign looked great, but had the structural integrity of a wafer. So much superglue was used, like, loads. We even had to repair it while we were at i52 as it had snapped in two and was dangling around when we returned on the second morning! Here are some er, in-progress shots of it. (http://timmybibble.com/_files/blog/15/TBFCsignJapes.png) So i52 was huge. Tons of AAA games, and a surprisingly large amount of indie stuff too. It was our first time to any Insomnia event, as exhibitors or otherwise, and all we can say is it was great -- really friendly people and great stuff on show. Pastries from the nearby M&S each morning was a plus. Apple turnover ftw. Next up, PAX Prime! Nick and Ashley flew out to Seattle for PAX Prime to exhibit Toast Time (http://toasttime.co.uk/) on the Intel booth (due to winning "Best Art Design" in the Level Up awards), to exhibit Neon Caves (https://www.ouya.tv/game/Neon-Caves/) on the OUYA booth, and to release Toast Time onto frikkin' Steam (http://store.steampowered.com/app/316660/)! While they were there, Nick got to meet one of his heroes in the form of Tim Schafer, and they went to a party with indie royalty Jonathan Blow in attendance (at least they think)... (http://timmybibble.com/_files/blog/15/wscc.jpg) Seattle was nice. (http://timmybibble.com/_files/blog/15/tim.jpg) But why haven't you been working on Friendship Club?! Well we have, but progress has been slow due to: team proximity, jet lag, freelance work, contract work, parties with celebrities, launching another game, email backlog, PAX pox, accounts, end of year admin... writing lists. (http://timmybibble.com/_files/blog/15/chudExpressions.png) Subscribe to this thread here on TIGS, and follow our (http://twitter.com/timmybibble) various (http://twitter.com/forcehabit) Twitters (http://twitter.com/cuckooclockwork) too for more frequent updates. Catch you next time! - Tom Title: Re: Timmy Bibble's Friendship Club - a multiplayer bullet-hell arena shooter. Post by: Gwinnell on October 08, 2014, 02:44:52 AM We're afraid there's not a new build this week, but that doesn't mean we've not been hard at work. Sadly most of what we've done will be invisible for now, so you'll have to hold on a bit before you see any of it coming to fruition. It'll be worth it though, promise...
Most of Ashley's time has been taken up refactoring a ton of code, fixing-up everything to accommodate our future plans. The biggest aspect of this has been in ripping apart game modes and moving it all into a modular system. I won't go into too much detail at this point, but if we get it working as we would like then expect to have a LOT of customisation at your fingertips. From our point of view it will also provide a framework for us to prototype new features and ideas very quickly. Alongside that, Sophie and I have started work on redesigning the user-interface (with plenty of help and input from the others). We're having to try to establish a consistent and expandable system that absorbs new features and options as we add them to the game. We've got some big ideas here too, with our intention to do something a little more exciting and on-theme than the traditional menu systems you see in most games, whilst not sacrificing usability in the process. If you think this sounds like a tall order and the sort of thing that results in a lot of swearing and gnashing of teeth then you'd be entirely correct. At one point Sophie took a bit of a break and drew some interpretations of Young Man Ricketts. It looks a little like a certain Hollywood (https://www.google.co.uk/search?q=daniel+day+lewis+there+will+be+blood&tbm=isch) actor (https://www.google.co.uk/search?q=daniel+day+lewis+lincoln&tbm=isch) don't you think? Which is interesting because she had no idea who he was until I showed her some pictures! (http://timmybibble.com/_files/blog/16/oldManYoungManRicketts.png) (http://timmybibble.com/_files/blog/16/duckFaces.png) There's not been much audio work from my point of view over the past few weeks due to a virus taking down my home computer (I know right...), where I'm working on most of the soundtrack stuff. Evenings were spent reinstalling music software and figuring out a better workflow for the large number of samples I'm putting together for the game. From now on I will be keeping a folder of install files for all of my software - having to dig out old emails for downloads and serial numbers is DULL. Unfortunately Tom has had to do a bunch of 3rd party motion graphics work over the past couple of weeks, so hasn't had much to contribute. However, he did put together this rather awesome animation that ties in with the character and team select system (http://timmybibble.com/blog/mini-update-build-8/) we've been playing with. (http://timmybibble.com/_files/blog/16/characterSelectIdle.gif) (http://timmybibble.com/_files/blog/16/characterSelectRun.gif) Idle and run animations. Right, that just about sums it up. Hopefully we'll have something to actually show for all of this soon! Take care everyone! - Nick Join our Mailing List (https://docs.google.com/forms/d/1HMq5GVWpH6frDAn7qkj1O-mr3koWhKzqcn_5mDjNWHM/viewform), follow us on Twitter (http://twitter.com/forcehabit) and Facebook (http://facebook.com/forcehabit) and obviously sub to this TIGS thread to keep up to date on things. Title: Re: Timmy Bibble's Friendship Club - a multiplayer bullet-hell arena shooter. Post by: AlexVsCoding on October 11, 2014, 03:04:55 PM Really am surprised to see how little attention this wonderful game has received on the site. Keep on going and I'm sure the attention you deserve will come your way!
The graphics are a deep breath of fresh air in an ocean of pixel art. Vector art woooo (Saw the game originally on Gamejolt). Was wondering how much that cost for that Gamejolt banner? (Feel free to answer that in private!). I read that you were up in Sheffield for games Britainnia! You a local or just visiting? Good luck folks! Title: Re: Timmy Bibble's Friendship Club - a multiplayer bullet-hell arena shooter. Post by: Gamedragon on October 11, 2014, 03:10:38 PM This game looks freakin' amazing. I love how the animations look.
Title: Re: Timmy Bibble's Friendship Club - a multiplayer bullet-hell arena shooter. Post by: migrafael on October 12, 2014, 06:47:21 AM ahahhaha this looks great. And it's playable already? Hmmm, will check it out soon. Great job!
Title: Re: Timmy Bibble's Friendship Club - a multiplayer bullet-hell arena shooter. Post by: Krumbs on October 12, 2014, 07:15:05 AM Really nice art style, and plenty of meaty posts and updates with good information. Love the Cardinal, definitely my favourite character
Title: Re: Timmy Bibble's Friendship Club - a multiplayer bullet-hell arena shooter. Post by: Gwinnell on October 13, 2014, 02:39:42 AM Really am surprised to see how little attention this wonderful game has received on the site. Keep on going and I'm sure the attention you deserve will come your way! The graphics are a deep breath of fresh air in an ocean of pixel art. Vector art woooo (Saw the game originally on Gamejolt). Was wondering how much that cost for that Gamejolt banner? (Feel free to answer that in private!). I read that you were up in Sheffield for games Britainnia! You a local or just visiting? Good luck folks! Incidentally I know your game from Game Jolt! :) (PM coming your way!) I was just visiting for the event, the 4 of us are all based down in Bristol. It seems there are quite a few indies based up that way! Weren't you at Insomnia52 too? We've probably met. :P This game looks freakin' amazing. I love how the animations look. Yay, I've passed the words of encouragement onto the artist & animator. :D Title: Re: Timmy Bibble's Friendship Club - a multiplayer bullet-hell arena shooter. Post by: knifeySpoonie on October 13, 2014, 03:37:52 AM Man this is such a nice looking game, simple Idea well executed with style..
Looks like you've been doing well with the con's and showing off the game, if you're in Brighton in the near future I'll be sure to come and check it out. Title: Re: Timmy Bibble's Friendship Club - a multiplayer bullet-hell arena shooter. Post by: Gwinnell on October 20, 2014, 06:48:41 AM Man this is such a nice looking game, simple Idea well executed with style.. Looks like you've been doing well with the con's and showing off the game, if you're in Brighton in the near future I'll be sure to come and check it out. Develop 2015 for sure! :D -- The groundwork has been laid, the restructuring is almost there. At the beginning of this two-week sprint we wanted to add vertical destructible walls to The Wonky Wagon arena and improve it's procedural generation rules. Half way through implementing them, we realised we'd have to spend more time refactoring the game code to make them work as intended. So... We switched it up, took out the new walls, and decided to shoot for something different, something more achievable. That something would be the first pass of the Character Select screen! Sophie already mocked it up (see previous posts), and we knew how it was going to work, so that's what we implemented for this release. (It's only the first pass, keep in mind; we haven't implemented team select, AI players or more than 4 players, but all of that will come in time.) What else is in this build? Well, at last minute, we implemented an "oscillating" game speed mode. This is a speed option that speeds up and slows down the game dynamically over time. As to be expected, we'll be expanding on this mechanic in the future! That's actually it in terms of new features, however Tom & Sophie have been iterating on a lot of UI and concept work, which is awesome, so we're going to show you that too! First pass of mode select UI. (http://timmybibble.com/_files/blog/17/1.png) First pass of game modifiers UI. (http://timmybibble.com/_files/blog/17/2.png) Second pass of game modifiers UI. (http://timmybibble.com/_files/blog/17/3.png) Another version of the second pass of the game modifiers UI. (http://timmybibble.com/_files/blog/17/4.png) Trying something a bit leftfield. Skeuomophic design for mode select. (http://timmybibble.com/_files/blog/17/selectionScreen.png) Trying something a bit leftfield. Skeuomophic design for modifiers select. (http://timmybibble.com/_files/blog/17/selectionScreen2.png) What in the f is Bibco? (http://timmybibble.com/_files/blog/17/bibcoLogos.png) Character head pick up animations. (http://timmybibble.com/_files/blog/17/chud_grabHead.gif) (http://timmybibble.com/_files/blog/17/canardinal_grabHead.gif) (http://timmybibble.com/_files/blog/17/shakeyJake_grabHead.gif) (http://timmybibble.com/_files/blog/17/oldManRicketts_grabHead.gif) Behind the scenes voice recordings of a new character. Skip to 2:30 for some good stuff! (http://timmybibble.com/_files/blog/17/soundcloud.png) (https://soundcloud.com/forcehabit/jazz-creatures-raw-takes) Sounds in the character animations.
For the next release we're thinking of implementing the fmod sound engine. We'll have to look at licensing first, but we're super keen on making the audio as juicy as the art. Dynamic music system, sound effects, voices, all the cool things. That's it! In the (unlikely) event that you've bought the game and have access to the alphas, please send us your feedback so we can take it on board. Hope you enjoy this release. - Ashley Full changelog: 22nd September - 17th October Wow that's a long one! New Features:
Art & Animations:
Audio:
Code Refactoring:
Other things you won't see in the game yet but are still sort of cool to talk about:
Title: Re: Timmy Bibble's Friendship Club - a multiplayer bullet-hell arena shooter. Post by: Gwinnell on November 03, 2014, 04:20:49 AM Hello, hello and hello Tigsource! This week we were thinking of just releasing a small bugfix update with no new features, but that wouldn't be very fun would it? So here we are, we're releasing the game's first sort-of enemy Nana Ricketts into The Wonky Wagon!
(http://timmybibble.com/_files/blog/18/nanaRickettsEvolution.png) She brings the pain and kicks a lot of butts! (http://timmybibble.com/_files/blog/18/nanaRicketts.png) Keeping the post fairly small this week. Give the update a try (if you've pre-ordered (http://timmybibble.com/)) and let us know what you think here on TIGS, or on Twitter (http://twitter.com/timmybibble) or Facebook (http://facebook.com/forcehabit)! :) - Ashley Full changelog: 20th October - 31st October New Features:
Bug Fixes:
Art:
Animation:
Audio:
Code:
Misc:
Title: Re: Timmy Bibble's Friendship Club - a multiplayer bullet-hell arena shooter. Post by: Gwinnell on November 08, 2014, 07:19:43 AM Team selection implemented and very likely coming in the next release!
Blank characters pick up character heads and stand on rugs to begin the game. If two players stand on the same rug then they become a team! Trying to do things a bit differently to the usual "hit left and right on the analog stick"! 1. (http://timmybibble.com/_files/blog/16/characterSelectIdle.gif) 2. (http://timmybibble.com/_files/blog/17/chud_grabHead.gif) 3. (https://pbs.twimg.com/media/B17TJ_LCcAEAxxY.png) Title: Re: Timmy Bibble's Friendship Club - a multiplayer bullet-hell arena shooter. Post by: Gwinnell on November 17, 2014, 04:16:44 AM Team play is here and it's going to knock your socks off! Get your friends together and go 2 vs 2, 3 vs 1, or even 2 vs 1 vs 1. We've had a fierce Force Of Habit versus Clockwork Cuckoo showdown here in the studio. (Can you guess who won most often?) How will your own rivalries play out?
(http://timmybibble.com/_files/blog/19/VS.gif) A GIF to celebrate the new team play features, by Tom. We've implemented lots of things behind the scenes like a first pass of the advanced modifiers (http://timmybibble.com/_files/blog/17/2.png) screen. We're able to toggle things like Friendly Fire and change Ammo and save custom game modes on the fly. (We've had to temporarily remove Bully mode for this release). We'll be letting you have access to this very soon! We're excited. Here are some behind-the-scenes pictures of things in the pipeline: (http://timmybibble.com/_files/blog/19/whiteBoard1.png) Pillars for a new arena in the works. (http://timmybibble.com/_files/blog/19/partyBoyz.png) Doodles during downtime? (http://timmybibble.com/_files/blog/19/audioPrep.png) Nick and Sophie testing out headsets. (http://timmybibble.com/_files/blog/19/weThinkThisWorksNow.png) We think this works now... As always, let us know what you think of the new features, and shout if you see any bugs. Follow us on Twitter (http://twitter.com/timmybibble), Game Jolt (http://gamejolt.com/games/action/friendship-club/19342/) and Facebook (http://facebook.com/forcehabit), and if you want us to bleed into your reality a little bit more then we (http://twitter.com/forcehabit) have (http://twitter.com/cuckooclockwork) individual (http://twitter.com/sophumph) Twitter (http://twitter.com/tomcando) accounts (http://twitter.com/ashleygwinnell) too (http://twitter.com/nedymond). ...and of course you can sub to this thread here on TIGS too! Most importantly though, have fun! - Ashley Full changelog: 3rd November - 14th November New Features:
Bug Fixes:
Code:
Art & Animation:
Design:
Misc:
Title: Re: Timmy Bibble's Friendship Club - a multiplayer bullet-hell arena shooter. Post by: Gwinnell on December 01, 2014, 04:35:05 AM Turbo Bullets & Finger Of God!
We've added a new game mode called TURBO BULLETS. These fancy new bullets are bullets that get BIGGER and FASTER when they are caught and refired. They're harder to catch, but the reward outweighs the risk... it looks and feels AWESOME when one of these knocks your opponent's head off. (http://timmybibble.com/_files/blog/20/turboBullets.gif) Turbo Bullets in action! We've also implemented a 'catch the leader' modifier, prospectively called FINGER OF GOD. The first player to die gets to become the finger of Timmy (or is it Timmy, who knows?), which has the ability to squish the other players still in the play space. The finger can never win the round, but it can affect the outcome. (http://timmybibble.com/_files/blog/20/fingerOfGod-skin.gif) Playing with the Finger Of God in the Spine editor. (http://timmybibble.com/_files/blog/20/modifiers-black.png) Can you guess what these icons are for? (http://timmybibble.com/_files/blog/20/missFront.gif) A bullet passes by really close... (http://timmybibble.com/_files/blog/20/missBack.gif) A bullet passes by really close... (http://timmybibble.com/_files/blog/20/respawn.gif) Start of a game, or maybe a respawn? Full Changelog: 17th November - 28th November New Features:
Bug Fixes:
Code:
Art:
Animation:
Audio:
Title: Re: Friendship Club: a multiplayer arena shooter where bullets bounce forever. Post by: The Translocator on December 01, 2014, 07:10:43 AM Really like those animations. :handthumbsupL: :)
Title: Re: Timmy Bibble's Friendship Club - a multiplayer bullet-hell arena shooter. Post by: EdFarage on December 01, 2014, 07:58:13 AM Really am surprised to see how little attention this wonderful game has received on the site. Keep on going and I'm sure the attention you deserve will come your way! Well theres your reason why it hasn't had much attention here.The graphics are a deep breath of fresh air in an ocean of pixel art. Vector art woooo (Saw the game originally on Gamejolt). Was wondering how much that cost for that Gamejolt banner? (Feel free to answer that in private!). I read that you were up in Sheffield for games Britainnia! You a local or just visiting? Good luck folks! Needless to say this game is amazing, the theme is really well worked and it seems very fun to play! Im wondering if its only local multiplayer though, can i play this online? Title: Re: Timmy Bibble's Friendship Club - a multiplayer bullet-hell arena shooter. Post by: Gwinnell on December 01, 2014, 10:57:40 AM Really like those animations. :handthumbsupL: :) Thanks! Well theres your reason why it hasn't had much attention here. Needless to say this game is amazing, the theme is really well worked and it seems very fun to play! Im wondering if its only local multiplayer though, can i play this online? It's local/single-screen multiplayer only at the moment. We're considering AI players/bots, but LAN/online is very unlikely. Title: Re: Friendship Club: a multiplayer arena shooter where bullets bounce forever. Post by: Gwinnell on December 09, 2014, 04:33:07 AM HELLO, just a mini post about Inverse Kinematics (IK) and it’s use in the Finger of God death modifier, included in the most recent release of Friendship Club (http://timmybibble.com/).
“WHAT IS IK!?”, I hear you scream into the abyss? WELL, say you’ve got your hand on a table, then twist your upper body one way or another whilst keeping your hand on the table, in animation terms that movement would be an example of inverse kinematics. Your hand is anchored to the table, and won’t just slide off the table matching the rotation of your upper body. There are far more technical and detailed explanations of IK out there on the internet, but this is a shortish post so, I’ll direct you to this (http://lmgtfy.com/?q=What+is+inverse+kinematics). (http://timmybibble.com/_files/blog/20/fingerOfGod-skin.gif) Squidgy! As previously mentioned (http://timmybibble.com/blog/art-out-with-the-old/), we’re using Spine (http://esotericsoftware.com/) in Friendship Club for character, environment and effect animations. The characters have a basic rig, but one that doesn’t use IK, as it wasn’t available in Spine when we first moved all the animations over to it. I’m intending to retrofit their legs with IK in the near future, but the rest of their bodies don’t need it. This is due to the types of positions and movements they make during the game - it adds a lot of cartoony personality to the character animations when you’re able to ‘break’ their skeletons easily for extreme movements or poses! (http://timmybibble.com/_files/blog/20/fallDown.gif) ...like this one. (http://timmybibble.com/_files/blog/20/fingerOfGod-bones.gif) Bones and IK nodes. The Finger of God uses IK so it looks like it’s squishing things properly. You can see the finger tip hit the ‘floor’ and bend back, along with the second knuckle of the finger. We wanted it to be really over the top, squashing and stretching as needed, and looking really forceful as it descends towards a character. There aren’t that many bones in the finger - only enough to bend the index finger and deform the wrist. The rest of the animation is created by the weighting of various points in the mesh of the hand. What I mean by that is that for the hand to deform at all, it needs to be transformed into a mesh made of points that can move and warp in the Spine editor. In the first image (captioned "squidgy"), you can see the image distort as it is turned upside down; parts of the PNG image of the hand are linked to these points and move the image with them as they are moved. The weighting is the influence the bones have over these points. You can assign different bones different percentages of influence over points near, or far away from them. This is how you can add quite a bit of movement to the different parts of the hand, with very few bones - like the 4 curled fingers bending slightly as the hand moves. The other bonus to IK is that to achieve all the movement in that hand - the wrist twisting, the finger pointing, the bending and squishing at right angles - all of that was achieved with one control node. Just one. All that movement and juicy squishiness, from one node. It’s great! This hasn’t been an in-depth view into IK, or perhaps even a particularly useful one… but I hope someone here finds it interesting! - Tom Let me know what you think here on TIGSource, or on Twitter (http://twitter.com/tomcando) or Facebook (http://facebook.com/forcehabit). Title: Re: Friendship Club: a multiplayer arena shooter where bullets bounce forever. Post by: 8-Bit Ape on December 09, 2014, 05:12:07 AM Wowser, this game looks awesome! Also, top job with the detail you go into, you put my dev log to shame! As others have said, great style and animations. I think it would be a great idea to get some AI / Bots in as not everybody has awesome friends who are into single screen multi-player games.
Keep up the awesome work. Title: Re: Friendship Club: a multiplayer arena shooter where bullets bounce forever. Post by: Gwinnell on December 11, 2014, 07:23:32 AM Wowser, this game looks awesome! Also, top job with the detail you go into, you put my dev log to shame! As others have said, great style and animations. I think it would be a great idea to get some AI / Bots in as not everybody has awesome friends who are into single screen multi-player games. Keep up the awesome work. Hey, thanks! Some feedback on the TIGS IRC was to reduce the word length of posts, and show more images, so glad to hear you appreciate it. :) Will try to work in some AI / bots soon, but it's proving to be quite tricky! Revamping a lot of the menus at the moment to get the game ready for the Steam Early Access release early next year some time. Title: Re: Friendship Club: a multiplayer arena shooter where bullets bounce forever. Post by: Gwinnell on December 11, 2014, 07:28:00 AM Keeping your house clean.
This post is about the production of the game, and how we organise things. Not to everybody's tastes! Spring cleanin' In a previous post (http://timmybibble.com/blog/a-trip-to-the-seaside/) I mentioned that we spent a few weeks of reasonably intense prototyping to try to help us get a handle on what we want Friendship Club to be. Up until that point the game design was still a little under debate and we were unsure where to put the design emphasis. It was largely a question of how much from the basic game experience did we want to deviate and how did we want to present those options. Since playtesting a bunch of variations of the mechanics we've got a much better understanding on what we want the core of the game to be and how we want to structure the additional modes and gameplay elements to complement it. Production up until this point has largely been us throwing things into a big cooking pot, and we are now in the act of reducing it down. That's a funny shaped pot! In the week following Friendship Clubs inception at the game jam in November 2013 (http://forceofhab.it/blog/the-making-of-timmy-bibbles-friendship-club/) I made a Trello (http://www.trello.com) board for us to store ideas for its future development. At that point we weren't sure if any further work would ever get to happen on it, but I wanted to be sure to capture any thoughts we might have whilst our minds were still on the game. Roll forward a year and it'd become a bit of a monster with somewhere in the region of one hundred tickets, ranging from character and world ideas, through to sound effects, silly voices, anything and everything. It's worth noting that this isn't the production board, we have a separate physical board for that which I'll get to later*. (http://timmybibble.com/_files/blog/23/concept-boards.jpg) After a cloud service changed its pricing plan we decided to go back to doing concept boards the proper way. This past week I've spent a bit of time going through all of our tickets and assigning them various labels pertaining to their status. Anything which hasn't made the cut gets archived. This might include things that we tried and didn't like or old ideas that are no longer relevant for whatever reason. The labels are as follow:
The definitions here should be reasonably obvious. It's worth noting that the Needs Prototyping can apply to ideas that are both in the process of being greenlit or dropped, as well greenlit ideas that still need either art or gameplay prototyping done on them to prevent waste. An example would be something like a game mode that requires specific art assets - there's no point us spending time on those assets until we've tried it with placeholder art. What, what?! The keen-eyed amongst you will notice the v1.0 and v1.1+ labels suggesting there might be additional features released post launch. Indeed this is the case, taking the form of free DLC. We have *so* much we want to put into this game, but we don't have the cashflow or reserves to make some of it a reality at the moment. Apart from a paltry art grant we are entirely self-funded. This also drives our "Pay for Current State" approach to pricing. We can't predict the future and we've seen quite a few high profile failures on Early Access (cough (http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2014/09/18/double-fine-early-access-spacebase-df9/) cough (http://www.techradar.com/news/gaming/molyneux-kickstarter-is-a-destructive-force-that-damaged-godus-1275205)) lately and we're not in the business of cheating or ripping people off. This has been our approach ever since we first starting selling the game direct. Buying it now will get you all future updates for free and if we can make the game the success we want it to be then it will help fund more development, with early adopters getting themselves something of a bargain. We'd rather things that way 'round than the reverse, where early adopters are getting screwed with broken builds for months and then kindly informed "That's it, that's all you're getting." (http://timmybibble.com/_files/blog/23/postits.jpg) Some of the completed tickets from Friendship Club. Touchy Feely Sticky We still maintain a physical project board, split into columns for art/code/audio/QA. Populated with coloured post-its, this is where we do the day to day ticket writing, breaking down the Trello tickets with all their comments and ranting, into single tasks. It's worth noting that originally we were using Trello for this as well, just as we did with Toast Time, but with four of us on the project and in a single building it made sense to have somewhere we could gather 'round and chat. Using a big TV is obviously an option for digital boards, but we didn't have one at the beginning of the project. (http://timmybibble.com/_files/blog/23/planner.jpg) There's no way a caption could make this photo any more exciting than it already is... Tactical Map With features now organised into milestones we could go about doing some time estimates and plotting out the plan of attack. To this end I decided to leave behind the digital calendar's we've used in the past and get ourselves a cheap, crappy year planner, the type you'd see sprawled and oil stained across a car mechanics desk. The reason for doing this was it gives a much better overview than most digital calendars (as far as I've found) with a true overhead view of the whole year in a manner that we can all gather around and discuss. With the planner pinned to a board we went about covering it with stickers (yay!). Green for expos/shows. Yellow for minor releases (every two weeks). Orange for major releases. Pink for MAJOR major releases. As soon as we'd actually plotted out a selection of the major shows, it gave us a much greater idea of how we wanted to plan our approach to release and marketing, and where we could set-aside time for code freezes, QA, trailers and so forth. Whether we manage to stick to this all is another question, but it's a strong start and and in the ultra-ultra competitive world of games development it's important to give yourself every chance you can, no matter how slim. It is a question of survival. There's a famous saying "The more I practice, the luckier I get". I think the same could be said for planning. At least I hope... - Nick * USEFUL TIP: Force Of Habit have always kept a Trello board dedicated to all our game related ideas. This is organised into lists for mechanics, themes, characters, games and so forth. We can then dip into this whenever we like for inspiration regardless of what we're working on. I recommend it - notes are only as useful as your ability to retrieve the information in them. Also, this non-linear arrangement means that you can sometimes make unexpected connections. I might write a blog post on this in future... Title: Re: Friendship Club: a multiplayer arena shooter where bullets bounce forever. Post by: Gwinnell on December 12, 2014, 06:45:32 AM Release #13. Assassins & Team Hats
What's up, TIGSource friends? This week we have some exciting new features for you to play with. Well, if you've purchased alpha-access to the game that is. The first of which is a brand new mode called ASSASSINS. In Assassins mode, points are awarded for each opponent eliminated, and points are deducted for suicides and team-kills. In regular games, this emphasises aggressive, destructive, quick-fire play - everybody wants to rush for the kills for maximum points. In team games - especially 3 vs 1 games - this emphasises pacing, accuracy and control. If you shoot your team-mates accidentally, you'll lose points, so be very careful. The second new feature is a visual one. In the initial release of Team Play (http://timmybibble.com/blog/release-11-team-play/), it was somewhat vague which teams you were on. You had to either memorise it, or look at the avatars in the corners of the screen, detracting from the game. Now - as illustrated super early on in the design (http://timmybibble.com/_files/blog/14/hats.png) - we've put hats on top of the characters in the game. Yeah, that's right, The Canardinal wears the team hat _over the top_ of the galero (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Galero). (http://timmybibble.com/_files/blog/24/taunt.gif) A new taunt. Hit right on the d-pad during a game. (http://timmybibble.com/_files/blog/24/pitFall.gif) Falling into a pit of sorts. This will be used later on! (http://timmybibble.com/_files/blog/24/menu-previs.gif) A super rough new menu previs (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Previsualization). There are other new things in this release, but they're mostly things you're not able to see yet. Well, unless you hit the "E" key on various screens in the game. Secrets lie therein. Let us know what you think of the new content on Twitter (http://twitter.com/forcehabit), Facebook (http://facebook.com/forcehabit) or here on TIGSource. Stay friendly! - Ashley Full Changelog: 1st December - 12th December New Features:
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Title: Re: Friendship Club: a multiplayer arena shooter where bullets bounce forever. Post by: Gwinnell on December 18, 2014, 04:16:41 AM Basic Character Design Rules
Because Friendship Club was originally conceived at a 24 hour game jam, the time restrictions forced me to come up some super quick character designs. All of the imaginary friends are based off the same design principles. 1. Simple shapes! The general design of each character is quite basic. They're all made up of simple shapes. This was partly down to the time limit of the jam, but I was still trying to get a group of characters with really defined, obvious features; that a small boy might actually imagine and draw. It also makes for quite strong character silhouettes, which is always a good thing. (http://timmybibble.com/_files/blog/25/characterHeads.png) 2. Identical bodies and guns All the characters have identical bodies and guns. Again; this was mostly down to jam time limitations; but fortunately it also seems to make the individual heads stand out more and strengthen their personalities whilst still making them appear 'equal'. (http://timmybibble.com/_files/blog/25/characters.png) 3. Unique character colours Each character has an individual defining colour to set them apart from each other. The obvious choice, (which is the same for pretty much all local multiplayer games) is to go for the primary colours (plus green) for maximum contrast between players. I wanted to do something a tiny bit different, so it's a slight variation on these; hot pink, lime green, orangey yellow and aqua. The colours needed to be really bright and saturated to stand out against the dark background. I also wanted them to be a bit strange, unrealistic and different; because it's the imagination of a child. Green ducks are totally legit. (http://timmybibble.com/_files/blog/25/colourWheel.png) The unique character colour (I'm going to call it a UCC 'cause I talk about it a lot.) is present on the torso (or top!?) of each character, their gun, and on a defining feature of their head. For Chud, it's the horns and nose; for Shakey Jake it's the bandana/mask thing. For Old Man Ricketts, it's the decoration on his hat, and for the Canardinal it's the whole hat. The UCC also extends to each character's bullets. It seems obvious, but it really ties the player to the action; which is really important in a game like this. You want to know exactly who's shot who (or if you've shot yourself!) - it's part of the fun. 4. Limited palette This is probably more down to personal preference, but each character's colour palette is limited to 5 colours (in their neutral expressions.) and are based off their UCC. I guess this is just 'cause I like heavy stylisation and limited palettes; but it makes each character's unique colour all the more prominent, which really helps with player identification in game. Even though a lot of these intial design decisions were made in that initial 24 hour period (and we've had plenty of time to change things up!) the characters have stayed mostly the same; they work so well with the gameplay. It's a very fast paced game with a lot going on, so keeping things simple - at least graphically speaking - just seems to make sense. We need all the important elements to stand out from the backgrounds and not be confused with each other, and the designs (so far) seem to tick all the boxes. 5. Fan Art / Community Engagement When people play the game, they seem to develop favourite characters almost instantly, which can only be a good sign. :) (This is partly down to Nick's audio skills and Tom's glorious voicebox for bringing them to life!) An added bonus of having these super simplified character designs - which appeals particularly to me - is the potential for other people to draw your characters! (See the step by step guide below on how to draw a Chud!) They're pretty flippin' easy to draw, and people can add detail and put their own spin on them. I find this pretty exciting and inspirational, especially when I imagine seeing them in a completely different art style to my own. Here's Ashley's take on the gang; pixel style. So cool. (http://timmybibble.com/_files/blog/25/pixels.png) Also, some proof that anyone can draw these characters and have them still be totally recognisable! (http://timmybibble.com/_files/blog/25/chudDrawing101.png) I'll go into some more detail about character design in another post; but hopefully this little slice is interesting to someone out there. We've all become quite fond of these stupid characters, and I hope that other people like them too. If you have a spare moment, try doodling a Chud (or any of the others!) and send the result our way on Twitter (http://twitter.com/timmybibble) or Facebook (http://facebook.com/forcehabit). We'd love to see how you'd draw them! - Sophie Title: Re: Friendship Club: a multiplayer arena shooter where bullets bounce forever. Post by: oodavid on December 18, 2014, 04:52:21 AM This looks incrediballs, following
Title: Re: Friendship Club: a multiplayer arena shooter where bullets bounce forever. Post by: Gwinnell on December 25, 2014, 04:36:34 AM Merry Christmas everyone!
(http://timmybibble.com/_files/blog/26/chrimbo.gif) Title: Re: Friendship Club: a multiplayer arena shooter where bullets bounce forever. Post by: Gwinnell on January 19, 2015, 03:47:29 AM Happy New Year! It's the first release of 2015 and we've got some tasty treats for you today. Tasty treats in the form of pies... because we've added Game Statistics!.
(http://timmybibble.com/_files/blog/27/stats.png) A quick shot of the table layout. Pie served up warm! As you can see, so far we are recording kills, deaths, bullets caught and bullets that nearly hit. We'll be adding lots more stats as time progresses; things like number of taunts (hit the d-pad), suicides, furniture destroyed, finger of god kills, bullets fired, and more (that we haven't thought of yet)! There are a few remaining bugs with this screen, such as only the Winning Player being able to cycle through stats, but these will be fixed in the next release. No doubt! Aside from that, we're still working hard on all of the new menu screens; cool & illustrative art, slick transitions, ambient audio effects, and lots of other jazz. Hopefully this will be ready soon so we can get back to working on the game content. Brace yourselves, it's going to be awesome. Let us know what you think! Full Changelog: 5th January - 16th January New Features:
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Title: Re: Friendship Club: a hyperactive bullet hell party game. Post by: Gwinnell on January 30, 2015, 09:45:44 AM Konnichiwa autoduck! Friendship Club has received another update today. It features some new animations for standoff / quick draw mode, some bug fixes, and a whole bunch of other stuff that's currently under-the-hood. We're sad that we can't show it to you right now, but you understand right? Maybe next time...
Here are some GIFs of the new animations. (http://timmybibble.com/_files/blog/28/timmyDraw.gif) Quickdraw countdown #1 - Timmy's Bedroom. (http://timmybibble.com/_files/blog/28/go.gif) Round Start! (http://timmybibble.com/_files/blog/28/wonkyDraw.gif) Quickdraw countdown #2 - The Wonky Wagon. (http://timmybibble.com/_files/blog/28/2.png) A slight update to the Stats screen. Coming soon! Let us know what you think! Here, Twitter (http://twitter.com/forcehabit), Facebook (http://facebook.com/forcehabit) or wherever. Stay friendly! Full Changelog: 19th January - 30th January Art:
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Press: We're writing a little press system thing that manages your contacts and can tell you when you (or another member of your team) last contacted somebody. I'm sure other systems for this exist, but none are specifically geared towards games PR... It's a bit like a cross between Promoter app and Distribute().
Title: Re: Friendship Club: a hyperactive bullet hell party game. Post by: Gwinnell on March 31, 2015, 11:42:10 AM Lately, rather than working on the game, we've been doing a lot of blogging -- that's just what happens when you gear up for a big Steam Early Access launch! :D
Trailer 1: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e_ev5IWPTOk Trailer 2: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TvnAh9E-PHs Steam: http://store.steampowered.com/app/332760 The big announcement: http://timmybibble.com/blog/steam-early-access-announcement/ Standing out at expos on a budget: http://www.gamasutra.com/blogs/SophieHumphries/20150323/239487/Stand__Deliver__Budget_ways_to_stand_out_at_Expos.php Using pre-visualisations in our game development: http://fireside.gamejolt.com/post/pre-visualisations-in-game-development-cpbgyswu Release day -- woop woop! http://timmybibble.com/blog/steam-early-access-out-now/ Wallpaper: (http://timmybibble.com/_files/blog/32/steamAnnoucementImageBlue.png) We're going to be releasing another update on Friday which includes support for WASD keys and tidies a few other things up. Community feedback is great! :) Title: Re: Timmy Bibble's Friendship Club - a multiplayer bullet-hell arena shooter. Post by: Join Indies on March 31, 2015, 12:08:29 PM Really am surprised to see how little attention this wonderful game has received on the site. Keep on going and I'm sure the attention you deserve will come your way! The graphics are a deep breath of fresh air in an ocean of pixel art. Vector art woooo (Saw the game originally on Gamejolt). Was wondering how much that cost for that Gamejolt banner? (Feel free to answer that in private!). I read that you were up in Sheffield for games Britainnia! You a local or just visiting? Good luck folks! Chiming in and giving this more attention. Looks fantastic so far. Lots of nice animation achieved just form scales and tweens of shapes. Title: Re: Friendship Club: a hyperactive bullet hell party game. Post by: Gwinnell on April 03, 2015, 01:09:02 PM Hi everyone. I totally just worked the bank holiday to get an update published to Steam. The life of a game developer, eh?
Release #17 Advanced Modifiers fixed! First up, we've fixed all of the accidentally-broken advanced modifiers. Relaxed play now works, target now works, the timer now works. This means we've been able to re-introduce Bully Mode, which was removed from recent builds. We've also added descriptions to the modifiers so you know what the heck they do! (http://timmybibble.com/_files/blog/33/advmods.png) Relaxed play might be my favourite... Keyboard & Mouse controls! Secondly, keyboard controls! We've implemented keyboard controls on WASD and mouse so even if you only have one controller you can still play with a friend. If you have two controllers, now three of you can play. (Maybe we'll even let you have FIVE players at some point...) New game mode: Criss-cross! Third on the list is a brand new game mode straight from the recipe book (http://steamcommunity.com/app/332760/discussions/0/611701999520359900/) -- Criss-cross! Criss-cross is best played with four players, free-for-all or 2 vs 2. You start with no ammo at all, and so have to run to each other's rugs to charge your gun. This results in conflict areas as players cross paths. It's super fun - give it a try! Character Select updated! The final change is only a small one. The Character Select screen has been slightly adjusted so that players are more likely to run over other each other's rugs. This allows us to remove that little bit of text that explicitly tells players to do so, and as a result makes the game a more accurate realisation of Timmy's dream world. We've also moved the hats into the tooltips as the "A" and "B" were completely pointless - whoops! (http://timmybibble.com/_files/blog/33/charsel.png) New Character Select layout. We've also been working on other stuff, but we didn't have time to implement it. There were some other little fixes and additions too, but there are (as always) too many to note. If you really want to know, the full changelog below contains all the secrets. Cheers, Ashley Full Changelog: Code:
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Title: Re: Friendship Club: a hyperactive bullet hell party game. Post by: Gwinnell on April 17, 2015, 08:06:28 AM Hello Tigsource! Take off your hard hats, flat caps and snapbacks. It's time to don some ARMOUR! Yep, Friendship Club just introduced a brand new Armour Mode, and many other smaller (but just as cool) things. (http://timmybibble.com/_files/blog/35/armour.gif) How does armour work? Playing with Armour on means players can be hit by two bullets before getting eliminated. However, it doesn't mean players have two hit points! Armour is not affected by the dash attack. In fact if two players dash into each other with armour on, they both lose their armour. It's more like having a protective shield. Why is it so cool? It might not sound like much, but it drastically changes the gameplay -- matches become longer, and the meta game gets ramped up significantly. Players with armour try to stay out of melee combat as there's the potential there to lose their advantage. Play styles also become more reckless as players know they need to get multiple hits in order to pull off their awesome victories. Essentially, Armour introduces more ways to totally humiliate your friends, and that's what this game is all about. (http://timmybibble.com/_files/blog/35/armourTests.png) First pass of the armour. Not as cool, right? What about those other cool things? There's a lot in the full changelog below, but here are the best bits.
As always, let us know what you think and follow the game's progress by subscribing to this thread. :) Cheers! Full Changelog: Code:
Art & Animation:
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Title: Re: Friendship Club: a hyperactive bullet hell party game. Post by: Gwinnell on May 15, 2015, 06:34:36 AM
An Unlimited Ammo toggle into the advanced modifiers. This is exactly what it sounds like! It's very manic, and is equal amounts game-design breaking, but some people might find it fun, so why not? Sometimes 8 bullets just isn't enough... Watch out Canardinal! Chud has unlimited ammo! (https://vine.co/v/e7i29n6e5UH) (Vine) Hardcore Mode Next up, a new a Hardcore toggle. Hardcore mode is the result of stripping the game back and removing a lot of visual hints. Player scores in the avatars are removed, there's no gun reticule so you cannot see how much ammo your opponents have, and there is no dash cone overlay so it's harder to attack someone at just the right moment. We can potentially go further with this idea, removing team hats and the rest, but for now we just want to hear what people think! Anything else? Yup! It's a bunch of smaller things, really. We've added sounds to the new paintings from the last release, we've fixed up Relaxed Play a bit, we've updated modifier descriptions, we've changed fonts in certain places throughout the game, and more. Paintings with sounds! (https://vine.co/v/e7i92MzpTF0) (Vine) There's other stuff too, but it's all under the hood. We can now trigger sound events from our animation tools, we did a bit of concepting for another new arena, we did a bit of concepting for new guns, we worked on updating the win-screen for team play... There's more, and as always can be seen in the changelog below. (http://timmybibble.com/_files/blog/36/charge.gif) Charging up! That's it! Have fun, and until next time, stay friendly! Full Changelog Bug Fixes:
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Title: Re: Friendship Club: a hyperactive bullet hell party game. Post by: Gwinnell on May 20, 2015, 01:46:52 AM Holla! Following on from that last post (and all the others)... this one seems rather small in comparison.
New Statistics We've added a few more statistics to the end-game stats / tasty pies screen.
(http://timmybibble.com/_files/blog/38/bulletsFired.gif) (http://timmybibble.com/_files/blog/38/furnitureDestroyed.gif) The one other potentially cool feature - but also particularly standard - is that you can now hotplug controllers. This just means you can plug controllers in after the game is running, and it will know that the controller exists. One small step towards a more seemless experience. Right-o, that's everything. Have fun with this release, but most importantly, stay friendly! - Ashley You can say things to us in these places, amazing huh?! Twitter (http://twitter.com/forcehabit), Facebook (http://facebook.com/forcehabit) or really spoil us and use the comments below. Full Changelog New things:
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