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My first "ahhh I see, you have some boxes" gif:

(http://www.umutdervis.com/tig/bones/bones1.gif)

- Added some crates & stones (one will be indestructable), right now they're just randomly lining up on walls.
- Will add some resources to collect tonight to see how it feels, should be easy enough.

(http://www.umutdervis.com/tig/bones/bones2.gif)

Another day, another update. Fixed a lot of bugs and inconsistent behaviours.

I am not experienced in writing platformers, I don't know if it always goes like this but I happen to find a lot of little quirks that make you write special case code all over the place.

Also, at this point I'm mostly trying different ideas (and breaking stuff all the time).

So far, things that seem to be working:

- Soft wall jumping: Mostly by chance, I made the wall-jump feel soft (like bouncing on bed), thus entering into walls a bit more before turning direction. It can seem a bit weird in gif's, but gameplay-wise it felt great to me. It's like a monkey moving free-style among palm trees. Have no idea how I will represent it visually in the final version.

Things that didn't work:

- Ceiling behaviour, when you hit your head to some platforms. Not only limited free movement feeling, but also messed up the other behaviours of platforms (landing or wall jumping from sides) no matter how much special case code I've written (mostly because of soft wall jumping, it means your character still collides with walls few more frames after it made the initial contact and it can cause different type of collisions trigger at once). Solution: Using destructable crates feels much better whenever I want to limit vertical movement to some degree, in other cases I will not try to limit vertical movement at all.

- Indestructable square stones. Same problem above. Solution: I'm not using them.

keep up the great work. looking forward to seeing progress

Thanks! Good to know someone is watching.  :gentleman:

Early update for today, more engine refinement and spawning some resources to experiment with.

(http://umutdervis.com/tig/bones/bones3.gif)

Now I think I'll try to focus more on enemy interactions (and extra abilites). Beside that, I'm thinking about how I can make the environment seem more natural instead of boring parallel walls, in standart tile based games it should be easier but this soft jumping physics really limits how I can use blocks / tiles. It will also affect the possible depth of levels' design.

nice style, looks fun!

What are you using to make it?

@dlarocque91, thanks!

@and, I'm using Flash since I feel comfortable in it. But game won't be played online, I'm planning to wrap it into an EXE or AIR file in the end. I'm trying to make a small PC game where the design allows more replayability (in a RL-like fashion) compared to my previous games (http://www.umutdervis.com/), which feel mostly casual.

Probably something like GameMaker might have been more sensible in this case but I was hesitant to dive into a new tool for the small amount of time I have.

I like those bone like particle thingies. They make the game look more alive.

Thanks Ragnor, I hope it'll look much better when visuals come.

I added dashing and it felt great, but still a bit buggy. I'm starting to think that adding such upgrades might take too much time for the scope of this project (also I'm kind of stuck for ideas for upgrades that can make the game interesting compared to a standart runner type game).

I was planning to go for procedural generation for levels and spice it by different upgrades everytime, but now I'm more inclined to design compact levels, where you need to figure out how and when to use dash and jumps to pass them. This frees my time from finding & coding new interesting upgrades, but that time will possibly go to level design (and a level editor?), which still doesn't guarantee to make it better.

So, next updates can take a while longer until I figure out all these stuff.

My humble level editor is done. I can load & save levels and transfer them to game. In case I want to return to proc. gen. levels, I can also turn it on from the code but if level based design serves well as I think, that won't be necessary.

(http://www.umutdervis.com/tig/bones/bonesLevelEditor1.jpg)

Man, this is really fresh and interesting concept.
I really like the soft jump, leaning into the wall thing you mentioned.  Maybe the game could be night/sleep/dream themed and the walls could be pillows?

What if instead of having blocks that you just can't pass through, what if you could pass through them once, then they became impassable terrain?

And tbh, it almost looks like you could port this to iOS and Android without too much difficulty.
Like have the tilt control direction and tap to jump.

Hi Umutd,

your project lookst interesting. You mentioned there is allways movement, so what does that entail?
What are the controls? It looks as though there is gravity.

Take care,
fingerman

Hey thanks, that's encouraging to hear! At the beginning I was thinking more grim stuff (bones, skeletons) but as coding progresses, I also find myself wanting to draw more softer stuff (no pun intended). Pillow walls & night theme can be very fun, both to draw and play in :) Though, whether it's a pillow or something else, I have still no idea how I will choose to animate those stuff, like bending the wall at the impact point without dropping performance. At the end, I might have to go with just animating a very fluid animated character and puffy effects at impact point.

Once passable-then impassable block is also a very neat idea, it completely suits the new path the prototype is going: Twitch-play based short levels where you need to understand patterns and avoid too many mistakes to pass them.

For mobile, I need to talk with my more experienced friends, to ensure if it will work with enough performance. Regarding controls, right now there is also dash besides jump & moving and I intend to keep it. I can activate dash only after making the jump but not yet sure about those details. I guess all will wait until I nail the gameplay feel with all elements in place.

Thanks for the detailed comment!  :)

Hey, thanks for your interest! It means that our character is always running, but we can change the direction (with left & right buttons), jump and dash. It currently feels like a platformer where you have a nice amount of control over your character, but also has the fast paced feeling of a runner, where decisions need to be made in a smaller timeframe.

I'm still trying to figure out what this game can be (mostly by throwing things at it), I really like fast paced games with flowing controls (little friction as possible), but I sure don't want to make another standart runner clone.

Thanks again!

Flash is cool. Flashpunk with Flashdevelop was my goto for a few years but I would 100% recommend GameMaker as that's what I use now - if you decide to make the transition let me know so I can give you a heads up on all the stuff that I got stuck on moving from Flash to GM!

Wow, that's very kind of you And! Though I wouldn't want to nag you before checking web all over if I decide to make the jump :)

I half-heartedly searched about GM and Unity several times (some friends constantly said GM has problems in modern systems like Win8 and Unity can do everything it can do and just better, though I was more inclined towards GM because of its simpler interface)... Once upon a time I even acquired a GM license which allowed free win/mac builds and stuff in a weekend deal, but back then I couldn't even understand if I activated my license correctly, yoyogames site & application's license interface was really awkward.

But aside from these superficial excuses, the main reason is that I'm really comfortable with how I am used to work now, and don't have much time, money and energy these days to invest in learning a new engine and making the games at the same time. In the future, may be?

I am trying to circumvent potential flash performance issues by choosing concepts carefully (like avoiding situations when a lot of stuff is updated at the same time, or when the whole screen updates -as in parallax scrolling for eg.-), or just by keeping resolution low if I can't do any better.

Thanks again :)

For last several days, I'm in one of those phases when you feel the game isn't fun enough as it is supposed to be. I'm tweaking things, adding new environmental features, trying different enemy types, but couldn't find the rhythm I'm looking for in gameplay yet. On a positive note, the editor has become much more usable and it is also easier to export/import levels now, without breaking the flow.

So, I took some time yesterday and decide to join 4 hour jam (http://itch.io/jam/4-hour-jam-2) to entertain myself a bit. Before this, I participated in 2 private 4hr jams, it's mostly fun because it ends in one night and doesn't drain you as in 48 hr ones.

This time I made a simple Amiga tribute game (though visuals are anamorphic (2:1 pixels) as mostly seen in some C64 games). In case you want to check it out, click on the picture:

(http://www.umutdervis.com/tig/bones/lowRes2_name.gif) (http://udjamming.itch.io/amiga-shooter-1)

Finally, I created THAT level.

After 2 weeks, I finally managed to create a level that is both fun and has the feeling of a promising game, compared to my previous experiments which felt more like directionless toys or boring random challenges. During this stage, a lot of enemies and ideas didn't work, but now I have a better understanding on what's working.

(http://www.umutdervis.com/tig/bones/bones_firstNiceLevel.jpg)

A little update:

Designing levels... is going well, I'm having fun both playing and designing the game at this point, which doesn't always happen, I have to admit. (Normally at this stages I have a tendency to get bored because of mundane stuff that needs to be done).. So, while I'm productive, I'm trying to avoid thinking too much about the testing phase which will probably crush my dreams :)

...

I also started working on the art. Aaand it surely took a very different direction from what I was imagining before.

________________________________________________

(http://umutdervis.com/tig/bones/sketch1.jpg)
(my first "okay enough(?)" sketch. Ummm can't see any bones here, can you?)
________________________________________________

The thing is, I find myself following a very flexible "trial and error" path for this game (after seeing my initial ideas fail horribly) and art is no exception. Game feels very fast-paced (it became faster than previous gifs), and you're trying to clear all enemies without dying, it can get PRETTY HARD already, while traversing different environmental features. Whenever I add details that looks cool in still image, chances are they mess up the readability in the fastly changing screen, which is the last thing I want currently. So, going for something cool & unique while keeping it simple. Mmmmm hard.

________________________________________________

(http://umutdervis.com/tig/bones/sketch2.jpg)
(Another try. I liked it better, instead of "just another casual game" feeling in the first one. Still, while it's readable when playing, it feels a bit empty in full-screen)
________________________________________________


These below are the last iterations, I liked them very much actually, I'm thinking of going with one of them (these are just rough sketches by the way, no way finished as you can see the half baked textures and broken lines):

Saturated one:
(http://umutdervis.com/tig/bones/sketch5.jpg)
________________

Less saturated one:
(http://umutdervis.com/tig/bones/sketch6.jpg)

....

So, what do you think?

I like the less saturated hand drawn look. It's a pretty unique visual style, I particularly like the faintly drawn trees in the background - more of that kind of stuff would be cool.

Are the bits of fruit the characters in the game or are they collectibles? I think that's the only thing not communicated super clearly in the image.

I've done a couple of hand drawn games. One was easier than I expected and one was a lot harder because it needed a lot of animation - so bear that in mind obviously!

I've been quietly watching this log, waiting to see what the visuals will end up looking like. So the character is a fruit, a tomato?

Looking at the two last screenshots, I have trouble parsing some of the line-work, for example the red lines on the platform, I can't work out what that really is.

Watercolour is an interesting aesthetic for a game, but can be a bit of a pain to look good. In motion it can look terribly static, as if you've got these 2D plains sliding around on top of one another. The best watercolour video games I've played actually painstakingly animate their watercolours, or at least fake it with the classic 'draw everything three times and loop it' Don Hertzfeld squigglyness. Adding some motion to the lines can really make it not look frozen, so perhaps that's something to consider? I think I'll have to see what you propose in motion to really form an opinion, though.

That's my favorite too, I'm relieved to hear I'm not the only one. But I've seen some friends respond well to saturated one, so I'm also trying to figure out what got their attention (just shiny colors?), and if they would think the same if they see it constantly and in the action. Or may be I need to find something better, if nobody cares about the difference much.

Fruit(berry) guys are the guys which we should smash before ending the level. I'm still not sure about them being berries, having trouble finding expressive characters that fit in 32x32 :) Some stand in weird places where you can fall down after getting them, some shoot stuff to get you, and sometimes the hard thing is just connecting kills without missing going upwards in continous fast movement. No collectibles, upgrades or anything else. Just clear the maze and get out, that's the version I liked after series of experiments.

Yeah I'm a bit unsure of extra work that might be required because of hand drawing, but hey.. let's wait and see, I have hope :D Btw, tried pixel art (which was my first intention) but failed horribly, just couldn't wrap my head around it for this game, don't know why.

Hey, thanks for leaving a comment, knowing someone reads here really helps.

Character is a berry (I forgot to remove that tomato cap) but... I mean.. I'm not sure. I'm thinking a lot about berries, lol. I just couldn't find anything else that made sense and seems expressive in a 32x32 box, and now I'm obsessed with berries and can't think anything else.

Is it lame? Perhaps. And I already have some very bad berry jokes. Trust me you don't want to know but in case I can't find something else, I'm inclined to put them in the game and destroy myself (whatever that means?). Though one thing is sure, I'm not gonna write a stupid background story just to justify berries... as in "your berry named Sam was castrated by the village's priest berry and now you have to stop him before he does the same thing to your niece berry". So... yeah.. berries. um. I don't want to seem like fishing for ideas but I'm open to suggestions actually.

Yeah, pink lines are broken textures from an older version (when the platforms were completely light colored). I left them uncorrected because I liked that pink and wanted to keep it in the sketch. I'm trying to have a basic idea of what works in general by blurring my eyes and trying to imagine the final art by looking at unfinished version. Not the best way to show people but I can easily fix it later if I manage to decide on the basics.

Also, that wiggle efect was exactly what I was thinking to spice things up. It might be too much work to draw platforms & walls in a wiggly way (and I'm not sure that it won't be painful for eyes), but I will try it first for the chest-like single blocks, enemies and low contrast level background elements. Just hoping that this won't turn out a year-long work :)

The final art style you showed is my favorite I think. It's unique without being too crazy

Glad you like it, thanks for the input!

level editor seems really cool :waaagh:

Hoho, thanks mate  :)

I finally managed to transfer some graphics from concept art into game. I used boring test level in gif (cause walls and other details are not ready). Some extras that came later:

- Platforms cast shadow now, differently from the concept art. I was trying to keep 2d drawing feeling but it made platforms pop-up, obviously. I've not yet made the final decision, I'd be glad if you can give your opinions.
- I can apply color changes to different elements, may be I can use this to create different worlds for different level groups.

(http://www.umutdervis.com/tig/bones/a_vanillaColors_firstPass.gif)

All these took some time because I was also thinking about my pipeline and the workflow. Especially animating background elements can/will get hairy because I'm not placing them with my level editor and whatever change I make in editor can later impair the visibility of a carefully drawn background without me noticing.

As always, your opinions are welcome, guys (about everything, not only graphics..).

Very quick second update.. I was only gonna animate backgrounds but just tried this... Should I go for wiggling platforms and walls? Seems much better to me:

(http://umutdervis.com/tig/bones/wigglyPlat1.gif)

I very much prefer the wiggly platforms, it gives the game a sense of life.

Yeah I really like those wriggly lines!

Thanks for the input guys, I will use the wiggly platforms. My fear was it's possibility of being distractive for the eye when applied to foreground elements, it proved to be false, mostly. I think it can also reduce the amount of filler background drawings since the need to make the game seem dynamic is much lesser now.

On the other hand, I might add a "turn off wiggle" option, in case there seems to be enough people with sensitive vision that can be affected negatively. I don't know if it is a good idea yet, in the end it will be a very definitive aspect of the visual style so normally I wouldn't want to include an option that ruins overall impact of the game. What do you think?

Also, new gif: Character bouncing & jumping & changing directions ... I tried make him circular but it didn't go very well. Also, warning, heavily compressed colors & framerate. Feedbacks are welcome as always!

(http://www.umutdervis.com/tig/bones/newPlayer2_lossy140.gif)

Tiny update:

- Past week, I slowed down a bit. I'm about to complete the first pass of platform/wall assets.
- Also made an unplanned small testing with some friends, just to check how they behave around controls.

This week, my goal is to return back to level design and build some introductory levels to make a build for a more appropriate testing phase.

The art is looking great. The only thing I would like to point out is the name of the game. "Bones" is pretty generic and google-unfriendly, it might be a good idea to come up with a more unique/meaningful name, especially after art direction is more clearly defined.

Thanks! I'm definitely changing the name, I thought it as a work-in-progress name. Also game just didn't go towards the way that I was expecting at the beginning, they really doesn't match now :)

....

By the way guys, it would be great if you can drop your opinions on this one.

I'm trying to separate 2 platform types by drawing linear stuff on one type and filled shapes/areas on the other (with differing colors). You can read about platform functions below.

Which one seems better to your eye?

(http://umutdervis.com/tig/bones/texture-showcase-2.png)

Some details about platforms:

White platforms are hard surfaces (you bounce when you hit from below, you move straight when you're moving on them)
Brown platforms are soft ones (they don't have ceiling function, but you make small bounces when you're moving on them)

They also have counterpart walls (similar colors / textures / functions ).

There is also a third platform but it's not here. You can see them in previous drawings (white-brown ones), they don't have a ceiling function and you move straight/normal on them.

I think I prefer 1 or 7.
The sharp, bright contrast in the line work pops out and is going to make it quicker for the player to distinguish which platform is which on top of the primary color difference.
4 especially seems relatively muted, I think the line work and patterns really need some color.  Something about the stronger, reddish hues in 6 makes me think it's like a slight power-up or something; unless those colors are used on the hearts (like in 1).

All in all I'm really liking the progress in your game.
Keep it up!

Thanks for the detailed input, also glad you're liking it!   :toastR:

By the way, now I remembered. If I find time, I plan to try some "pillow-y" animation thing on walls this week, as you suggested before. The thing is, now everything is berries and chocolates, I don't know how it will turn out :) Also, different from my initial idea, now character is behaving like a jelly and I liked it a lot, because your every move gets you a feedback this way. But a jelly hitting a pillow probably won't have the most impressive feedback compared to jelly hitting a chocolate and splashing some soft pieces, for eg. Anyway, I'm totally improvising on this part.

Development process can be quiet (thus nerve-breaking) sometimes, I know I'm not giving much to talk on but every voice from you guys help me keep it together, so thanks really :)

I added textures to platforms/walls but I don't think it is working, it is making hard to read environment in fast scrolling gameplay. :'(  Well, I guess I can still have different backgrounds to break the monotony.

Anyway, I'm returning to level design. People seem to get confused when they're first introduced to controls. I guess this mostly happens because of expectations, game looks like a platformer but controls work more like a runner.

For example, even if you don't touch a key, your character still runs and wall jumps when collides with a wall.  If you're pressing jump button while colliding with a wall, you just wall jump higher (the amount is linked to how long you press jump button). Also character is always running and this makes people freak out when the error margin seems small.  (I want them to freak out actually, just not at the beginning but after they are comfortable with controls  :eyebrows: )

People seem to adjust to it fine after they understand how it works, but they panic at start when character starts running automatically and a platform ends right away (although the fall will end up with a wall-collide, thus auto-walljump). I will try to build nice ramp to ease them into the game. I hope it goes well because when you get used to it, game really becomes fun (obviously I might be subjective).

Let's see how it goes :wizard:

It sucks that the textures aren't working, sorry =/

But there's something to be said for people going from immediately dying, to quickly picking up the controls.  It must mean that although it isn't intuitive, it's relatively easy to pick up and learn, and that isn't easy to accomplish!

I'm super excited for this game!
Good job!

Thanks for your kind words and support, also sorry for the late reply! :) I'll make more elaborate tests (accompanied with properly adjusted levels, differently from the previous one) to see if people adjust to it as I expected.

I believe it will be fine, once you develop your muscle memory I find it pretty easy (and fun) to repeat successfull runs on very hard levels!

On the art side, I'm still not sure the art in game works as well as the concept piece. I tried something different today, I would love to hear any opinions on it:

Old concept:
(http://www.umutdervis.com/tig/bones/berry-Concept-3.png)

New concept:
(http://www.umutdervis.com/tig/bones/berry-Concept-4.png)

It's very rough, but you get the idea.

Basically the two-colored platform (the most common type - yellow top & brown base) at the previous one is not working well with different kind of backgrounds. If I want to spice up the background and use some darker colors, the bottom part of platform is losing its visibility, and if I use some light colors, top part is affected similarly. The second screenshot has the advantage of platforms being composed of well-lit colors, so on the background I can use both dark & middle tones to an extent, so that I can differentiate levels a bit more (hopefully).

Also, reddish enemies obviously can be easily detected on cool colors.

However, if I go with 2nd one, I need to figure it out how other types of platforms / blocks will be. I'll try going with snow-like colors for soft ones, and ice like colors for hard ones probably.

So, which one do you like best?

Honestly they look like they could both be levels from different areas in the same game, like the different worlds in a Kirby game.

Having said that, I can see where your problem lies in that the second one has more depth to the background, but the blocks have become relatively transparent/translucent, and that'd be really difficult to pay attention to when the game is moving at speed.

It's kinda like a "scorching desert" versus "deep forest" kind of feel.   Depending on how you construct the rest of the game you might want to keep both; like whether it's level based, or endless (kinda like http://adamatomic.com/gravity/) and even then you might be able to find a way to blend the color palettes together as a transition, I don't know.

Also, I was thinking about the control scheme and what you said about your test responses.  This game is quickly starting to sound like a fusion between Super Meat Boy and One Finger Death Punch.  If you agree, at any point if/when you get writer's block with how you want the game to move forward, those two games may be sources of inspiration.


Finally, you mentioned that the game making process was "nerve-breaking,"  do you need any help?  I work in audio and would love to help out if you need.  I'm super excited to play this game.

Thanks for the input again  :toastR: I think I'll stop working on art for a while, I seem to hit a roadblock.

Yes, controls feel a bit like one finger death punch, definitely more timing is included than button-mashing.

Super meat boy was one of the first games people mentioned when they looked at the game, and it's making me think how I can avert that (or if I should? I don't know if its player base would find my game enticing actually)

The thing is, although I knew SMB for a long time, I didn't played it until recently, when a friend mentioned it again when he saw my game. I know people love its controls and overall package but somehow it didn't grow on me. It feels very different from current gameplay and what I'm aiming for (Also I wouldn't want to trespass into cloning territory, anyway) However, "little competitive twitch-based levels" aspect seems to match as far as definition goes, since I dropped the procedurally generated endless level based gameplay, which was my initial plan.


Regarding the audio, I was thinking of asking a friend or try to sort it by myself somehow, since the budget I have is only enough to cover my time and expenses for this project. Sorry, but thanks for your kind offer anyway :)

Looks cool - just keep developing and it will work itself out!

I think the biggest aspect of the assets that you've shown that remind me the most about SMB are that the game seems to have relatively simple controls, moves very, very quickly, has some form of wall hugging and jumping, and has a square character.


Other than that I think people will also relate Bones to SMB because of the higher difficulty curve.

Thanks! I hope it will, it's already going better in the last few days :)

I will try to make a detailed update post in the following days. Thanks for the comments guys.

Meanwhile... After all the hassle, I like the new direction art is taking with the new colors. Differently than before, now it also looks good (and readable) in motion too.

(http://www.umutdervis.com/tig/bones/newBluesCropped.gif)

Looks amazing! Keep it up.
Especially loved the glass breaking effect.

Now, this is an update! Finally i can see the game and i want to play it soon. So work faster please  :handanykey: :)

Those who do not want to imitate anything, produce nothing. ( this is a quote by Salvador Dali )

so i think, there is nothing wrong to imitate super meat boy ;). probably the mechanics will evolve something
original in time. the last animated gif seems promising. keep up the good work.

Thanks guys.


Ummmm... But I never said I am imitating something. As I said before, I never even played it until recently, when several people mentioned it (along with other games) after seeing my gifs. Mechanics/movement already feel very different to me. I think you misunderstood, but thanks anyway.

-----

A little update
No new visual update, I'm taking notes mostly for myself:

• Tried applying different color palettes to new art. Blue one will probably stay as the main one but I might add different modes/levels (different gravity, acceleration / bouncing rates etc.) with different colors.
• Level editor has new buttons that allow bulk moving, which makes level editing even more easier.
• Current level count: 24. Some may need a bit more fine-tuning. My goal is making 80, at least.

This a very cool game. When do you think you will be able to let us play a demo? Thanks

Hey, glad you like it! I'm not sure if I'll release a demo, but if you want to be a tester when the time comes, you can leave me your mail & skype (for screensharing while testing) You can send me a private message in case you don't want to write it openly. Thanks.

Hey i'm on your side here :). i wrote that for the people mentioning SMB. can i play this as a beta tester too? :wizard:

  :) No worries, just wanted to clear any confusion if there is any. You can send me your mail & skype by private message (Skype is useful for watching how people play and where they get stuck)

By the way, it is not certain if I will be able to send test builds to everyone who contacts me, so I can't give any promises, but I'll definitely keep it in mind in case there comes a right time! You can never have too many testers :)

Wanted to drop a little note here, in case anyone is wondering.

After some thorough testing, I decided to take a small break from this project, because it needs more time than I envisioned initially. It's not necessarily a bad thing, I believe it's sometimes better to return with refreshed batteries. Currently I'm working on a small mobile game, it's already close to finish line.

To people whom I didn't contact for testing: I didn't forget you, I just tested the current build with enough people and decided to save others for the next batch, because it is always nice to try with people who are not accustomed with the game. Thank you for your understanding.

Hey man, take your time.
It's better to go slow and produce something you're really proud of, than rush something out the front door just so you don't have to worry about it anymore.

Having said that, I'm still crazy excited for this project!

But seriously, take care of yourself.

Hey, thanks man! I was pretty sure everyone forgot this! I agree, it would be bad to rush it just to finish it. I hope I won't dissapoint at the end :)

Thanks again, really. Your comment made my day  :)

It's great that you are still working on it just make sure to give us regular updates. Also what was the goal of the game I just never really caught that.

Gameplay-wise, goal is to collect all red-heads and reach the end on each level. Story-wise, well, I'm still trying to figure it out. Probably it'll be something concise and goofy, since what I want to focus is gameplay for this game.

Your story will find itself - you're getting these ideas from somewhere so just let it all come together.

I started with a vague idea of a theme for Mable and the story just fell in around it. Not that I'm really interested in telling anyone the story, they're clever enough to work it out for themselves.

I think with this, so long as I have a reason to start on my journey through the game and the gameplay is compelling, I don't need a lot of story for the game to have an impact on me.

Ramble over - hope it helps!

Thanks Andrew, it definitely helps!

Well, I'm resurrecting this devlog.

First, an announcement (a bit shameless self promotion). After 2 years, I finished a new game, Eklips. It's a small puzzle game based on completing squares around a dot. Of course you have the liberty to not believe it because I'm the maker of it, but imho, it turned out really fun to play, it involves a bit more strategy than your usual block game and has a unique feeling.

(http://umutdervis.com/tig/eklips/GIF5.gif)

There are no ads, no IAP, that kind of stuff.

Here is the townhall topic I've created for it (https://forums.tigsource.com/index.php?topic=56141).
Here is the game website (http://strangecat.net/games/eklips)
...or if you're already ready to put your faith in me, here is the  app store link where you can buy it (https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/eklips/id1103209451?mt=8).

I really hope that it brings some extra income so that I can spend more time on Bones, and hopefully other projects..

....


And about Bones...

Bones, though still lacking a proper name, is very much alive, and have some new & neat features that are already in the game.

I also tried to adress some of the problems I figured out in the first phase of testing, especially introductory levels which were supposed to ease your way into the game. It was a rough process, I'm not gonna go into details, I'll check it out with another testing phase.

About porting Bones to mobile, Eklips helped me learn mobile stuff (thanks to friends who helped a lot) and I'm now less afraid to dive into it, but I don't think it would be easy enough to port Bones with it's current structure. I think it was already hard because of twitchy controls. So, first PC, as in the original plan.

There is also the usual worries. How much time will I be able to sink to this project, how much money will I spend, will Eklips gain any extra time for this one as I hoped? Well, we will see.

Also, itch.io's new refinery (closed testing system) sounds really good. I might try it for this one, but also I'm not sure yet, my budget (and the time it buys) is going down very quickly. May be I should try an indiegogo campaign to widen its reach (I can't use kickstarter where I live).

....


So, that all for now. I will just put this here in case you missed those links above,  feel free to buy Eklips and support me  (https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/eklips/id1103209451?mt=8).

I have purchased Eklips, but only and only because it looks great. Also, it looks like the kind of game suited to a phone.

Hope it's selling ok for you :)

This is the first I've seen of this, both Bones and Eklips look great!

Eklips is awesome! The only downside is that I can't mute the music with the phone mute - which means I can't get away with playing it at work ;)

@kcbanner, thanks!

@and, thanks, I'm glad you're liking it! I think I'll be able to cover an extra few months thanks to the sales of Eklips. I'm looking into that bug, meanwhile you can mute music / ambient / sfx separately or all together from options (gear symbol) in the main menu until I roll a update... Aaand while writing this, I guess I've found the solution! Though still can't be 100% sure since I can only test on ipad right now but this seems to be it...

A late update:

I continue working on the game but I couldn't find much energy to post any updates because of several reasons:

• My country Turkey is a mess, currently. Last months were full with terrorist attacks and some of them took place in the capital, Ankara, where I live. On top of that, last week there was a coup attempt and we were awake all night while listening window shattering bombs / sonic booms of jets & machine guns from streets. So... yeah.
  
  
• I'm mostly focusing on level design, without adding new graphics. Some units are still represented as boxes in the game. Doing constant updates & creating good gifs in this stage take extra effort and it can be hard to keep my focus on the game itself if I constantly think about what to write next as an update.
  
  

Obvious side effect is devlog seems dead and not many people visit here naturally. So I will try to make more updates. My current goal is to complete minimum 80 levels (current count is 51), which are very compact & sometimes very hard. Then I'll polish everything, add menus & stuff and then put the game on greenlight.

Anyway...

One challenge was how to spice up the game with different elements, as you progress. I really love these new additions, such as blocks that you can hold on to & slide below (these blocks are also breakable by dashing), and jump pads!

(http://www.umutdervis.com/tig/bones/bones_roofslide2.gif)

(This time I couldn't manage to capture gifs while maintaining the actual frame rate, don't know why. game is a little slower than these gifs -not much but enough to give you the opportunity to actually perceive & react to what is happening!- )

(http://www.umutdervis.com/tig/bones/bones_roofslide1.gif)



There are also new berry types you need to collect in further levels (besides static berries & berries with constant speed), one is the shooter (with guided missiles) and other is some kind of a time bomb which is triggered when it enters to the active screen.

Hopefully I'll share their gifs soon, when I replace their visuals with something else than boxes.

Take care everyone :noir:

I didn't do much anything about the game yesterday. I spent time with mom cat & kittens outside our apartment. They play like crazy. It's amazing that they never complain about rules or physics (which they occasionaly broke).


(http://www.umutdervis.com/tig/bones/momCat1.jpg)
Mommy cat, setting a new trend.

(http://www.umutdervis.com/tig/bones/kittenGang1.jpg)
The gang, using their most effective weapon, aka "the stare".


Anyway, the day before was different.

I designed a level from scratch and fine-tuned it the whole day. At the end of the day, I looked at my creation and felt pride and joy setting in, and contently started to work on an another level.

Three minutes later, I realized I overwrote the new data on the level I just finished.

So, I ate my dinner, and started a replacement level. I finished it much more quickly, since I knew what I was aiming for, but it is different because it's impossible for me to memorize how all segments come together (not to mention all the additional tweaks I made in those segments). I wish I could have kept both levels to compare the differences.

(http://www.umutdervis.com/tig/bones/replacedLevel.jpg)
The replaced level.

Small new year update:

I'm still working on this game. Current level count is 92, I plan to stop between 100-120. I also added two kinds of different portals. Latest additions made the game much more frantic, which I like. I need to post new gifs, but I will probably wait until some background elements are ready. Speaking of background graphics:

I fixed a long-time bug which was forcing me to use a time-consuming workaround on how I draw and implement background graphics. So, yay, I will be able to update backgrounds much faster and run towards completion.

Happy new year everyone.

Yup, this game is still on.

(http://umutdervis.com/tig/bones/bones4.gif)

berry juicy effects you've got there, looks fun. I saw you mentioned earlier that your gifs capture at a faster than realtime framerate, I've had the same issue (using LICECap which seems to be best quality for me). Not sure if you're still having that problem but I've found the gif optimizer at ezgif.com/optimize has an option to slow them a tad.

Thanks! Yeah, I decreased the speed of the last gif with ezgif's optimizer, it's a life saver. My observation is, this problem doesn't seem to happen when I capture a game working at 30 fps, with 30-33 fps selected in gifcam's capture rate, but happens when I capture this game (working at 42 fps), with same fps selected at gifcam. Lowering gifcam's capture rate to 30fps also produces weird stuttering results at this particular situation.

I'm kinda inclined to use fraps and then use a converter for more professional looking gif's in the future, because direct gif capturers kinda slow down the game's performance (probably using too much cpu instead of gpu?)

Here is an update.. after more than 2 years  :whome:

I am very close to finishing this game. I took a lot of decisions during the time I went away and I hope to write a more detailed post on how some of those decisions took shape.

Here is game's steam page: https://store.steampowered.com/app/1082000/A_Night_at_the_Races/

New trailer (youtube): https://youtu.be/tP8b4PjsYJY

Thanks for reading.