Hey guys, I had a bit of free time over the weekend so I thought I would make a tutorial instead of smashing out another game, its 5 parts in youtube, all of the links are here:

http://www.farmergnome.com/2013/01/my-first-game-art-tutorial.html
Oh and this is what I paint in the tutorial:

Hopefully you guys get something out of it, it was fun to make and hurray first tutorial    At this rate I am pretty tempted to start doing a pixel art tutorial, but I guess I will wait for feedback first, as I am an absolute tutorial newb.

I got 3rd overall in the comp, pretty cool showing this time, hopefully first next time 

Thanks Jackson glad you liked it, anything you didn't like?  Here's my kind of hit list as it stands:

-Heavy Pistol Graphical UI glitch
-Make shotgun barrels fire independently
-Exploding bullets sometimes kill the player
-Fire obscures bullets sometimes.

I am seriously considering adding more characters at this point also, though that wouldn't be a minor change or anything.

[a Fistful of Gun]

Hey guys, I finished up a little side project, it is a western shooter called "a Fistful of Gun".

It is about as finished as I would like for a "first version", aside from bugs that popup and a few optimisations, though I do have on the cards to build some more features/locations/characters/etc into it if people enjoy it, so well, download it here :

Latest Build

Keen to hear any feedback - especially what you liked/didn't - what you would like to see in future builds also!  Enjoy. 

Did a bit of work on my LD entry this week:





play it here if you want http://www.farmergnome.com/2012/12/new-site-post-ld48-builds.html

Fistful of Gun hits 0.42, here is a trailer

 as usual, play it at http://www.farmergnome.com .  I have been on and off working on some sort of lawyer game also, and converting Rambros over to box2d, it seems to be going well so far,  I will post some screenshots soon.

I put a new build of A Fistful of Gun up on my website, most notably contains a whole new score by Surasshu, though also lots of fixes to the mechanics that have been a bit delayed by my LD48 entry.  Enjoy.

EDIT:  Uploaded a new post LD build of Murder friends also!  Been spending the last few days converting rambros over to box2d, bit of a mission but should be worth it.

Cheers guys, glad you had fun with it, I will be doing a few last changes to the version now available publicly (mostly music related) before moving over updates to a email system on my brand new website...

www.farmergnome.com

 

Look for the email me builds link on the side- mostly because I have like, 5 games in development, and updating devlogs for each one with builds constantly really hacks into how much I can get done, I will keep posting text/pic updates and leave the builds to the auto - updater system setup.  Oh I released a new game on my site also for the LD48 - keen to hear what you guys think.

Heres my finished entry ( http://www.ludumdare.com/compo/ludum-dare-25/?action=preview&uid=10234 ):

Time to get this stuff in-game and nice and polished.

For Zeke it would be nice to have something for when you come up against a huge mob and need to slip by. So maybe double left click to lob a firecracker that distracts them for a bit. You could also still do the knife thing as well so just walking over an enemy will gut them.

New areas sound awesome.

I was thinking some sort of variation of the shotgun, look up the nock gun - could be a possible idea for the sniper - something with the ability to use him for a bit more than focused fire.  Anyway, I will keep the development a little more open from here on, until it is done anyway, here's the first mockup for the saloon level, next up mountain pass.

Game's still playing awesomely, I'll report in if I can break any systems later.


So far though I really like your suggestion for alternate loadouts/character bending. The base idea for each character is really strong (Fitting the powers to the control method). Just adding in new ways to fit the control method would probably be best. The bombs, or even variant weapons.

Best ideas I could think of would be things like Dual pistols for the control pad. Wider spray, but more chance of hitting enemies. Or a variant of the sniper that gives him a knife. Sneak up, do a running attack, have to dodge until you re stealth.

That last one might be a little too character bending though.

The good news is the 2x derringer's for the Abel, and dynamite sticks for Noah works pretty fantastically (I made these this the weapon that bounce off corners with fuckall range, works great), just need a solid 2nd weapon for Zeke.... Any ideas?  Will probably spend a bit of time after the UTO update doing some inside areas, I am thinking they act sort of like an ambush - enemies entering the building periodically until the enemy quota is reached.  Also I want to use the same "Tech" todo high up levels, as the inside levels will have a scrolling back layer (think like 2nd floor of a saloon) - and you can see the lower floor down below.  So definitely going to add some mountain pass areas, maybe train tracks over a river way down below, that sort of thing.

Sniper is a lot better now, though the points still seem a touch too high. Maybe try reducing the multiplier faster I dunno? Slow-downs were a lot better too, the only barely playable moment was when I had fires, a river, rain and the clouds all at the same time.

The thing about a close-range dude is that you need really fast and tight controls to pull that off, which you can't do with a mouse. I'm forever snagging the edge of walls with the sniper. I can only see two options: either change the pistoler to a closer-range sword wielder that can slice bullets out of the air, or change the sniper to some sort of native american shaman that can walk through terrain.

I am thinking he wouldstill retain his cloak, so he still would be the most "tactical" of the characters, though allow him to spam several axes that can corner bounce so the focus isn't so much on directly confronting the enemy, but rather decloaking behind a wall and spamming a volley of axes to bounce and hit someone around a corner.  Hopefully trading range for a little more tactics and a ton more stopping power. I will prototype it anyway see how it plays, it may be too slow being mouse moved to actually work.

EDIT: It is kind of fun, but most of the objects in the game are kind of aligned in a way that you rarely get a good bounce shot off, I think I will do some work on the snipers view cone tomorrow instead and keep the rifle.  I fixed the sniper problem how he clings to walls also, should be no more sticking in 0.23.

Not to totally twist your point, but the reload doesn't seem to be the problem judging from your reply, but rather the position of the shells on the UI?  If I could position them over the character do you think that would help?

EDIT:  I just tried putting the UI over the character and it is fucking god awful, I don't think there is anything that can be done aside from some flashing / decent sound effects, whenever they get done...

such a shame!
I think it definitely works for barabariball (they have the number of jumps you have left on a kind of radial gui thing around players) http://barabariball.com/

but yeah, flashing might be a better idea.

I think it gets thrown off by the fact there is tons of shit flying at you (within a small radius around the character usually)- dodging bullets can mean just moving slightly to the left/right can be the option between life and death, obscuring that area with UI is not going to solve problems.  The 0.22 build has some better sound effects for reload prompts, hopefully that helps.  I will make the shotgun reload independently shortly.

I have to make some indoor levels also - I want to make some smaller corridor type levels - inside of a saloon or whatever.

Some of those should be fixed in 0.22, I didn't get much time on this tonight as Under the Ocean is about to drop another update, but I made some changes to the sniper to lower his end game power, including putting a cap on stealth and wanted posters - and also nerfing the multishot.  I made some changes to the amount of particles being created also, should help the slowdown problems, but the biggest news is that Surasshu changed up all the music, while its not final, it is definitely a welcome change from the ripped music.

EDIT: I should have fixed that sniper skill select bug also, yell if you still see it...

I still don't like the sniper btw, I am really tempted to change him to a short range character but I will continue to balance him, see where it goes.  Maybe more melee weapons with cloak, tf2 spy style.  Or very short range shooting, throwing tomahawks or something with a higher rate of fire - but also the ability to melee targets that are right ontop of him.  I will test it out, it really is the only way, and everyone can vote on which is more fun    Whatever it is, it needs to make use of the mouse precision, maybe short ranged weapons with the potential to bounce off walls, hmmm.

Holy jesus fucking shit balls this is fucking awesome. I played the keyboard dude and it's easily the best fucking action game I've played in a long fucking while. Holy shit awesome dude.

Here's some shit I thunk:

snip....

Epic post bro, good feedback all around, I will try to address it all, here goes:

-The number one guy actually did it with the sniper, which is understandable, the sniper gets pretty OP late game.

-I did a bit of a speed optimization on the moving levels, should be a little better now, more to come.

- I will change up the reload on the shotgun, but add more delay between reloading to balance it, otherwise he will be a little too good.

-Upgrades are kept until you die, I should probably make that more obvious.

-Extra life upgrades are indeed the holy grail, but with the right combo of upgrades (armor, unstoppable, etc) you can get pretty far also.  I will lower velocity upgrade a bit, it is a little OP - especially on the heavy shotgun.

-The main menu is usable with all the controls currently, keyboard included.

-The sniper is probably the most powerful of the classes currently, at least with the right upgrades.  You have to take your time though.  Keep in mind, his multiplier drops much slower also, and cloak helps

-Don't worry I will keep adding shit to the game, so long as people enjoy it   Though the bigger/better game on the cards is RamBros - so at some point I will be jumping back on that.

Got the game pretty much done on my end, just waiting on audio and doing some online multiplayer stuff on it and story while I procrastinate.  You can play the work in progress builds if you want also. http://forums.tigsource.com/index.php?topic=28315.15

Insanely beautiful, the colors are so vivid. Gotta try it.

Ha well hopefully the new build isn't too broken.  

snip

This is awesome @Farmergnome, that vivid colors combined with those precious graphics are hipnotically beautiful. Congrats.

I´ve donwloaded your last build, and allthough I didn´t know whats was happening at the beginnings, the game turns addictive some few moments after. I wish you the best luck, incredible work!

Hopefully with a bit more polish I can sort the learning curve - I am thinking of doing a storymode or something, that being said it is pretty easy to pickup. Diggin your wild west pixel art also 

Such a piece of greatness.

Nothing on RamBros though    New Fistful of Gun build, all the sound effects have been replaced by Surasshu - what a champion  I have locked off the multiplayer, thats reserved for people on my skype and twitter for now, until it becomes more stable.

There will be a fair few audio bugs in this build (and a few sound effects that might need some changing), and quite possibly some gameplay bugs with the introduction of online games, if you see anything odd just post it below.

Got the game pretty much done on my end, just waiting on audio and doing some online multiplayer stuff on it and story while I procrastinate.  You can play the work in progress builds if you want also. http://forums.tigsource.com/index.php?topic=28315.15

Really glad to see this isn't Actually Dead. It looks and plays real purdy and the unforgiving difficulty level is just right. I'm going to have to go out and lasso a passer-by now, just so I can try out the co-op mode.

Don't stress too much if not, I am adding online multiplayer co-op now, should be ready to test in a few days I think - though it will be troublesome until all the bugs are sorted...  After that I will probably see if I can get the mixtape on Alpha funding or something, finish up Fistfuls storymode/balance/additional weapons, then start the new year fresh with some Rambros revisions   - Online MP is pretty much 100 percent on the cards for Rambros at this point also.