Atmosphere is the only upside to snow.

Not true.  Snow reflects light everywhere, which brightens things up considerably.  Winter can be pretty dark without it, when you only get a few hours of daylight.  It's not so bad here really, we get about 6 currently I think, but further north the sun doesn't get up at all until next year.

Back to rainstorms here now btw.

Yeah.  I had plenty of ideas for this and would've loved to do at least one of them, but it's just not gonna happen this time

Oh well, there'll be other compos.

Also I heard about this thing where you make games about stuff and it's not for a compo.  Crazy, I know.

Code:

sssssssssssssss
sseeeeeeee
*s*s*s*s*e*e*n*n*sse*e*n*n*n*n*ee
*s*s*s*s*nne*e*e*enn*s*s*s*s*ee
eeeeee*wwwwww*
[n*n*n*n*e*e*e*e*ssw*w*w*ss*e*e*e*ee]
*nn*n*n*
eeeeeeeenn
*[e*]*ssssssss
*[e*]*nnnnnnn*[
[*[s]e[w*e*]ws*]*ne*
[*[n]e[w*e*]wn*]*se*]

Snow is bloody cold, but beautiful.  Suddenly everything is white and quiet, and there's tiny little sparkles everywhere.

I think the effect in Sonic is specially made for that, not a general parallax.  So for that you'd just have a couple of water layers, and set the position of the layers based on the position of the waterline relative to the middle of the screen.

middle = screen.h/2 (or wherever you want to root it..)
distance = water.y - middle
layer[1].y = middle + distance * 1.1 or something
layer[2].y = middle + distance * 1.2 (1.21?) etc (should probably loop this)

You could do it with freefloating parallax layers too, but then you'd have to calcualte offsets and such (unless you root it at the center point).

(uh, never mind the rest that was here.. it was overcomplicating stuff and didn't make much sense anyway..)

The Longest Journey, and its sequel Dreamfall too.



Syberia I/II.  Clockworkpunk ftw

(a few minutes ago)

I love modules and chiptunes and such.  Been trying to get into tracking, but gotta agree with the others here, it's so ridiculously unintuitive.  pxtone is nice and visual but a bit limited.  If you want something to repeat you have to copy it etc.

pixel is the one making the new art.

I don't think he's making the new tiles?  Just the sprites and portraits.

Also, they're not just simply upscaling, there is some pixel detail there.  Could look much better though..

myst would be fuckin' awesome with real 3d graphics and fps controls.

realMyst and Myst V has real 3d graphics with free movement.

I played the raindrop game too.

Also the running alongside car thing.  Sometimes I imagined the sheep and cows and horses in the fields doing that.

And looking back through the rear window at cars behind you, guessing if they would keep following or go off somewhere else.

Hidden things lurking in the forests,

Flying down twisting mountain passes,

And holding your breath in tunnels :D

I have been working on something like this.  Originally started it more than 5 years ago in fact, but the original version got delayed and eventually scrapped for various reasons.  I recently restarted the project from scratch though, and I'm confident it'll end better this time .  (If anyone here does ludum dare, this is the gfx editor I talked about during the tool compo).  It was originally named 'dotpoke', which is a horrible pun you're better off not knowing anything about, and later renamed 'Panda Paint'.  I think there might be something else named that though, so the name's not final.  (Also pandas have been somewhat overused lately, but this was long before that.  Anyway, that's not important..)

I'm using SDL 1.3 for this new version.  1.3 is still in heavy development and not really ready for serious use yet, but it has some new features over 1.2 that'll come in handy when it's done, like multiple windows (though PP will probably be mostly single windowed), cross-platform tablet support, hardware acceleration, etc.  I did consider using an already existing interface library like GTK or wxWidgets, and while that would certainly speed things up in the short term, I think the project will be better off with SDL.  It avoids some issues other libs have (GTK has buggy tablet support, for example, and wxWidgets uses GTK on Linux so inherits all that), and adds some bonuses like hardware acceleration and such.

When it's done, my intention is for PP to be fully cross-platform, and support everything in the first post and more.  However, this iteration of the project is still young, and won't be complete for quite some time yet.  (Also, if it turns out to be good, I might try charging a little bit for it.  Or maybe not.  We'll see.)

It hurts the fucking kitten, Skofo.

Why don't you go around kicking children or random strangers on the street?  Is it only because you're afraid of the consequences to yourself?

Reasons to not kick kittens!

• Kittens are living beings.
• They feel pain.
• They can't defend themselves very well.
• Plenty other reasons that should be obvious to normal people.
• Why would you feel the need to do this, anyway? What's wrong with you?
• Seriously, what the hell!

I have weird game-like dreams sometimes.  Here's a few.  Might try to make some games based on some of these some day.

fireball

You're a creature of some sort minding its own business when one day, some evil(?) thing comes along and steals your body, banishing your consciousness into a self-contained ball of energy (looks like a curling fireball in its normal state).  You can't survive for very long in this form, so you have to find a body and jump into it as fast as you can, possessing it.  While possessing a body, you get the abilities (and, at first, only the abilities) of that body.  For example, a frog gives you the ability to jump, a bird can fly and eat fruit and insects and such for energy, a stone gives you the ability to be heavy and fall fast.  However, you can't possess a body for too long -- if you do, you'll forget your original form and live out the rest of your life as that thing.  Therefore, it's important to keep jumping from body to body, ever onwards in search of your own.  Also, every body you possess gives you a memory of the abilities of that body, so that if you for example possess a lot of flying things, you can later use a (weaker) version of these abilities in later, unrelated bodies, for example making a stone fall slower and change its path.  With enough abilities and body manipulation you'll be able to overcome new obstacles and get closer to your goal.

whoosh

You're a private investigator.  Also, you can fly, and greatly enjoy doing so.  However, every time you take off, you drain the life of the people around you, so you really shouldn't be doing that.  But there's no time, and it's fun if you don't think about it too much.  For some reason, you use your ability to ferry sheep away from wolves lurking in a nearby forest, and, ironically, solving murder crimes.

O (silent egg)

You're an egg.  You fall from the sky one day.  You hatch.  There's people, but you're unable to understand their language.  You can only pick up on general moods and feelings, communicated through pictures, animations and sound effects.  There's also dreams, changing pictures.  Vector graphics and pastel colours.

sky mail

A postman has to deliver a package to a floating lighthouse castle in the sky.  Knytt-like, but going up, and more dangerous.  Jumping puzzles.

out of time

A shapeshifting alien kidnaps you and takes you on a ride in an old pickup truck back in time into an underground metal bunker-like construction in the middle of a prehistoric jungle, to somehow prevent the demise of mankind.  Which would be fine really, except that unfortunately he got the wrong guy.  There's not much you can do about this though, since you're locked in a cell where you undergo psychological torture.  One day something else goes wrong though, as the alien goes on one of his expeditions to the present to get food and toilet paper, the pickup truck comes back without him.  Alone in the ancient complex, you finally manage to escape from the cell, only to face the much larger challenge of the complex itself.  And you can't trust your sanity.  Exploration game.  Also include an in-game blog linked to the present for some reason.

communique

Hard to explain, but kind of like a distorted realistic Betasuppe in reverse.  In 3d.

This is awesome :D

No, really! It's like a bonus stage, and you get one chance on it. If you die, that's it, bonus stage over, on with the game. That make sense? Maybe the game doesn't do enough to explain this dynamic? It's supposed to be just good stuff you can collect (until the spikes come), like a free-for-all collect good stuff, with no danger (except, there is danger, I put baddies in there).

Yeah, that makes sense. I did notice that something was different about the level (the rain of goodies and timer), and I actually thought it might be a bonus level at first because of that, but changed my mind for a couple reasons (other than glossing over the intro screen apparently).

First, there was baddies there, which as you say is not common in bonus levels (not a "problem" in itself, but adds up).  Second, every level is filled with goodies anyway, and while that one might have a few more it didn't seem like a big difference.  I mean, there's does seem to be more stuff falling than normal levels have originally, but it's impossible to get everything anyway (I think?), and then there's the umbrellas of other levels that does the same thing.  Third, there was keys and an exit, making the goodies seem like a secondary goal (like in an ordinary level).  And, as I discovered later, the rain of spikes happens on ordinary levels too if you spend too much time, so that's normal too.

For a bonus level in this kind of game I think I'd expect it to end when the timer ran out (assuming I registered that it was a bonus level in the first place..), and death (if present) to either just to have the effect of time running out (not losing credit), or maybe take away all the goodies you collected (more reason to avoid death)?  Not sure.

With the nag screen ..

I could have the default button, as the 'continue game' option. So, you'd just have to wait 3 or 5 seconds or something, before you need to press it (unless of course, you want to press the buy option).

It's not so much what's the default button that's the issue, it's that 1. you can't use the screen with the keyboard like the rest of the game, and 2. the continue button is on an invisible timer.  I'd make it possible to select what button to press using the arrow keys and then press that button using either enter or space.  Make it possible to use everything without switching away from the keyboard.  Also, the timer should be visible, so that people know that there's not a bug on that screen, but that they just have to wait for a bit, and how much longer that is.  A countdown on the continue button would be fine.

The way I've set it up, at the moment, it randomly (25% chance) happens after you complete a level. I can tweak it of course, but I guess the question is, what's the optimal setting, to drive sales? Show it less, or more?

Oh, I see.  I think I was just unlucky then, because I didn't exaggerate when I said the nag screen popped up between every single level when I played last time.  And when I died, too.  For me, there was a 100% chance.

I played the game some more today to check (hadn't used up my 30 mins fortunately), and this time it was much better.  I think I was having a bad day or something last time, because I didn't think the nag was that annoying this time .  Anyway, this time it popped up between the first three levels, and then I didn't see it again for I think 6 levels.

It does seem like your random number generator has some issues though.  There was the 100% nag screen issue I had last time (that was just way too much, bad day or no), and this time I had another problem:  On the bubble tutorial level, there was no more bubbles when I got into the little room on the lower left, which was not fun since you need bubbles to escape from there.  I was stuck there until long after spikes started falling.  Then finally a bubble appeared, which proceeded to run me straight into a falling spike which killed me (could've tried to jump off I guess, but there was no other bubbles and I was a bit tired of waiting by then).  The next try of the level went fine, but I managed to die anyway, and then on the third try it "ran out" of bubbles and got me stuck again.

You could have a maximum delay between bubbles for each generator to fix the bubble issue.  For the nag screen, it may be better to not rely on the rng for that and just have it appear at a constant interval, like every 5 levels or something (and when you quit etc).  (I'm by no means an expert on this kind of thing though, so take what I say with a pinch of salt )

My feeling is that it may be better to default to the 'continue game' option, while just forcing them to watch content that they'd get in the full version.

It does make it less likely that people will push the buy button accidentally

I was also reading a very interesting article by Andy Schatz (of Pocketwatch Games) this morning. He was saying it's a good idea to give the player a taste of content from further on in the game, rather than making them wade through boring tutorials and such like. I'm kinda doing that, I think, but just showing them, rather than letting them play it. Dunno it that's a good idea or not really, but I saw an XBLA game do something simular, and I thought it was a fiendish sales stratagy (ah, it was Mutant Storm).

I prefer your way.  Letting people think that they're going to play some awesome level and then when they're ready to start go "oops, you can't" is just mean .  (Though I can see how it could be efficient in making people wanting the full version more..)

I think the demo you've got running in the background of the nag screen shows off things fine, though maybe you could focus a little more on that demo than you do currently, since it's easy to dismiss it as just insignificant background with that big dialog dominating the middle of the screen.  Maybe make the dialog a little smaller or squish it a bit and move it to the bottom edge of the screen, or make it slightly translucent or something?  (I don't know, pinch of salt applies here too )

About the buy now window. I don't fully understand, in what way was it confusing? I don't really want them going to my buy now page, unless they intended to!

The game is played exclusively with a keyboard, but the nag screen can only be interacted with using a mouse, and to make things worse the keep playing button can only be pressed after some unspecified time(?).  There's a disconnect in flow there.  More than obnoxiously popping up the nag screen between every single level does by itself, I mean.  Of course, the nag screen is probably supposed to break flow, but I think you've taken it a bit too far there.

And yeah, about that.  The demo is already limited to 30 minutes play, do you really have to interrupt the game quite that often as well?  The levels are relatively short even when you (try to) grab everything, so I got the feeling I almost spent as much time looking at the nag screen as playing the game (it was actually less of course, but it felt that way).  The only thing it succeeded in doing was annoying me to the point of quitting the game, even though I thought the game itself was fun.  (Having to switch keyboard/mouse all the time probably didn't help.)

Also, I think I found a bug:  I died on the level where falling things turn into falling spikes (got hit by a spike), but then I proceeded to the next level anyway.

If Linux users don't buy games, I wonder what these royalties tagged "Linux version" I get every month are.  Hm.  (Primarily Linux even, many people buy the Windows version and get the Linux+Mac versions for free.  Buy for one platform, get all.)

Linux users do buy games, but the market is different.  Not just smaller, different.  Something that sells well on Windows or Mac may not sell as well on Linux, other times it might sell as well (which is really an achievement considering the market is much smaller, but it's really starved for some kinds of games).  Depends on the game.

Aw.

Mine was C64 BASIC!

Oh yeah... Mine was also C64 Basic.

C64 basic here too .  Then C64 asm, C++, C, etc

Do you remember this:

Code:

POKE 53280,0
POKE 53281,15

?

Of course.  And endless data lines entered in from the manual or magazines, and sprites you made on paper..