Bumping this thread to say that this game is finally done. 5 Years later.

http://store.steampowered.com/app/396640

We finally finished it.

http://store.steampowered.com/app/396640/

Amazing. Loving the Chromehounds influence. It's a shame they'll probably never make a sequel due to it not being that popular. It had so much potential though, and took the next step in mech games with the full body shape customization. A few balance and gameplay tweaks would have made it the perfect mech game. A damn shame indeed.

^ What quazi said above is pretty much it

Basically, I wrote a few pixel shaders which are either rendered when objects get drawn (so I can use a source texture to blend with other objects), or applied to the entire screen as a post processing effect. (to use the game screen as a source) You just have to keep trying things until you get something you're happy with.

(I made TowerClimb)

V1.2 Has been released. Tons of new content (must have completed the main game), 6 player local multiplayer, and custom control support.

There's not much contrast between the background and foreground elements. Everything is just REALLY colorful. It's a nice style though, and feels very "storybookish", which accentuates the narration in the game.

I agree, the font is BAD. It's one of those fonts that look "nice" at 300% zoom (zoom in and you'll see), in a font browser. At 100% zoom, it's just a crunchy mess.

Like Kayin explained, the game has it's charm and audience. Not everyone understands it. Not everyone can complete it. Some might not even find it fun. It's just designed to be a hard and frustrating game. The game's progression reward system is solely based on the fact that it's ridiculously annoying and hard to progress. I only got to Birdo in the original, but I understand the charm. It "is" a "crappy mmf2 game". But what it does have is great level design, humor, and it's a pretty long game. It's satisfying to play. It's fun despite its parting from "good game design".

Awwww! I really wanted to play this game. Shame to hear that you're not continuing it.

Was it too ambitious? or fatally flawed somehow? WHYYYYYYYY!

So I thought I'd start an official thread for the game i'm working on, since it has reached a gameplay milestone with the V1.1 release. This release marks the first standalone chapter of the game as done, with the second half of the game coming in the future.


TowerClimb is an atmospheric roguelike platformer.
Spelunky was a big part of the inspiration for this game, as I found the random levels and sense of progression intriguing. It plays a lot differently from Spelunky though, since you're climbing up instead of going down, and have no innate weapon.

Movement is weighty. You can climb walls, scale ceilings, find items, jump, hang etc.

There's also a log screen which stores every attempt you've ever made at the game, along with a screenshot of your death, which is marked with your final trajectory.







There's also a trailer of the game in action:



There's more info on my website: http://www.davioware.com/index.php?page=2

For now, the game costs a mere 5$.

Just played through the demo, here are my impressions:

The game is easy. REALLY easy. It might just be the demo level, but I played on the hardest difficulty (which advertises "brutal enemies") and only died once. (when I ran around a corner without looking and got pumped with a full mp40 clip at point blank range.) The enemies basically just run around dumbly and take cover at random with their head still exposed. Basically, the enemies feel like fish in a barrel, waiting for you to kill them, unless you specifically run out into the open. The demo level is pretty linear as well, with convenient ammo crates every 100 feet.

The kill cams are cool. The whole game seems to be designed around this feature. Apart from these, the shooting (when using a pistol or smg) feels a bit clunky with the third person view. There's a variety of ways to kill people and it feels satisfying to pull off a very long range shot on a baddie. The sound effects and camera scripting during the bullet-in-flight events are varied and intense, and make you feel way more badass than you actually are. On my second shot ever, I randomly hit the grenade on a guards belt and it exploded, shattering his ribs and killing him. That was pretty unexpected and cool. What would have been a cool feature is cutscenes for when you miss a target, which show the bullet narrowly missing and crumpling on a wall with cool bounce physics and whatnot.

The character movement is nothing special. You can sprint, crouch, and go prone. You cannot jump, but can climb over certain things. I don't even think you can climb appropriate geometry unless it's scripted specifically so you can. Falling 5 feet will almost kill you. You can throw rocks to distract guards, but from what the demo presents, there isn't much of a point; sniper ammo is pretty much infinite and you're at low risk of dying by sitting back and taking potshots.

What I expected of this game is intense sniping action with very good scoping physics/mechanics and every possible detail put into the trajectory of the bullets/ the result of the shot you set up. The demo reveals a generic shooter with very cool killcams, but a lack of detail in almost every other area. I expected a little more overall in today's shooter saturated market. The game feels like a mod of Gears of War; unsurprising since it uses the unreal engine (the grenade throwing is the same, as is the cover mechanics) The game is pretty fun, but the killcams are pretty much the only feature which makes it stand out from other shooters and make it worth playing. I wouldn't pay full price for this game, but I'd pick it up during a steam sale. The gameplay, aside from the bullet cutscenes, is nothing special. Silent scope meets Gears of War. Sort of. I would have liked to see more focus on tactical descision making, open worlds, and non-waypointed objectives, instead of "kill all the dumb AI baddies in this linear level, one at time, in cool ways". Who knows though, maybe the demo level was just badly designed and the full game is better.

The game advertises multiplayer and single player co-op too, and if it plays bullet cutscenes during multiplayer does it pause the game for everyone? If it doesn't pause the game, then it basically stuns you for 5+ seconds after every kill, but without the cutscenes the game is extremely generic.

TL;DR:
Gears of war engine shooter with awesome killcams but otherwise uninspired generic shooter gameplay.

Having a big name on kickstarter doesn't create a vacuum-like effect, sucking money away from smaller projects. This would only be the case if kickstarter had a fixed amount of donators, with unchangeable budgets. What a big name does is bring in *new* donators to the site; people who have never even heard of kickstarter. Don't assume that a person has a fixed budget for donation either. If someone sees two projects that they really love and want to donate to, they will donate to both.

And Paul, how is a celebrity going to a soup kitchen, having one bowl of soup, but bringing in enough money to buy a thousand more a bad thing? You can't only judge actions on their type, or consequence. They must take into account the person's intentions. What if that person who got caught in league of legends knew what he was doing and just sacrificed himself for the good of the team? You can't take everything at face value. By your logic pushing someone out of the way of a moving vehicle is a bad thing: The consequence of saving them was good, but the type of action? PUSHING. HALT, CITIZEN!

It's a shame I don't have a PS3. Game looks rad though, and the soundtrack is really great.

For the bloom and ambient lighting I wrote a few shaders in HLSL. The game is made in Construct. Glad you like it! 

 

Hey guys,

The 1.1 patch has been released, along with a new trailer.

ShutUpAndTakeMyMoney.jpg

Davioware! Best five dollars I've ever spent. The game is fantastic, and oldschool, and tough as hell. Much improved from the alpha, especially with the inventory and menu navigation being button driven now indead of mouse driven. Also, really loving all the death pictures. I find myself getting killed on purpose to see what they look like XD

I would also like to add, even though every single death has been my own fault (Usually the result of greed or impatience), that you sir are one sadistic fella XD

Not sure why this game isn't getting more publicity, as it's so amazingly brilliant.

Thanks man! I'm glad you're enjoying the game. I'll be releasing a patch soon which fixes some minor issues and adds a few new items/graphical enhancements.

surt, that mock-up is incredible.

I'd love for you to test the new pre-order Beta of TowerClimb.

It's a procedurally generated roguelike/platformer. I'll be quite surprised if you complete the game. It's challenging and requires really quick decision making and strategy.

http://www.davioware.com/index.php?page=2

Cinnamon bun!