Sorry for the errors, I have fixed the bug in the level but didn't know about the menu ones. Really struggling to package the patch for Steam's servers. I'm not sure when that'll roll out. Thanks for the feedback!
Here's my current progress on level making. The idea to make a hub level and set it as a sprawling world came a touch late which is why it starts off so hard moving to the right. The white lines represent travelling done in loading screens. I think the final game will probably have about twice the number of the levels. It's been a really nice exersize to make this image, the number of ideas I've had once I viewed the final image is staggering, finally broke my week long design block.
I just saw it on RPS, nicely done! For the bird puzzle I tried playing the from left to right, after that didn't work I quit with that and the triforce puzzle unfinished. It'd be a real shame if you didn't return to it but I'll look out for your other #1GAM entries!
Just tried the demo, love the direction this is going in Some really cool puzzle ideas.
I know that can happen if you tab out of fullscreen and back in again, not managed to hook up and event listener to the tab back in to re-bake the environment yet.
I tried out the demo yesterday, and it was weird because the ground just disappeared. Made it slightly difficult to complete the demo.
Thanks!
Today I've been playing around with animating a spirit of the television to test out a story idea. It's not going well to be honest but I'm not giving up on the idea just yet.
So at the moment I have the colours from Signal's face as little square orbs that float around, circling each other with a trail effect. It looks better in motion but it's still not that obvious.
If I can convey early on the idea that you're a spirit possessing a TV rather than the TV itself, I was thinking I could end the game with the spirit escaping the TV that boarders the game, after the screen breaks.
My game (Trash TV) started out as a crate box remake, but then I kept altering it for years and now it's nearly entirely different. It's best explained in the devlog http://forums.tigsource.com/index.php?topic=23146.0
I would like to try this game out, but my computer can't run the HiDef graphics profile. Considering it's just a toggle box in the properties, would there be a way to edit the launch settings in steam so I can play it?
Steam never gave me a developer log on so I have to shoot them an email every time I want to patch and they're pretty unresponsive about it. I'll try and again soon and if they ignore it again I'll send you a build.
I feel I should leave it in the game somewhere to acknowledge the games origins, however it also borrows from many other games too. I spoke to Rami and he's happy for me to leave it in the game, just not sure where to place it.
Played around with MonoGame frame work today. After a few hours and some help I got Trash TV up and running. I'm not going to play around with the port much more but this should mean Trash TV can ported to Mac and Linux, which was always my plan but now I've tested it's feasible and a rough idea of the hurdles.
Sound, shaders and resolution seem to be the only things that didn't work straigh off the bat. Also I need something to replace the save load system. Reckon it's about a month's work.
Yea, I think it's a shame so many games revolve around a mechanic that gets tired by the end. Trash TV introduces guns one at a time and a bunch of puzzles that circulate around it's use. So the player will come in expecting a weapon at the end but finding a whole new mechanic instead that'll tie in with the games end.
Been playing around with one of those world/dimension shifting mechanics for Trash TV. The idea is supposed to be a play on how old analogue TV's could occasionally be tuned to two channels and the level swap is the channel changing.
Usually games revolve solely around a central gimmick and I think I might be the first game to ever feature it in moderation. At the moment I'm thinking the world switch will happen on an interval rather than controlled by the player, almost as if the game is getting bored of itself and trying to find something else to see.
You can see the very early progress here
As always I'd love to know what you all think. Shame about the video quality, dunno why it's come out abit shit.
Met a really cool animator at London Indies in Jan. Borrowed one of her disney-esk animations to test out a sort of Machinarium style thought bubble approach to communication instead of the previous updates text.
What do you think? I reckon it's got loads of potential.
Greenlight is a bad example of the election process, we came to the conclusion pretty quickly that we should do away with greenlight completely because it was a bottleneck rather than a way for people to communicate choice.
They did mention Gabe had recently said that he wishes all games could be on Steam. However Gabe isn't anyone's boss and the people at Valve who opted to work on Steam and Greenlight are dead against the idea. It'll be forever before Greenlight is replaced.
So Valve hosted a little get-together in London last night. A bunch of indies were invited to chat about games and Greenlight in general. So I had the chance to ask them all of those little mysteries about the system and thought I'd share their response.
Personally the main ambiguity with Greenlight for me was that it appeared to be a straight popularity contest but they assure me it's still a curated system.
They do use Greenlight as a way to short list games but not soley by up votes.
So along with a ton of potential sales;
A game that is quickly rising in popularity is also an attention grabber.
Developer demonstrating that they're listening to their customers and keeping them happy is also considered a plus. Valve say that their ethos has always been about keeping customers happy and trusting that the money will follow, so when they accept a developer onto their platform this is still their main aim.
I asked about whether having my game (Trash TV) available on Mac and Linux as well as Windows would be an added bonus in their eyes and they said only if it was a bonus to my customers.
There was a brief mention that a developer who activity engages with their community, such as posting announcements, etc, would be placed in the queue of items to vote on again. I didn't get a chance to ask about this further. I doubt that if a user says no to a game and the dev updates the info that it'll appear in the users voting queue again. I assume this is for all the users which click on "ask me later". I've only have 8 "ask me later" votes so this seems pretty insignificant.
They talked about the cost of distribution and said that space and bandwidth wasn't really an issue (although they also said they never have enough), that the main thing that pushes up the cost of distribution is if they have to get a designer to work with a developer on their marketing material. They gave the example of developers posting poor quality jpeg screenshots as something that would take time out of a Valve employee to fix.
Overall it seems to generally be common sense, it's difficult to know how much of a weighting up votes gets but it's reassuring to hear that they have a whole host of data that they take into account.
Other tid-bits
They aim to take 10-15 games off the list per month.
I complained abit about how for me success is getting enough money to make the next game, which is pretty low number in scheme of things. He did take note and said that it's a shame Greenlight doesn't currently have any way of knowing when a game has an audience big enough for the developer to be self sustaining off (paraphrased). So there is hope that the system swings a bit more towards making indies' dreams.
So in review I do actually like Greenlight as a system, I'm disappointing I'm struggling but I guess if I can't get enough interest to get okay'd I probably wouldn't have enough interest to survive off the sales.
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