Thanks for the input again   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

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:


New concept:


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?

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   )

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

Art is great, also this would be something I would really enjoy playing. Looking forward to see how you proceed with the idea.

Love the style, posting to follow.

I'd be super interested in knowing if this kind of post is useful?

I liked it, it's always nice to read behind-the-scenes posts. Making mana refresh on landing sounds like a step in the right direction, btw.

Waah seems great!  Following!

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!   

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

[hard]

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?



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.

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.

No budgetary and monetary constraints. How would you prefer to develop your games?

By traveling more, definitely.

(Super Solvers / Challenge of the) Ancient Empires. Though it doesn't seem as obscure as I thought it is after a quick google search.

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!

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:

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.



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..).

Super cool, posting to follow.

Hey, your work is really cool.

Long text blocks on picture backgrounds is never a good idea (as in your introduction page), it's too hard to read and also gives an unprofessional vibe in contrast to your beautiful work.

The blue tones you've chosen for background colors are a tad saturated, again text becomes hard to read, and it doesn't let your work pop up because it appears too shiny (or bright in some cases). I would choose a less saturated color, also would change it's brightness: Increase or decrease according to what stands in front of them, so that it would clash less with that element (whether it's text or image).

By the way, there are already isometric libraries for as3 that might make your overall job easier. http://www.emanueleferonato.com/2010/02/23/11-flash-isometric-engines-you-can-use-in-your-games/

Probably some may be defunct after all these years but anyway...

Ah, you said you had to rasterize which means turning a vector to raster/bitmap, so I thought you were trying the opposite.

Yes, you can simply make a vector area to catch mouse events behind the tile bitmap, and put them inside a container sprite, in different layers for the sake of simplicity. That's what I would do. Or you can detect the pixel you're clicking on and check it's alpha value perhaps, if you want to avoid vectors completely.

@MTaur, I guess I didn't understand your concern before because of my own obsessions, sorry lol. What do you mean by mouse transparency? Are you hiding default mouse cursor and making your own custom cursor?

You don't need to turn vector to raster in order to make mouse-clicking work only for visible areas of an movie clip, that should already work that way for vectors. The one exception I can think of is if the invisible part is actually a fill with alpha set to zero, then you can simply delete it and solve the problem.

Opposite to what you are saying, when you move your mouse on a raster, mouse doesn't understand if you're on the invisible part (a transparent pixel), so mouse_overs & clicks register whenever you're inside the borders of the raster image. So your solution didn't make much sense to me.

Another wild guess: If you are using a movieclip as a custom cursor, if you don't set its "mouseEnabled" and "mouseChildren" properties to false, it can receive mouse events instead of the movieClip you're trying to click to. Also, if you have nested objects in movieClips, they can mess up with mouse events too, you can overcome this by changing those properties of the childs or the parent.

...

@InfiniteStateMachine, @Photon, thanks for the info guys, I guess I need to check openFL again sometime!