You're going at a steady clip, nice work!

The water effects look good. I also really like how the main character spreads his "wings" to slow his fall in this .gif:

Finding a key hidden in a chest

First time I've caught wind of this game, very intriguing. To be honest I find the color scheme you choose somewhat unsettling, but it fits a game focusing on the messy life and death of strange organisms very well. I gotta say I liked the deep sea, jellyfish style colors on page two more, tho.

The choice to focus on the overall lifecycle first is very commendable, but it seems like you are spending more time designing and redesigning the world. I'd like to see more of how the small interactions (hunting or foraging or whatever that may be) work.

One question, how do you handle the seamless loading of different areas in that big delta/root system? I'm trying to work out something similar on my project and I'm kind of directionless.

Thanks Pixel Noise! I followed you on soundcloud, too! But don't spread my profile around or anything, no one needs to hear that.

I feel weird posting such a short reply so here's some typography work I did today, was gonna use it as a forum sig but it's definitely too big. Based on the Flobots "Fight With Tools" album cover art.

Transmitting.
Signal coming through?
Okay.
-- The Flobots

Implemented a semi-functional raycasting system to be able to target different levels:



The main problem is it's calculated in steps, so it'll pass through the top of a tile without detection if it's close enough to the edge. To mitigate this as well as add in diagonal tiles (in the XY), I'm going to redo the code for physics, having each tile defined as 8 true/false points to calculate the edges and planes of their faces. You can see diagonals in that latest gif, but they don't collide properly. I'm confident I'll be able to manage it, but it will be a slow and bug-infested safari.

In other news, I've got a pretty solid design for the mechanics and overall progression locked in. It's essentially going to be an AARP with shmup-like controls; however, the idea is to have a lot of subtle interaction and emergent gameplay between different entities in the world, as well as a unique weapon balance system. Might take a few years to nail down, but we'll get there (assuming Trump doesn't kill us all first).

I'm definitely interested. Did you take any inspiration at all from Blendo Games' Flotilla?

I think the mechanics could be really fun as envisioned and set the tone for a barebones, but powerful story. Who is your crew of highly trained and equipped marines? Why are they up against such impossible numbers? How do they have teleportation, but no ships of their own? Maybe some questions are better left unanswered...

Ooh and the teleportation range could be limited so you have to jump around ships in the local cluster, but in the background you can see other ships blowing up. And if you get close enough you can teleport in and link up with another team who join you.

Sorry, just think this could be a cool setting. If you're the reading type and want inspiration for ship internal design, try Scott Westerfield's "The Risen Empire", it has some very cool and well thought out layouts.

Looks great! The first picture is definitely my favorite. I missed the introduction of a graffiti mode, can anyone point me to it?

Hey, James/Joar, any new updates/gifs? Could use some good news today

True that...

Coming along nicely! I especially like looking at your sketches, even if they spoil the ending.

The lake spirit is cool and I feel the underwater vibe but the snake-like terrain doesn't neccesarily work with that aesthetic imo. Is it supposed to be some kind of sunken root system?

Hey, this is a cool idea and I dig the graphics you put together so far.

Not a huge fan of the coin-clicking, it doesn't seem very fun in general and it distracts from the action.

What if your cobbled-together turret actively shook itself apart in the process of capping baddies and your job was to reattach parts to it as the battle continued? You could even change the perspective to sidescrolling or 3d and have a character running around, like a towering cannon standing three stories tall, putting whatever you pick up from dead attackers on it.

Just an idea! Anyways it looks good and I followed your tumblr!

Hey Aloft, looks really cool! Do you think the whole game will have the same tone/color scheme? I understand you want that "sameness" but I'm wondering if there will be different levels or areas with their own standards.

Dunno if you've seen this, but there's another dev working on a very similar game, inspired by Blame!:

http://bac9.tumblr.com/

Both your projects look great, hopefully you'll push each other to even greater heights.

I can imagine the scene now...

All my memories
Have become thick as scratched ice
Dark and unyielding

My life which I left
Is all I have left, even
Hanging by a thread

Sanctuary glows
Lanterns and prose of strange hands
Ribs splint in last sprint

Weary I collapse
Read his work, sigh, s.m.h.
This hack's ascending?
I could write haiku with four lines and no syllabic structure better than his

Seriously tho, the game looks beautiful. I think the slow pace probably hurt your Kickstarter efforts a lot, it doesn't exactly reel you in unless you're primed from the start.

This looks very cool. I dig the visuals you've got going on and the setting you've built. That short description sounded just pulpy enough for an ARPG, while also motivating and mechanically thematic.

Is there going to be multiplayer?

It's definitely too early to say, but I could see this going over really well. Probably don't need to say it but you should check out Radical Fishing for some inspiration (and only inspiration, because they really hate cloning), the basic mechanics are similar and they were quite successful.

Oooh, yeah, those crisp shadows look a lot better. Idea, you could have the mid-tone, rather than black, on the areas that you've been through - like clearing fog of war in an RTS but not having units there anymore.

By the way, generally speaking, color theory says (according to a pixel art tutorial I read six years ago) to make shadows and very dark areas a deep purple rather than jet black. I think that would look really good with all your color scheme's cools.

It looks like it could be a lot of fun. I couldn't load Night Sky for a comparison, tho. Is that the platformer about being a tank abandoned on a hostile planet after you destroy their capital city? First thing that came to mind. The stretching and squishing of the player character really adds a lot to the feel of the game. One last comment, I don't know if it's just for demo/example purposes, but I think having such small areas and no scrolling on maps will hurt your game, considering the emphasis on exploration and momentum.

Anyways I'm glad I saw this, hope to get to play it one day.

This game looks really cool. Reminds me of a dream I had.

I think the mechanics, and to a degree visuals, may be too abstract to attract a wide audience. Would you say that the combat is based more in twitch reaction skills, or map control and strategy? The gif of the sniper upgrade gave me a thought that, since the game is based around energy/informatics, it'd be cool to have a mode focused on control of the "city" to give you more intelligence on the movement and abilities of your enemy, allowing you to lay ambushes for them.

Just spitballing because it seems like the combat looks a little like rocket tag on some very large maps. Strengthening escape routes, like you want (which by necessity, require both kill boxes and some way to build/regain strength), might help. The dash seems a good addition, allows you some evasion that doesn't totally change or break the engagement area.

Question, have you ever seen anyone try to escape by grappling over the head of their opponent to some wall behind them, then scuttling away before they have a chance to react? Depending on look speed, it could be a viable option.

Anyways it's a cool looking game and you're clearly putting a lot of thought into the mechanics. I'd ask to sign up for playtests, but I'm a little busy to play much or provide good feedback, sadly. Also, I think the scanlines as distance fog is great, and your trip to NYC looked rad.

Well if you would like to consider some advice...

It's good to stay motivated on working on the mechanics/visuals if the story would just slow or weigh you down. I mainly asked because it seems like you've reworked the graphics a couple times, and more than a few rad-looking games have been lost before they ever saw daylight because their devs constantly reworked the graphics and couldn't settle on engaging mechanics to make a final product.

The spinning light thing is really cool and you can do a lot with that, introductory levels, different interactions, etc. It's not a very typical platformer mechanic, so there's lots of room to explore.

Also, I had a chance to play Pumpkin and it was pretty fun. Liked the procedurally generated Jack-o-lantern levels (or I got crazy lucky). Space bar to switch weapon scrolled my page so locking that somehow (?) would be helpful. The enemies were very tough and loved to swarm, so maybe some kind of crowd control weapon would have made that more skillfully manageable? Either way, nice job, and again keep up the good work.

Holy sh!t, lizard master?!

Kinda makes me glad I'm so bad at tracking this game, I'll get to experience all this stuff clean with no insider knowledge.

Honestly tho, if you made a development/art book - and with 300 pages and I'm sure many more sketches, documents, and prototypes aside - it'd be hard to resist.

As always hyped to play this.

I, too, originally thought this was a game about furries. And that was after seeing the first few screenshots. I was wondering how it'd tie in...

Way too much in just the first page to even respond too, but this looks really cool. I hope the UI and pacing of the story works well with the engine you've crafted. I'm pretty impressed by the worldbuilding too, clearly put a lot of thought and time into it. Some of it seems a little... absurd, but that can be a strength. It's hard to pull that off through text but can be oh so worth it.

One question, you said you were a team of 11? It sounds like some of your work part time still? How did you get together, can how can you afford all this work at such a pace? My apologies if it was gone over somewhere, like I said, there's a lot.

Anyways, I'll be watching and thanks for sharing!

Just saw this on my phone so I can't play the original or Pumpkin and I only read the 1st/4th pages but it looks really rad.

First off I'm glad you kept the warp, it looks really cool although when its really strong it can be overpowering. The lighting is obviously awesome, I think the diamond pattern, esp. with how the overall shape of a light zone is diamond shape, is really styling. It feels kinda like a pine cone which seems appropriate for a game about birds?

What direction are you going to take the gameplay? You've got a lot of cool effects and abilities but I'm not seeing how they're gone come together or how the story/mechanics/visuals will all entwine, but maybe I missed it or you're keeping it under wraps.

Glad I caught wind of this project! I always try and make interesting visual effects like this so now I have some more inspiration!

I lie awake believing, that somehow I keep failing
I rail and I ache -
At the monsters and the demons, I've wrestled with for eons
And I want to destroy.
-- Garbage

First, I got slopes working about 95% (the only hangups being a. have to improve the height algorithm for angles and b. it requires one-way platforms at the top which causes some restrictions on map design, but I'll probably just deal with that).

Second, for no reason except the gloy, I spent three hours making a skull map. Here's another gif showing off the camera system (click for the full animation):



Third, I'm working on how to structure interacting behaviors, because that's been a huge headache. Forgive me if I use any terms wrong (I don't have much formal CS training), but essentially my plan right now is to create interfaces that will be implemented by both collections (i.e. specific units, buildings, etc) and general behaviors (a weapon, a patrol pattern, etc).

For instance -
ISpatial would have methods for Bounds and Position,
ISim for Physics,
IWar for Attack and Defense, and
ILogic for Idle, Advance, and Retreat.

SimBody could implement ISpatial and ISim to have a complete physics package.
Turret could implement IWar and ILogic to rain death upon the enemies of the machine.
And Tank would implement all four, redirecting it's calls to SimBody and Turret references it stores.

I'm not certain this is the right plan, but it's the best way I see to avoid excessive duplication of code and major refactoring every time I make a change. Hopefully it will be very easy to tweak and understand. The problem I'm tying to figure out right now is how to handle fields that must be shared across multiple interfaces (for instance, ILogic and ISim both need to know position). I will probably end up having some public fields and hope I'm smart enough in my own code to not go changing values I shouldn't be changing. We'll see how that goes.

First off, I like how your general skull shape coincides with the stick people on the cards. They need some work, but that's a nice symmetry to try and keep.

Zorg has a point about the shapes being potentially uninteresting, but I think it can work as a blocky style if you increase interest elsewhere. The triangle eyes look really good; they draw interest to the lower part of the face, which is counterweighted by the bulk of the forehead. The teeth on the outside of the skull help to anchor and balance it, too.

For the shadows, just keep in mind the shape of the skull and what perspective you want to imply.

On a side note, I think you should reduce the cut on the corners of the cards. That's a pretty significant area, far more than you'd see on a real-life card. Unless you're pulling some Battlestar Galactica sh!t.

I'm gonna end with throwing two iconic skull designs in here. Also check out Halo ODST's Superintendent and the Titan games by Puppydog Studios, they are similar and may inspire you.