Still plugging away, here's what I've been up to this week:
added a new type of pick-up: ship upgrade blueprint (permanently unlocks access to an upgrade)
implemented persistence for found upgrades, acquired upgrades and found alien artifacts
implemented two additional achievements: Gearhead (try all ship upgrades), Explorer (find all alien artfacts)
I'm now spawning more aggressive enemies (different colour, faster movement, shooting, and wider attack pattern) when more than half of the population has been relocated
coordinated with artists on creation of additional sprites (upgrade icons, people), and a mock-up for a new UI/HUD (below)
As you can see, we're going for something kind of retro. The theme is "80s space program", although as it is now it looks a touch Gameboy-ish because of all the green. The full version will have a few diff colours.
On the marketing front, the Steam store page has been approved. Now I just need to get things looking good so I can put the store page up as "coming soon". As a result, I'll probably shift my focus to visuals until I'm able to capture some shots and footage that I'm happy with.
Really product week last week! Here's what I've been up to:
made the upgrade and artifact systems more dynamic to support adding additional content
implemented a couple more upgrades (terraform booster, speed booster)
implemented additional messages from Earth (1d left, half the population relocated, etc.)
added SFX for alien artifact discovery and incoming messages
added a custom mouse cursor
integrated Steamworks, added the first few achievements
tons of little UI tweaks (adding outlines to text, increasing font sizes, fixing aspect ratio bugs, improving usability, etc.)
made planet "latching" (entering orbit) an explicit action
disallowed latching when enemies nearby
added a pause menu
Here's a video showing some of the recent updates:
On the business/marketing front:
submitted Steam store page for review, along with pricing and launch discount (as of now: $2.99 USD with a 25% launch discount)
prepared a press mailing list (basically, consolidated all my game-centric lists into a single list for Cosmocat)
started discussions with an artist about contributing a more visual design for the HUD
started working with another artist (Ricardo, who helped out with several of my other games) on improving the placeholder-ish people, artifact and upgrade sprites (below)
On the plate for the next week or so:
continue working with Ricardo on sprites
updates to support more easily capturing shots and video (adding an option to disable motion blur, fixing "visual bugs", etc.)
finish implementing all achievements (which also includes persisting the discovery of artifacts and upgrades)
add one more upgrade (something like a shield)
add remaining artifacts
if things pan out with the HUD design, integrate it (otherwise, do a redesign myself)
Search planets for resources, such as rare alien artifacts
Collect ship parts to buy upgrades
Thwart alien attacks while avoiding the perils of space
Cosmic Ray features casual gameplay and short rounds, making it a great option for killing a few minutes.
A bit of back story: Cosmic Ray originally started off as a prototype about a year ago. Just something I jammed out with an artist in about a week. We released a WebGL build on Itch, where's it's more or less just been stagnating since then.
I recently came to realize, however, that the project I've been working on for the past couple years (Undermine) is too ambitious--bigger in scope than I have the resources (time and/or money) to enable releasing in a reasonable timeframe. My last game took ~3 years to release, and I'm on track to exceed this with Undermine.
So the thinking is to pause the big game for a bit and capitalize on work I've already done, focusing on releasing smaller games quickly and starting to build up a backlog catalog. The hope is this will start generating more recurring revenue, which I can then use to fund Undermine and bigger projects down the road.
Here are a few shots from the latest build:
As of now, the main game loop consists of:
flying through space in search of planets, avoiding hazards, engaging with enemies
colonizing inhabitable planets, attempting to terraform uninhabitable planets
searching planets for items
The basic mechanic when terraforming and/or searching a planet revolves (no pun intended) around orbiting the planet. Because of this, it's often not possible to see what's on the back-side from the "solar system" view, which encourages exploration. (this is where I'll be hiding the alien artifacts, naturally) Many elements of a round are also randomized, including planets (name, size, texture, the probability of terraforming) and enemy placement.
Here's a video from the latest build showing most of the core mechanics:
And here's my high-level backlog for an initial release:
Steam achievements
basic upgrades system: enemy ships have a chance of dropping a ship part, which can be used to buy upgrades
alien artifacts: each with their own sprite representation and back-story. Only a limited number spawned per round.
message from Earth: displayed at key intervals/events (intro, 1 day remaining, victory, fail, etc.). Each will have a little sprite representation of the character, and some silly random stuff for comedic value.
My plan is to undertake a fairly aggressive timeline, I'm thinking 2-3 weeks to release an initial version on Steam. I'll try my best to report my progress here regularly.
Oh yeah, if this sounds interesting to you, feel free to drop by my Discord; always happy to chat about what I'm up to (or what you're up to, for that matter!)
I recently spent a bit of time playing around with Unity's Anima2D as I'd like to start using skeletal animation for everything going forward; it feels much more "fluid" than sprite-sheet-based anims and it's something I can do myself with my limited art skills. It was a bit clunky to set up, but just from my couple hours of playing around it seems quite powerful!
I figured I might as well make my R&D time count by creating something I could use in the future (i.e. for an Operation Hardcore Halloween DLC... someday). Here's the result:
This actually my first ever walk-cycle! I would say it's not half-bad for a first try, but I welcome your feedback. (my notes: I don't know that the head-bob quite makes sense for the walk cycle, although I am going for something kinda clunky/awkward. And I think the legs should swing forward a bit more, they have a slight bias towards the back as it is.)
Independent game developer/freelancer looking for a "generalist" artist to assist with several on-going projects. Essentially I'm looking for someone with a complementary skill set with whom I can collaborate across both my solo and client projects.
Ideally I'm looking for somebody who's in a similar situation as I am: currently working a day job, making games/art on the side, and looking to make the switch to full-time. This would be ideal for me as it makes money less of a motivating factor. That said, I am willing to pay as much as I possibly can to find (and retain) the right person. (in general I strive to pay others before myself, and to find models that see everyone being compensated as equally and fairly as possible.)
I currently have five games on the market across PC, Mac, Switch and Android. You can read more about me and my games on the freshly launched Cosmocat website.
Drop me a line via PM or email [email protected] if you're interested. Please include a portfolio, and do feel free to reply here with any questions.
Edit: by "generalist", I mean somebody with a range of art skills, ideally across 2D and 3D. Have a look at my games to get a sense of what I've done/am doing.
Hey TIGfolk, sorry for the radio silence over the past few weeks! The Switch version of my last game, Operation Hardcore, came out around that time and I've largely been supporting the marketing efforts. A few issues with the build have also come to light since the release, so now I need to switch () my focus to preparing a patch.
To be honest, I had originally thought the port would be largely hands-off, as the publisher had a team doing most of the actual porting development, but hindsight is 20/20! Ultimately it's my baby, and nobody else is going to care about it as much as I do, so realistically I don't think I can be hands-off.
It's now got me thinking that I should really be trying to maximize the return on my investment in Operation Hardcore while I have a captive audience (the Switch release has also renewed some interest in the Steam version). As such, I'm debating pausing Undermine for a little while. My time is already fairly fractured as it is, trying to split it more will further reduce my ability to deliver anything in a timely manner (great little article on the matter that really started this line of thought).
What I mean by maximizing my ROI in OH: there are some things I could do by way of small content updates that I believe would drive more sales (and if I really wanted to go crazy, I have some ideas for a small DLC... but one thing at a time).
It also got me thinking: I've created small games that I'm proud of but not actively trying to sell (or even promote the free version of). With a bit of spit and polish, I could be selling them on Steam for, say, $1.49 (I love this story about the guy who made Bit Blaster XL and other small games released with this strategy).
Bottom line: I'm wondering if it's the right time to be working on something as big in scope (and production costs) as Undermine, or if I should just work on smaller things that I can ship quickly and with a very small (or even no) team or budget.
I welcome any thoughts from others on the matter, especially somebody's who's faced a similar decision! (which I'm sure is pretty much like every independent game developer ever )
Just to clarify, I mean swapping your current weapon for a different one found in the environment (you can only carry one at a time). The intent was to make it harder to accidentally swap one weapon for a weaker one ...
Ah, I see--but is that likely to be a problem? Or at least one that's not quickly remedied? I've seen such things happen in cases where multiple items are available to pick up (or another usable item nearby), but if there's only one item on the ground, how likely is it that the player will accidentally hit the "use" key with a weaker weapon selected?
Nah probably not, and that's why I'm on the fence and more or less backtracking on it
In other news, I've added hands to the MonPro 2000! I'm pretty happy with how it turned out and I think it goes a long way in terms of adding more realism (and of course, will help improve the marketing assets).
I hope to do the same for the weapons at some point, but obviously that will be a much bigger endeavor as they will need to be animated down to the joint level.
Something else I've been spending time on recently is separating weapons from beacons. Previously, you could throw a beacon while holding a weapon, which didn't make a whole lot of sense. They are now separate "weapon slots". As part of this change I've also added the concept of a "beacon launcher". Basically, a cannon of sorts that shoots the beacons.
Ther are a few benefits I can see to this approach:
it saves me having to animate the player throwing beacons, which would be a very complex animation (likely more complex than the weapon animations referenced above)
it adds a form of a "gun" without actually adding a gun (I'm pretty adamant about not having this become a shooter!)
it more easily facilitates having different types of beacons (this would be harder to convey if the player was throwing them, it would probably require additional complex animations)
With respect to beacon types, so far I have the following planned:
regular beacons: mark the map on the MonPro and also detect enemies
freeze beacons: slow any enemies that enter its radius
explosive beacons: self-explanatory, basically like grenades
decoy beacons: produce noise to distract enemies
My plan is to have beacon schematics scattered around the mine and have them persist between runs, i.e. on your first run you can only use regular beacons. I think this will add a much better sense of progression, as well as encourage subsequent play-throughs. I may actually go one step further and do the same thing for gear (i.e. you have to find the MonPro and beacon launcher).
Here's a sneak peek at the beacon launcher launching explosive beacons (total placeholder model for the beacon launcher, in case you can't tell):
I'm intrigued by the idea of "hold-to-interact" being used for swapping weapons--in a game intended to build fear, the potential for the player to accidentally mess up a weapon-switch seems like it might be advantageous, not to mention the effect of the down-time between weapons.
Just to clarify, I mean swapping your current weapon for a different one found in the environment (you can only carry one at a time). The intent was to make it harder to accidentally swap one weapon for a weaker one, but your point is well-taken and it's something I'm on the fence about (I actually have it disabled right now).
Independent game developer/freelancer looking for a Unity generalist to assist with several on-going projects. Essentially I'm looking for someone with a complimentary skillset with whom I can tag-team across both my solo and client projects.
Requirements:
intermediate (or above) knowledge of Unity and C#, with at least 3 years of hands-on full-time experience
at least 1 shipped title on a major game distribution platform (Steam, console, etc.)
motivated self-starter
familiarity with both 2D and 3D concepts
experience with version control (Git, Subversion)
Nice-to-haves (please specify if any):
basic graphic design and video editing experience
light web dev experience (HTML/CSS)
marketing-minded, social media/community management experience
familiarity with "game feel" techniques
familiarity with game optimization techniques
This is part-time work and the volume will vary. I'd be looking for a minimum of 5 hours a week to start but it could approach full-time depending on the volume of work coming in and the agreement we reach.
Bonus points if you're in/around the Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada area but I'm fully expecting this to be remote.
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) my focus to preparing a patch.
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