The style direction is looking good.

But I do agree that there's something off with the leg animation.  Almost seems like quick a "double tap" of the feet that might indicate the frames aren't in correct order.

Could you post all the frames next to one another?

Bolding or increasing the font-size isn't a bad idea, I think.

As to bullet points, hmm... I'll give it some thought, I intend, but I'll admit that I like the old-fashioned literary style that I'm attempting to emulate here. It feels a little less... bare, I suppose.

Either way, thank you for the suggestions! ^_^

To me, a summary is more like a Table of Contents.   It allows you to quickly get an overview and find what you are looking.  In the case of a devlog post, to see if there's a topic of interest.

[If we keep the night/day cycle in there for the release version]

Generating outlines and other shader tricks tend to be the "obvious" 3D generated 2D visuals. I tend to like how they look in a still image but really get annoyed when playing the game.

Which aspects in particular?

I was referring to the tech demo yes, how they did the crosshatching difference in distance is really ace work. They got it to a point where it's in the background instead of it being a nuisance for the gameplay. Being able to make tech like that in-house must be a nice boon.

Those cross hatch shadows are really nice.  That's also on my "To Do" list for simiar 2d 'toon visuals.

If we keep the night/day cycle in there for the release version, it would be quick jumps from day - evening - night - morning.

Quick jumps probably won't be an issue day cycle.  If implemented, I'm assuming the Sun and Moon would move across the sky though.

Perhaps more of a personal curiosity for my future projects, but I'm wondering what would be the "minimum" to create a smooth day cycle illusion for 2d visuals.  Other than what was mentioned, would an extra shader that adjust color hue values be "enough"?

Yeah, painting parts individually is time consuming.  It looks like that highlights and shadows are also painted on the objects.  I would've imagined those being updated dynamically with some kind of shaders and perhaps with a few custom shadows or darker areas already painted on textures.  Not sure if that approach allows it, but for for some textures, uv offset or using repeating shapes like stickers/decals might might help.

Can't recall it being mentioned, but will there be evenings?  If yes, and you are using the current custom paint approach then those would need different textures as well.

To get shaders to a well enough level to represent a true 2D-feel in textures, you'd need some ace tech artist team. It's always a bit "weird" IMO, even borderlands has many oddities. Their new tech demo was pretty sweet but that's hundreds and hundreds of hours of research of veterans. So we took this approach instead.

Decals etc help and will be used ofc.

To me, there are way to many "obvious" things that give away 3d generated visuals that try to be 2d. For example, as longs as arcs and curves will be broken up and "drawn" with multiple straight lines, the difference will be very obvious. 

So, I was mainly referring to having hand painted texture style and those maintaining visual consistency.  For example, if you hand paint highlights on abody part texture and that body part moves to a position where the highlight shouldn't be visible, then that could break the illusion. 


Are you referring to the recent Borderlands 3 tech demo?  That looked a lot more 3d to me than the previous games.  Similarly, when pixel visuals are actually created real time with 3d models and shaders.  While it's not impossible to create visuals that come close, in general, pixel art games need more than just "large pixels".  Often colors are more limited, animations aren't "super smooth" and there aren't metallic reflections or highly detailed light fx.  So, there seemed to be

For the evenings/night, lighting still has effect on it, with customizing values we can easily switch to night scenes and make it all look good. We tested this like.. 2 years ago (holy moly it's been long)
here:



Ofcourse the water, lighting, etc were really basic here and the textures have since improved tons, so "imagine" it being prettier than the test here.

That scene looks very good in terms of what I have in mind.

Oh, will there be a long transition between day and night or just a quick time jump? 

[bold]

In terms of summary, maybe you can make it bold or increase size to be make it more obvious. 
Also, if you are listing summary details, those could be listed as bullet points.

Though, if the bugs are so close, I'd expect them to be more flickering than being dark (depending on light color and intensity).

We want the bugs to be quite dark because they are on a layer that is closer to the camera than Dragon. Everything on that layer is dark - lamps, cables... It is a part of our visual language. See here:

Yeah, as you mentioned, if you don't have anything else lit then it could work.  I was mainly imagining it based on may past experience.

Stickman played by Arnold Scharzenegger in the last gif?

Yeah, pretty much this scene came to mind when when I saw the gif.

This means Early Access will easily last another six months, and probably longer because I don't want to bother calling it 1.0 if we'll still be getting new extra features for much of the coming year.

Exactly how much longer will really depend on what happens on Steam while the remainder of the confirmed features are being worked on. If reception and sales are sufficiently good, I'll have trouble stopping myself! I can't be specific about the virtually endless list of potential features I've accumulated (player expectations and all that...), but I'll admit there is room for, plans for, and a desire to add, many new items, mechanics, robots, maps, NPCs, factions, everything...

So, what would you considered a "full game" for Cogmind? 

I'm just wondering because Rain World v1.5 was recently released with new features (e.g. new enemies) as well as fixes.  There are more features that are yet to be implemented that were intended to be added even before v1.0 was released. 

So, isnt' Cogmind at a stage where it could be considered "complete" (e.g. Rain World v1.0 featured a campaign mode with a full story) and the features that you would like to implement aren't really "missing" from the game but could expand it even more?


And of course, let's not forget about the VR upgrade, right?

If anything is on the platform, it starts to sink. This includes Leilani, enemies, powerups, basically anything that's a physical object in the game.

So, if there's a powerup on a "sinkable" platform and the powerup isn't picked up, the platform could potentially completely sink?  That could be an issue if Leilani can't progress because of that.  If powerups disappear after a while or when submerged, then that could solve that issue.

I see.  I didn't notice the bugs around the light, I guess I was looking at the "big picture".  Though, if the bugs are so close, I'd expect them to be more flickering than being dark (depending on light color and intensity).
 

Hi,
we know, dynamic lights are not as fancy as they used to be but they are still pretty useful! Although Tendril: ER is a stealth game (well if being stealth means spreading terror without being directly noticed), we use dynamic lights only for aesthetic reasons. Hiding in shadows is far from original nowadays so we decided not to venture that path. This also gives us freedom to play with the visual side of our lights more, because they do not have to follow all those gameplay restrictions like being clear or strong enough.

I was thinking about it, and I since your game is stealth game, I wonder if there will be people who assume that shadow does mean cover.  Especially, since you also put a lot of work into making light/shadows look good, the expectation might be there. 

My first impression is that TERRORhythm is a good game title and TRRT also would be a good abbreviation (especially as a hashtag #TRRT instead of spelling the full title), but not sure if the two together would work as the title.

I was also thinking that what if would be easier to read the title if the two words are on separate lines.
TERROR
RHYTHM
But that might not work since in the title there's only one 'R' where the words mean.


GODHOOD (another rhythm hack'n'slash game) also has a devlog, but is on hiatus.

Ah, I see.  It's good that got it working.

Yeah, painting parts individually is time consuming.  It looks like that highlights and shadows are also painted on the objects.  I would've imagined those being updated dynamically with some kind of shaders and perhaps with a few custom shadows or darker areas already painted on textures.  Not sure if that approach allows it, but for for some textures, uv offset or using repeating shapes like stickers/decals might might help.

Can't recall it being mentioned, but will there be evenings?  If yes, and you are using the current custom paint approach then those would need different textures as well.

The new foliage is looking good.

Guten Morgen, Kinder. Setzt euch und haltet den Mund!

Good morning, children. Sit down and be quiet, please!

Good morning, kids. Sit down and shut up!

Good morning, children. Take your seats and quiet down!

Okay, Google ... are you trying to be funny?   That translation was unexpected at first but I wonder why the following also came up with "shut up":

Good morning, kids.   Sit down and keep your mouth shut!

Good morning, children.  Puts you and shuts up!.

Is that the actual meaning?  Or does the exclamation mark play a role?

Hi,
we know, dynamic lights are not as fancy as they used to be but they are still pretty useful! Although Tendril: ER is a stealth game (well if being stealth means spreading terror without being directly noticed), we use dynamic lights only for aesthetic reasons. Hiding in shadows is far from original nowadays so we decided not to venture that path. This also gives us freedom to play with the visual side of our lights more, because they do not have to follow all those gameplay restrictions like being clear or strong enough.

Sooo how our lights work? We apply stencil shadows onto upscaled sprites to achieve pixelated effect while having custom texture. So we can turn any sprite into a light.

Walls (shadow casters) create their own shapes of pure evil darkness to cut the light. We experimented with downscaling and upscaling also of these shadow shapes to achieve pixelated look on their edges but we were not satisfied with the result. So we ended up with high resolution shadow edges.

We are planing to use dynamic lights mostly for preventing light to pass through walls and doors anyway so we do no care about shadow edges so much.

We are happy how it turned out and we can go do other super important stuff!

Is that the final version?  If the lights are moving, shouldn't the "fog/smoke" remain stationary (or slightly drifting)?

This use surface shaders. I took some time to learn that i couldnt code a surface shader with either a fragment or a vertex.... or maybe i am dub.... i am going with that, i need to finish the books and study more.
3 - My shader created from this reference
This one uses a fragment and vertex. I do the transparency/distance and color change on the vertex function

float dist =   distance(_WorldSpaceCameraPos, mul(unity_ObjectToWorld, IN.vertex));
      float a_d = (5 + 2 - dist)/5;
      if (dist < 2)a_d = 1;
      
      if (a_d < 0)a_d = 0;
      float c_d = 2 / dist;
      if (c_d > 1)c_d = 1;

      fixed4 _Color = fixed4(c_d, c_d, c_d, a_d);

I thought i was doing something similar at code 2, but no... i wasnt..... i need to clean my code
RESULTS:

Are you changing the alpha values to fade away the characters?  Wouldn't that create "ghosts"?  i.e. if two characters overlap or in front of another object then the fading and transparency will be obvious.

That's interesting question about the logo.  When I looked at the New Games section on Steam, there was a lot more variety in colors, not just the dark ones you showed in the sample.  So it'll depend on the actual day.

My first guess is that the blueish color would be more attractive to males - also the gamers who are more likely to play the game.  IIRC, on Facebook ads you can specify a number of criteria so trying to limit the ads to "male gamers" might give you an idea if there's a preference for either version.

Since both colors are present in the game, perhaps having the two colors in the logo could work with blue given more dominance?

A quick search brought up it being mentioned William Chyr's Manifold Garden devlog but not actual description.  He hasn't posted here on TIG in a couple of months, so I'd contact him on twitter or other places where he's more active.
I was curious but only had a little time.  Maybe there are others as well. 

Regardless, I'd be interested in your experience.

Yeah i had a bit of a dig too but didn't find a lot of info, so I thought that doing a postmortem might be more useful for everyone, especially focusing on how we got a spot, what they're after and the cost breakdown. Will check out William's post and bump him to see if he has anything he wants to add to the discussion.

Thanks for looking around for me! 

Your welcome!

Did a little more search and found a Giant Sparrow blog post http://www.giantsparrow.com/blog/?p=471  mentioning being at the Playstation Experience with What Remains of Edith Finch in 2015 but nothing along the lines of what you are looking for.  Interestingly Manifold Garden is mentioned being there in of the tweets.

[BEAR HAT MAN]

If I Google Barbearian I mainly get stuff about a DnD character class, which is fairly niche but worth considering if you want to avoid clashing with it. It might also fall foul of being hard to explain in person (you could get bored of saying "Barbarian.. but bear like the animal") or Google autocorrect "fixing" the spelling.

A name directly related to the plot / world / story could work? I'm not sure exactly how many of those kind of details you have.

Yeah for sure. Googling is a big issue definitely. I'm really bad at names in general (game names, character names, etc.)... I mean I called my last game Trigonarium, try to explain that to people... I'll probably name this something like Turbo Mega Bear Hat Man Quest Extreme after a while if I'm not happy with Barbearian...

BEAR HAT MAN!  Sounds like we have a winner!   Actually, that would work as a pun name ... but it may be too comical for your game.  On the other hand, As Ishi mentioned, the plot / world / story could give a better direction and that name might work.  As a little further brainstorming, since you mentioned cake as loot, how about Chaotic Cake Quest!  If you want, you can always add Extreme at the end.