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[I_smell]

HEY! I don't know if this fits in DevLogs, but it's kindof a devlog.

Long-story-short, I made a game a while ago called No Time To Explain, an entrapanuerial games dude said "hey if you made this a lot bigger I'll do all the marketting and sell it", and now I'm doing that.

HERE'S THE GAME'S BLOG. I just started a couple weeks ago, so if you scroll down the page there you can get the full story of what's going on.

I wanted to voice-record the latest post, but my house is never empty
BOOKMARK IT, COMMENT, COME BACK NEXT WEEK, SHIT'S GONNA GO CRAZY.
We just got a Twitter, so... now you interact with that somehow (what's a twitter?)

[I_smell]

HEY I updated.

Today I talked about how I think Level 1 is allways the most important part of a game, and how boss fights are good and shouldn't be bad, etc.
I'm having real trouble making good artwork for this game. It's not that I can't draw; I just don't know how to make a good composition.



Thanks for all the support, this thread has really kept me going  

[I_smell]

Hey a bunch of stuff happened, Reddit really likes us, a bunch o people wanna help out, it's cool, blah blah blah.

I didn't make a blog post today but I wanna update you guys on some stuff. We feel like this game doesn't have any identity yet, and it kinda just looks like any fuckin Flash game on Newgrounds. But we want it to start lookin COOL instead of shit.
So I had this idea that; since this game is so loud n idiot-violent stupid goofy, I thought it might make sense to

make it look like a punk-rock 90s Cartoon Network style thing.

We're talkin about a lot of different art styles, but I think this one kinda fits.

THANKS FOR ALL THE FEEDBACK GUYS, YOU'RE A REAL ASSET, TIGSOURCE IS GREAT!

[I_smell]

Developing an identity

Hey I wrote a big fat post about how our game looks boring, and why everyone's a square, and Quantum Leap. There's also some really impressive concept art by someone who just offered to help us out on Reddit.

Y'know what; I'd just like to take some time out here in this busy thread- I hope it doesn't get lost in the flood of posts- but I'd just like to thank the community of Tigsource for being so supportive, and involved, and giving just the most sincere and helpful feedback I could've ever asked for.
When I first made this thread I expected maybe 1 or 2 replies, but the response has been simply jaw-dropping.

[XRA]

this looks cool, I was readin your blargs, but I just don't agree with the decision to go small and chunky with the character sprite- I understand some of the reasoning, but having a character all flailing about and slinking along toting a giant laser cannon could look really cool with the exaggerated legs/arms for postures and stuff. 
I think it could work, I mean, who says the whole sprites gotta be the hit box, there are no rules about that, what if it was just the head only?..what if any nearby shot caused the character to play a quick flinch-outta-the-way animation.. 
I think allowing for the exaggerated limbs will let you be a lot more expressive with the animation if you wanted!

[I_smell]

If the whole character wasn't the hitbox then it'd still be inaccurate, just in the other direction You wouldn't be able to tell where the hitbox was. Even worse, when his legs are stretched out, they're nowhere near his torso.
Also it makes every part of his body a lot smaller, so he suddenly looks really stringy and inconsistent with everything else onscreen. It's just unnatractive.

One sprite I didn't bring up though, was Earthworm Jim:


I don't know how they got away with it, but I'm suddenly really impressed.

[AndrewFM]

Having a hitbox that is significantly smaller than the character is a very common attribute of shmup games. The character may be 50x50 pixels, while the hitbox is only 4x4.

It works really well, and doesn't produce any confusion as you may think. Perhaps take a look at some shmup games to get ideas on how to implement it. Also, to be more specific, the collision hitbox with the platforms should be the size of the character, but the collision hitbox with enemies and projectiles should be much smaller.

Also, try taking a look at "Fancy Pants Adventures" for ideas of how to create a smooth platforming experience with a character that has long stringy extremities (I think this is my new favorite way to refer to arms and legs )

[I_smell]

Also, try taking a look at "Fancy Pants Adventures" for ideas of how to create a smooth platforming experience with a character that has long stringy extremities (I think this is my new favorite way to refer to arms and legs )

I hate Fancy Pants Adventures, I can never tell if I'm ON a wall or just near it, or if what I'm doing counts to this game as "sliding" or "running", and I've just got no feel for where the boundaries are or where I'm gonna end up in a couple seconds.

It's like the platformer-equivalent of Octodad, which is the opposite of what I want.

[thedaemon]

For your pleasure I give you the answers straight from the horses mouth, Mike Dietz blog, the making of Earthworm Jim!

http://slappypictures.blogspot.com/2010/03/making-of-earthworm-jim.html

If the whole character wasn't the hitbox then it'd still be inaccurate, just in the other direction You wouldn't be able to tell where the hitbox was. Even worse, when his legs are stretched out, they're nowhere near his torso.
Also it makes every part of his body a lot smaller, so he suddenly looks really stringy and inconsistent with everything else onscreen. It's just unnatractive.

One sprite I didn't bring up though, was Earthworm Jim:


I don't know how they got away with it, but I'm suddenly really impressed.

[Sir Raptor]

Maybe you could have gameplay work in the classic No Time To Explain style, but use the longer character designs for cutscenes, unless you're planning to make the cutscenes be ingame like in the original game.

[I_smell]

Nah that'd be nuts, it's not worth it. And all the action just happens in-game, it's way easier that way.

I just wrote a bunch of stuff, and thought I might aswell copy-paste it here cos I guess this is the dev log:
____________________________________________________


this kinda looks like the shotgun blast I did in Roadtrip Rampage- which I guess is a style I'm developing? but I'm honestly not trying to do what it looks like I'm doing.
What I really like here is that I think I finally figured out the CORRECT way to use basic-ass circles in stuff like this (like on frame 1), which used to allways confuse me. It didn't take as long as it looks like it might've took.

Also:


I was tryina animate like- someone being attacked by a shark underwater.. like underwater blood. But I don't like how it came out. I did it as a globulous fat lava lamp thing, when I should've made it look way thinner like mist. But I guess I fucked it up. This took longer and was more boring to make.
If you're thinking it looks like anime, that's because I stretched it out to be way slower and gave each frame more attention than it deserves

[tesselode]

I remember this game. It was really silly; it'll be interesting to see if this can actually be worthwhile gameplay-wise.

[JMickle]

Game looks awesome man, keep it up. Love your animation work. That shark blood probably looks fine in context.

[eigenbom]

That concept art by Gustaf Ekelund is mad! His deviantart is the shiz!

[I_smell]

TRAILER


Making this trailer beat the crap out o me this week, an I'm terrified of what response it's gonna get (if any).
This is what we got so far! It's real music, real gameplay, and now you know what the game is.
 
Yo keep it locked on TinyBuild.com y'all! Updates n announcements comin up, fo real!

[Terrorbuns]

Ok, that was pretty amazing. Those boss fights look REALLY REALLY REALLY AWESOME AND I CANNOT WAIT ONOMNOMNOM 

[JasonPKaplan]

I am officially in love with this.  I just played through the Flash version and loved it, the voice work was amazing, and I've since spammed up my Facebook and Twitter with stuff about it.  Keep it up!

[I_smell]

We didn't show a lot of gameplay in the first one, so I made this to hopefully answer any questions.

Update: People like this game. We got 60,000 hits on Youtube for our first trailer, 3000 facebook likes, and I just appeared on a podcast. I don't wanna post it though cos I was so bad! I flubbed through the whole thing n couldn't get my words into sentences, which really fuckin annoyed me cos I listen to podcasts ALL DAY and I'm pretty familiar with what makes a bad one. And that really felt like a bad one :[

I haven't wrote a blog post for a long time, Alex's wrote a few. I wanna write one about funny level design.
Alex did an interview with Wired, and basically everyone's emailing us right now.

I'm gonna have to fly to Holland to sign a contract and incorporate our business; then I'm gonna have to fly back to England, and all the way to SEATTLE for fuckin Pax. YES, PAX, what the hell is going on.

[gimymblert]

I like the air hula hop competition, it's a kinect game right?

(the music is awesome no joke, dl link?)


ps the 1911 filter is really fitting!

[I_smell]

When I first made the game I was waitin for Dance Central to come out, so I think it's that. But maybe it's Micheal Jackson The Experience, there's no good way to tell.

Music's here