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[Ninja Dodo]

Minor update:

Download: http://www.ninjadodo.net/temp/hellas/hellas_v17_1.zip

- Changed the way blocking interacts with spears: It's harder to throw over a block now unless you're really throwing from above... and there were some instances where attacks were not getting blocked when they should. This should be fixed.

- On each kill in Versus a player receives +1 shield (health) if hurt to give the surviving player a better chance against their respawning opponent. So you take the helmet and shield of your fallen enemy... which is thematically appropriate if Homer is any indication. I'm considering making this more literal by having actual helmet and shield pickups that drop on death which you have to collect to claim your point and health.

- Lowered amount of starting sacrifices to 2, plus minor changes to sacrifice spawning... Haven't really even begun to balance any of this stuff. Probably going to change a lot as I go along.

- And finally added a sound for lightning.

I got some useful feedback as well yesterday at the Local Multiplayer Picnic in Utrecht which I will be pondering as I work on the next version...

Also got featured in this week's TIGS Devlog Magazine!

[r0ber7]

You're dutch? Ik ook. Nice progress you're making. I'll keep myself informed. 

[caffeine]

Have you seen this already?
http://www.alientrap.org/games/apotheon

ps. Nederlands

[Ninja Dodo]

@r0ber7: Dutch and Swedish

@Green: Yes. It was discussed earlier in the thread. Short version: It is unfortunate that our games are similar in visuals and theme, but it is my understanding their gameplay goes in a different direction. I hope people will play both.

[Ninja Dodo]

More research goodness:

http://www.metmuseum.org/research/metpublications/

Somebody posted on twitter the Met was putting its publications online. I bookmarked this for later perusing, but it eventually occurred to me to do a search for "Greek and Roman Art in the Ancient". Good stuff.

Also reading Ovidius' Metamorphoses at the moment which, though Roman, is one of the more complete overviews of the same stories in Greek myth. I try to research the visuals and stories equally because where the game deviates from the source material I want it to be for a reason (design, aesthetic, etc)... not because I don't know any better. Plus it's a great inspiration for design ideas.

[Ninja Dodo]

Download: http://www.ninjadodo.net/temp/hellas/hellas_v18.zip

A few things that came out of recent playtests:

Having both P1 and P2 health and sacrifices at the bottom of the screen was confusing. P1 had to look at P2's screen to see their health. Some players even reported not being aware that there was health at all. I tried a few a different configurations and arrived at this:



Added bonus: more room for the game world.

The screen also shows some changes I made to the VS level. Partly this was based on feedback (some indicated the level was too big) and partly I wasn't happy with the number of ways you could navigate the area beyond the stairs. This makes it a bit more compact and leaves (I think) more interesting options for moving around.

Not being able to see what power you currently have selected was a problem. One solution would be to add something to the HUD or to have the cursor indicate the current power. Cursor seemed more practical so I had a think about what that could look like:



I didn't arrive at an icon for the GRAB-power that I was happy with so I ended up going with a simpler solution: small versions of the radial menu buttons attached to the cursor. This also shows whether you have enough sacrifices to use this power (faded if you don't). I may change the visual later, but it should solve the clarity issues for now.

In previous versions it was possible to press down while jumping to block in mid-air and while this would succesfully deflect spears or other attacks there was no visual feedback, so I added some sprites:



Also, the shield bash: Only allowing bash from a block didn't quite feel right and made it unclear the move even existed (since bash did nothing without block) so I've added a standing bash, which is slightly weaker (poor footing etc) but still works for pushing an enemy off an edge or down stairs.

Will post a new video later.

[Storsorgen]

This looks really cool, I love the visual style of it!

[Ninja Dodo]

@Storsorgen: Thanks.

Finished the new video:



Some other changes that I hadn't mentioned in the post:

- Sacrifices respawn with a delay, which in VS should encourage players to engage directly instead of only through god powers. Players also now start with zero sacrifices in both modes.

- Climbing interrupts block, so trying to reach an enemy on a higher platform (without flanking) is risky even with a mid-air block.

- You can walk/climb up half-blocks without jumping by pushing against them (shown in video).

Also fixed a number of bugs.

[pluckyporcupine]

Just watched the video. The versus mode looks interesting.  I'll have to try it out later.

From what I gather, we'll need a controller to play versus?

[Ninja Dodo]

Yes. If you want to use the god powers, player 2 needs a controller. If you only want to fight hero versus hero without divine intervention a shared keyboard is enough.

[Ninja Dodo]

While I work on fixing and adding some more things here's a different kind of update:

Newbie Adventures in Sound - part 1

I've been doing the sound for this project myself and thought it might be interesting to write a bit about that aspect of the game. I've dabbled in sound effects on other projects but for this I wanted to really try and learn more about it.

Looking for resources on the subject I found among other things the Sound in Games wiki, which gives a nice overview of ways in which sound is used, and the Game Audio Podcast, which has a lot of in-depth discussion, and links.

Footsteps were one of the first things I needed.

Recording actual steps on stone didn't seem to work. It felt like the distant side-perspective required something more subtle. After some experimentation tapping different surfaces with my fingers, I found my empty phone wallet sounded about right. I recorded for a while, isolated the best bits and then sorted them into variations with different sounds for left- and right foot, three variations each, and four variations for landing. The more often you hear a sound, the more variations it needs. Otherwise they get super annoying really fast.



Pictured: footsteps on desk, spear replacement, bricks, pencils on mouse mat/carpet.

For other sounds I mostly used something that had similar shape and materials, like a gardening tool for the spear (metal end, wooden handle) and brick on stone tile for stones.

I wrote earlier I was a bit lost for ideas with the skeletons, particularly when they break into bits... I figured the sound had to have the 'bones' colliding with each other, not just with the ground, so multiple longish objects that make a lot of noise when they fall... I have quite a few pencils lying around on my desk so I tried dropping these on different surfaces. With a slightly lowered pitch and speed in Audacity this seems to work pretty well, though I'm not quite happy with the regular sword hits yet.

[edit: a small correction... the pitfalls of writing about something a while after the fact: remembered wrong how I did the footstep sounds described above. While I did use my phone wallet, I used a block-shaped eraser, not my fingers, to make the tap-tap-tap sound of tiny feet on stone... which is similar but gives the sound a slightly different character]

[Ninja Dodo]

Working on some cloud/smoke effects:

[Ninja Dodo]

New video:

[eigenbom]

sweet!

[Franklin's Ghost]

Liking the smoke effect. How many god powers are you thinking of having and any idea so far what the rest of them will be?

Also like the new skeleton grab animation.

[Ninja Dodo]

It depends on which gods I add. There are five more powers that I definitely want to add and another five or so that I want to try which may or may not work. Some are going to be complicated. Don't want to go into more detail just yet.

[Franklin's Ghost]

Sounds good,  looking forward to the surprises

[Ninja Dodo]

Version 19

Download: http://www.ninjadodo.net/temp/hellas/hellas_v19.zip

So the main addition is the BLIND power which creates a cloud of smoke blocking the view of your enemies. This also works in Versus by preventing the other player from using powers while blind. Also added a subtle smoke effect to LIGHTNING which was not in the video. I made some changes to looping so it can handle any number of objects.

Also some work on the bash and other minor changes.

[Ninja Dodo]

I created a concept page on Greenlight: http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=119407378

[edit: reception stars-wise seems mixed, but hopefully I'll get some useful feedback out of it]

[Ninja Dodo]

The thread has been a bit quiet because I've been busy with other work recently, so progress on the project has been slower than usual. Some of the stuff I'm working on now is also less visible, preparing for things to add later. Updates coming soon.