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[Bishop]

Haven't worked much on the intro, looking to get a proper animator to do a cinematic intro, trying to see if it's in my budget. If it is then that'll explain the back story and I can leave the intro mostly as is.

As for the no votes, I've had a few negative and/or incoherent comments on the Greenlight page.

A lot of "I'm sure that this is already on steam..." thanks to the demo being released years ago

"Platformers must be of exceptional quality to appeal to me."

"Oh look, another indie platform. There weren't enough of those already."

"But it's just a recycling center, one building, why not an entire city."

"I like puzzle platformers, but visually this game does not do it for me at all. Bad graphics would be a different story. This is good graphics done in an entirely unappealing way."

That last one I really wish I understood what they meant. On the greenlight show youtube comments page a lot of people said they stopped watching at the 1 minute mark as soon as they found out it was a "platformer". To be honest you don't do that much jumping around in the game, it's mostly puzzles.

It's a little sad that so many wanted to shit on it without seeing it, but oh well, I'll be making an RTS next time. I was actually really happy the first time I saw a negative comment. Nothing is universally liked and the first one was a mile stone. I'd shown it to enough people that someone was upset.

[Christian]

Very interesting. It's a shame that some people are so close minded. I guess it helps that I really enjoy puzzle platformers and I love indies. That aha moment in these kinds of games is always so satisfying. In the demo alone, figuring out that you could boost yourself with the explosive was awesome. So I can't wait to see what other scenarios you've devised

[Rusk]

Grats on the green light!

[NoobsArePeople2]

Thanks for posting about your Greenlight experience, that's a ton of great insight. Congrats on getting greenlit as well!

[Bishop]

Glad you found it interesting. I can't post anything further now that I am greenlit as it's all confidential

[NoobsArePeople2]

I can't post anything further now that I am greenlit as it's all confidential

Ha! Of course!

[Bishop]

Hey everyone.

I've ran into a new design problem. Now that the game is all properly linked up and you can explore in lots of different directions, most players have got lost and not found the new areas they've unlocked.

So the main level has three states (although we'll ignore one of those for now).

Pre lava drainage.


Post lava drainage.


In the second image it shows the exits from this level. From intro you can only go to pistol. Pistol unlocks dual sub and shotgun areas (via being able to break boxes). Shotgun level drains the lava and unlocks bow and bolt gun levels. Bolt gun unlocks C4 area. C4 unlocks secret and TV remote. TV remote unlocks ending. This means that dual sub, bow levels can be bypassed completely. I like the idea of having some choice over which area you head to next but might enforce finding all the guns before the ending.

Currently all players have missed the bow and most have missed the dual sub levels.

So this is my proposed map system. In a certain spot of the hub it'll show you the layout of the place and highlight areas you have and haven't been yet. This quick mock up doesn't do the job amazingly well and I think I should add this to the pause menu too or on a button press (perhaps while standing still for a few seconds?).



Do you think it looks okay? It was hard to come up with names for all the areas of the place.

[Scut Fabulous]

I think that looks really good.  There doesn't appear to be a marker indicating the player position, I think that would help it out.

[Christian]

Love the map screen. Looks good and fits really well with the TV aesthetic. And yeah a player marker would be good

I think you could have a separate map button (separate from the pause menu, I mean). I don't think the standing still idea would work well, because in a game like this, the player might stop for a bit to assess the puzzle and that would get annoying if the map screen kept popping up

For the "getting lost" issue, maybe you could have unexplored areas on the map outlined with a different color (or be all glitchy like signal interference) to differentiate them from visited areas. Visited areas could have regular white outlines like in the picture

[Bishop]

Been working more on the intro. It's been something I've been stressing about for ages now in how much time I've thrown at it but I think I finally have something good.





I feel it could be better but I can't think where yet, guess I need a little distance and time to see it clearly.

What do you guys think?

[DrDerekDoctors]

I quite like it, particularly the idea of it being interactive (I assume you control the central white dot collecting the other parts?).

It doesn't look terribly like the TV is being suffused with the energy when they spiral in and disappear, mind, so maybe some kinda' glow there?

[Bishop]

Did some more work on the intro, added the glow you suggested and a little more.

Heads up! There's some really big flashing lights in the video.





I think that's about perfect at the moment.

[Claw]

That's looking awesome man.

One thing I'd think about is the way the color particles move towards the TV and get absorbed. Not a fan of the slow spiral inward bit, kinda lacks the power that the end of the cut-scene has.

Maybe with a faster tween, like if the particles just accelerate towards the TV (rather than an ease tween) one at a time (not necessarily in order either) and get visually absorbed/destroyed on impact it might make it look more powerful and build up to the ending better?

I really love the glitchy/shakey ending

[Bishop]

I made the particles faster and slightly speeded up the whole thing. Also flipped the colours from being random to cycling through all the TV screen colours. Cheers for the feedback everyone!

I had an idea for the end of the game, like literally the last few moments. I was thinking of the game gradually becoming more pixelated as you progressed, to the point that it became a single colour.





Here's a quick test. This one happens a lot faster than I'd have it actually happen although the idea doesn't feel as good as I was hoping. This is my plan C. I don't have a plan A or B but hopefully I'm just a few dreams/showers away from them.

[Bishop]

I scrapped the previous map idea as several of the levels overlap each other and the world doesn't actually fit together when you look it at as a whole. Instead I've opted for this computer screen in the Hub level, solid arrows are places you've been and hollow are unexplored, although maybe I'll add colour coding to it as well if players don't notice.

[shelly]

game looks good! I would consider making a direct line to the "you are here" position, or just a (blinking?) dot. You don't want to have lines overlap.

[Bishop]

Hey everyone, wanted to report on the state of the game and ask for some hugely needed advice.

So in Single player I've only got two jobs left. Number 13 in the top left of the world is lacking some kind of cutscene.


, at the moment this static field boss just appears from the left of the screen to chase you, but really it needs some kind of introduction and this has me totally stumped. I've experimented with doing the opposite to the intro, have a TV die and the lights come out to form the static line, but it actually looks pretty shit.

Other than that, I have no ending and no idea for an ending that I can picture in a high enough resolution to actually make.



I've spent a few months toying around with ideas and generally been stuck in a quagmire of not having a clear idea of what I'm doing. I've definitely wasted too much time in this and my new plan is to quickly bash out co-op levels and hope that someone else can solve these design problems or the break brings new ideas. (what a cop-out, right?).

[NoobsArePeople2]

but really it needs some kind of introduction and this has me totally stumped. I've experimented with doing the opposite to the intro, have a TV die and the lights come out to form the static line, but it actually looks pretty shit.

Remember how old TVs with bunny ears used to do stuff like this if they got misaligned or there was bad weather?



The image would split apart horizontally and if it was really bad you'd get vertical waves of distortion (sorry, the picutre isn't super representative of this phenonenom but it was the best I could find). What if you had the screen distort like this and then, as it came back together the distortion would focus into the line of static?

My thinking is that the static bar is invading the screen and in doing so he temporarily causes some distortion.

[Jove]

Just throwing an idea out there and it could be to far along, anyway...

The recycle factory is actually run by a TV, for the final level he introduces himself and admires that the TV (player) has managed to make it this far and asks the TV to join him in running the factory. You could use the projection method for the tutorial section to illustrate a conversation in some way.

The TV (player) decides not to join him and in doing so angers him/her/it and decides to destroy the TV (player) off instead of letting him escape and produces the light (With NoobsArePeople2 effect) that chases the TV (player) through the final level.

The exit of the final level is just a bright light, when the TV (player) enters the white light the screen fades to a small white dot (Like when you turned off an old CRT monitor) The light in the middle grows to show a family sitting on sofa watching the TV (Player)

Or you could twist it round and the family is actually playing the game on the TV (Player)

I'll get my coat

[Bishop]

For the game intro I tried to simplify stuff as much as possible and here's my attempt at making the most simple, basic ending.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_61UyXgD0sw&feature=youtu.be

I feel it's ok actually. The idea is you eventually get to the room where the trash comes into the facility and climb your way out. The climb start bit is missing in the clip, but I think covering the transition in a big black block looks alright and makes the job a thousand times easier.

Perhaps I could tie the beginning and ending together too, have all the lights that entered the TV exit at the end? Like his spirit is free and he only needed the body to escape.

I do like the ideas suggested and it's a shame to have this ending skimp on the story, but I've already cut out a lot of ideas I wanted to make, I think trimming down and getting it out before I run out of funds is what's needed.

Anyone seen the ending in Dark Matter?