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[melos]

hi.

well, luckily with this dungeon i've hit the sort of flow-point with its design, now that I have most of the entities coded, or at least know how they will play their roles.

basically what ends up happening is after all the ground work, which is basically thinking and making incoherent scribbles on paper, I code up some entities and test them out and make a few rooms.

and then it kind of just goes from there and I start making rooms really fast and it all works out.

...

okay. as for music, I got advice on this one song's ending, so I'll finish that soon. this is the song http://soundcloud.com/seagaia/cant-figure-out-how-to-end/s-FDWbn if you're interstied

A bit of music I've been listening to lately has given me some ideas - Hilary Stagg, Erik wollo, liszt (benediction of god/solitude?? the title evades me) .

bye

[_Grey]

your game seems really interesting (a 2d zelda like game is always accepted), but it's possible to play it? i really want to try to see how is it (i'm not happy just with screens)

[melos]

your game seems really interesting (a 2d zelda like game is always accepted), but it's possible to play it? i really want to try to see how is it (i'm not happy just with screens)

yeah dood there's a link to a demo in the beginning of this topic, but here is the link anyways bit.ly/anodyne-demo .

It's kind of going to be the same thing. A few intro areas and the first dungeon. We have a bunch of other content done but the "demo" will be the same set of areas, continuously "upgraded" as the rest of the game falls into place - e..g once we get around to getting the story into the game, adding transitory areas, the hub-ish world, blah bla hbalbahlblah

---

my question of the day is how the hell i'm gonna sell this.

i need to mak good trailer because....press people are busy people.

oh god what will we do

[melos]

oh yeah some other things:

A tiny peek at a new tileset for an area!

http://t.co/40ngPScw

I also wrote a blog post on getting map and sprite data from the map editor into the game

reddit SSS post

http://www.reddit.com/r/gamedev/comments/yf29v/screenshot_saturday_80_summer_time/c5uylsw

there's an IndieDB page now too.

http://www.reddit.com/r/gamedev/comments/yf29v/screenshot_saturday_80_summer_time/c5uylsw

bye bye bye

[Cellusious]

Looks cool,
Latest image is broken tho.

 

[melos]

Looks cool,
Latest image is broken tho.

 

yeah, I was stupid and stuck the shortlink into the image tag. Now it just links there if you give it a nice old click. which you should.

Okay, so today here is what I did.

I worked a bit on the dungeon more. It's almost a little sad. Tweaked older dungeons to remove puzzles I thought were stupid. WEIRD PUZZLES HAVE NO PLACE IN THIS GAME. Well, block-pushing only.

Coded some collision stuff and fixed up enemies.

I went to In & Out burger, which is delicious.

And some attempts with marketing. Always the most exhausting thing for me. Gotta add more to this facebook page.

http://www.facebook.com/AnodyneGame

[melos]

hmmm....

there are a lot of new tilesets now.

I wish I could show you, but I can't...they will be secrets. Because it is no fun to spoil everything!

Jon is a tileset machine. Lots of tilesets. And some enemy sprites! I'll post some of those when they get more final. I'll get to be doing some more SFX soon once we get animations in place, which is a bit of work.

I probably fixed a few bugs. I did a lot of work on that one dungeon, and I think I'll finish it tonight. Probably start working on the boss later.

I also added stuff to the Facebook page. Marketing ftw...maybe!

I have a few design posts in the pipelines, as well as a more technical one. And at some point I'd like to share more of the music I've done, because I think there are only 4 out of the 14 or so I have done at the moment!

I will leave you all with this, though.

[clockwrk_routine]

animation is really nice.  depth is kind of wonky though instead of a beach I see cliffs.

[kittakaj]

Yep, you're right about the depth.  In large part, I think, because there's a chunk of the second-from-darkest color that stays static, making it look like a solid object instead of water.  I'll do some refinements later.

Sorry I haven't been updating much about the art, but I read the comments and appreciate all the feedback and compliments, so thanks to everyone who commented!  I'm just in crazy crunch mode getting as much as I can done before school starts back up.  Gotta get this thing finished or all is for naught!

Also, lols at the fez emoticon, just noticed that... !

[SolarLune]

Yeah, I like the animation too. The darkest color does feel solid because it's staying static - but otherwise, the graphics are turning out pretty good! Waves don't animate from the deck going into the water, though. Anyway, nice so far!

[melos]

Recently finished the last dungeon in terms of a quick test run and mechanics and design. Still have to do the boss.

What this means is now I get to go through the excruciating process of making the animation placeholders final enough for Jon to go in and draw the animations, which is also excruciating for him. I've tried to reduce the cardinality and simplicity of the animations as I've gone along, but there are still a lot. Which is nice for the player, but not so much for us. I'm just complaining and this is entirely my fault. Plus sound effects. But those are fun.

Jon has been making a lot of really nice tilesets. But they're secret.

It's been an awkward work week for me. Been moving my sister into college and on a semi-vacation, but I still got a decent amount done. Returning home soon to do as much as possible before Jon starts school (I don't start for quite a bit still).

Status update in semi-meaningless percentages:

Enemies/Bosses: 90%
Dungeon Designs: 90%
Outside-Dungeon Designs: 25%
NPCs/Story/Dialogue: 25%
Music: 40%
SFX: 20%
Tilesets: 40%
Animations: 20%
Other (menus, intro, ending, sekretz): 30%
Testing: 10% - jon and I for majority of bug-weeding, a few friends on early stuff

Most of the planning is done. We have solid ideas for the outside-dungeon areas as well as the story, but that stuff obviously isn't set in stone until...it's done.

[_Grey]

Love that sea..... you will make an executable for windows of this game?

[melos]

Love that sea..... you will make an executable for windows of this game?

hey,
short: Yes, I'm pretty sure.

long: My plan is to use Adobe AIR since currently the game works on Flash Player. .swf isn't really the ideal distribution format, so if the AIR thing  works then the game will be playable on at least Windows and OSX, and maybe some linux distros...I think they only support up to AIR 2.6 but who knows. In any case the majority of players will be able to play, I believe.

[melos]

heh heh heh



Still doing a lot of animations work. tearing my hair out. almost done.

[Graham-]

I played through till the first boss. Here are my thoughts.

I liked it, a lot. The atmosphere was interesting. The enemies were interesting.

I felt like I wanted to explore. The boss had a cool hardcore retro feeling.

Crits:
  . walking through corridors is too pixel-perfect; be more forgiving. I had to retry switching screens many times when I hit a wall.
  . lots of mechanics took me some time to figure out. hitting spiders in the back, punching down buttons with my shovel, being able to shovel things, being able to push a block, noticing that a button was a button: these all are things I didn't notice; gamer knowledge required. Even if the player does notice it's possible it'll take him a few tries. That's only partially fun. It's more fun if you lead him to the solution, like you build a challenge and the player has to put together the clues based on what's going on to realize what to do. Then you win twice: once for having a new thing for the player to do, and twice for teaching them something they need to know
  . ditto; mechanics swing in too quickly.
  . I'm not as aware of myself losing health as I should be. It is non-obvious; also there's no indicator when I'm low, so death can be a surprise.
  . the transition from death to restart is too fast. put a pacing break there.
  . the first dungeon was too complex. it had too many things to think about; can be overwhelming. I'd rather that be two dungeons: one a tutorial, then the next to show what you've learned, with the boss
  . character animation not smooth. his walking is very important
  . sometimes there's lag: like a button press doesn't register or my char keeps walking even though I've depressed the key. don't know flash; can fix?
  . control introduced too suddenly. you can map attack with different keys? I'd remove that.

Positives:
  . the boss was excellent
  . I died and enjoyed that (at the boss)
  . repeating the dungeon is not so fun. This element is an artifact from old Zelda design. I don't think it's a good one. (ok, that's a neg.)
  . cool variety of monsters
  . liked the feeling of the weapon
  . liked the variety in puzzles, right away
  . liked the things you collect. didn't even know what they were, but I liked getting them
  . nice reactions by enemies when they get hit
  . engaging atmosphere, especially before the first dungeon.
  . maybe a blip of story there? some reason or goal? like an object to pursue or something.

I have this strange feeling with the Zelda-like backtracking. Maybe I'd feel diff. with a gamepad. This is a gamepad type of game, for sure. There is something in-organic about the dungeon layout. There's just a grid of rooms. They all look the same. I always feel like I'm in the same place. Also, the music wears thin hearing it over and over. I'd tone it down, fade it in and out, alter it even in slight ways. If you had, let's say, 3 min of music looped, then you split that into 3 layers, then adjusted each layer just a touch every so often; you could stretch how tiresome it would be to the player's ear 10x etc.

Maybe Paul had tried your game; that's why his "organic" comments. Now I see what he was saying. The dungeons feel very designed. It's like trying to box me in, or make me follow this grid. That's the weakest element. I'd focus on that element the most.

Loved it though. Very strong vision. Lot's of potential. Great art too. Is that all you? No, you have a partner right. What is you?

[kittakaj]

Hi Toast_trip!  I'm the guy doing the art.  Thanks so much for all the great feedback.  It'll definitely be helpful as we continue to work on the game.

Some things will definitely be ironed out just by the game becoming more completed.  I'm working on bringing more clarity to the game through the art, and I think having more complete sfx will help as well.  The menu and stuff will have a complete overhaul too.  Also, some tidbits of story stuff are coming--I'm working on that.

[Graham-]

Your welcome. It's a beautiful game, and worth playing.

[melos]

hey toast,

i'm doing code and music and the level design - i started this back in mid-march and got jon to hop on board at the end of june, thankfully! it's been very useful having a partner.

The first boss was all the demo has (and all there will be - we might put in another non-dungeon area in a later demo, as well as story bits and other refined things in that first parts of the game).

Glad you like the aesthetics, we are putting a lot of effort into it. The boss has a different spritesheet now (the one in the current demo, I believe, if it's white, is mine from May)


For the crits:

- Currently there is a helpful little push when walking through corridors so you don't snag on edges. I might play with giving more leeway, but there's already al ot.

- Regarding the first dungeon - all those things that have to be learned I'm going to lower the "density" of the rooms. The first dungeon may get bigger, but the rooms will have less
"stuff". I think the tutorial dungeon is at an ideal state in its current form (there are no block-pushing "puzzles" anymore, for one). The first dungeon though, needs a lot of work, for reasons you've touched on (although I'm not sure how well I can put the organic-ness into the dungeons, that's a really big challenge, I'll try but it won't be ideal). The difficulty is that there are a set of things they player must be comfortable with before the later dungeons. Once the base set is taught, the rest is easy to figure out - the base really being the functions of the gates, the broom + dust, and combat basics. It's kind of hard to teach them in a passive way without overdesign. But I do think that my later dungeons are a little more organic...although they're still kind of obstacle course-y, they kind of just flowed as I designed them since I only had to be super deliberate in a few rooms when new elements are introduced.

-not to mention all the rooms have to be 10x10!

- tl;dr, good comments, I'm working on it, but I'm a game design noob so no one should expect miracles ))

-we're working on the health thing. the whole header and menu, as jon mentioned, are being reworked.

-good idea with the transition from death.

-i've worked on the walking things. you always now start walking in the next frame, and you can stop on any frame.
-I have no idea what the lag could be, can you describe how to recreate the bug?

- we've planned out reworking all that info on controls too

-----

- As for repeating the dungeon, I'm still thinking about checkpoints. or at least being generous in the first dungeon for learning the ropes. There are a few checkpoints in the really big dungeons later.

- Also working on toning down fighting difficulty for later areas as they might be too hard.

- as for story, we have it all planned out and the infrastructure, etc., just need to put it in and whatnot


-That first dungeon song pisses me off a lot. it's the one I can't figure out what to do with. It had an older form, which sucked, and I don't like this one either. it'll get there, eventually



---

in any case, yeah, i am thinking about the dungeons i've made. hopefully they will end up okay!

thanks for the comments, of course.

[Graham-]

It's a dangerous line of thinking to ask yourself what the player "needs to know" then forcing them to learn it. In some ways I felt like I was being forced to do stuff, and often without a clue to as why or what I should be looking for.

I'm trying to think of the easy fix, because you're right, it's not an easy thing to re-design a dungeon. Thinking....

Ok, I'll give one example. You have to put the dirt piles in front of the shooty things, to block them. At that point I didn't know:
  . the dirt piles were high enough for blocking the shooties to make sense
  . that my weapon was a shovel
  . that I might need to block the shooties
  . that I could dig the dirt
  . that having had dug the dirt that I then had it

And the shooty was in a room also w/
  . an enemy I didn't understand (spider)
  . statues
  . multiple exits

I feel like a rat in a maze in a way, like there's a thing I need to figure out, but I don't know what it is, and I can't do anything else. Does that make sense?

I imagine the lag is just lag. It's like my key presses get frozen. Like if the internet clips flash assumes the previous state of the key. Or maybe that's just RAM, or what. I don't know flash, so I can't tell you. Threads, something....

[melos]

It's a dangerous line of thinking to ask yourself what the player "needs to know" then forcing them to learn it. In some ways I felt like I was being forced to do stuff, and often without a clue to as why or what I should be looking for.

I'm trying to think of the easy fix, because you're right, it's not an easy thing to re-design a dungeon. Thinking....

Ok, I'll give one example. You have to put the dirt piles in front of the shooty things, to block them. At that point I didn't know:
  . the dirt piles were high enough for blocking the shooties to make sense
  . that my weapon was a shovel
  . that I might need to block the shooties
  . that I could dig the dirt
  . that having had dug the dirt that I then had it

And the shooty was in a room also w/
  . an enemy I didn't understand (spider)
  . statues
  . multiple exits

I feel like a rat in a maze in a way, like there's a thing I need to figure out, but I don't know what it is, and I can't do anything else. Does that make sense?

I imagine the lag is just lag. It's like my key presses get frozen. Like if the internet clips flash assumes the previous state of the key. Or maybe that's just RAM, or what. I don't know flash, so I can't tell you. Threads, something....

Yeah that room is really dense - I've been trying to split it apart and lower the stuff-density to make things a little easier. I'll see if I can make it feel freer, as well.

I have no idea what the lag could be. It shouldn't be network-dependent, but maybe your computer is too busy and something weird happens where key events keep getting sent from the keyboard? Or if you are doing something memory intensive and your computer started swapping to disk. Hm.

Anyways, after getting internet installed in my apartment I managed to figure out how to make an AIR 2.6 app with FlashDevelop - VERY easy, kudos to the FD team - which means - yep - hyphen - cross-platform support! and then on top of that, how to make dynamic screen resizing. So now we have nice things like this:



Neat!