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[nachobeard]

updated post

HOOKBALL was finally released today.  I think I turned out pretty well, you could say I’m a proud dad.

So, let’s celebrate with a trailer!

HOOKBALL is available now on the iPad appstore.  It’s going to be free for a little while, as a special launch promotion.  However the game doesn’t feature in-app purchases, push notifications, microtransactions or ads.

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iTunes link http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/hookball/id640326801

presskit() http://www.nachobeard.com/

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tumblr http://blog.nachobeard.com/

twitter https://twitter.com/nachobeard

email [email protected]

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(click to enlarge)

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Credits

Game by Nachobeard
http://www.twitter.com/nachobeard

Sound by Gavin Harrison:
http://www.gavinharrisonsounds.com

Graphics by Leonard Robel
http://www.budhigames.com

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[original post follows]

hi all,

so I've finally settled down for a name and decided to start a thread here to post occasional updates.

so, hook love is an action game, a quirky mixture of super smash brothers and noitu love with touch controls.  graphics are totally crude at the moment but you can take a look here at a gameplay video I just recorded with commentary and a bunch of fun new enemy types:

the objective of the game isn't so much to defeat all enemies but to collect coins while avoiding falling off the botom edge of the screen.  The game draws inspiration from smash bros and controls a little like noitu love, but with touch controls.  sadly at this stage it's missing all the graphics, and only features a few enemies (incidentally, lifted from the mario paint coffee game, of all things)

the central character (green rectangle) will be substituted for a character of some kind who will have kick, punch and hook attacks.  each game is a single huge-ass combo, where you're punching, kicking and juggling enemies around to avoid falling off the bottom edge of the screen.

graphics and music will be lo-fi and chunky and pixelly.  which reminds me, I'm still looking for an artist so drop me a word if you might be interested

the game will probably be released for iPad only.

I'll happily admit I've no idea what I'm doing so any sort of criticism would be good.  ta-ra!

[jakomocha]

Hey I just played your game. The first thing I noticed was that this games controls are perfect for a tablet or touch device (such as the iPad or Android) and that the game itself is perfect for one of those devices. The game is almost impossible to play on a computer though. One thing I don't understand is what is the point of punching those circles in this game? It doesn't earn you coins and just makes the circle you punched move.

[WhiskeyBiscuit]

Hey I just played your game. The first thing I noticed was that this games controls are perfect for a tablet or touch device (such as the iPad or Android) and that the game itself is perfect for one of those devices. The game is almost impossible to play on a computer though. One thing I don't understand is what is the point of punching those circles in this game? It doesn't earn you coins and just makes the circle you punched move.

You have to drag the circles to make them drop coins.

[nachobeard]

made some new weird enemy types, check em out in the video!!

these draw inspiration from enemies behaviours in many classic games (mario bros, zelda link to the past, ghost n goblins) but they feel totally different because the controls are nothing like in the original games.

I've got about 10 enemies done, I'd like the game to have 20 enemies and 4 minibosses.  oh and a bunch of special events I can't talk about just yet

in other news I think I found a pixel artist, so things are moving along!

[nachobeard]

great news!

I'm now working with Pablo of 8-bits studio and he's already contributed a lot to the project as well as producing a bunch of artwork.  the look of the game is going to be minimal, low-fi pixels, so he's been working on coming up with a unique art style for it.

so here it is, one of the animated backgrounds (click for flash version)

this one has some floating islands over an animated sea, pretty atmospheric huh? (click to see x4)

this one is inside the belly of the beast, so to speak.  pablo says he'll animate the cells somehow (click to see x4)

any suggestions from you guys?
have a nice weekend!

[felipezille]

dude, i'm liking a lot what you've posted, this could end anywhere, nice mechanics so far, and the animated background is more than cool 

[nachobeard]

hi felipezille, thanks for your kind comments.  if you keep an eye on this and notice something which you don't like so much in the game, don't hesitate to let me know

[nachobeard]

heyyya

just a quick update because I've been working pretty hard on this thing for the last couple months.  I had to rewrite a bunch of stuff because the code I carried over from my prototyping stage was really hindering progress.  needless to say this was super boring, but it had to be done, but I'm really having fun with the project again.

so, my lessons are: whatever you do, throw away *all* code after prototyping.
also, never animate using physics, always use curves.

anyway, let's celebrate!
 

and now, the obligatory screenshot
(all graphics are placeholder, click to enlarge)

bye now!

[nachobeard]

hi again!

I'm under the impression that I'm not doing a good job at explaining what the game is about, so I thought I should make some tasty gifs to outline the basic mechanics of the game.


1. basics
avoid falling off the bottom edge of the screen.
avoid attacking enemies and the bullets they shoot.

2. hooking
tap on an enemy to hook to it.  you can only move around the screen by hooking.

3. throwing
flick your finger over an enemy in any direction to throw the enemy in that direction.
throw enemies into each other to knock them out.
enemies leave coins behind, swipe over them with your finger to pick them up.

4. capturing
hook to an enemy, then tap on it to capture it.  you can capture a bunch of enemies and then throw them all together at once.  if you get hit or fall off the bottom edge of the screen you lose your captured enemies (if you have no captured enemies you die).

5. goal
pick up as many coins as you can before dying!



that's it for now, thanks for reading!
-nachobeard.

[IzzyReggie]

Hi, playing the build in the OP (which seems to be outdated, by the way, unless I missed the link to the latest build?) I have to agree with Jakomorcha that it's difficult to play on a computer.
I would love to try it out on my Android (especially as that seems to be your eventual goal), but can't use the web player with that.

[nachobeard]

Hi izzyReggie,

Thanks for getting back to me.
Yes I'm afraid the web build is outdated.  I've edited the post to reflect this.

Unfortunately as you've noticed the game is hard to play with a mouse, mostly because it was designed for touchscreens I guess.
That's why I havent updated the builds and have moved to testflight for testing purposes.

I can send you (or anyone else who wants it) the latest build if you're on testflight and have an iPad.
No android for now at least until I get an android tablet, I'm afraid.
Sorry!

[pluckyporcupine]

I can send you (or anyone else who wants it) the latest build if you're on testflight and have an iPad.
No android for now at least until I get an android tablet, I'm afraid.
Sorry!

What about iPhone 4? I'd be interested in giving it a shot, but my iPad died a long time ago, and has since been replaced with the more affordable iPhone 4.

[nachobeard]

Hi johnki,

I think you will have a hard time playing it because of the smaller screen size, but if youre on testflight I can send you the build.
But Ive no idea if it will run correctly because the game is iPad only  

My username on testflight is [email protected]
This is the testflight link http://tflig.ht/RwXE6V
I'll be happy to share the build with all tigsourcers!!  

[yuji]

Hey nachobeard!

Sorry it's taken me so long to give you feedback. It's been a weird few weeks for me. Also I've wanted to give myself time to look at the game a couple times and give myself time to think about it.

I really like the concept, since grappling hooks have always been a fun part of games. I really enjoy having to deal with enemies (and trying not to fall) when the only thing keeping you from death is a grappling hook. And since the enemies are the. only things you can grapple onto, they're not just something to be killed but a resource as well (your capturing mechanic does this too). I also really enjoy the tension between the reward for smashing an enemy down, and the risk you run of falling. I'm a big fan of game mechanics that force the player to take risks for a reward.

I also like the art style. The pixellated background is great, the player looks pretty cool, and the enemies all have character (I like the first one especially). The style seems to get slightly inconsistent towards the later monsters, but I'm assuming you're planning on tightening things up. I like the player sprites too, but given the gameplay and your inspirations (I think you mentioned Smash Brothers), more exaggerated player animations might be neat.

I'm curious about one thing. Did you consider/try a more physics-based grappling mechanic?  In most games I'm aware of with a grappling hook, grappling something doesn't just make you move towards it in a straight line. Instead you're still affected by gravity, and you start to swing. And if you let go instead of reeling in all the way, you maintain your momentum. I think this kind of movement would be a lot of fun—I know when I got the grappling hook in Super Metroid I would just hang out in the rooms where I could use it and just go swinging back and forth. Just wondering if you've thought about this since just taking movement by itself, I think it could be more interesting that way than just reeling straight into an enemy with constant velocity, not being able to interrupt (well, I guess you currently can, but only by grappling onto some other enemy), and otherwise just falling straight down. But maybe you decided it wouldn't work as well with the other mechanics? Or maybe it would be tough to control?

A note on progression, since you mentioned on the thread about my game that this was something you've been thinking about. When you have a game about survival, whenever a part of it is too easy for a player they're going to find it boring. And certainly once you get a moderate level of mastery, the first few segments of Hook Love are pretty easy to survive. Luckily you have this score component that gives good players something interesting to do right from the start: try to rack up as many points as possible. You already have the downward bash mechanic that rewards players for doing something difficult. Why not add more things like that, like say a bonus for killing lots of enemies at once? Then there would be plenty of stuff for experienced players to do during the easy part of the game.

(Here's a random idea that popped into my head: If you wanted to go even further in that direction, you could get rid of death entirely, and just have some kind of penalty on the player's score. You'd still need some way for the game to end, but you could have, say, a time limit and add time to the clock whenever the player got a certain number of points. This is more than you'd need to do to simply solve the progression problem, but it could work and it seems like a decent fit, so I figured I'd throw it out there.)

Finally a couple minor points:
* I've spent a fair amount of time playing this, and I still successfully throw enemies only about 60% of the time. Is this supposed to be part of the challenge? If not, having a little more leeway would make it easier to control.
* Is the yellow ring that appears when you tap the screen really necessary?
* I understand that the difficulty of tapping small, fast-to-move enemies is part of the challenge. I find it a bit frustrating, but maybe it's something that grows on you?
* One minor thing I just noticed about the art—the dragonfly wings seem really flickery and distracting when it's moving rapidly from side to side. Like it takes my brain extra effort to track it across the screen?

[nachobeard]

Hi Yuji,

wow thanks for such great feedback!
I'll get right to it.

art style

all of the art is placeholder at the moment.  I've been working with a pixel artist but for various reasons we won't be working together anymore :/ so I started drawing stuff on my own, hoping that I'll find someone who will paint over my horrible drawing when the game is done.

grappling physics

I think what you're basically saying is that the player should sway like a pendulum as he hooks to the enemies, maybe something like this:

I'd like to try this! but I'm a bit concerned about how dodging bullets would work, it seems like it would be very hard to predict what your exact trajectory will be and what you'll bump against along the way (and because you have no joypad, there's no way to control the main character while it's hooking).  I'd like to try this anyway, even if it's just to see what it feels like.

progression

yes, I'll try to add in things to keep advanced players entertained along the way.  these will probably be hard-to-kill special enemies (like the UFO in ziggurat) which trigger bonus areas when you kill them.

time limit

what a fantastic idea!
this solves the biggest problem I saw in the game, which is "why should I bother picking up coins".  I generally don't care much about score in games, but if instead of picking up coins you pick up "seconds" and you die when you run out of time... that solves it!

I was thinking that instead of having a timer I could have something in the background like a bomb with a fuse, and every time you pick up seconds you turn back time a little bit making the fuse longer.  naturally when you run out of time, the bomb explodes and it's game over.  (hopefully I can think of something cleverer than a bomb with a fuse, but you get the idea)

thanks for that!!

difficulty in throwing enemies

I´ll make a note of this, maybe I´ll put bigger hitboxes or some sort of auto aiming.  I've gotten quite good at aiming with the enemies, but I've played it too much (and most people will probably not be willing to put the effort to get good at it).

yellow ring

I put it there because it makes it easier to see in the videos what's going on, but yes I should probably remove it.


thanks again for the feedback!
-nacho B

[Alec S.]

This is a pretty cool idea so far.  It took me a while to figure out what I was doing, though, and I think the game would benefit by giving the player more feedback.  I think it needs to be more obvious how throwing works.  Maybe when you start your kick, the circle turns red or something, and maybe have it leave a trail showing what direction you're flicking in.  This sort of thing will help the player figure out what they're supposed to do just through visual cues.  You should also add screen shake for things like when you throw an enemy.

Other than that, the game could use other enemy and obstacle types.  Like things which you can't hook on to, things that hurt you, or things that can only be destroyed by throwing other enemies at them. 

[nachobeard]

Hi Alec!

that's all valid criticism, though it sounds like you're using the web build, which is outdated and kind of not very good because it has no touch controls.  if you're on testflight and have an ipad, I can send you a build if you sign up here: http://tflig.ht/RwXE6V

I think the game will need a very quick tutorial, I don't think I´ll be able to convey the controls otherwise.  I can already tell this is going to be hard :p

I'm also working on a miniboss these days, based around some of the ideas you mention
here's a quick screenshot (you cling onto the planets to cover from enemy shots, then attack the head by throwing enemies at it).

thanks for your comments!
-nacho B  

[nachobeard]

hello

I uploaded a new gameplay video.
There's a bunch of new graphics and enemies and stuff!

as always, I could use some testers 
check out my testflight here:
http://tflig.ht/RwXE6V

thanks!
-nacho.

[nachobeard]

just uploaded a new gameplay video with lots of new enemies and featuring all new soundtrack by gavin harrison (http://gavinharrisonsounds.com)

nearly there now, though I'm still looking for a pixel artist and animator to redo the graphics (since they're all placeholder).

[capn.lee]

this looks really fun