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[jonbro]

OUT NOW

more links and description here

App store link

Heya friends. I am working on this game at lucky frame code named SH3. It is a cross between jetpack joyride and sound shapes, but with bullet hell patterns.

In Game:


Main Character concepts:


Interface mockups:


So the basic flow of the game is you can play through these looping levels, collecting coins that add notes to the underlying sequence. You also have to avoid bullets and walls that play notes as they come onto screen.

We currently have 3 worlds, each with a different sample pack and graphics, and different enemy types. We are aiming to ship with 3-4 songs in each world, and then the opportunity for players to edit and upload their own levels to the server.

One of the things we are struggling with is how to handle the pricing. There are obvious points for IAP in selling new world packs and save slots to make your own songs. Sketch nation shooter / studio also sells iap to download other users levels, and provides the opportunity to earn the in game currency by having other people play your own levels. I am not sure about this plan. The other thing that we don't have is a way to grind to earn currency. This is partially due to my feelings on the ethics of that, and partially due to the belief that it will break the game. We could make the coins that you pick up in the levels random drop into currency that you can spend, but...

 The question is can we both sell it and have IAP? I am not sure that we can go totally free unless we sell the access to the online thing, due to the pricing on it (we are currently using parse.com). What do players do when you sell the game, but they don't get everything for free? is this ok?

I will try to post some ingame video shortly. It is looking and sounding pretty good right now, I think we are in the content generating phase now.

Oh, we need to come up with a name for this thing too.

Our new working title is ocunaut, so I changed the title to reflect this.

[brog]

Ascension does this and as far as I can tell nobody complains.  It might be helped by the fact that it's selling an actual board game and then expansions to the board game.

To me, it feels like there's an unspoken contract where if you're selling an app you promise not to be a dick about IAPs.  They can be there, but they can't be terrible.  There's no such expectation for a free game, hence me tending to avoid free games with IAP.  I'm not your typical iOS customer though.

[jonbro]

got very little done today, but started working on the title screen.


It isn't that jerky in reality, I had to screen shot my screen cap program to get around the watermark. I didn't do a great job of registration.

[jonbro]

I am live streaming my work today... should be around for the next 8 hours or so!

http://www.twitch.tv/jonbro

Still working on the menus, but hopefully I will get to some gameplay today.

[jonbro]

Made a some design changes:
- No longer need to get all of the coins to exit a loop, you can mark coins as key coins in the editor. This allows for more leeway in how you finish the levels, and allows the player to set their own difficulty to some extant.
- took out the pause when you hit an enemy, and added in a health bar that ticks down. Also you get temporarily invincibility when hitting an enemy, so that is now a strategic decision to make.

Also started working on new graphics and music, for a more unified approach to the levels. Should post some screens soon.

This is the first time that I have tweaked design rather than just throwing out the whole game concept at the first sign of problems... or just leaving all the problems in. An interesting feeling...

Is it totally futile to post dev logs of a game without in progress downloads for people to play with? How many people could install an ipa on their phone if I posted it here?

[jonbro]

some screenshots of the new direction we are going with the backgrounds, a more flat shaded thing:



these are not in game yet, we are still playing around with them.

[jonbro]

https://dl.dropbox.com/u/43672/octonaut_dev_log/mine_test.swf

a mockup of the parallax on that background. This is running about 2-3 times faster than it does in game.

[jonbro]

Made your health also a fuel bar that ticks down as you fly. The enemies still push it down, but coins now power it up. I need to tune the difficulty a bit I think. I am also concerned that it will add too much complexity, but I am not sure





Also, a new audio pack, but the same graphics. Also more coder graphics.

[jonbro]

oh also forgot to mention this, but I added online highscores for the levels. Havn't quite decided on how to calculate the highscores yet though.

[jonbro]

, just 2 mins long!

- built out 2 new levels
- added 2 new enemy types (bpm synchronized missile, bpm synchronized vertical sine wave)
- levels loading from local storage, not just from the website, so we can distribute levels with the game.
- started looking at a more robust svg loader (our current one only supports 4 corner polys, rects, circles and ellipses)

Also started messing around with a strange tentacle thing, but I suspect that is an entirely different game

[jonbro]

took a tiny little break this weekend,

.

both players submit their moves, and the turns play out simultaneously. you move by using your recoil.

I couldn't get the networking to work between ios 5 and ios 6 for some reason though. So I may put this on the shelf for a while (or just release it for 6).

[jonbro]

started bringing in the new svg backgrounds, these render much faster because there is no alpha blending.



Also, I tried projection mapping a noise texture onto it, but it didn't look to great, so I am going to leave it clean.

Also, fixed a bug where the notes would double up.

[jonbro]

sorry (to myself) about the lack of posts last week. I think I did a bunch, but here is what I can remember:

- working on the backgrounds
- tuning the scoring system (it feels really balanced right now). There is no death, just a bonus multiplier that you can run out by either hitting an enemy or not hitting enough coins in sequence. It effectively adds urgency to the game without causing the game to feel frustrating. It also makes perfect runs possible.
- reworking the note triggering (again!)
- reworking the timing and sync mechanism. Now everything is pretty well decoupled from each other, and somehow it feels a bunch smoother. It used to be pulling timing from the audio thread, but triggering the sounds on the video thread. This was pretty rugged.

I played a bunch of shmups this weekend, and it is making me want to:
- retune the explosion graphics
- put a gun back in. There was a gun, but it had unlimited shooting, so it sorta felt like too much. I think if I add a cool down period, and make it linked in to the way the bonus multiplier worked, that might fix some of the issues.

Also this weekend, I got it working on mac. I don't know how many people would play a mac version if I posted it up here, but i am curious. I assume this board is 95% PC.

Also, are most of the posters in the dev blogs from the states and working on their games after they get off work? I feel like I am out of phase with everyone else.

[jonbro]

as promised, a really early mac version (Alpha 1)

some caveats:
- requires 10.6
- you need to leave it next to its data folder
- right now only the play menu is working properly, you can probably load the edit menu, but I don't think you can save you creations

Today I fixed up some ipad stuff, and got in a new coin pickup effect. It still needs more particles, but is looking way better.

[jonbro]

New build (A2)

- you can now create and save levels in the mac version
- new player graphics
- new sounds and enemies in the homeworld pack

Thinking of a new name for this, Wave Trip... feels better than ocunaut, but not quite there yet.

[jonbro]

new build A3

- put the gun back in. it now has a charge that you have to wait to scroll up. z+x control
- ' is quick reset while playing
- there are new sounds in homeworld, and the beginnings of a new level (core)

The gun seems to add a ton in terms of making perfect runs possible, I think I like it. However it adds complexity, which I am not sure if I like. Interesting question.

[jonbro]

new build A4

- Made some progress with the different worlds, new levels and enemies added
- There is now an enemy on the right hand side of the screen. it doesn't change anything mechanically, but it explains a bit of the mechanics visually. The guy that is there now is just a placeholder, should replace it soon.
- juice (new particles, the key shooting)
- new menus (win, edit screen)

[jonbro]

- changes to the guy on the right
- changes to the combo display
- changes to the bonus / score coins (unified them, just changing color now)
- some other stuff I am sure... but it was a short week, mostly at gamecity!

https://dl.dropbox.com/u/43672/ocunautA5.zip

[jonbro]

did a teaser for this game, hope people like it:

[jonbro]

ah, here is a new build: https://dl.dropbox.com/u/43672/ocunautA6.zip

- heaps of changes to the display of the bonus and score. basically the whole hud is new
- added a tutorial
- the win screen should be a bunch better. I spent a while on some particle effects
- redid some of the other screens (pause, level select)

other stuff too, but mostly for the iOS version (better level saving etc)