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[bscotchshenani]

Edit: We're now nearly done with the game. Find the updated teaser right here! And skip to the end of the thread to give us some feedback!

My brother and I started an indie studio a few months back and recently released Towelfight 2 : The Monocle of Destiny. We just finished our 7drl entry and have decided to take that on as our next project.

We're going to crank the baby out and (theoretically) give it the boot into the marketplace by mid April.

It's called Quadropus Rampage and features an incredibly angry 4 legged octopus. It's a roguelike, so when you die you return to the surface depth and have to again go down. It's got some goofy naming conventions and weapons you can use to beat enemies to death, too.

Today is UI and Font day for me, as we did a boatload of planning yesterday as to how the thing is going to shake out. For those interested, here's a screenshot from this morning of the work-in-progress UI.



And here's the mini trailer (

) we made when we finished it for the rogue-like competition.

First time poster long time lurker, so we'll just play this by ear. Thanks for taking a look!

[bscotchshenani]

Dev Day #12

We had an alpha over the weekend with a few of our players of Towelfight 2. I cannot stress enough the importance of getting your game out to others to poke around with early, as it's nearly always an enlightening thing!

Some things we learned:

1) Not all blendyjams are good
Combining the rogue-like genre with an insta-death system like the one we have when you fall off the platforms is a bad friggin idea. While this may seem obvious, it's one of those things that can be justified on paper and easily unjustified when you see someone play through it.

2) Progression must have FEELS
Our progression right now is minor, only. For the alpha test we hadn't gotten in the enemy-entrance script yet, so it just felt like you were fighting the same baddies every depth of the dungeon. Well, no more! We've added a progression curve to the enemies, so certain types only begin showing up at certain depths. We're adding a similar curve for the weapons and eventually for other parts of the game that aren't implemented fully, like the Egg Sac shrines and the nightmare rooms.

3)Attacks need juice
Both Seth and I have been feeling that the normal stabby attack doesn't have as much OOMPH as it should. It feels too floaty and non-interactive with the enemies it hits. To that end we're changing the combat quite dramatically to embrace more of a brawler style attack, where when the character swings they are immobilized during the swing. This allows us to do a number of fancy things with the animations and attack interaction, making them feel more epic, as well as easing out the balance of enemies and the use of the dodge. 4 wins!

On the horizon:
I've worked up this fatty jellyfish and have one enemy left to jam on before we've hit our initial enemy grouping, to which we may add later if necessary. Seth will be implementing this bad boy tomorrow with an aura and some pulse healing for other enemies, which should be quite challenging for the player.



He may look a little odd stationary, but when fully animated and tweened he's wonderfully goofy.

[psyguy]

I really like the "feel" of the game, as far as I can tell from just seeing the video.  I don't think the screenshot does it justice, either; it looks a lot more engaging in motion.  The UI looks pretty snazzy, too.

I like the jellyfish guy.  I wouldn't want to hurt him.  He looks pretty friendly. 

[bscotchshenani]

Thanks dude!

We're really trying to take things up a notch from Towelfight, artistically, programatically, and all the other -ly's you can think of.

And I promise you that you will hate this jellyfish with every fiber of your being once he is fully implemented. PROMISES I WILL KEEP.

[jamesprimate]

ahhh that demo vid looks awesome, i wanted to play it immediately. especially because of how much swagger that quardopus has!

for some feedback, i think the button UI looks a little sketchy, but, well, carry on lads

[bscotchshenani]

WOOOOOOOOOOOOOHOHOHOHOHOHOOOOO,

@Jamesprimate we've tweaked it a bit to look sexier. Plus the thing is in motion quite a bit so the screenshots tend not to capture it. Fear not, according to our alpha testers it works like a charm.

It's UPDATE TIME.

Seth and I have completely overhauled the environments, among a huge number of other things. This was a great stretch for me as an artist, because I generally have despised environment art in the past, leaning toward characters as my favorite piece of expression. However, taking some inspiration from a suite of games whose backgrounds I've found both enchanting and well executed, I took the week to build and tweak 5 environments, now in axonometric, to replace the old sandy one.

Enough chatter... HOW ABOUT SOME SCREENSHOTS!


Oh yes, there are now mines you can punt into enemies.

We've also modified the weapons such that everything is based on a rating system. This lets us do a lot more with the design because we don't have to worry about people becoming permanently overpowered. As you go deeper and deeper a higher rating is required to reach the same % boost to performance. This also makes the weapons feel way more varied and awesome, as we've been able to add stats to them that previously would make the player completely overpowered in certain situations, like Rampage Duration or movement speed.

Next week we're hitting the story hard. It has one system inside it, the Artifact system, which will constitute the last big addition to the game. Past that point it will simply be a matter of fleshing out all of the systems already in place and polishing them until they produce eye-blinding lasers of shininess.

We'll be posting again in a week or so, so stay tuned! And, as always, if you have some questions or comments feel free to address them here and I'll get to them. We also regularly post screenshots to our twitter, @Bscotchshenani, if you want a more steady dripfeed.

[happymonster]

The new level tiles look great! :D

[psyguy]

The outer space looks great.  I'm really starting to wonder about this quadropus, though.  He lives in the water, but now he's going to outer space to destroy these poor creatures.  I think he's really going out of his way, and it concerns me. 

[bscotchshenani]

Haha it's the abyss in the background. The deep ocean and space look startlingly similar for the dark bluishblackness and random brightspots.

PERHAPS AN ASTRONAUT HELMET IS IN THE CARDS!

[bscotchshenani]

HUPDAAAATE!

We've got the bare bones of the story implemented, complete with a pet (!) and a BFF, conveniently named Biff.

The story begins with you and Biff and his pet starfish, Bingo, playing some underwater tennis on the reef. After a few cursors swings, you accidentally hit the ball over the ledge and, lo and behold, Bingo goes leaping after it, into the abyss. Biff swears a bundle and leaps down to find his dog, and you follow.

You then journey with Biff as a companion until roughly depth 15, at which point Bingo is found and the two are united.

SUDDENLY!

Abyss creatures well up and steal Biff into the abyss. Now it's up to you and Bingo to save him.



Next week is the artifact system, which should add another shot of depth (Ha!) to the game system.

[ericmbernier]

Wow, the video looks great for a 7DRL game. I hope it judges well. I know it will beat my meager entry haha.

The new art is looking great! I assume the levels are procedurally generated?

[bscotchshenani]

@Ericmbernier
The levels are indeed procedurally generated. They get bigger and more complicated the deeper you go, so eventually holes appear in the middle of rooms, entire platforms are disconnected requiring some dodge skill, and they get pretty big. We'd love to make them massive, but alas, phones.

[Panurge]

Really nice style and mood. The dialogue and weapon names seem spot on too. I'm looking forward to playing this one.

[bscotchshenani]

Thanks for the thoughts, guys. I'll just leave this update riiiiiight here.

We finished the final two systems in the game, the Artifacts and Merchant.

The artifacts act as large modifiers to the gameplay and are randomly found by the player as they progress through the depths. They do things that are min-maxxer heavy, like increase crit chance by 15%, or purely ridiculous, like make you SHOOT LASERS OUT OF YOUR FACE. Our goal with these was to give the sense of a "lucky" run, during which you find a bundle of artifacts that all stack together to a powerful, dive-lengthening effect. The artifacts disappear once you die and restart your run, so they should give a pretty solid motivator to rerun.



Further, we've implemented Grubby, the merchant from our previous game, Towelfight 2. In all his fatty glory, he comes storming in on occasion when you've cleared a depth with a single item for sale, be it a weapon or an artifact.

Lastly! I wanted to ask you guys for some thoughts. We've been doing alpha rounds with a handful of our Towelfight 2 supporters and, come next Friday, will begin the actual beta-testing of the game. We would love to have a few more people on board. The only requirement is that you can communicate well and will take a bit of time out of your day to lend us a hand. The first round will be for android users only, as it saves us a metric ton of time to not do all the provisioning BS that apple puts us through. iOS beta will begin in the next 2-3 weeks.

If you're interested, drop me a line directly at sam at butterscotch-shenanigans.com or through a pm here, telling me why you'd like to test the game and how you think you could contribute.

As always, thanks immensely for helping us grow. Seth and I are stoked for this release and think it will eclipse Towelfight in a big way.

[bscotchshenani]

Hello lovelies. It's time for another Friday HUPDDAAAAATE.

We're chomping at the finish line like a starving deer chomps a head of lettuce.

New arrivals on the ENEMY scene this week are the Nudibranch (or nudi, as we call him internally) and the Manta.


The Nudi is a jumpy critter that leaps around on the level, splatting out goo as he goes and blocking terrain from being easily walked upon. By himself he isn't much of a big deal, but put two or three of them together, in combination with some Angler fish (who fire laser beams) and some Eels (who shoot projectiles), and you'll find your choice of evasion to be of paramount importance.


The Manta, on the other hand, is an up close killer. He drifts around, flapping his devil wings, until he gets close enough to charge. When charging, the manta has a weak sense of homing and will chase you down lest you perform a perpendicular dodge of some sort.

We think these two enemies, in conjunction with their rare forms, really round out the combat interactions in the game. Further, we've actually modified combat.

People were regularly dodging to their doom. Dodge was the only way to effectively block an attack as well as the only way to get over gaps and move quickly. It was less of a dodge, then, and more of a combined Sprint / Block. So, after some experimentation earlier this week, we've actually decided to split the mechanics!

There's now a button for blocking which creates a bubble around the player. This bubble absorbs a hit and then pops, only becoming available again after a brief cooldown. Dodge is now inexhaustible, so you can inksplooge around the map by holding the button and not worry about running out of jetting power before cross a platform.

We've also made big updates to the UI and are in the process of completely revamping the menu screens, which is the big task for next week. Finally, we'll be doing all the in-game store stuff so that we can actually feed ourselves (HEYOOO!).

Also, here's the icon that'll be gracing devices with Quadropus. If you have any feedback on it I'd love to hear it.

[psyguy]

Man, I still think that the quadropus might be the bad guy here.  I see that he killed and ate one of his fellow seafarers just so that he could extract the poor guy's skeleton and proceed to use it as a weapon.  I just don't understand. 

Everything looks great from where I'm at.  Did you guys ever think about putting a "ceiling" on sideways dodges, such that if you tried to dodge while near an edge, you'd only dodge as far as you could without falling off the level?

[bscotchshenani]

THAT...would've been intelligent.

However letting the player dance outside the abyss is actually quite useful in big fights or when you're getting closed in. Now that the two are separated I don't think there's a need for it, but that would be a different way to solve it.

I think one of the basic problems therein is that the enemies are constantly moving in on the player position, so if your movement doesn't do what you think it will on occasion things could get a bit messy!

And yes, Quadropus is... well he's insane. JUST LOOK AT THAT FACE.

[bscotchshenani]

We ripped out the old ui and slapped in a prettier one with better functionality and crossplatform versatility. What's all that jargon mean? GOODNESS.

Fonting (or typography, for you fancier types) is hard.

We finally managed to find a font that aptly gives Quadropus Rampage some more character while keeping to the simple vector style graphics. All it seems to have taken is some jumbled letters, highlight and shadowing, and BLAM! Off to the menu races.

Once all the effects are in it will look as though he's skydiving, the background shakes slightly and a flurry of detritus blows upward. Plus! He'll have a nice angelic glow. BECAUSE WHY NOT.

If you've got any feedback on it we'd love to hear it. My personal stretch goal with this game is to make UI's that are more internally consistent. So far, following a few rules I literally wrote out to constrain myself, I've managed to keep the in-game and main menus similar in feel.

ONWARD! TO UPGRADES!

[bscotchshenani]

Updated Teaser/Trailer released just moments ago! Would love some feedback to incorporate into the trailer when it comes time for that beasty.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4u33iBUlMoY&feature=youtu.be

[ericmbernier]

Title screen looks good, though I think I prefer his fish-bone sword from your prior posts. That's just my opinion though.