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TIGSource ForumsCommunityDevLogsHeart&Slash - [RELEASED ON XBOXONE AND PS4]
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Author Topic: Heart&Slash - [RELEASED ON XBOXONE AND PS4]  (Read 88126 times)
Elideb
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« Reply #320 on: October 29, 2014, 03:04:50 PM »

Thanks, shellbot! I'm glad you found us.

But, just to come clean, I'm not the only one working hard on the project =) It's two people full time, plus the graphics/sound/music artists.



And I'll take this opportunity to add the daily post.

Today I've spent the afternoon (and evening) implementing the first part of the equipment unlock system. This first part is the one which actually decides which part to spawn, given the list of unlocked parts. Now it is much simpler to configure and use.
Currently I have a small problem with where the collectible parts are placed, but I'll fix it tomorrow morning easily.

Next step, actually storing information about which equipment parts are unlocked. Serialization, compression and stuff like that. Easy, but really boring and error prone.
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Elideb
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« Reply #321 on: November 01, 2014, 01:43:07 AM »

I'm currently a bit furstrated. I'm fighting a bug which is hard to pinpoint. I'm not sure if it's related to how Unity resolves collisions, or if we have a couple of scripts which fight for control of flybots in very, very specific situations. I'm more inclined to believe it is the first case, but then I can't determine why it only bites us some times.



Anyway, I've just read an article on Eurogamer about how the minimap is a little too present in today's games. It has reminded me that we have a long overdue task which is "Consider alternatives to minimap".

I'm not too fond of minimaps and Heart&Slash's has proved a little hard to read. It is true that, since maps are randomly generated and rooms are not as different as we'd like, some kind of guide is needed. I'll make some small changes to improve the readability issue, but the best map you can get is the one you don't need to look at.

There are a few alternatives, in my opinion

Remarkability
Make each room unique, or have some unique way to identify them. Or at least make sure there is a unique room every so ofthen. Players would have an easier time pin-pointing their relative location by association of hallmarks. Might pose a problem after repeated playthroughs. Any of the options would be a considerable job of art, testing and iteration, which I'm afraid we don't have either the time or the budget to tackle.

OSD markers
Use in-game markers to indicate places the player has still to visit, or lead to special sections. I see these as icons over doors, visible through obstacles. For the current room doors only. They could indicate "this door leads to unvisited places, a different area and equipment. There are enemies coming, too." Initially, we would only reveal information about visited rooms and their adjacents, but new equipment or abilities could expand this range.
The game is already a little too busy in visual terms, so this could obscure things even further. We still need to tone down the amount and size of particles, so we could make room for this.

Actual maps
Every so often we could place a map of a limited area in the rooms. We could reveal info or give hints on these. Players in need of directions would find one, memorize the route they want to go and start running. This would also require some level of remarkability, but we are closer to achieving this.
A friend of mine (maybe someone he knew?) made a game about a ship you had to leave by looking at escape route maps. You had very little time to reach the escape pods before everything exploded. The idea was great fun (although I forgot where to find it).


Of course, the minimap, since it's done and I like it, would stay in the game. Maybe as part of the "Explorer's Hat", which is half-way in the game. Its abilities let you get minimap markers, uncover the whole minimap and things like that, so this is a great fit.

And that's it. We'll keep trying to find a good solution for this.
« Last Edit: November 01, 2014, 02:37:36 AM by Elideb » Logged

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Elideb
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« Reply #322 on: November 06, 2014, 11:11:10 AM »

A week without commenting anything around here. But it was kinda worth it. Although I was not able to complete many of the tasks I had set for this week, I think I've fixed a couple of very nasty bugs the game had (enemies failing to exit their cages is one of them).

Meanwhile, the artists keep working at a good pace. We now have provisional content for level 3, which we are testing.
I'm currently checking scales and general navigation with simple (not so simple, actually) geometry for level 3. Which is really cool =)


Maybe something in-between?

And this is what we want the level to look like:


The square down there is Heart's size, ideally

Some other things and improvements happened in the last days. The art for the factory bosses is almost finished (Juan will start integrating them this coming week), enemy waves are now more coherent, combat in the city is a little easier (mainly, police restrictions now work as we wanted them to).

We'll get in more detail in later posts.
Now, to prepare tomorrow's Steam build.

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Juan Raigada
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« Reply #323 on: November 22, 2014, 11:24:11 AM »

So, while the artists have been working on the 3rd level, and Kike has been busy making the 2nd level "fun", I have been doing something really, really fun for the first time in quite a while: implementing our first bosses!


The boss itself was not that hard (it´s just a big, slightly more complex enemies) but there was a lot of mucking around until we found an efficient way to import cutscenes into the game. The first boss took 7 days to finish (click in the above image to see a video with the full intro), but the second one (once we knew what the hell we were doing) took only 4 days.

This is a big milestone for me, because:
1- Level 1 is 100% finished (minus quests, but that´s it´s own milestone)
2- the game has grown in unforeseen ways. The work our team has been creating, art wise, has been outstanding and way better than anything I could have produced was I still working by myself. But on top of that, there´s also some slight narrative now going into the game. Heart is starting, cutscene by cutscene) to gain personality, and the world is starting to finally feel alive and have somewhat of a sense of pace.

Development is rough (I´m approaching the point were I will have been working on this project for 2 years, one of them full-time), but moments like this are worth it!
« Last Edit: November 22, 2014, 11:32:13 AM by Juan Raigada » Logged

clockwrk_routine
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« Reply #324 on: November 22, 2014, 11:34:52 AM »

dope ^ love that design! reminds me a lot of Gohma from oot
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Juan Raigada
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« Reply #325 on: November 22, 2014, 11:41:29 AM »

Well, the artists are REALLY BIG Zelda fans. Most of their reference material is from different Zeldas. So I donb't think you are very off base here Smiley
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Paul
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« Reply #326 on: November 22, 2014, 12:19:47 PM »

That boss looks excellent!
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FK in the Coffee
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« Reply #327 on: November 22, 2014, 10:16:29 PM »

Wow.  The intro cutscene for the boss is gorgeous!  Absolutely love how seamlessly it flows right back into the gameplay, too.
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ACOM
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« Reply #328 on: November 23, 2014, 02:24:52 AM »

I love this game. It is very fun and interesting Smiley
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BomberTREE
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« Reply #329 on: November 24, 2014, 04:20:51 PM »

Love the animation for him!
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William Chyr
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« Reply #330 on: November 26, 2014, 08:27:06 AM »

Wow! Love the animation for the boss!
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Elideb
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« Reply #331 on: November 26, 2014, 12:15:19 PM »

Thanks, guys!

While we are still tweaking the bosses for level 1, we have started working on the tutorial. This will be the first time the dialogue system is used, so we have already found some desirable options and fixed a couple of bugs.

We have also just finished creating the demo version of the game. It contains the first level, minus the boss fights (they're visible for long enough to tease the player).
We'll be releasing it shortly, so anyone can test the game and see if they enjoy it. And, almost as important, if it works in their computers before buying it.
In the future we might modify the demo so it has a little less content, but for the time being we're happy with it.

Tomorrow we'll implement some new features into the dialogues while Juan completes the tutorial and, hopefully, I start working on level 3.
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Elideb
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« Reply #332 on: November 29, 2014, 03:19:18 PM »

The tutorial is almost ready now! It required some bugfixing and adding/reviewing functionality and art, but things look good.


Combat? Who are we fighting?

The reason for it not being complete yet is that we've decided to give the tutorial quite more weight in the game's story. Juan had a great idea to improve its integration into the game's lore. That means a bit more scripting and writing on Juan's behalf, but we think the results will be worth it.
And it will also include a nice secret.

Oh, and by the way, we have the game on display at FunAndSeriousGameFestival, in Bilbao (Spain). Most of the time Thomas will be there alone, but I'll be joining him on Monday. If any of you has the chance to visit, we'll be glad to chat with you for a while.
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Daniel Pellicer
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« Reply #333 on: December 01, 2014, 03:07:31 AM »

Oh, and by the way, we have the game on display at FunAndSeriousGameFestival, in Bilbao (Spain). Most of the time Thomas will be there alone, but I'll be joining him on Monday. If any of you has the chance to visit, we'll be glad to chat with you for a while.

Did you do that on purpose?



:p

PD: I would need more portraits of the game in a similar style to complete the image. Maybe of the new bosses?

Edit: sorry if this was somehow inappropriate. It just popped into my mind and I felt the urge to do it Smiley
« Last Edit: December 02, 2014, 07:34:58 AM by Daniel Pellicer » Logged

Juan Raigada
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« Reply #334 on: December 02, 2014, 08:47:03 AM »

nah!

This is hilarious!!!!

Thomas was loling.
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« Reply #335 on: December 02, 2014, 02:47:42 PM »

excellent work you guys!!
keep on trucking  Cool
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yanimstudio
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« Reply #336 on: December 05, 2014, 08:21:30 AM »

And finally, a couple of concepts to show how the levels should look once finished (did I Mention we have amazing artists?):

 

Hey Juan! the game looks really fantastic. I really also love the new background concept you did here! Really nice job. Want to play with this little robot now!
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shellbot
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« Reply #337 on: December 09, 2014, 12:36:46 AM »

@yanimstudio

Woah I didn't even see that picture before. This game just keeps getting better for me!
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binaryboi01
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« Reply #338 on: December 09, 2014, 03:20:23 AM »

Wow! This is awesome. Good luck on your project.  Wink
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Juan Raigada
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« Reply #339 on: December 09, 2014, 08:55:41 AM »

Wow! This is awesome. Good luck on your project.  Wink

Thanks!
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