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[AlexVsCoding]

Hey folks! Momentum seems to be building behind Narcissus as more major Youtubing networks cover it. I came back this evening to find out that rooster teeth gave the flash version a 10 minute feature which was incredibly kind of them! Check out their video here!

[alvarop]

That's really cool for you! I hope more and more people try it out. Narcissus is a lot of fun.

[AlexVsCoding]

THIS SHIT IS MAKING ME FUCK ING CRAZY

HOLY SHIT

HOL Y  F  U    C  K

THIS GAME IS SO MUCH

THIS GAME IS SO MUCH

SCREAMING

sorry okay i'm about to play the flash version and then the mac demo. holy fuck.

This made me belly laugh when I read this! Appreciate your enthusiasm!

So folks, I'm currently in LA. I didn't think I was going to be able to work on Narcissus for windows out here but the situation has changed since the person I'm staying with owns a PC. Woo

[InfiniteStateMachine]

Really fun take on the genre. And REALLY cool you built a physical box for it 

[Pemanent]

This is sweet. I played the flash version for a few minutes. I really like what you did with the levels. You give the player a lot of options just in the level design. That was pretty nice to see since most skill platformers like this just give you one path that you have to master. I'm really surprised this thread hasn't had more attention.

[AlexVsCoding]

This is sweet. I played the flash version for a few minutes. I really like what you did with the levels. You give the player a lot of options just in the level design. That was pretty nice to see since most skill platformers like this just give you one path that you have to master. I'm really surprised this thread hasn't had more attention.

Cheers Mate! The reason most likely for the lack of attention towards the thread is that updates can be slightly sporadic. With any luck that should be a thing of the past. As for the level design, each one usually takes around an hour of designing and testing to get them right!

Really fun take on the genre. And REALLY cool you built a physical box for it 

Thanks! I found showing people my game on just an iPad was a lot less engaging, so building an arcade unit really got the attention of people! The folks at Nave were a big inspiration for me to build the box, along with the fact that a lot of old arcade units by default provided two player (something I wanted to encourage with Narcissus).

Just to let you all know, I've updated the Narcissus website this evening, so do go check it out and stay tuned for the windows demo!

[AlexVsCoding]

Hey Folks! Good news! I found out today that Narcissus is at EGX London 2014! Super Awesome.

I'm back home now from my 4 month travels, so development on Narcissus any my other projects can re-commence.

Here we go!  

[AlexVsCoding]

Hey Folks! So as you can tell, I've been out of the loop for a while. Here's what I've been up to and what plans lie ahead for Narcissus!

So this summer I returned to the place that I usually work (summer camp in upstate NY teaching kids how to build video games) and whilst there had the opportunity to get on board with another project - working with my good friend Tyler Giordano on a super entertaining project called CHIGUN.

This absorbed a huge amount of the time I had available to develop games, so for a majority of the summer, Narcissus was put on the back burner.

Despite this, In the weeks before I left, I did a series of crunches on Narcissus and all of the levels for Narcissus are complete! All I've got left to do are some technical fixes, looking into controller support and finding an easy method of adding in multiple languages.

Now that returned to the UK and have had the last few weeks to re-establish myself, it's time to get Narcissus done!

I'll be showing Narcissus at GaMaYo in November, and I'm aiming for that to be the final build.

Thank you all for your patience and I share your anticipation for release!

[AlexVsCoding]

Hey Folks!

I've submitted Narcissus to the Independent Games Festival - Hopefully something good should come out of that!

I'll be exhibiting Narcissus at GAMAYO in Leeds on November the 13th if you can make it along!

http://ga-ma-yo.com/welcome

[karlozalb]

this is absolutely awesome and fun :O

[AlexVsCoding]

this is absolutely awesome and fun :O

Thank you very much! I'll make sure to take a nosey at what you're building!


Hey Folks! It's also worth mentioning that I and Narcissus be at Insomnia53! The build of Narcissus in question will be the pre-release copy, so what you'll be playing there will be very close to what is going to be on the digital shelf!

I do hope to see you there!

[AlexVsCoding]

Hey Folks!

I'm currently working on getting the iOS version functional - I've successfully added the majority of the features included in the PC/MAC version with GAMAYO only a couple of days away. Super excited for the event and those to follow!

I'm also happy to announce I've moved into the city I have my office space in and as of last week have been working full time on Narcissus, Swarm and a selection of other projects. I have 10 months to build as many games as possible!

Prior to launch, I'm planning to go through the distribution process with another game - Nosey Barkers. It started as a 0h Gamejam entry and with a bit of jiggery pokery, I've managed to get it working on iOS. So, with the addition of a variety of dogs faces and dresses, I'll be releasing that soon.

Stay tuned for more updates and thanks for checking out the project!

[AlexVsCoding]

Hey Folks!

The Day is upon us! The arcade box is all bagged up and I'm in the office making the last minute tweaks to the iOS build. Having the deadline of the show has been a massive help. Now I just have to hope that the rain holds out before I get to the venue!

The other thing I'm going to be looking into this afternoon will be for desktop - being able to switch from full screen to windowed. After looking at a couple of tutorials, it's looking like it should be pretty easy (Fingers crossed).

I'll post up a post-GaMaYo summary of the night when I get back!

[AlexVsCoding]

Hey Folks!

So I got the builds done in time for Game Makers Yorkshire and had a blast at the event! Talked to a bunch of awesome people on the evening and handed out plenty of coins.

I also did the Christmas Market in Huddersfield which was good fun and although a slow start (due to the late stirring hours of students) there were plenty of people playing it throughout the day, even coming back to try and beat their score!

I've also discovered the wonders of Makey Makey and will getting one for Christmas to have a tinker around with! I'm thinking of doing a dance dance revolution style control system for Narcissus to accompany the arcade box I have.

Stay tuned for more updates - I'll be posting up the photos from INSOMNIA 53 this weekend!

[AlexVsCoding]

Hey Folks!

Been doing me some bug fixing:

From the last few events I've been to, a couple things were consistently causing problems:

Menu - people were pressing on the difficulty thinking that it was how to start the game, but actually it just sets the difficulty. I faded the button till you'd clicked on one of the options then allow you to click.

Level endings - At the end of each level, I've been having problems with the characters. If one dies but still crosses the finish line (off the screen) it still counts as proceeding to the next level. This (after a metric crap ton of jiggery pokery) fixed this.

I decreased the distance of the screen that you could fall before the level restarting (which meant that the characters didn't fall far enough to get past the wall I'd put in place to stop them completing the level by cheating).

Here are some gifs for your time!

[AlexVsCoding]

Hey Folks! You might have seen, but I'm in the process of building a Narcissus Dance Mat. Something along the lines of this:

This is to be used for festivals and parties.

Stuff I'm using to build the current prototypes:

Makey Makey + Crocodile Clips

Aluminium tape

Cardboard

Knife/scissors

Copy of Narcissus (Duh)

To make a button work, makey makey requires two components to have wiring:

Ground

The key you want to use

So you have to find a way to make the player press both to get a connection (and a response).

SO

The way I've initially tried getting around it is

Interweaving the two

Does it work?

Yes - as long as you don't accidentally push one side of tape and not the other.

Why?

This layout might work for someone on Dance Dance Revolution at an amateur level (not being snobbish, trust me, I'm terrible at DDR, I mean someone who isn't aiming for a perfect run), with Narcissus you can't afford to make a single mistake. If you accidentally have your foot on the key tape and not the ground, both characters will jump when you release the other foot.

The Science! (I think)

I'm pretty sure this is the case because the current is traveling through my body to make use of the ground on the other pad. So this may well work fine for multiplayer (since that bridge wouldn't exist) but I'm in the office on a saturday so I won't be finding that out any time soon.

How I found this out

Whilst only pushing one side on the tiny mats is incredibly uncommon, for the full sized pads I built, there are very often times where your foot accidentally touches one pad and not the other (due to the shape of the human foot).

SO

The way I'm looking to fix this is experimenting with the good ol' fashioned method…

Electronics Sandwich

Key you want to use

Foam pad with holes in

Ground

Massive thanks for Hak5 for doing a tutorial on how to build your own Dancemat, going to experiment with their method to see if I can get a similar thing working.

But before I waste my time building that…

NARCISSUS MARACAS

A piece of cardboard folded in half with two separated pieces of electrical tape. when I press the two together, it completes the circuit since both pieces of tape connect.

Also, I prefer how it feels for the characters to jump when the key is released (e.g. Standing on the button constantly and activating when the player jumps, releasing the key in the process).

These will test the connection method and see if it's actually going to work or not. I can test it at a small scale and get a similar result.

STAY TUNED FOR MORE!

[AlexVsCoding]

Hey Folks!

So yes, the cardboard maracas did work!

What does this mean?

With the cardboard maracas, I'm not coming into contact with the metal, but still effecting their connection by applying pressure.

Next?

Attempt building a pressure pad.

The hard part?

Without the foam piece in the middle to push them apart, the cardboard will compact eventually, meaning a constant connection may occur. ONE WAY TO FIND OUT!

Experiment - Pressure Board

I took the maraca folded structure and rebuilt it on a larger scale, taping it to a larger board. One set of wires was fed through an already existing hole in the middle (for a handle previously) whilst the others (ground) were fed to the edge of the board (to make sure that in pushing the board down it didn't press unintentionally nearby wires together).

I decided to keep the two buttons connected on one piece of cardboard (so that pushing one side down would raise the other, thus disconnecting buttons if pressure wasn't applied.

Which gives you...

Now this still isn't perfect - the glue on the edges of the tape means it sometimes sticks which is irritating and as of yet I'm unable to apply a huge amount of pressure to them (since it'd crush the mechanism) but the concept is functional in practice. I'll buy some cheap foam (maybe try using something like a ground mat). We'll have to see.

MORE SOON! (And by soon I mean at least tomorrow as I'm very hungry and need to go home)

[Mr. Virus]

Awesome stuff Alex, glad to see Narcissus is coming along well too :D! Will you be at Rezzed again this year?

[AlexVsCoding]

Awesome stuff Alex, glad to see Narcissus is coming along well too :D! Will you be at Rezzed again this year?

Unfortunately I'm on a skiing holiday at the time of the event, so sadly not! How are things going with development?

[Mr. Virus]

Awesome stuff Alex, glad to see Narcissus is coming along well too :D! Will you be at Rezzed again this year?

Unfortunately I'm on a skiing holiday at the time of the event, so sadly not! How are things going with development?

Alright for some eh ha ha? Hope it goes well .

Monstrum's getting there. Early Access launch date is at the end of the month so it's all hands on deck for now!