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[clockwrk_routine]

Demo Alpha 6

We've been busting our butts this past month to get this new build out, here's a brief overview of changes:

Local Co-operative Multiplayer - You guys asked for it, well here it is. We were initially going to put this as a stretch goal for our Kickstarter, but realized that we had to put this in no matter what. Grab a friend or three along with some gamepads and explore together!
New Class - If you're a fan of magic, you're in for a treat.
New Area - There's an entire new area for you to die in!
More Stuff - There's new items, spells, rooms, enemies, and more!
Bug Fixes - We appreciate all the bug reports so far, they really do help us fix bugs.
Please consider backing us on Kickstarter so we can continue working on this game full-time. If you can't contribute, just sharing this post helps tremendously.

Many thanks to all of the fans who have been playing/testing Vagante. As always, feel free to send all feedback and/or bug reports to [email protected].

Happy Adventuring,

Team Vagante


Vagante is an action-packed platforming adventure game that features permanent death and procedurally generated levels. Inspired by games such as Spelunky, Castlevania, Metroid, Dark Souls, and Dungeon Crawl: Stone Soup, Vagante is a game designed for players who like a challenge.

VAGANTE ALPHA GET IT HERE

MAC
Mac build forth coming, but until Sam runs Vagante using Wineskin, runs pretty smooth apparently

Code
Eugene Paik
Kyle Tenan

Art
Keo Bun

Music & SFX
Sam English

Links
NukeNine
IndieDB
Tumblr
Twitter

[ekun]

vagante tumblr

[Prads]

Hey kids

Are you Edmund McMillen by any chance? lol j/k

Anyway, it looks interesting...

[Zack Bell]

I approve. 

[noumenus]

I like it. But there seems too much more screen than what the player can see. Maybe zoom in a little

[ekun]

I like it. But there seems too much more screen than what the player can see. Maybe zoom in a little

I agree, that GIF is too small to catch all the action.

Here's what it looks like without scaling down:

In addition, the player's light radius is one of the things you'll be able to upgrade, a la Diablo.

[mike_w]

Looks really cool. My brain really wants the level to be top-down though for some reason. I do like platformers that have a lot of level height though.

[noumenus]

Looks really cool. My brain really wants the level to be top-down though for some reason. I do like platformers that have a lot of level height though.

I know what you mean when I first seen the gif I couldn't tell if it was topdown or side scrolling. I think it has to do with the fact that the background moves with everything else so it looks like a floor almost

[Nuprahtor]

Yep, same issue with top-down/side scrolling. Nice graphics, reminds me of Final Fantasy Tactics (both sprites and GUI)

[clockwrk_routine]

thank yous

Yep, same issue with top-down/side scrolling. Nice graphics, reminds me of Final Fantasy Tactics (both sprites and GUI)

Definitely drawing alot from fft as I'm working.  there's a lot of different kinds of fantasy, and I like fft fantasy best.

We haven't talked about parallax yet, but that will likely clear things up, as well as making a more complete tileset.  side note, each room is handcrafted and pieced together via corridors like spelunky, cept there isn't much of a tileset to be able to tell.

here's an early mockup btw

I got really into the gui this week.  here are a couple gui ideas before settling on the current one:

[Sam English]

Ooooo nice! Looking good.

[Rasse]

This looks really promising! 

[Lexonite]

I really like the way everything moves, has nice character.

[AD1337]

Yay, another game about killing!

It looks good. Can you explain the name?

[JLJac]

I think your art is very good, but some parts of it are a bit problematic. I love the portrait. I have trouble with the backgrounds.

Slightly harsh feedback on the levels (Again, I really like the style, just trying to help. Also, if you have some cool thing such as old-console-specs or something that I don't understand going on, I apologize) :

The background walls have more detail and contrast than the actual collideable terrain. This makes the whole image rather busy, there's a lot of big areas of harsh repeating patterns that hurt my eyes. The characters/game objects have the same amount of detail, contrast and hue as those patterns, making them blend into their surroundings.

As the backgrounds have about the same level of contrast and detail as the terrain tiles, and they also have about the same lightness/hues, it all becomes pretty flat - it's hard to tell what's terrain and what's backdrop.

I'd reduce the number of colors in the bkg to 2 or three, that are very close to create little contrast. Then I wouldn't fill entire areas with repeating patterns, rather I would use small details here and there (eg the outlines of just a few bricks, to show that "this is a brick wall", similarly as you've done with the rock pattern on the foreground tiles) mostly next to walls. And most of all I would keep the terrain apart from the background either by hue or lightness - dark foreground and light background or vice versa.

[ekun]

It looks good. Can you explain the name?

"Vagante"

It just sounds cool, doesn't it? Oh and also, the Latin root vag- has some relevant connotations of wandering and exploration.

. . .

Hmm, I agree with the gist of your post, thanks for the feedback!

[clockwrk_routine]

Yea we were coming up with names before posting this devlog, Vagabond and Vagrant came up.  Didn't want it to sound like Vagrant Story, so Vagante is vagrant in spanish. Thanks for the feedback JLJac, a lot of the environment work is in progress, just ripped tiles atm from the initial mockup.  Mostly focusing on getting new systems in place and gameplay content to play with, so I haven't had time to look over the tiles yet. We added potions, an equipment screen, and the first tier of basic gear.   Also redid the boss/challenge room shrine, which looks okay, but I'm kind of drawing blanks on it's design, my initial idea was to do a statue of a tibetan buddhist diety Mahakala: Mahakala, a wrathful deity... This tutelary deity is one of the Dharmapalas in Vajrayana Buddhism who defend the Dharma from corruption and degeneration and from forces hostile to it; to keep the site of the ritual free from impure thoughts and actions; to guide and protect the individual practitioner from all kinds of deception and delusion; bestow the power to overcome life struggles; and to eliminate one’s obstacles and impediment that hinders. In the end I wasn't really sure if it fit the theme all that well and am going with this placeholder for now until I come up with a better design We'll be adding more dungeon life, traps, and bosses in the coming weeks. And here's another super long gif of our current progress

Oh we got a tumblr because we are hip and modern

[CK]

Incredibly interested in this, will be watching.

[SolarLune]

To add on to JLJac's post, I'd also alter the hue on some stuff a bit, as it's kind of dull currently. Everything shares the same somewhat restricted palette, which can make it a bit tough to follow things. Anyway, the game's looking really fun!

[herror]

posting to follow