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[TurboGun]

That architecture looks great & crazy! I love that 70's "villain's mansion" feel you got here.

Following this!

Excellent, exactly what we were going for with these designs! Thanks!

[TurboGun]

New Master Spy Sprites, Flip Jump, and Guard Booth

We decided to take some time this past week to revise Master Spy's sprites a bit. Supped up the cloak animation a little, added a key grab frame, and added lots of tweens now between cloaking/uncloaking (previously the cloaking animation played only if you weren't moving).

Wait, was that a flip in there? YOU'RE FLIPPING RIGHT IT WAS!

The flip is something we're currently testing out to give the player a little more precision in uncloaked mode. You can flip by pressing the jump button mid-jump, which cancels the upward velocity and allows you to travel a little further horizontally. Here's a fun bug that happened while implementing the flip jump.

We've also introduced a new enemy for Mission 1 - the guard booth!

These guys are pretty easy to pass - just cloak and go! But their purpose is to create a little more pressure and tight situations in the earlier levels. Expect to see them peppered through Mission 1 in time!

Back to making enemies, levels, and art for us! If you haven't yet, we'd appreciate your thumbs-up on greenlight!

[DarkWanderer]

Voted. Not a big steam fan but I also try to help projects like this out. By the way, love your aesthetics Bitchen pixel art.

[nluckett]

Beautiful stuff. This looks fantastic, retro in the best way and really fun. Good luck guys!

[TurboGun]

Voted. Not a big steam fan but I also try to help projects like this out. By the way, love your aesthetics Bitchen pixel art.

Thanks! When the time comes, I'm hoping to do humble widget/store for those that prefer DRM free

Beautiful stuff. This looks fantastic, retro in the best way and really fun. Good luck guys!

Appreciate it!

[alvarop]

Tried the demo and you pretty much nailed the music, the feel, the effects and the visuals. It really works and feels great. The gameplay works well too, I feel like the invisibility ability should be limited to a certain amount of time or something like that. In the demo, it seems pretty overpowered and it makes it really easy to go though the levels. I mean, being able to jump while being invisible makes it really easy to avoid being seen. Then again, I played 3 or 4 levels I think. Maybe it changes later on.

[TurboGun]

Tried the demo and you pretty much nailed the music, the feel, the effects and the visuals. It really works and feels great. The gameplay works well too, I feel like the invisibility ability should be limited to a certain amount of time or something like that. In the demo, it seems pretty overpowered and it makes it really easy to go though the levels. I mean, being able to jump while being invisible makes it really easy to avoid being seen. Then again, I played 3 or 4 levels I think. Maybe it changes later on.

Thanks for checking it out! We actually tried a timer based cloak in early testing, but it felt a little cumbersome and disrupted the flow of gameplay we were going for, which is why we went with restricted movement when cloaked.

We have a decent amount of enemies that you'll encounter (guard dogs, traps, security beams, and a bunch more) that will catch you if you try to go cloak mode the whole way - the idea being that the further you progress, the more you need to switch back and forth between cloaked/uncloaked to make it through a level unscathed. We're also testing out a flip jump that can only be performed in uncloaked mode, which will grant a little more mobility that'll more than likely be required in later levels.

Appreciate the kind words and feedback! Hopefully this explains some of our design decisions Thanks!

[TurboGun]

Master Spy will be on the Indie Dev Super Show this weekend along with some other really awesome games! If you want to drop by, we should be streaming on Sunday @ 1:00 am CST.

[TurboGun]

Trap floors + Switch Barriers

This past week we implemented trap floors and switch operated barriers, rounding out the mechanics needed for Mission 3.

The trap floor gives the player a split second to jump before dropping them to whatever horrors wait below. I had a fun bug where collision for Master Spy was registering every other frame on the trap floor, so he'd fall halfway through it and snap back up before dropping. After banging my head against the keyboard for a day, I realized he was colliding with the dust that is generated when he lands, which was interfering with the trap floor collision (and super easy to fix once I figured that out). Fun stuff!

The switch barriers are fun,  as they'll allow us to create super mini metroidvania type maps, and control the flow of navigating the level when it's called for.

Next step is to decide the flow of the mission overall, design the levels, and eventually fill them out with art.

[TurboGun]

Potential Master Spy box art we've been working on, inspired by matte painted videogame box art from the 80s and 90s:

[oahda]

Funny, I just played a game that my friend made recently, with pretty much the same mechanic, where you could hold a key to be invisible for a brief time (very brief, actually; probably just a few seconds – then you'd have to reload the ability at a special checkpoint), either to sneak past someone, or to assassinate them from behind.

It was fun in his game, so I'm betting that it is in your, much more elaborate, game, too!

Voted yes on Greenlight and started following on Twitter (200th follower, such an honour! ).

[Ruxar]

Voted it up on Greenlight. How's it tracking, getting many votes?

Love the retro box art.

[TurboGun]

Funny, I just played a game that my friend made recently, with pretty much the same mechanic, where you could hold a key to be invisible for a brief time (very brief, actually; probably just a few seconds – then you'd have to reload the ability at a special checkpoint), either to sneak past someone, or to assassinate them from behind.

It was fun in his game, so I'm betting that it is in your, much more elaborate, game, too!

Voted yes on Greenlight and started following on Twitter (200th follower, such an honour! ).

Sounds cool, does your friend have it online? We tested a timer for the cloak mechanic early on, and decide to go with reduced mobility when cloaked instead (an we have a bunch of enemies/obstacles that counter the cloak, some indirectly due to speed, and others that we're still working on ). Recharge was considered, interested in seeing how that worked out!

Also, thanks a ton for the support and vote/follow!

Voted it up on Greenlight. How's it tracking, getting many votes?

Love the retro box art.

Thanks! Super happy with the reception on greenlight so far, though we've got a long way before top 100!

[Gregg Williams]

Really love the screen transition effect, game is cool, though could maybe be more difficult.

[TurboGun]

Really love the screen transition effect, game is cool, though could maybe be more difficult.

Thanks! That transition effect is actually one giant sprite animation Was fun to implement.

Oh, the levels will get more difficult. Much more difficult. We plan on revising Mission 1 a little to be a bit more of a challenge, and Mission 2 and up should prove as a true test of your spy abilities. If you have any particulars, let us know!

[TurboGun]

We're revising some of the levels in the Mission 1 demo to make it a little more of a challenge (and hopefully not making them too scary). We'll be doing a bit more testing before pushing out the new build, which also includes the flip jump mechanic and new master sprites, but here's a preview!

We've also been discussing virtual reality simulation levels and secret/hidden levels lately.  These things are definitely going to show up.

[TurboGun]

We've pushed out an update to the demo on our site, with some big and some minor changes which we've been showing recently.

Play the Mission 1 Alpha Demo!

Updates include:

• Updated Master Spy's sprite to be livelier
• Added Jump Flip mechanic for enhanced maneuverability while uncloaked
• Added Guard Booth enemy
• Revised multiple levels to increase the challenge
• Dropped level 4 to get to the action faster
• Added new level 9. It's tough.

Here's a preview of the new Level 9. It's quite the challenge, and this is after a few passes to make it easier:

[Kikekun]

Voted on Greelight!
This game looks fantastic. Cannot wait to play that alpha demo

[TurboGun]

Working on some fairly evil levels for Mission 3. Gifs soon.

Voted on Greelight!
This game looks fantastic. Cannot wait to play that alpha demo

Thanks, appreciate it!

[Christian]

Nice to see this Greenlit!