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[Zaphos]

I think this may be the first time I've ever seen a teaser for a pause menu!  I look forward to seeing the full trailer for your pause menu.

[oodavid]

I haven't the foggiest how this works, but it looks mind-bending and clearly you know what you're doing, excited to play!

[William Chyr]

Ha! That pause menu is awesome. I love that you've tied in the game mechanic to the UI.

[Lo-Fi]

Yeah, I figure most menus in other games wrap (as they should!), so I figure why not do that and visualize it in a game about screen wrap? I can't wait to see what we come up with for the main menu 

[Lo-Fi]

Devlog update #12: 08-28-14

We're showing Four Sided Fantasy at PAX! Come stop by the booth, see the game, and get a cool pin for the game!

[Ticebilla]

I think my jaw fell off from how hard it dropped.

This looks incredible. In every sense of the word.

[Le Master]

Any PAX updates? I haven't seen any videos/pics/articles regarding Four Sided Fantasy.

[Lo-Fi]

Not much press came by, but we did get some youtubers that were interested.

I should have a PAX-related update for backers soon, I'll be sure to post it here, too!

I think my jaw fell off from how hard it dropped.

This looks incredible. In every sense of the word.

Thanks, we won't disappoint!

[Lo-Fi]

Devlog update #13: 09-14-14

A lot of the latest Kickstarter update is just a compiled version of previous devlogs from here, but here's the new stuff!

PAX was awesome! Here are some photos of our booth and convention go-ers playing the game. If you came by the booth, thank you so much for taking the time to do so!









We also received an email from Indiecade. We didn't get in, but we did receive some useful feedback from the judges. The feedback was similar to what we heard from the players at PAX - the placeholder transitions between levels are jarring, and there needs to be more of a story. We're working hard on fixing these problems!

Gravity flipping
I thought it might be a neat experiment to flip gravity when the player leaves the screen as another ability, and it seems to have potential! It's not fully implemented yet, but I am going to pursue it further.

Also, I'm considering cutting water from the game, since water makes the player float, acting similar to the gravity flipping. I think the gravity flipping has more potential.

[jaharley94]

Beautiful and simple.  Loving the way it looks so far guys.

Any ideas on musical direction?

[Lo-Fi]

Beautiful and simple.  Loving the way it looks so far guys.

Any ideas on musical direction?

Yep, we've got a composer working on the game. His name's MJ Quigley. So far, he's made a song for the trailer, a main menu theme, and one in-game track.

Our two biggest inspirations for the music are the film Upstream Color (

), and the show Twin Peaks.

[premonster]

Genious, congrats. 

[Lo-Fi]

Devlog update #14: 09-15-14

I updated the website. I would love it if you took a minute to look it over and tell me what you think!

http://foursidedfantasy.com

[oleomingus]

The webpage looks great ! And the gifs elucidating game play are wonderful and wonky !  There seems to be a hallucinatory quality to visuals in the game that perhaps you should exploit ? A mechanical strangeness that can be leveraged to cause very peculiar visuals !

The new gravity experiment also looks great, Looking forward to seeing how it might be using in tandem with the other screen bending systems. Are you planning to release an early playable build, an alpha or a portion of the game for play testing ?

[Lo-Fi]

Yeah, we'll be releasing early builds, but strictly to backers at the corresponding levels (alpha, beta, etc.)

[Lo-Fi]

Devlog update #15: 09-16-14

Indiecade feedback! We didn't get into Indiecade this year, but we did receive some pretty good feedback, so I'll post it here. It sounds pretty similar to what we heard from players at PAX.

Entry: Four Sided Fantasy

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First impressions of this game were quite high. The opening sequence is very pretty and I was immediately captivated by the visuals and the music. I was a little sad once I hit play that it threw me into the game immediately rather than having another transition like how the title screen first opened up, but it?s understandable for a game that?s still a work in progress.

The game itself looks gorgeous. The glitchiness and distortion around the edge of the screen when the scrolling is locked looks cool, and I love the parallax on the foreground vs background, particularly when there is a button (left stick) or text (Four Sided Fantasy) showing. Later in the game I left another note about the visuals, saying that the bloom around clouds and the colours were very nice. The music / atmosphere was also pleasant.

Early puzzle design is interesting, even though I had previously played The Fourth Wall and was familiar with the mechanic. Having to lock the screen and fall out the left side of the screen to land higher on the right side in an early puzzle felt great.

Most of my notes on this are due to the early / unfinished nature of the game, and I?m sure much of it will be addressed throughout development. My biggest gripe would be the lack of transitions between levels / lack of connectedness of the world. I really wanted them in there, given the levels themselves look great, at least in the early phases before hitting too much of the unfinished content.

As I continued into later content, the sound on the spring platforms and water felt out of place with the serene soundscapes you have, I kept keys after I died which didn?t feel very good and broke puzzles, and the slow fields could use better effects (e.g. an upward breeze, to match the water for floating that you?ve established later). The ending in this build came out of nowhere, and while I appreciate what it was going for, it needs more buildup within the final level itself before panning the camera out.

That said, I?m well aware that this is a work in progress, so those notes are really just highlighting the contrast between how good the more complete content feels versus my impressions of later content.
-----
Impressive but uneven production. The visual aesthetics are fantastic, except where they're obviously temp; the controls feel good, but the physics is often glitchy; the learning curve through levels is very smooth, but progress lacks a sense of goal or context. Overall, this feels like a series of experiments that have been been bright, beautiful coat of paint, but don't yet feel like a complete, cohesive game. Based on what I see here (and from the video of even more out-there experimental mechanics that are being considered) I'm looking forward to seeing how the game ultimately turns out.


Oh, and we've also got a website for the studio itself, http://ludolandgames.com

[Lo-Fi]

Devlog update #16: 09-25-14

I've been working on transitions between levels. Turns out that it takes a long time, since these have to be hand-crafted for each level. But it's worth it! I've been going through each level from the beginning and have a good portion done.


Fade to white from the main menu to the first level


fade to a splash screen


jump cuts


Fade the lights in a level


Foreground object wipe


Using the sun rays to create a fade to white


Jump cut on screen wrap

One of the biggest problems I'm running into is optimization. With jump cuts, loading from one scene to another just doesn't work - even if I preload the next scene, there is still a split second of loading. So for quick cuts I've had to activate/deactivate objects when a trigger is hit, but this can still cause loading, and seems to have more bugs when the framerate drops.

[Christian]

This is really coming together nicely. The transitions look very cool

[Le Master]

The foreground object wipe is sick.

[Lo-Fi]

Thanks for the kind comments, guys!

Devlog update #17: 10-06-14

We're getting close to Alpha! The major feature that we have yet to fully implement is 2 player split screen.


First of all, I changed the keyboard control scheme. This was necessary since I added the camera rotation levels to the level order. I was using A and D for camera rotation, arrow keys for movement, and ctrl for screen lock, which doesn't work since you have to hold down ctrl and that makes most keys not work on most keyboards. I changed it to WASD for movement, space bar to lock the screen, and arrow keys to rotate the camera. It's less comfortable, but you can use all of the controls at the same time.


Hacked in an experiment that I thought might be cool. Turns out that it doesn't seem to allow for many interesting puzzles, but I might return to it.


Camera rotation now fully works! You can't screen wrap through walls any more, except for in a select few cases.


Gettin' classy with some intro credits.