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[godDLL]

Any updates, nt?

[nt]

I should update on the game so here it goes :

I ran out of cash. I've been working on this thing for more than a year, without any income and I ran out. So right now I'm working in a visual effect studio, as a technical director. It's a 6 months contract, I still got 4 months to go. I got bills to pay yo.

Things have been pretty shitty lately. I'm trying to find the motivation to work on the game but it's hard. I don't want this post to be just complains tho.

I tried to find a publisher, with no success. Sometime I don't know if the interest for the game is real or not. Maybe I don't reach out enough for audience, I didn't tweet anything for a month.

I'm still working on the game otherwise, just really slowly. Trying to make a new trailer to be released on the same day that I'll make my Greenlight page online. We'll see how that go.

I'll try to post some screenies later this week.

That's about it I guess.

[gereon]

That's sad
I'm really interested in this game. I like this beautiful artwork and atmosphere. I like the concept. So promising. This game must be finished. So sad. But I can understand your situation, I'm not so far away from that...

If you make a pre release sale, I will  definitely buy it (if on Humble Bundle or something like that, I don't use Steam).
Or if you make a Kickstarter, I will back this (send me a message to make sure I don't miss it).

GOOD LUCK!

[Zizka]

I'm interested too! Just saying. Maybe I should've mentioned something before but there are so many games out there, I don't always have something useful or constructive to say.

Yeah, you pretty much need a job on the side to pay the bills, there's no avoiding it. You've been so far, finish this up! Maybe try to find ways to get more interaction from your userbase (or the people interested in your game). I find it gives motivation to discuss your game with other people.

Keep at it! Motivation goes up and down, it's the same for everybody.

[christopf]

Maybe consider a self-made kickstarter on your site like a donation button with normal and solidarity sale options.
Really simple but so you get some cash to work with (in case your job of the moment ain't giving your the resources to finish it afterwards).
just an idea out of the moment, you probably already had, cause i like what i see. for me it's hard to back anything but i know people who already have a classic income job and a passion for non-mainstream games. could maybe help you for 1 or 2 month more

[nt]

Re logo: IMHO it should do more than capture the game's shadowy themes, it should capture the specific aesthetic, and the high level of artistry, as well.

Testing out and idea for the logo, based on what you said. click for full size

[Bombini]

I ran out of cash. I've been working on this thing for more than a year, without any income and I ran out. So right now I'm working in a visual effect studio, as a technical director. It's a 6 months contract, I still got 4 months to go. I got bills to pay yo.

Things have been pretty shitty lately. I'm trying to find the motivation to work on the game but it's hard. I don't want this post to be just complains tho.

I tried to find a publisher, with no success. Sometime I don't know if the interest for the game is real or not. Maybe I don't reach out enough for audience, I didn't tweet anything for a month.

It's tough to work on a game for a long time mostly on your own. Most of us know these situations and they are horrible. You start asking yourself if this is what you spend so much energy on interesting at all for anyone.
I figured its sometimes good to take vacations from such a game. Dont touch it for 4 weeks at all. Dont try to think about it. Come back with fresh eyes. Dont try to force getting it done.

Will you loose followers? For sure but is it that important unless you have 3000 people posting in your devlog?
I think the game looks stunning and a lot of fun!
I will pay for it ones its out or available.

Good luck!

[nt]

Did some look dev this weekend, click to see fullsize image

[chegr]

You know, everything you wrote is normal to me
I've been working on my game since 2005, sometimes without sleep at night, every spare hour, sometimes without touching anything for months. I never had publisher and budget. I'm almost sure my game will have very narrow audience.
Your game, meanwhile, is great. And I will quote one guy:

Quite a nasty piece of work you managed over there. You've done a great deal in a small time span.

Don't give up and try not to protract, because ideas don't always in the air. It's so sad to see what you thought to be yours to find place in other titles. Keep on and good luck.

[ｂ∀ ｋｋｕｓａ]

This devlog is a devlog i'm jealous of because everything is really cool and no matter what it just gives the feel that it's going to sell well.
Hang in there !

[nt]

Hey guys

So i'm still alive. I've been working on the game full time for the past 3 weeks, since before that I was working on contracts and didn't have much time to work on the game. Not much progress report to tell otherwise. The game is still alive. I hope I get to post more progress more often, but I feel I keep just saying that.

I worked on a multilayers animated background controller that is much better than the one I had, I can easily have animated clouds or what not in the background in multiple layers that are easy to setup everything move automatically. I also will use the same system for the foreground out of focus stuff eventually. Fake parallax on multi layer bg is something I wanted for a while, I'm experimenting a bit more on more organic art style for bg or even for sprites (like the mushroom I posted before).

Anyway, here some images and gifs









thanks for the continuing support guys!

[marcgfx]

love how the stars jump and change the lighting. looks fantastic!
great to see you are getting back into it. it works the same for me, work a bit, build a bit. I find it hard to do both at the same time. but I think thats the only way to do it, when you don't have a budget 

[gereon]

Great news, that you continue working on the game
Lovely graphics, keep on going!

[nt]

The background layers in action in the editor :



The way it works is simple. Each layer calculate its position based on the camera/player based on a divider depending on their "depth" and on top of that each layer that have a animation property are calculated based on their distance, which is also overridable. Animation is on a vector2 direction speed so I can animate in any direction, if lets say I want fog or whatever to go up. Simple things, but I don't know, I like it. Very little code.


In other news, I finally decided on a way to choose levels and navigate the different world, in a linear way at first story wise, then to be able to revisit any levels. Its a pretty simple "world" and "level" chooser. Might not be such a big deal but for a long time I struggled to find a way to make things different, and then I don't know I just thought I have to out of my way and force something special. Maybe If I find a better way to go from one "room" to an other it would be implemented later, but for the moment the way it work is simple and nice.

You got the main "world chooser" where each world is some sort of island, bunch of doors, in each of these "sub levels" there is a door for each levels. Some are already unlocked and playable, other you need to have "finished" other levels to unlock. My mechanic to "finishing" a level is based on the stars you collect.

So you don't have to get all the stars to progress, but if you want to finish a level an unlock other parts, you have to collect all the stars in all levels. I want some readability, and also I want people to be able to move on if they are stuck.

Lots of those ideas were already implemented, but now the whole thing is all connected together, so it feels like I have a game. At least parts of it.

The world chooser, the floating island part, might change, I don't know, I don't want it to have too much of a fez feel, I try to get a bit away from it. It's kind of why I try to make more organic stuff at this point, but we will see.

There is a very long text that I wanted to write about this, maybe later!

This is the sub level chooser, I might make it different later, it's pretty simple looking at this point:

[nt]

[ｂ∀ ｋｋｕｓａ]

how are you going to handle this: let's say that there are 100 doors, will you have to walk till the 100th door?

[nt]

how are you going to handle this: let's say that there are 100 doors, will you have to walk till the 100th door?

These are just for the intro levels. The first couple of levels are very linear, which mean you have to play them one after the other to unlock the next. Later on there will be "worlds" where there is more than one level unlocked right away. For some doors you will need to have all the stars in that world to be able to get in.

This layout is pretty simple for this world, but I could make it multi level and add ladders or something. there wont be that many doors tho. You barely see this sets of doors anyway, when you get out of a level, there is an exit door that bring you directly to the next one. Only if you get out of the current level will you see the multiple door level chooser, or if you go back to a world you haven't finished.

Each world will have its own sets of door in a special room like this.

There won't be a map to choose a world, it's more like a central hub that connect to all the worlds.

[nt]

[nt]

Animated version



I did rotoscopy for this one, I'm happy with the result

[Bombini]

Super cool!