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[marcgfx]

@Schrompf:  I think I am on the darkest side, nothing can frighten me. I don't really care what language, as long as it allows me to port to consoles

Made another update to the alpha branch, fixing some small things after my first two player session in a while.

[NajibSG]

I love how the game looks, he's very handsome

[marcgfx]

Thanks NajibSG

I've been quite distracted by another project for quite some time. It's actually a project that started out as a bullet-pattern designer but has evolved into it's own little thing...

You can check out the web-demo here:
https://www.falkenbrew.com/sfare/Web/index.html

I'm thinking about releasing it on itch pretty soon. Maybe someone has an idea about similar projects, as I will be looking for influencers of any kind that could be interested.

[JobLeonard]

On Firefox all I see is a blue triangle (it works on Chromium though)

It looks awesome! Reminds me of Flow

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flow_(video_game)

[Alain]

It worked in Firefox for me. Wow, that was trippy :D

[marcgfx]

Thanks for trying guys!

@JobLeonard: Hm, works in Firefox on my Macbook and Windows. Not my fault anyway, let's blame Unity. I've just checked out Flow. Same developer as Flower (someone else mentioned) and Journey/Abzu. Interesting. Might be good to look for youtubers who played those games.

I'm planning to launch on itch.io soon, would appreciate any opinion on my page (secret link):
https://falkenbrew.itch.io/sfre?secret=HMjKMGmuuatYdYHlGoTklWQo

Pricing is also something hard to determine. I think in the long run mobile should be the most important platform. But I could be wrong. So now I'm wondering if I should release it on itch with "free/donate" or simply at a discount. In the end it might be most important for me that enough people even give it a go. These decisions are hard for me

[JobLeonard]

Looks cool, nice trailer too.

I don't know about pricing either, never had to deal with the economy of that. Maybe have a free version + a paid "PRO" version that lets you directly export the results? Is the output purely shade based? You could make an "export to shader" button in the pro-version in that case

[marcgfx]

@JobLeonard: that's my plan for mobile. I guess I could have two projects on itch though, not sure if it would be detrimental to have to download it twice. For steam I was thinking about having an IAP to upgrade to Pro, but I'm going to delay a steam release until I gather enough wishlists, or never release it at all.

It's not shader based, but it's a cool idea with the export. I have the possibility to export jpg, gif, mp4 and wav, but you can't export the settings themselves. What you create in the pro version can be something that will never exist again (pressing the star shape randomizes a lot of parameters).

I need to think about how to get the most exposure while being able to convert at least a small fraction to pro-updates. I've decided I would rather have 100k players making 100$ than 1k players and making 1k$. Exposure is something I never managed to achieve with Devader and that hurts most.

The "trailer" was me just messing around in one take, but I'm glad you like it

[JobLeonard]

Well, if that was a one-take trailer then that says something about the elegance of your graphics I think

[marcgfx]

Thanks man
I've just decided to give private access to anyone here that is interested and wants to check out sfäre. You can download the project for free atm.
https://falkenbrew.itch.io/sfre?password=electric

[marcgfx]

Was considering making a new project on tig but no energy right now. sfäre can be tested/downloaded for android now if you follow this link: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=space.spherience.app

[JobLeonard]

Installing and giving it a try!

[marcgfx]

So I've been making some silent progress. I'm reworking Devader to function more like popular games, e.g. gungeon, or newer ones like vampire survivor and brotato. It will be a new release, not sure about the name yet. But I will be reusing a lot, as I don't think the 1k people that have actually bought Devader will be that upset. (I think I can just give them access to the new package on Steam, if I ever get that far again).

One of the key parts I think I messed up was the upgrade system. I was stubbornly against using randomness and had decided that I wanted fixed paths the player could follow. Every path was supposed to have interesting things, but the default upgrades were kind of lame. My idea was that you don't have to play 100 times to get the things you want. Luck was not supposed to be a part of the game. But.... Luck seems to be something that makes people keep coming back. Luck and the ability to get different and interesting combinations of weapons.

So now I need a ton of new icons... still WIP.

[Alain]

It's cool to hear you are working on / reworking Devader! Looking forward to see more from it!

[fafafrei]

So I've been making some silent progress. I'm reworking Devader to function more like popular games, e.g. gungeon, or newer ones like vampire survivor and brotato.

I just bought Devader yesterday and It's really good. One of the first thoughts I had was how awesome it would be as a bullet-heaven or vampire survivors-like kind of game.  Really looking forward to seeing that.

[marcgfx]

@fafafrei: Oh wow, thanks man! Glad you are enjoying it.

It's quite a tricky adaptation for me, not quite sure how it will turn out. My original goal was to have a game that offers multiple-paths with different experiences. The thing is, most people don't really try out so much as it's not obvious. Special weapons, turrets, nukes will now be something that can be purchased in a shop. They are offered at random, so every run should be much more varied. It's also possible to have 2 turret types at the same time, or multiple nuclear weapons. I've also created a ton of new enemies. But it still needs to come together as a cohesive game.

Still lots to do.

[marcgfx]

Besides working on tons of different little upgrade related chores, I've been trying to improve some of the UI. UI is something I struggle with quite a bit, it seems like one can spend forever and there is still room for improvement.

Difficulty selection with a new background. I used alpaca a photoshop plugin that uses stable diffusion. It took me a while to find a suitable workflow, but I am very happy with how it turned out:


I gave the boss-intro-text a makeover, strongly based on a CSS example I found online (https://codepen.io/ykadosh/pen/zYNxVKr). Not convinced this is great, but its a starting point.


Multiplayer robot-upgrade-screen. I'm a little worried I am making things too complicated. It might be better to just stack all the upgrades by default, like in vampire-survivor or Brotato instead of forcing the player to manage the upgrades. Problem are the actions. I can't really auto-place turrets, auto-firing nukes would also be not that great imho. So actions are tied to buttons and as there are more than 3 actions you can get, the player needs a way to organise/select the actions he wants. I feel like this also makes sense for the weapons. Top row are actions, bottom left/right are the arm weapons and the center is the chest-cannon (fires after charging). I'm also considering having multiple actions on one button, but this will make the UI more complicated/crowded.


Plasma weapon (looks like I need to convert to webp for it to display on tigsource, so here is just a link)
https://i.imgur.com/VFXxqUH.mp4

I've also introduced collectable chrystals. They can be unintentionally destroyed by both player and enemies, actual physical objects. I was thinking this gives incentive to be more strategic with your shooting. On the other hand this might take away from the fun of pure destruction.
https://i.imgur.com/SrYFB3A.mp4

[Alain]

I think your current makeovers/changes are interesting, looking forward to see more of it in 2023!

[marcgfx]

Thanks Alain

This is the tower stuff I mentioned. I'm not sure it really fits, but base-building could be an interesting aspect. Just need to make it work with a game that was never meant for this. Easy!


Resource Gathering (a little buggy)
The idea was that the player can gather resources from the Hexagons he should be protecting, to get more money for upgrades.
https://i.imgur.com/jClu83F.mp4

Building Placement
https://i.imgur.com/79cfhrn.mp4

[Alain]

I see, so your towers are kind of individual turrets that you place?