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TIGSource ForumsCommunityDevLogsSuper Toaster X: Learn Japanese RPG: Devlog 99: Resource Management
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Zizka
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« Reply #40 on: January 14, 2015, 08:32:23 AM »

Day 12th:

@Eddcoast: Thanks! Positive feedback is always a nice feeling to read.

@Donuttt:  My Word! I plan to!

@Quicksand-T: I was under the impression that it was much bigger but I'll look into it.


Good day!
I have a couple of good news today. Well, good news for me anyway.

I have a composer for the game. He contacted me a few days ago and showed initiative and I liked what he did. I also appreciate his contributions in the thread so I figured I would give him a shot! This is based on a verbal agreement so we’ll have to trust and rely on each other. I have every confidence in him and look forward to hear what he has in store for the various songs of STG. I'll introduce him more formally later.

On the programmer side, I was contacted by a very promising candidates. So I’m crossing my finger that we can reach an agreement. I’m negotiating at the moment. The way I understand, the basics movements are in place and the swing rope system is in prototype stage. We’ll see how it goes.

So this is basically taking all of my time, finding people, negotiating and so on.

I feel bad only showing text to read though, I realize it’s not the most interesting thing in the world, especially when I talk about finances! But as you know, it’s part of the deal so, it’s something you need to know about.

So I thought I would share some of my (older) pixel art just to give you something to look at. It’s not game related but it’ll give you an idea of what I used to do. I hope you like it.












A monster based off Might and Magic monster.

Those were animations for an horror game to take place in North Korea (in a prison camp). It was to be called "Pyongyang". I dropped the idea because I thought there were already too many games like these.

Those were for fun and practice animation:



Done with photography reference.

There's more but I'll keep them in bank for the future in case I have too much text again!  Grin

Kickstarter and funding:
Starting to realize how much of funding is opening a huge, huge can of worms. So most of my time these days goes about reading the business section of TiG.
As I’m reading about the financial aspect of indie game development, I rapidly need to change my perceptions about selling games.

Releasing a game on steam requires you pay them (of course). The website doesn’t say how much they’re asking for, but I’ve read 30%. That 30% is quite a big share of the profit, but apparently that’s more or less the standard. So that 30% must be taken into account into the final, retail price of the game. I was thinking of selling the game 8$, but that would mean 2,5$ would go to Steam. The rest, 5,5$, needs to be shared with the participants of the project.

What comes next is to determine what % of royalties is a team member “worth” (I’m using the term loosely here, bear with me). Is a composer more important than a programmer? Vice versa? How do you figure that out, I wonder. This is all very new to me.
Since I’m not paying anything “upfront” as I’m not using a publisher but crowdfunding, I need to reach an agreement with both the programmer and the composer. This is fragile as it’s based on nothing but trust and goodwill. So that’s a bit risqué as well.

Would it better to offer a set salary to compose the music and do the programming to be included in the KS and leave it at that or go with royalties? Both? I’m trying to do what’s fair here of course. Many decisions with many outcomes.

It’s also difficult to give final answers to participants as I’m still figuring out the financial aspect of things. I don’t want to make an offer and realize later that it’s way too much (or way too little).

For a kickstarter, you also need to take into account the share sent their way. 5% goes their way. This is reasonable I find. Kickstarter is also saturated with games, a lot of competition going on there. The logistics of a KS campaign are very complex, many variables need to be taken into account.

Getting the game on steam (through greenlight) requires a 100$ fee, which is also not too bad. I think it’d be a great way to get feedback from a community of gamers.

PEGI requires close to 700$ per game per platform (to rate games). I find that’s huge!
How about finding a publisher? The question is, how many publishers of indie games are there out there?

The way I understand it, a publisher “gives” you money upfront to fund the development of your game. Afterwards, the publisher gets its money back by selling the game. Which publishers are worth it? Which ones aren’t?

I find yacthclub games to be really insightful when it comes to their analysis of the whole indie game industry.
How many ports should you have? Which ones are worth it financially?

Those are all questions I’m trying to answer right now as I work to determine how much I’ll pay the people working on me with this project.

Normally, I would much rather work on the game itself but I can’t tell those people: “I’ll decide what to pay you once the game is done” obviously.

So that’s what I’m at right now. The next updates will be game related, I promise. Trust me, I’d much rather work on the game than dealing with the financing but it’s something that needs to be done, you know?

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oldblood
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« Reply #41 on: January 14, 2015, 08:59:51 AM »

Ah, business. Beautiful, ruthless business... You do well to consider the business aspects in addition to the design. Many independent game developers give no thought to this and then find themselves overwhelmed to discover the amount of effort involved in running the business of making games.

I shall now spew words from my throat:

Yes. Steam does take a 30% cut of the revenue which is standard for the industry. You won't find better (other than itch.io which will generate you little to no income) and you will certainly find worse. To simplify things, Steam will make up approximately 90+ % of the revenue you generate. Steam earns their cut and "indies" should count their lucky stars that Steam has adjusted its business model to the more open storefront approach. You may find some luck with Humble & Gog, but the percentages of sales drip dramatically after Steam so you must consider the efforts involved of getting your game onto every platform and managing the expenses and taxes from each distribution channel.

Regarding Kickstarter, I launched a failed and a (separate) successful Kickstarters so I have some background on this. Yes, Kickstarter does take a 5% cut, but Amazon processes the payments and also takes a 5% cut. Of the remaining 90%, you will need to allot a % towards both the creation of physical rewards and their fulfillment (domestic & international shipping). Mismanaged Kickstarters have been known to spend as much as 40-50% of their budgets just creating and shipping rewards. Also, bear in mind that if you're not incorporated- that the amount of money raised via Kickstarter is considered "income" to you which means you will be taxed on it. Rules change and become more or less complicated depending on your location and local tax laws. But income such as this is generally taxed at a very high level (30%+).

PEGI and ESRB rating systems are not required for distribution on Steam. I'd avoid them at this stage and save yourself some funds.

Yes, SOME publishers will fund your development. Some simply manage the marketing and lining up distribution. So in addition to the cut of the platform (Steam 30%) they may also get another x%. They will also get ALL of the funding until their initial investment has been realized which means $0 in revenue for you when the game releases until the game goes into the black (which may or may not occur). Terms are negotiable depending on the publisher but it's still generally challenging to be find a publisher for an indie game and theres always a lot of debate on if it's worth it or not. For large titles, certainly. And yes, they may also want to own the Intellectual Property to Super Toaster Guy.

Ports. Totally dependent upon your business model. Releasing on say Windows/Mac/Linux on Steam will generate around 90-93% of the revenue to Windows with the remaining balance going to Mac & Linux. Your miles may vary. If you're not using Unity and developing on proprietary technology, you may find its uneconomical to develop for platforms outside of your target platform. The amount of effort (and don't forget all that QA across multiple platforms) for an 1-2% of revenue may not be worth the effort.

If at all possible- pay any contractors who work on your game UP FRONT. Not only will they enjoy being paid, but this eliminates a lot of the confusion and anger surrounding %'s of royalties or equities. And hey, if the game sells really well? You own it all. You miserly son of a bitch...
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« Reply #42 on: January 14, 2015, 09:08:38 AM »

So, I get the answer from your dev log. Waiting your game related log.
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« Reply #43 on: January 14, 2015, 03:13:22 PM »

What kind of resolution are you planning to work at, cause some of the sprites (like health bar) are smaller than what you would see on a mobile game?
« Last Edit: January 14, 2015, 04:01:07 PM by GregBTGS » Logged

Zizka
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« Reply #44 on: January 14, 2015, 06:01:13 PM »



@hilake: You misunderstood me  Embarrassed. Check your PM please.

Hello Greg (check your pm),

It's not meant to be a mobile game.  Smiley

Like the new icon? Tee hee!

Well, it sure feels nice working on the actual game again. Wrapping my mind around the logistics was (and still is!) doing my head in.

From now on, I’ll try to keep my logs more organized in their content. I’d like to logos like the one above to sort everything in categories to keep you guys informed about the news: art, music, programming and so on. My OCD is kicking in when I see my first, disorganized message!

Music:
So I had agreed with Trev to make a little avatar for him before actually sharing the news about him (you can see it right next to music).

Trev will be responsible for the soundtrack for Super Toast Guy.

The title screen is more or less completed. There’s still tweaking to be done but the foundations (and more than that) of the title song is set.

For those of you curious about the title screen song, you can listen to it here (I tried to find a way to be able to listen to the song directly here on TIG but couldn’t find a way to do it):

https://trevor-black.bandcamp.com/album/super-toaster-guy-wip

I asked Trev to write a short paragraph about he had in mind creatively speaking for STG and this is what he wrote:

"I AM SO STOKED TO PLAY A GAME ABOUT A TOASTER."

It is my goal to trick you into saying this.

With just a tiny glimpse of Super Toaster Guy, it's easy to see how charming and full of ambition the little guy is. It is my goal to reinforce this sense of a huge character in a tiny package through the music for STG. 8-bit synths with a modern polish, old-school drum machines, and an overall sense of big fun on a small scale is what you'll hear in this Toast-er-iffic score.

I look forward to your feedback as we set out to make the best game about a toaster there ever was.
--

-Trev


For those of you who do listen to the song, feedback is always appreciated. Do you like the song? I already gave my opinion to Trev but it’s always nice to get a more “objective” perspective.

Three pieces of music left to implement in the playable Toilet Guy’s stage.

Programming:
[Behind the scene]:

[I spent more than an hour to do this one, 20 minutes of which I tried to do a parody of the apple logo (with a toast with a bite off instead of an apple) but it was too small and too hard to read. I then tried the apple logo, same problem. I finally did the windows logo, my last choice].

In progress… Next time I write about programming, I’d like to show an animated gif so you can see what it looks like. It’ll be pretty exciting to see all the sprites combined in a playable sequence for sure! I have a few technical demos sitting on my hard drive but I'll need to record this and upload it to show you something more thangible.

Aaaaaaaaannnnddd that's it!

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« Reply #45 on: January 14, 2015, 07:07:43 PM »

For those of you who do listen to the song, feedback is always appreciated. Do you like the song? I already gave my opinion to Trev but it’s always nice to get a more “objective” perspective.

I like it, but I'm having trouble picturing the title screen to go with it. The song makes me imagine a toaster lost in some sort of day-glo jungle area.
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nickgravelyn
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« Reply #46 on: January 14, 2015, 09:21:08 PM »

The animations are super cute. Can't wait to see more of the game.  Hand Thumbs Up Left 
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Zizka
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« Reply #47 on: January 15, 2015, 03:06:23 PM »



@quicksand-t: Thanks for taking the time to listen. We’ll talk about it with Trev.

@nickgravelyn: Coffee or  Beer! (whichever you prefer)

Hello fellow toast lovers!

So, I have received questions about STG and it made me realize the concept behind the game is anything but clear. So I thought I would roll up my sleeves and clarify what exactly is Super Toaster Guy. The following paragraph would be vital to read for people interested in joining the team.

-FAQ-

What exactly is Super Toaster Guy?
So Super Toaster Guy isn’t a short, casual mobile game.

In order to understand what the game is you need to be familiar with the Capcom’s video game classic: Mega Man/Rockman in Japan.

If you don’t know that game, I can certainly understand the confusion shrouding the project. I could explain what Mega Man is and the concept underlying it but I think a video is worth a thousand words and it’ll give you a good idea of what STG is trying to emulate:





The grappling hook mechanic is not the main focus of the game. Again, being familiar with video game classics will give you a better idea as to how the grappling hook comes in to play.

In Super Metroid by Nintendo, you acquire the grappling hook quite a good way in the game. The grappling hook is part of your arsenal, a tool, which allows you to perform moves you couldn’t do before. That’s it. Again, a video will make you better understand the idea behind the grappling hook.




Start looking at 5:45.

The difference between Super Metroid and Super Toaster Guy, is that in Super Metroid, only certain blocks can be latched on. In Super Toaster Guy, much like in Bionic Commando (another classic for the nes) you can latch to anything.

Another reference to understand the physics of the grappling hook (although Super Metroid nails it on the head) is Worms Armageddon by Team 17. Again, a video to show how the thing works:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ryJCdpZVcBI



I’m not looking for something as drastic as Worms Armageddon, but the idea is sound. The faster you swing, the higher you can go (think about a pendulum). If you release from the rope, the faster you were going, the more ground you will cover. Think about the swings at the playground, that’s the best way to understand this. I don’t know about you guys, but when I was a kid we would have competitions where we would jump off the swings to see who could get the farthest, carried by the momentum of the swings.

By pressing the “up” and “down” key, the player is allowed to climb or go down the rope. By pressing “left” and “right”, the player is allowed to gain momentum.

As the grappling hook is the power chord which is also your weapon, shooting is not possible while grappling. It was possible in “Bionic Commando” but not in Super Toaster Guy.

So the formula is fairly straightforward:

After the intro and the title screen, you are taken to the stage select screen. There are 8 bosses in total at the end of each of their respective stages. This means that the game isn’t linear, you can choose to tackle any stage you want from the very beginning. Shovel Knight used a similar modus operandi.

At the very end of each stage, there’s the boss. Beating the boss grants you a special ability which you can then use at the cost of liquid butter.

After you’ve beaten all 8 stages, you’re taken to the final stage. At the end of the final stage you fight the final boss and that’s it, game over.

How long will the game be?
The game is 8 stages long plus the final stage. This isn’t some rpg which will take hours to finish. I think Shovel Knight could be finished in 10 hours average.

I think 8 hours would be really great but I’m not sure if it’s too ambitious. The length of the game will depend on the skill of the player really. People familiar with platform games will surely proceed faster than people who are unfamiliar with those types of games.

So I would say I’m “aiming” for about 8 hours, for the moment.

Will this be a hard game?
In short, yes.

Mega Man games were hard. You couldn’t finish a stage on your first try.

I personally agree with the old school philosophy when it comes to game difficulty of the nes era. In that sense, I felt that Shovel Knight was a little too forgiving.

I don’t think there’s much of a sense of accomplishment if you beat a stage on your first try, except if it’s a tutorial stage. Where’s the fun in that? The challenge?

This isn’t some insanely difficult game either like Battletoads for the nes (Turbo Tunnel, I’m looking at you).

Difficulty will be tweaked and adjusted during play testing. This is just to give a general idea of what I’m looking for.


Sahand is currently working on coding stuff.

I'd like to show you guys what he's done so far.

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« Reply #48 on: January 15, 2015, 04:53:50 PM »

It's, like, a game now!!!
Hand Shake Left Waaagh! Hand Shake Right
HYPE HPYPE HYPE HYPE HEHPEYEHEPYE *incoherent hype hype hpyey hpeyeyeyey...*

I'm pretty excited to see how it turns out.

Also for the GIF, gfycat.com is WAY better than MakeAGIF.
There's no quality lost or any annoying watermarks.

Best of luck reaching your eight hour goal, that's pretty ambitious for a three? (correct me if i'm wrong) person team.

P.S., before it's too late to change, the leg that's highlighted is on the wrong side.
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« Reply #49 on: January 15, 2015, 05:00:51 PM »

I really like the toast guy, you can surely get a lot of fun stuff out of that basic idea. I was wondering how you could handle ejecting the toast. it could be annoying if you cant move the body anymore when the toast is flying. so maybe you have to collect his head again? or the body stays put when the toast gets fired. but what if he's sliding etc... maybe the toast has a way of moving on its own, without the "suit". I was thinking a bit of earth-worm jim, could be usefull inspiration.
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siskavard
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« Reply #50 on: January 15, 2015, 05:04:03 PM »

oh god yes
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Zizka
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« Reply #51 on: January 16, 2015, 01:15:50 PM »


I don’t know if you’ve noticed but I work a bit on the log logo. It sucked before and I like it better now.

@Canned Turkey: Yeah, I was afraid of that. Anyways, we’ll how long it takes people to beat a stage and sort things out from there. Glad you’re excited about it, such is the Way of the Toaster. Will look into the .gif issue, thanks.

@Marcgfx: Hi Marc,
Well, I was wondering about that. I was thinking that preventing the body would make the player vulnerable while he uses that move, which would add some gameplay element. Since Pan is in command of the toaster, I don’t think it would be logical to have it move without Pan inside. The toaster is kind of like a mech for Pan to command from inside it.

@Siskavard:
God wills it, this game will be released. Smiley

I figured I would provide a list of things which still need to be done. It’s only partial but it’ll give you guys an idea of the amplitude of the task.
To do
a. Design the levels for all 8 stage plus the final stage.
b. Design the 7 bosses and the final boss.
c. Determine the patterns for each boss and the final boss.
d. Design the enemies for each of the 7 stages.
e. Make the title screen
f. make the stage select screen
g. add an upgrade system (I have an idea about this, I think you’ll like it).
h. Play test
i. Change game based on feedback and playtest
j. compose one song for each stage, plus the ending song, plus the final boss song... about 11 songs in total
k. make the sound effects (SFX)
l. integrate the SFX.
m. determine the narrative track
n. choose the font
o. write up the dialogues (not very long but still)
p. prepare the KS campaign.
q. get feedback on campaign and fix it.
r. Prepare rewards for backers, ship them.
t. determine final price, contact steam, get greenlit
u. bug test and fix bugs
v. determine advertisement campaign and launch campaign (advertise...)
This is just from the top of my head. Smiley
Programming:

After testing the first prototype, I’ve asked Sahand to make some modifications to the code about certain things. The grappling hook system is well underway but also required more modifications as it’s a fair bit more complex than the rest of the stuff. But it’s getting there. Sahand is quite hard working and efficient.

Music:

Trev is very busy with real life so I don’t have any news regarding the music besides that the “main title” song linked previously might be used for another stage depending on how the title screen looks like.

Design:
Upgrade System!!!

DNA or deoxyribonucleic acid, which carries our genetic information, has slowly been revealing its secrets over the years, allowing genetic manipulation ton inch ever closer to our reality. What of BNA though?

What is BNA?

BNA, or Breadoxyribonucleic acid, carries the genetic makeup of all sorts of bread. It determines if the bread is long, like the French baguette or if it stout and nutritious like the black, German bread or even if it contains raisins or chocolate chips! It is the equivalent of DNA for humans.

In STG, Pan can collect deviously hidden canisters of BNA in the various stages of the game. Those canisters can be used to modify the genetic code of Pan, giving him various abilities and powers.

Spent BNA can also be reset. This means that you can modify Pan’s genes in between each stage in order to be better prepared against what you’ll be facing. For example, need to avoid dangerous falling traps in a stage? Better boost your speed. Keep dying because you’re taking too much damage? Improving your plating might be the solution to your problem then.

This is just to give you an idea of the concept. Black and white upgrades have yet to be purchased. More powerful upgrades are further up the upgrade tree. In this example, the player can choose to boost his butter container by 10% or increase his battery by 10%. Of course, there will be a lot more upgrades than these two. I just whipped those two quickly to give you an idea. I’m trying to have something like FFX level up system with the spheres:


I really want people to treasure their BNA, so I’ll try to make the BNA hard to find. I think this should encourage exploration as opposed to rushing as quickly as possible to the end of each level. I hope players really get a sense of accomplishment finding BNAs and the bonus they unlock should be fairly substantial.

Why BNA and not screws like in Mega Man
To prevent grinding, quick simply. I don’t want players to stick at one stage and kill the same enemies over and over again to grab stuff to upgrade their characters.

Annnnnnnd that’s it. Quite honestly this took a good 3 hours to think through and sprite (the BNA sprite was a major pain to sprite and I’m still not 100% happy with it).




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« Reply #52 on: January 16, 2015, 01:56:34 PM »

Hi there, Mr. Programmer here c:

I thought it would a good idea if I introduced myself here, but now that I'm doing it I have no clue what to say, so I guess I'll just answer some questions nobody asked me :3

who are you?
I'm Cakeprediction/Sahánd Smiley
I like gaming, the art of developing games(art,programming and design, but I'm currently just here to programm) and unintentionally creating unnecessarily long sentences.

Why did you want to work on Super Toaster Guy?
1.you're a toaster
2. It looked rad
3. You're a toaster

Hehe, that was easier and shorter than expected, good ^^

Anyway, if somebody has some questions about the programming, I guess you can ask me Smiley (I use game maker studio)
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« Reply #53 on: January 16, 2015, 01:59:43 PM »

Quote
To do
a. Design the levels for all 8 stage plus the final stage.
b. Design the 7 bosses and the final boss.
c. Determine the patterns for each boss and the final boss.
d. Design the enemies for each of the 7 stages.
e. Make the title screen
f. make the stage select screen
g. add an upgrade system (I have an idea about this, I think you’ll like it).
h. Play test
i. Change game based on feedback and playtest
j. compose one song for each stage, plus the ending song, plus the final boss song... about 11 songs in total
k. make the sound effects (SFX)
l. integrate the SFX.
m. determine the narrative track
n. choose the font
o. write up the dialogues (not very long but still)
p. prepare the KS campaign.
q. get feedback on campaign and fix it.
r. Prepare rewards for backers, ship them.
t. determine final price, contact steam, get greenlit
u. bug test and fix bugs
v. determine advertisement campaign and launch campaign (advertise...)
This is just from the top of my head. Smiley

kk see ya in 20 years
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Zizka
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« Reply #54 on: January 17, 2015, 10:14:46 AM »


@alvarop:
Great, then we can port on playstation 45. Well, hello there!

 
Hello guys!

I’m really happy that I’m finding less time organizing things between team members. We’re slowly getting used to working together and less time is used in communication.

First thing I’d like to share today is the charged shot animation.

Charging:


Charged and fired:


Music with Trev:

Trev is working on the music for "Toilet Guy" stage.

Programming with Sahand

This is probably going to be the most interesting element of the blog for a lot of you guys. Sahand's been hard at work implementing new mechanics and otherwise making some changes and tweaking things.

Every time I get something from Sahand I get really excited and forget to breath (for a while). I'm always eager to see what he has in store.



So what's new?

a. There's a physic for butter cube which you didn't see as it happens right at the beginning of the demo.
b. jump has been added various height.
c. Swing rope is much better.
d. Shooting
e. Liquid butter meter in the upper left.
f. Burn attack (up attack) is now a charged attack
g. Idle animation is now at a normal speed (too fast before).


I'm probably forgetting things too!

I'll see with Sahand if we could get an enemy in there next time (either as a placeholder or as a sprite if I can finish spriting the hair dryer which is about 70% done I would say).

In other news I might have someone help out designing the upgrade system. It's still early to tell but I'll keep you informed.

Annnnnnnddd that's it!




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« Reply #55 on: January 18, 2015, 09:30:40 AM »


Hey guys and gals!

*I tweaked the devlog again. Every time I see it I want to try something new. By the end of the game it might be painted on the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel, who knows?

I had too many ideas floating around my head so I got up at 3 a.m. and started working on the game. Well, it’s fun work so. Just finished and it’s 11:00 a.m (I did get back to sleep in between but I probably got a good 5 hours this morning, not bad!).

Fridgepoint (checkpoint)

This is fairly common in platform games. Should you die, it allows you to resume from this point. They are evenly distributed through levels. Why a fridge? Because that the best way to conserve your bread for long. Don’t just leave it on the counter! The toaster goes into the fridge by the way.




Moving about

This was pointed out by marcgfx (star for him). Instead of moving the body (which wouldn’t make sense) I decided to move the toast. This animation took me sooooooo long to do, I’d say a good three hours. I tried many different ways and this is the best I got. I’m happy with it. I think it’s funny and in the spirit of the game. What’s also funny is that I went to get a slice of bread from my fridge and tried to make it crawl on my table in order to understand how to animate it.
For those who are wondering, the hit box becomes the toast once outside the toaster. The toaster becomes invulnerable for as long as the toast isn’t back inside it.



You’ll notice I’ve identified the keys pressed during the animation.

Level Design
A level designer (with experience) has decided to volunteer to work on the game, awesome! Things are shaping up nicely!

The Reward System


“What the hell is that zany gimmick?”

Watch your language. It’s not a gimmick and it’s not zany.

I think people who make the extra effort of not only reading the log but providing feedback, whether through criticism, informative post (like oldblood’s last message) or sharing news about the game to other, popular websites should be rewarded. I realize most people here at TIG do it willingly without asking for anything in return BUT this is just a little extra for them. (It also gave me the excuse to draw something different than a toaster for once and I think the stars look cute).

“Well I think your reward system flipping sucks and I want no part of it.”

Yeah? Well too bad for you, it’s staying.

Basically, bronze stars, silver stars and gold stars.
3 bronze stars = 1 silver star
3 x silver stars = 1 gold star
3 x gold star =

Now, what could that last reward be I wonder? Only those with the most acute perception could determine this one out.
One you reach the last “?” you win a secret prize which I think is worth it. People who reach it will be contacted through PM with their prize. Isn’t it exciting?!?! Don’t be expecting a new car or something, it’s just a little present (but a cool one).

“All right, but what do you consider reward worthy?”

Anything that helps makes the game better or more popular basically. The same idea or criticism can’t be rewarded twice obviously. Encouragements, although always appreciated, do not count (neither do jokes for that matter unless they’re very, very funny).

So I went through the thread since its very beginning and updated the first message with that information.

Kickstarter:

In his previous message, oldblood mentioned that a KS project could be taxed up to 30% unless you had a company. The percentage probably varies from country to country. I live in Canada so if you’re also Canadian and have successfully funded a KS, could you give me PM to tell me how much the amount was taxed for? This is really important right now because I’m calculating the budget for the KS.

There are a few sums I’m certain of. I’m basing this estimate on a KS campaign of 10,000$.

Do you think a game like this has the potential for 10,000$, honestly?

At the moment I’m 1200$ over the budget I wanted to ask. Well, actually, I wanted to ask for 5000$ at first but that now seems ridiculous.



I’m also forgetting some expenses here I’m sure.

Is there a way not to be taxed so much? That would help. I could cut in the art I guess if it comes to it (I would be penalized by that however). Another possibility is to learn to code and compose on my own. This option doesn’t really appeal to me either.

Another possibility would be to ask more than 10,000$. This is something I’m really anxious about. I’ve been in a kickstarter before (I was only translating and animating) but the project was asking 60k. We got 1k. I feel that if I ask for too much, then the whole thing fails because we didn’t reach our mark.

I could offer a cut of the royalties instead of KS money too I guess. Hmm… decisions, decisions.

It’d be really neat if some KS veterans could share their insight at this point.

Anyways, I'll find a way!

I noticed we’ve reached 2000 views about the project so I wanted to make something a bit special for this log with lots of content as well as the reward system which I had thought about recently.

Thanks for reading!
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oldblood
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« Reply #56 on: January 18, 2015, 10:13:41 AM »

Talk to a CPA, but if you spend every cent within the year the funds were raised and properly documented it with receipts, you may be able to write-off a lot of the income as expenses. Again, talk to a professional. I talk to a professional twice a week...
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Zizka
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« Reply #57 on: January 20, 2015, 12:24:41 PM »


@oldblood: Just need to find a free one!  Cool

Hello guys,

I know you’re used to getting a devlog a day but these days have been slower. Since it’s been a (little) while, I figured I’d share some news with you.

Programming with Sahand:

On the programming front, Sahand is making steady progress. He’s currently fixing the rest of the bugs and implementing new things. It’s now possible to shoot your grapple while in mid-air (which wasn’t possible before). The charged shot has also been implemented. He’s also working on coding the bread walk system (when you jump out of your suit to explore). The controls were not as responsive as I wanted them so that has been improved upon as well. If this game is going to be fun, it needs responsive controls.

I’m more or less done spriting the first enemy and figured out his pattern, so this will be taken care of next.

Level design
The bathroom level is starting to take shape. While it was very vague at first, it is getting more and more precise. The person working on level design has a lot of good ideas (seriously, I’m skeptical by nature but I really liked them). It’s just a matter of funneling the ideas and tweaking them until they’re realistic to implement, resource wise. Creativity sometimes don’t initially go hand in hand with practicality.

A quick sketch of some ideas by Nav:




Design:

I’ve been re-playing the old Mega Man for nes and “studying” them (well Mega Man 6 to be exact). Checking what kind of traps there are and how the level are designed. I’ve also been watching videos on youtube which give ideas how to make good design choices. So I would say I’m more learning at the moment than creating.

It’s funny how unreliable your memory is when you recall older games. In my mind, Mega Man games were nothing short of brutally challenging. Well, it turns out there the 6 wasn’t that hard. So, what did I realize while playing this game?

1. I used to think that Mega Man stages took a good 15-20 minutes to get to the boss. Boy was I wrong. It took me 4 minutes (not especially rushing) to get to Tomahawk’s boss. It takes me about 4-5 minutes to get to a boss generally speaking. In hindsight, it’s understandable as it would be frustrating for players to have to trudge through 20 minutes every time they get a game over.

Conclusion: Make shorter stages than I had intended. I find 4 or 5 minutes to be on the short side though. Maybe 7 or 8. No more than 8 anyway (on average).


2. Memory: Mega Man games are hard. Not exactly. It’s not the stages which are difficult, you can usually get to the boss after three of four continues (about a dozen deaths) at most.

It’s the bosses which are hard. The gap in difficulty between the boss and the stage are sometimes really wide.

Conclusion: Make harder stages but easier bosses so they are both more balanced.

3. Memory: Power ups did very little to help. Fact: Some power ups are plain too strong. The “E” tank is a game breaker for me. It more or less allows you to just rush a boss without any skill and win. I don’t want that.

Using a robot’s weak point really makes WAY too much of a difference. It should make the fight easier, not give you an automatic win. It takes the fun away.

Conclusion: No “E” tank equivalent in STG. Bosses won’t have damage weakness. Instead they will be easier to beat with certain weapons because those weapons have a certain range or area of effect.


4. Memory: Mega Man has some really good design: Well, it depends. Most of the time it’s good but sometimes not so much.
The only thing which frustrates me in Mega Man is the instant death spikes/pits. It’s not fun, too punishing. I prefer heavy damage and being teleported where you were.

Being damaged allows you to walk on spikes. It doesn’t make sense. It’s a glitch to be exploited.

Being damaged discharges your charged shot. I like this.

Conclusion: No instant death in STG. Falling on spikes damages you whether you just got damaged or not. Discharge charged shot when hurt.


5. Memory: Mega Man has some really good design part 2:

Some notes I took while playing the game through screenshots:













Kickstarter:
This is also where I am investing time. We’re getting closer to the target. One variable I need to determine is how much I want to set aside for rewards and shipping. Seems difficult to foresee as I have no clue where the backers will be from.

Art:
At the moment, I’m looking for a good bitmap font for the game. Couldn’t find something that really struck me as being excellent so far or fitting to STG.

Narrative:
I’ve talked a short while with Sahand about the narrative. We brainstormed a bit and I’m starting to get a better idea as to where I’d like to go with this.

I’d like the antagonist to be a type of bread/pastry too. Doctor Donut (too plain), Calamity Croissant (too hard to say), half-baked baguette (not interesting), The Doom Donut (funny, better than the other ones), Cortex Croissant (I like the cortex part, I’d like the antagonist to be super smart but croissant, again, is hard to say, unless it gives an exotic touch to the character…?)

Aaaaaaaannnnd that's it!
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marcgfx
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« Reply #58 on: January 20, 2015, 05:03:27 PM »

maybe "Nasty Toaster Girl" could be the right opponent? Brutal Baguette, Bagel of Doom, Brad the Breadstick, Cruel Crumpet....
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_breads for inspiration...
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Zizka
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« Reply #59 on: January 20, 2015, 08:24:55 PM »

Well, I'd rather not have two toasters, it would be less special if there were more than one, I think.

Bagel of Doom made me chuckle. Brutal Baguette sounds awesome and if I had to pick one, I'd pick that one. The only problem being that, to me it conveys a sub boss, a strong but stupid underling, it doesn't convey intelligence. Vilains, as far as I know, are most of the time very clever and intelligent. There is more room to explore characters like that.

I want an antagonist which is Pan's equal in some way. While Pan rides a toaster, the antagonist could also have his own vehicle, the ying amd the yang you know. His nemesis, his opposite. Dr. Wily had doctor Light. Batman, the Joker and so on.

I'd like both of them to share something, being bread, and yet being complete opposites. They should be equals though. I don't want an antagonist which is some supreme being. Vador and Skywalker were good equals.

The challenge is linking a machine to bread besides a toaster. There's just not much choice at all. I could pick a specialized machine bit it needs to be something instantly recognizable by people (the equivalent of a toaster).

Finally, I want a vilain with a purpose. Not something lame like destroying/conquering the world. To me, this is a cop out. No. A vilain must be convinced that he's good in his perception, that what he's doing is right, this, to me, is the key to an interesting vilain. The kind of vilain tou can sort of understand and feel sorry for.

Quite a lot expectations for a bad guy, uh? Smiley
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