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[Lex the Abstract]

The default was set to 1280x720 in the editor.  The other size might be from a different game you were playing.

I had made the game auto-resize to 1280x720.  But, at the last minute, I second guessed myself that this would not be too large for any modern monitor, or that nobody would have a really old one.  I'll be adding in a check to make sure the game window won't be too large for the screen, then adding the auto-resize back in, at least until we get serialization and preferences files.

At the very least, the game window should be resizable through the OS, it should also be maximizable and such.  At least, that all works on my system.

I like the 1-4 keys, or sdfg/asdf, but we'll still have a problem with controllers and direction unless we change the layout again.

[Zizka]

Hmmm... I don't know about "1,2,3 and 4" they feel awkward on the keyboard, "out of reach" sort of.

I'll talk with Jeff about this.

Just a quick mockup of the upcoming "options" menu I did this morning.



You'll notice I've only put the gamepad there as far as controls are concerned. Keys will show up next to the gamepad buttons.

[io3 creations]

Kind of funny, I was actually going to check what happens if I maximize the window but forgot.  Yes, that works fine.

Just remembered another thing regarding keys.  Are the keyboard arrow keys bound the same actions as the (current) WASD keys - seemed like I could select cards with the arrow keys.  If the WASD pattern is changed to a single line (e.g. ASDF), could that be an issue if those arrangements don't match?  For example, if ASDF is used, should Pan move left/right with some of those keys?

I also find 1,2,3,4 keys a bit out of reach but overall would still prefer those to WASD due to them being in a single line.  SDFG might be okay though I'd have to test it.  If you go with the original idea or allowing key remapping, maybe you could have a few default buttons for certain keyboards: WASD, AZERTY, etc to allow quick setup.

[Tuba]

Hmmm... I don't know about "1,2,3 and 4" they feel awkward on the keyboard, "out of reach" sort of.

I'll talk with Jeff about this.

Just a quick mockup of the upcoming "options" menu I did this morning.



You'll notice I've only put the gamepad there as far as controls are concerned. Keys will show up next to the gamepad buttons.

Good to see you're supporting GameCube controllers.

[JobLeonard]

Best controller ever

[Zizka]

Uh well, technically it's supposed to be an x-box controller guys. Just don't want to create false expectations here.

[Tuba]

I know, but the colors remind me of the GameCube. 

[Zizka]

Ah ok, gotcha!

So I figured the bedroom would be more appropriate to display portraits and tokens of people who have helped supporting the game.

[Lex the Abstract]

Yes, the inputs are dual-bound to both wasd and arrow keys.  Pan will run if you press the a/d keys.

Zizka and I have been talking about changing the input to a cursor system, where the a/d keys will move the cursor from card to card, the w key would select/confirm the highlighted card and the s key would unselect.  That should avoid the spatial confusion, while still allowing the same input map to be used on a controller.

[io3 creations]

Yes, the inputs are dual-bound to both wasd and arrow keys.  Pan will run if you press the a/d keys.

Zizka and I have been talking about changing the input to a cursor system, where the a/d keys will move the cursor from card to card, the w key would select/confirm the highlighted card and the s key would unselect.  That should avoid the spatial confusion, while still allowing the same input map to be used on a controller.

That sounds like a good way to go.

[Zizka]

Devlog 91: Cardsmithing Blues.

This week has mostly been about setting up the code for the game to make it more efficient to work with. Maybe Jeff will explain it in better words than I can as this is more of what's under the hood.

On my side, I'm working quite a few things at the same time but mostly working on the Cardsmith:



Drawing the logo, designing the character, making the logos, the animation. The idea of Whole Bread Will is "two faced" inspired" (from Batman). He's actually half whole. I didn't want to include "half-whole" as his name because it sounds like asshole.

"buy" allows you to buy vocabulary cards.
"sell" allows you to sell cards. This is especially useful when you've learned a card (mastered it for skill points). It's a good way to get cash back.

"forge" is the crafting aspect of the game. I want a system where you can basically combine vocabulary cards to get new, unique ones. The new cards should also combine the individual abilities of the cards used in the crafting. This is still the embryo of an idea and something I'll need to discuss with Jeff to see how much is doable code-wise. We usually come up with good ideas when we chat together so we'll keep you updated about this aspect of the game.

I've also reworked the boxing ring arena and I'm working on another hub location, the Bread Cave (another Batman reference of course). I want this place to be where the player gets to check information about discovered cards, enemies, abilities and things like that as well as bounties to claim.

Greenlight

Here's the new stats for the greenlight situation since last Thursday:



So we've had 15 more "yes" votes as opposed to 2 more "no" votes. Judging from this, we can make the assumption that the tide is slowly turning in our favor. We had 861 visitors on the 1st vs 895 today, on the 6th. So there's no doubt that visitors have dropped to a crawl. That's a problem.

The problem we are facing right now is the lack of exposure. People will tweet and retweet but nobody goes to vote for the game (or people who are interested have already voted). When I say "nobody" I literally mean 0 people.

So the issue here is getting a constant stream of visitors. I'm sitting on the fence on this one. I feel like I'll have to start getting into the gist of marketing, the dark side of indie development. Annoying people with constant reminders to vote on greenlight, bugging youtubers to try the game to get more exposure, transforming into this super extrovert, luring people with prizes to get retweets and vote. The whole thing makes me dizzy. I've started to read about marketing and it pretty much sums up to pretty hardcore manipulation which goes against my personal ethics. I certainly wasn't born to be a salesman.

Anyways, the next step is contacting youtubers. So this is the point where you need to decide when the game is good enough to send as a build, no simple question.

Basically, I'll keep precise statistics on youtubers. I'll let you know who I've contacted, which one replied and which one made a video about the game. I think this is information other indie dev would be interested by; i.e., which youtuber is open to testing unknown indie games and how my interactions went with said youtuber.

Anyways, the game will get greenlit even if I have to contact every single youtuber there is out there.

[Zizka]

Guess what guys?



My heartfelt thanks to everyone who voted for the game. Thanks a lot, seriously!

[alvarop]

 

[JobLeonard]

 

Now keep carving out your niche!

[io3 creations]

Congrats on getting greenlit!

[oahda]

頑張って！

[ｂ∀ ｋｋｕｓａ]

おめでとう !

[Zizka]

Devlog 92: Greenlit

So the following devlog is a bit of a repetition for the previous devlog but I thought it was well
written so I figured I'd share it here. Basically it's my last devlog over at Steam.

*By the way, twitter is actually very limited (from my experience as far as involvement is concerned. People will share and like tweets, but actual involvement outside of twitter is near nonexistent. So as far as a promoting tool, I find it very limited. It's not something I would count on for turning the tide of a kickstarter campaign for instance or getting greenlit. The extra step to look further into something (read: leave twitter) is almost never carried through. This opened my eyes about the limits of twitter.

What does this mean? Well, on my part, it means investing less time investing on twitter for exposure and trying other, more effective and reliable avenues to get some interest from potential supporters. 

Now keep in mind that is based on my own experience which is admittedly anecdotal *but* if you're an indie, I would recommend doing your own analysis in order to better evaluate the role of twitter as advertising tool. It certainly convinced me to never, ever use twitter as an advertising media.


Hello everyone!

First of all I'd like to thank everyone who believes in the project and voted for the project as we've now been Greenlit. We'll do our best not to let you guys down by providing a quality, educational indie game.

I want to keep constant updates about the game and to establish a dialogue with the community. I think it's important to keep an open channel with the future players during development. It'd be arrogant to think that the only people who can have good ideas about the game are the three people currently part of the team.

(for those who are wondering, Devlog 91 isn't posted because it's a minor update and was therefore merged with this one. I want to stick to major development news for steam).


Upcoming Changes!

The Card Smith



The idea of Whole Bread Will is "two faced" inspired" (from Batman). He's actually half whole, you can tell from his face.

"buy" allows you to buy vocabulary cards.
"sell" allows you to sell cards. This is especially useful when you've learned a card (mastered it for skill points). It's a good way to get cash back.

"forge" is the crafting aspect of the game. This is where you can basically combine vocabulary cards to get new, unique ones. The new cards are meant to combine the individual abilities of the cards used in the crafting. This is still a rough aspect of the game, so input from the community are always welcome.

What do you think makes crafting fun? What kind of elements would you like to see?

Graphic Update

As Jeff is progressing on the code, I'm taking this opportunity to revisit the game's graphics. Some of them were not to my liking as they were mostly placeholders for beta testing purposes.

Let me give an example:

The boxing ring before:


and now:


The Bread Cave

I've started putting the "Bread Cave" together. It's by no means finished at the moment but I thought I'd give a glimpse of the current WIP:


The idea is to have this place as your home base so to speak. The computer is to be used to access databases and the bed to rest and save your game. The portraits on the wall are to be for people who provided exceptional support on the game. They are based on real life photos.

Save Games and potential Challenge

Being a fan of difficult games myself like Dark Souls and I need to be careful about my own personal bias about this.

I'm currently considering about checkpoints and how they influence the difficulty of the game. I want to make sure save-scumming isn't an option as it ruins game balance and the challenge of the game. On the other hand, we need to make sure not to be too punishing either which would lead to frustration and ruin the fun.

What's Next?

Jeff Mann, the programmer, is currently working on tweaking the game's layout. This might not seem like much but it takes time to implement and every single change has to be weighed in carefully.

He is working this week on integrating the game's option menu as well:


______________________________________________________________________________

That's it for this week! Join in the conversation and let us know about your opinions about the game's development!

Etienne

[io3 creations]

Now keep in mind that is based on my own experience which is admittedly anecdotal *but* if you're an indie, I would recommend doing your own analysis in order to better evaluate the role of twitter as advertising tool. It certainly convinced me to never, ever use twitter as an advertising media.

Sounds like you might be throwing out the babies with the bathwater for your other projects.   I'm sure you've seen other indie Twitter account that are doing well - at least in terms of activity. 

When asked, the developer of a recent Kickstarter mentioned that most support came from his twitter account followers.  Sometimes it can seem like that not much is happening on Twitter but that may not be the case when certain events (e.g. Steam Greenlight, Kickstarter, game release) take place.  My guess is that depending on the number of followers, it might still be good to post some updates once in a while to remind people and of course when certain major events happen - especially if some people only follow the game on Twitter.  Perhaps it's the niche aspect of Super Toaster X may be the reason why most "gamers" aren't interested in following or perhaps those interested are already following it elsewhere.

[Zizka]

A very interesting input. I'll keep it in mind for the KS and it's related usage of twitter  .


Alright so the steam process is pretty much over (the paperwork part). While I'm waiting for the programming to catch up, I'm delving into the trading cards, badges and so on.

Badge:

Level 1:


Level 2:


Level 3:


I'm supposed to title each one.

Level 1: Young crumbs.

Level 2: Tender Crust.

Level 3: Toaster Ready.

I'm wondering if I'm on the right path here. I'm a bit confused about patches as they're not achievements from what I understand.

Are my descriptions good or should I go with something like: supporter, senior supporter etc...?

All of them together: