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[flashysquirrel]

EDIT : The game is out on the stores since 15 october !

>> Get it on the App Store <<

>> Get it on the Google Play Store <<

_____________________________________
>> Browser playable demo <<

The action take place in a post apocalyptic world, where nature has harmoniously mixed with unoccupied urban areas.
The dominating species are monkeys who fight themselves on top of buildings for domination.

Playable demo : http://citymonkeygame.com/v2/bin

Presentation of the game

City Monkey is an artillery game (like worms, gunbound, gorilla), with fast and simple settings : 1 vs 1 battles with no energy bars (touching means killing), no moving allowed, only shoot precision can help you winning. So basically it’s a very simplified artillery game, with a main focus centered on online multiplayer.

The maps are destructible and randomly generated (except in solo mode where i designed specifics levels)

I made this game because i always loved artillery game, but found nothing easy and fast to play online. That's where the "no-moving" becomes critical, it means you don't need to wait extra time and i could only allow each player a round of 20 seconds.






This game is a reference to gorilla, an old artillery game from 1991 with 2 gorilla on top of buildings, where you entered the angle and power by typing on keyboard.
I played it against my older brother when i was 5 years old, i guess this memory had a big impact on me



A few screenshots









Context of the development

I achieved a first version of this game alone, 1 year ago, in a retro pixel-art style, which is (still) available for android and ios.
Here are some screenshot of the first version







Now, my team grew, we are 2, me (programmer) and a designer (a real one).
We wanted to completely remake the first version with a totally new look, more vecto / cartoonish and add a tons of improvements.
Some beta versions of the second version are playable on android and in browser

Android beta : https://play.google.com/apps/testing/air.com.appanonyme.citymonkey6
Browser beta : http://citymonkeygame.com/v2/bin/

I am developing working with Air and the starling framework.



Gameplay

• Set the angle of the target
• stay pushed to charge the power
• release
• use the wind efficiently to kill your opponent

This game is online, and players win or loose points according to an elo algorythm (winning against a strong player give you lot of points, winning against a bad player gives you few points…)


I'm new to this forum, but i will continue update my recent work on this, some arworks, and i would appriciate any feedback you can give me


Cheers

[flashysquirrel]

Random map generation


As in gorilla, i wanted a random generation of map, with different tower heights. I needed to make sure the 2 players can’t shoot each other directly, by adding high tower between them.
Generating some variable tower width and height and keeping a nice and natural aspect was a nice challenge. I started with a shape of tower that i can extend in width and height with a 9x9 grid algorythm to keep the aspect of the borders.





I then added a texture of bricks that i would dupplicate all over the shape of the building.
I did many texture pattern to pick randomly to make sure it will not have a dupplicate look.





After, added some windows elements that i disposed on a grid with randomized space





To give it a post-apocalyptic feel, i added some herbs along the side of the building





Then added some herbs texture and diverse object like bush, rocks… on the roof of the building





At the beggining, it worked well, but we could see that everything looked “from the same factory”, so a lot of parameters needed to be randomized to give a feeling that each building is unique.

[flashysquirrel]

Destructible maps


One of the most pleasant feeling in artillery game is to destroy the landscape.
The building graphics have outline (as i wanted some cartoon styled art), one of the difficulty was to keep these outline after the hole is “digged” in the bitmap

First i used a shape (shape of the hole), and used this sprite in an “erase” blendmode (acting as a rubber) to remove portion of the map. But doing this way also removed the black outline, making it look like this



I used an easy little trick, i first applied a black shape at the position of the hole, a little bigger than the shape used for erase the pixels. this way, after erasing the shape, a small black border stays visible.



I also wanted to randomize the holes with different realistic shape. Not make a simple circle, so i created differents shape that i would pick randomly.

As the weapon in the game are all fruit, i added some dynamicaly colored texture around the hole that i apply to simulate some fruit splash.



the fact that the splash texture are dynamic will allow me to easily make the splash match to the weapon / fruits that exploded. pretty excited about that !

[flashysquirrel]

some monkey artworks on paper

[flashysquirrel]

monkey standing animation



monkey arming and shooting

[flashysquirrel]

The basic weapon will be banana (infinite ammo), and i added other weapon in the game, but you must earn some ammo to use them (you get ammo as you get victory)

pineaple (symbol for grenade)
bounce against the walls, my collision engine is home made, it’s not as perfect as i wish it was but works okay in most situation. unlike most of the other, this weapon is not affected by wind



starfruit (symbol for shuriken)
shoot 3 starfruits at one with a rotating shuriken effect





coconut (symbol for mortar)
deadly weapon, makes the biggest holes among all weapons, and divide in 2 parts after first collision, to balance these advantage, you can’t set the power (like if the power bar is always 100% when you shoot it)
sorry for the quality of the gif, couldn’t get it better





lychees ryfle (symbol for uzi)
this weapon shoot a rifle of lychee, straight, convenient to dig into a building and try to reach the opponent.




grenade (symbol for fragmentation grenade)
this grenade bounce against the wall (like the pineaple) but explode in fragment. I thought the seeds inside the grenade fruit was a perfect metaphore for frags
The fragments are affected by the wind (unlike the grenade itself)

[davidp]

this looks really cool

[flashysquirrel]

more weapons gameplay, my concern about these 2 weapons is that they may be a little too easy to use. Since there won't be energy bar and the opponent is dead in only 1 shot, a weapon that makes it too easy to touch the target may make the game unfair.

I did a statistic system which will give me the kill ratio of each weapon to help me see which on is too advantageous and balance them.

flappy bomb
it’s a reference to the successful mobile game; you can click up to 3 times max to make it bounce in the air. The power is automatic, not sensitive to the wind.



remote orange
you can control this one with moving the mouse (or finger on mobile)
i’m just a little afraid this weapon will be to easy, i added a rotating animation (giving an excited effect to the orange), which increase the difficulty of using it. i hope it will be okay.
another thing i did to balance is that players won’t get this weapon as often as others

[flashysquirrel]

this looks really cool

cheers always happy to have feedback

[lululuprimal]

Wow!  So fun, love those flying bananas!!

[flashysquirrel]

The weapons as we can see them in the selection menu.
We wanted to give them an agressive look (they’re supposed to kill !) but also a cute side.


banana




Explosive pineaple




Ninja starfruit




Lychee riffle




Atomic coconut




Frag grenade

[heartbeast]

Went and played the game. It is easy to pick up and pretty fun. There was a great polish to the game.

I'm not sold yet on the 1-hit KO system. I played a random opponent and hit him on my first shot. It probably didn't feel too fair to him. I guess the replay button makes up for that? Maybe you could have a best out of 3 matching system for ranked games and a single match for free play? These are just some ideas. Your game is very good. I can tell you have put hours of work into this and it feels like a professional game. Congrats.

[flashysquirrel]

Went and played the game. It is easy to pick up and pretty fun. There was a great polish to the game.

I'm not sold yet on the 1-hit KO system. I played a random opponent and hit him on my first shot. It probably didn't feel too fair to him. I guess the replay button makes up for that? Maybe you could have a best out of 3 matching system for ranked games and a single match for free play? These are just some ideas. Your game is very good. I can tell you have put hours of work into this and it feels like a professional game. Congrats.

Thanks very much for the constructive feedback !

i had recently another idea which can also solve this problem (of unfairness), make it asynchrone, i mean by that let both players do their shot at the same time, then see the replay of what the other player did. It means, there would be no first to play. The only tricky thing would be the "double kill" situation when 2 players shoot each other at the same time

[flashysquirrel]

some other weapons icons
i’m not 100% happy about this flappy bomb as it’s the only exception among the 8 weapons which is not a fruit. But all my friend keep telling me it’s really cool and i should keep it

Flappy bomb




Remote orange

[flashysquirrel]

As mentioned in the previous post, i completely changed my multiplayer engine.

At the beggining, i programmed the online games synchronously, meaning that 1 player plays his shot, the other waits. When it's done, the other sees the replay and then plays his move. This is usually how it's handled everywhere.

But as i was running my bike on my way to a friend (programming in my mind as usual), i thought why not do it asynchronously. Let both players do their actions at the same time, and then see each other's replay. This scenario wouldn't be possible if the players were able to move, which would make the opponent action irrelevant since the position changed in between. But since in my game, position are fixed and player can't move, this is possible. This technique divide by almost 2 the overall waiting time, and gives a very pleasant and fluid game flow, i’m very excited about it !

The only drawback is that if the 2 players killed each other in a same round, it will end up in a "double kill" situation, which may frustrate some players.

[empika]

Rad! gorillas.bas was awesome, great to see a modern take on it!!

[Jin_K]

Looking neat !

I tried and loved it, good idea to work with asynchronous play from players, it speeds up the game greatly.
I'm following !

[leblackdragon]

Dude, your game just oozes style and personality. Really love the art work and animation. I've always wondered how those destructible environments were done, very you've explained how that is done. Keep up the awesome work.

[stryfe]

Congratulations for your results! This is greatly polished, it reminded me a bit of the Gunbound vector style with those black borders and it's really beautiful.

You said about asynchronous multiplayer actions. Did you consider nullifying each others attacks by sending the shots at the same time? It could be awesome if both shots find each other in the air (imo). Just tossing some ideas around

But again, this is a really polished game. You and your design co-worker are doing a great job!

[flashysquirrel]

thanks guys, it's true me and my designer spent very long time polishing this game. It's really cool to see that it was not just wasted time.

You said about asynchronous multiplayer actions. Did you consider nullifying each others attacks by sending the shots at the same time? It could be awesome if both shots find each other in the air (imo). Just tossing some ideas around

I get your idea, it's true that seing 2 projectiles exploding in the sky after colliding together would certainly be a lot of fun :p
but that would imply to wait after setting your angle and power, and only when the opponent's shot has been done (and received), you can watch the 2 shots simultaneously, i'm afraid this would be a loss of comfort / ergonomy in the game. Also the camera would have a hard time keeping the 2 projectiles visible at the same time.