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TIGSource ForumsCommunityDevLogsThe Cycle - arcade neopoly kinetic realturn violence
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io3 creations
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« Reply #20 on: February 27, 2016, 12:21:11 PM »

Geoff: Thanks a lot man, yeah I try to make animation fun, I'm still learning. Sometimes I sometimes wonder if it's not too silly because the game actually isn't supposed to be comedic, but there are things that are just too fun to not to do(?) ( weapon switch etc. ).
The current color scheme is a good mix of "serious" darker and comical/entertaining brighter colors.  As mentioned before by @ColonelMustache, the "transformery"  (or any colorful toy related) description fits the game well.  It's about in the middle where people can take it a little more seriously or just have fun with it. Smiley



This is something that I'll have to do later for some of my upcoming games.  I've heard about quaternions but haven't looked much into them.

My initial idea was to use the sword's before and after movement positions (handle and tip).  Then create a mesh for with those points as the vertices.  If you already have an object that you want to rotate then it's possible to find out the position and rotation of the plane that has three of those points and use that to orient your blade and graphics.
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weckr
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« Reply #21 on: March 05, 2016, 10:09:09 AM »

io3:
Thanks, altough my problem is not getting the correct rotation, but adding the rotation in relation to player and in relation to the weapon movement direction correctly to my weapon swoosh sprite. Whatevs, will figure it out eventually.

Hello!  Lips Sealed Hand Metal Right Will anyone be at http://game-access.com/ ? I'm going to apply to indie expo, deadline is 15th. So, naturally, things are getting little crazy. This deadline helped the game tremendously in every aspect, tho. Also my head hurts.
 

There is no such thing as "enough" feedback.

But, haven't really made any gifs, or added flashy features, which would make me make the aforementioned gifs.  Facepalm Mostly tuning, working on overall structure of the game, debugging, and about fourth iteration of tutorial has been made. I hate doing these, but the game needs it. Hopefully it will work better, going to playtest it with few friends and a bottle tommorow, still have a week then for implementing some testing feedback.

Well, crappy devlog, but my head hurts. Busy days ahead. And behind. Heh. Behind. Giggle

Until next week sayonara, nerds!  Ninja Hand Knife Right
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« Reply #22 on: March 07, 2016, 12:01:36 PM »

Demo yet?
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weckr
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« Reply #23 on: March 13, 2016, 10:18:55 AM »

demo: No public demo yet, and won't be for quite some time, If ever will be, since this this is now a fulltime commercial effort. Altough the structure of the game could support a cut down demo version I guess, If it wouldn't take away too much devtime.

Hey gamedev peeps. Been crazy two weeks. The last weekend playtest went... well, terribly. The game itself held acceptably, with few bugs poping out but nothing critical. The hard problem is still teaching the player about the goddamn game. I've never expected to be it so hard in a game basically about jumping and slashing with very light progression. So, will be finishing about fifth version of tutorial in next few days. The friends who tested were unfamiliar with the genre, so I guess I could expect working it a little better with my rather hardcore target audience, but still no excuses, almost anyone must get the basic mechanics, no wikis.

Was also polishing core look and gameplay since that playtest, made some huge strides in general game feel and difficulty balancing area. Much more consistent and deliberate camera shakes and timefreezes too.

Because this weekend I had to make a video, for reasons. Made it at other friend's house since he has computer able to record and edit the thing properly ( masterrace 1080p 60fps ). Had to do it in one day, and haven't used premiere in, like, forever, man. So that was fun. But it's done now. And I guess it's allright for sort of tiny gameplay teaser and given my constraints. Good thing I got some more testing a feedback from people at friend's flat, and it was way better than that last week, so that's nice I guess.

GIF FROM VIDEO, SUCH IMAGE QUALITYNESS

VIDEO DELIVERED THROUGH YOUR TUBES




Second deadline for actual solid build is in two days. Then, I will die.

And drink wine, eat kebab and read some Gibson or something.
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sakrirafael
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« Reply #24 on: March 13, 2016, 11:16:41 AM »

I love how absolutely everything is animated at least to some extent. Can't wait to try this out! Beer!
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« Reply #25 on: March 13, 2016, 02:17:11 PM »

That trailer looked awesome!

Couple comments though: the camera movement made it very difficult to track the player character. This combined with the ridiculous amount of motion and color of everything else made it very difficult to read the game at a glance. Also the diamond effect (not sure what to call it) around the edge of the screen sometimes kinda through me off. What's that effect for?

Loving the progress though! Keep it up!
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« Reply #26 on: March 19, 2016, 08:24:03 AM »

Dire: Yeah making the game readable at later, more clusterf*ck-y levels is major future challenge. Several ideas how to go about it. Either effects will go out faster, depending on how much is on the screen, or maybe they don't spawn, or something like that. Don't know yet. The diamond frame of the screen communicates how much heat do you have and what can you do ( red - full heat no jetpack usage, yellow - can dash , normal - can jump )

Allright. I have sent application for gameaccess conference and was accepted shortly after, so if anyone here will be attending, you can come to the our booth at inde expo to play probably horribly broken build and as a proof that somebody except robots actually reads all this!  Hand Joystick Blink Hand Any Key


Stomp to stun and bring them close, and then punch them in their nose!(s)

But what about the dev Weckr?! You ask impatiently.Well, hello there! Well, after crazy last few weeks, this was a bit slower one. Also very game design oriented, since I had a lot of thinking to do about integrating last main gameplay system. Which will be secondary abilities. They will work basically as weapons(primary ability), interchangeable, but will be mainly about movement and evasion or weird stuff. You could even think of them like characters. They will be represented by hats.


And some sword action. It was supposed to be only weapon in the game, once.

And since I had to think about how you will obtain these and stuff, I redesigned the whole reward system in the game. And it will stealborrow heavily from downwell. Altough super crate box did it also very well. Basically, to get your main resource ( heatsinks ), which limits your movement and is also your hp, I will force you to recycle your weapon/hat and get a new one. So, as those mentioned games, this will make you adapt to new playstyles with new items constantly. Which is actually fun! Those goddamn constraints! Freedom never solved anything! Unless you like minecraft and open world games I guess, but then clearly you have no taste and lots of time(jk Big Laff).

Look forward to the next episode, when I recount everything that went horribly with implementation of this new system. I'm going to engage in some vices now. Toast Left Cool Coffee Hand Fork Left Hand Knife Right Evil Evil Evil

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« Reply #27 on: March 19, 2016, 11:15:10 AM »

I agree with @DireLogomachist that there's a lot of extra details in the video that make it harder to tell what is going on and take away what was working well before when most things were simpler (at least for me).  It reminds me of how fog can be very effective to hide things and make them mysterious but in this case "hiding" details means that certain aspects are no longer visible. Now, with the extra light effects on the ground, it's harder to see the time wave motion and the some of the explosions seem to have a similar effect.  Also, seemed like that the camera was zoomed in more than before.  Having a farther view might help since then most of the effects will be "smaller" as well and may not influence the overall view as much.
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weckr
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« Reply #28 on: March 26, 2016, 04:21:30 PM »

io3:
Yeah you guys are right. I just kept adding little effect after little effect, and it has become kind of a mess. I mean I can play and see everything I need to see to play effectively, but it's definitely too much for a new player. I have already begun the process of moving from all Unity Particle systems to much clearer and simpler custom particles / effects which do exactly what I want, and removing/tuning down some of the effects. Camera was gradually zooming in over the course of development, reason being combat is much better to play and precise to control from smaller distance. I don't think I will be changing this much, because precise combat is what the game is about. Definitely going to be scaling effects in favor of changing camera.

So, hello everybody! I am a bit drunk, because it's saturday night before easter! Please Do excuse any siliness, optimism, or positivity. I was socializing, and you don't care. As you should. But now, the week: Hand Point Right

I implemented two hats, and the modified rewards system. You know that thing, when you change one system in a highly compact, interconnected game design, it ripples through the whole game and all its systems? Well then you know how fun this week was! Epileptic

The major mind blow was: If you have pretty effin great primary attack with each weapon ( which you need to have, because then the game is like... fun? ), with nice reach and kills most stuff in basically one hit, why would you ever use your secondary evasion/stun/weird ability? This is serious problem in many games, why use cool shit, when the easy shit is the best option actually? Well, you have this heat resource in the game, and in earlier builds, you used it for dashing and jumping, as a fuel for jetpack basically, and it recharged with walking around, every two tiles... BUT OH BOY DID I HAVE AN IDEA  Shocked


Your first secondary ability used to be the ground stomp. Now it is badass roundhousekick.

Your primary attack now generates heat too. So you can't just go around wrecking shit anymore. And walking doesn't cool you like before, because it was super dumb. YOUR SECONDARY COOL EVASION/STUN ABILITY COOLS YOU NOW. This forces you to use both primary AND secondary attack, AND be more conscious and tactical and deliberate about your moves since if you spam attack too much it limits your mobility and offense severely. ALSO I made every pick up from enemies to cool you one point so pickups now have way more meaning and they drop from enemies in much more fluid fashion with every hit ( not just on death ) so there is much smoother failure/success curve with many points in between! Did I mention that the magnitude of the cooling effect of the secondary ability depends on how much stuff you hit with it or how successful its use was ( like the distance the weapon traveled with weapon throw )?  WTF


And a random unrelated gif from old builds! Slashing through hordes! I know it's bad, but it is late, and I want to sleep!

But seriously though, I don't want to jinx it, but this new game loop makes me kind of excited. It's still rough and buggy and needs balancing and all that "finish" bull, you know, the actual work, but the game plays so better now, and it's simpler in a way! I needed this after these idea-less last few weeks, was getting a bit depressed with the game. Other things happened this week, like the reward statues now work differently, and of course some little stuff like new heat indicator on player shoulders, but I'll talk about it later( statues still not really figured out ). Or never( heat indicator change is pretty trivial, much better tho ). Who, Me?

Have amazetits easter, and I will assbutt you next week! Kiss

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« Reply #29 on: March 28, 2016, 10:34:15 AM »

Hah, this is cool! I like the idea behind those last few changes you made - it sounds like it adds a very fluid, combo-oriented approach to the gameplay. Also, I'm glad you made the grass greener - it was a bit plain originally.

If I had any advice, it might be to change the colors of the weapons to make them stand out more. For example, maybe make the sword blade yellow or dark gray instead of purple, since the main character's body's already purple. Something like that to help distinguish the parts.

Anyway, keep it up!
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« Reply #30 on: March 28, 2016, 11:12:27 AM »

weckr: I agree, that after playing with your game for a long time, you'll know it very well.  Also, I know that watching gameplay and actually playing a game can be different as I probably would focus more on the enemies and ignore other details more.  Based one my experience, it still seemed like that there's a lot of movement going on and some of that might be distracting (at least for me).

About the zoom: I was thinking about it, and in shooter games, it's better to have an overview of the situation and see all enemies (and fired bullets) that can attack you.  Since your game has more of a close combat type action, I agree that the closer zoom is fine.  So, as long as there are no surprise enemy attacks from close by, the view should be fine.
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« Reply #31 on: March 28, 2016, 11:53:27 AM »

This is looking awesome in so many ways!  I'm loving the animations and color palate.
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weckr
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« Reply #32 on: April 01, 2016, 06:17:45 AM »

Started concepting some lategame boss encounters, some of these will be a pretty hardcore challenge, where all that you have learned will be tested.

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weckr
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« Reply #33 on: April 02, 2016, 10:05:26 AM »

SolarLune:
Definitely interesting point about weapons, I may try to make them just more grey and bright, to make them more "bare metal".

Otherwise thanks for all the feedback guys! Hand Thumbs Up Left Wink Hand Thumbs Up Right

Ok, this week I worked mainly on two more hats/secondary abilities, which brings us to the number of four hats + basic hatless roundhousekick. Same as number of weapons, giving us about 25 ability/weapon combinations. This will do for quite some time and I can turn my rusty head to other stuff.


First new secondary is mortal kombat GETOVERHERE hook, but you can also reel yourself in to an immovable object

I have also refined and completed the game heat resource economy/cycle. I dare to say it is kind of beautiful now. Last piece was ability to discharge heat into surrounding floor tiles. One tile, one point of heat. Using secondary abilites also discharges your heat, but only if you hit enemy with it. You can also discharge heat directly into enemy if you have grabbed him, but only limited amount, otherwise it will explode on you.


Last secondary is contextual, stunning powerslide, but if there's something in front of you, you will leap over it and stun it too

But what does all of this mean? It means that the cooling is finite resource. You either waste enemies with it, or floor tiles. Hitting enemies with secondaries doesn't damage them, only stun them, and cools you, but you have to kill the thing sooner or later anyway. So you can't spam heat generating and heat recharging stuff infinitely. You are using level itself as a resource. It's a bit like desktop dungeon, I guess, but it also absolutely isn't. However it feels wonderful and complete. The problem with it is difficulty. It made the game significantly harder. This will have to be addressed by tweaking enemies and platform sizes I guess, since there isn't really anything more to tweak on player, it just all makes sense now.


Discharging heat into floor tiles evaporates them, and is goddam radical

Pretty alright progress I would say, but I am still behind schedule. I still want to rework how player supermode works, to make it more elegant too, but also I want to start polishing and debugging and another tutorial for the expo in two weeks. Crazy weeks incoming again. Also sad about very weak response to my concept art of a dating sim type encounters, probably will have to scrap the feature:(


And again unrelated old gif, this time killing miniboss

Well this was a nice devlog, wasn't it... Made some pictures this week. Well I am going to spiritually prepare for the craziness of next two weeks by eating an egg, and you have cool and fun and pleasant rest of the weekend. And life.
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weckr
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« Reply #34 on: April 09, 2016, 11:53:41 AM »

Oh god. Facepalm

I haven't felt this petrified, since like, thesis defense? And that went terribly. Week until someone other than my friends will play this, like, industry people are going to play it. I feel sick and panic attack-y. Should be crunching on making that goddam tutorial, but had hard time doing anything today, after week of mostly work except some exercise to keep sane. I am so dumb too, made a lot of core gameplay changes this week, while I should just debug and make player teaching things. Crazy



At the beginning of the week I added pathetic and cute little jump, which you do when you are overheated and pressing the jump or dash button. There's also a really weak offhand punch replacing attack. Again more interesting than just being unable to do anything with those buttons while overheated, and the jump especially seems actually pretty fun and useful. Hand Thumbs Up Right



I have also upgraded the screen UI. I really didn't want any traditional screen-glued UI, but it is way too useful especially for new players I think. I have changed icons since this screenshot and polished it a bit, but layout and shape is the same. And it actually skews correctly with the world, so it's lines are always aligned with the world. Hand Thumbs Up Right

And then the madness started. No No NO



I don't remember why now, but while the discharging heat through tiles and secondary attacks was fun, it wasn't... true. You could still spam alt attack indefinitely on enemies to have unlimited cooling. It was fun, and nobody would probably ever do it. But it was possible and I hated it. So after much deliberation, only other source of cooling than destroying floor tiles and pickups (which are ejected every time enemy loses health, so limited), you can now cool by discharging heat directly into enemies while you are grabbing them. Grabbing was really underused in testing, and while really fun when you knew about it, kind of unnecessary. You can rotate the enemy to direction while grabbed, so you can knock him into other enemies causing chain reaction, but again,to just attack was simpler.
So. Hand Pencil
Now you can grab only stunned enemies. And you can only stun them by using secondary attack, which lost the cooling effect but still generate no heat. And when you face the stunned enemy, and pressing direction to him, you grab automatically, so there's posibility of accidental discovery of this mechanic, then you can discharge 3 heat into him for his 1 hp, rotate him, or attack him, whatever. Also, since stunning is now important and discrete mechanic, enemies can now be stunned in air, as demonstrated in gif. Before they lost the stun in air immediately. AND so you can grab them in the air and hold onto them. And rotate around them. Which is kind of awesome.

Ok way too much text.

Don't really know if this whole thing wasn't a mistake and should've kept the simpler funner way, but I like to -and I hope in long term a good decision- to prefer elegance and uh... truth, in design. Holy crap do I get pretentious, watched too many Blow interviews about witness. Sorry. Beg

Anyway, TLDR shit's crazy right now, I'm scared, I'm not prepared, wish me luck for next week. I mean it's not like anything substantial is going to happen if people there think it's shit, but, you understand. I care. We all care. Because these things are parts of our souls, or at least seem like it.  Roll Eyes

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« Reply #35 on: April 11, 2016, 10:58:47 AM »

Are the consequences of this meeting similar to your thesis defense?  Or is it more of a feedback forum?

In any event, good luck! Smiley
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« Reply #36 on: April 11, 2016, 06:43:21 PM »

Dude, you got this.  The game looks great and whatever they say can only make the game better!
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« Reply #37 on: April 17, 2016, 08:39:42 AM »

 Hand Thumbs Up Right
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« Reply #38 on: April 17, 2016, 09:55:04 AM »

This is looking great man! How did the thing go?
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« Reply #39 on: April 17, 2016, 11:09:57 AM »

Ok, 3 - 2 - 1

POST CONFERENCE DEVBLOG RAMBLE INITIATE

Ok a lot has happened in the last week. I was getting the build together to be playable for the conference. I have made a huge change to the basic gameplay (heat management) a day before the conference. I also made a new tutorial. Tested it on roommates. Sucked super hard. Made some changes and tested again, sucked less. Then there was no more time.


Dear God.

Beginning of the conference was incredibly terryfying. I walked there with my 24inch screen in hands and it's stand in backpack plus laptop. It's only about 1-2 km but fun nonetheless. Also haven't looked at the map enough before, and ended prolonging my walk for about 20 minutes haha. The terrified set up the table. Then, not sure if going to vomit, went to toilets to wash my face haha.

Anyway...

Most people, if they got through the tutorial, quit immediately after. So after few of these, I disabled the tutorial and became the tutorial. As I explained the game over and over myself, I got much better sense of what to leave out for later, and what is essential. Thanks to this, people weren't leaving as early, but most still left before they "got" the game. There were a few people tho, who got over that initial ten minutes hurdle, and proceeded to enjoy the game! One guy really liked it! And most guys who had experience with roguelikes climbed that curve too! So it seems like I'm kind of okay with target audience.


Not many gifs this week

Everyone liked the looks, but the game is really inaccessible right now! There really isn't that much to learn. Combat is more complex than most roguelikes, but much less than something like DMC. It's just you need to know and use ALL of the parts to even start playing, because everything chains and connects to everything.

I went to the conference thinking I had the beginning of the game, but now I actually think I have the middle. There needs to be a real nice ease-in into the combat system, no cobbled tutorial over few days.

Last minute heat management change proved to be a major MAJOR improvement. Also spend the night between the days implementing what feedback I could ( got about 6 A4 pages over the two days ), and it was so satysfying seeing how much better the game played for people the next day! Also few people from the first day got back for more! Thought I was going to die at the end of the second day haha.


Small thing, tried to communicate the "enemies react only to your actions" thing, but of course nobody notices, way too subtle

So. It was amazing. It helped me so much. And I don't even mention here the social aspect of having these all like-minded people doing the same thing on one place. If you have a chance to participate in something like this, GO, it is invaluable, even when most people leave your game after two minutes! Makes the ones who actually click with the game so rewarding. It is teryfying and a lot of work and exhaustion, but so worth it. I would love to do this every 3 - 4 months, but I doubt there is enough of these events close enough.

So, go outside sometimes. I would die doing this often, but the rewards indeed are shiny. See you next regular screenshot saturday with hopefully better gifs, and rambling about not being able to read my feedback notes, or remember what they mean (and I'm not even kidding).
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