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[GarBenjamin]

Just voted YES! This game looks absolutely fantastic both in literally how it looks and the gameplay based on the video. Really fantastic work and I will almost certainly buy this as soon as it is available.

[MekaSkull]

Voted 
Good luck!

[kevin andersson]

Thank you for the nice comments, it's been an amazing experience to read about all of the comments from twitter, tigsource, Facebook and also the Greenlight page!

Posting Jim Sterlings video of it.

[alvarop]

Congrats on getting greenlit! :D

 

[joemusashi]

"Thanks! We're trying to stay as close to NES games as possible.

The graphics, while excellent, are a bit beyond the capabilities of the NES. If it's simply "NES-inspired", there's nothing wrong with that. The art is great and the gameplay looks fun. But I feel it's only right to let you know it doesn't look very NES-like if that's what you're going for."

There is nothing bad in surpassing the NES capabilities. It is more... it is better! You can use Master System / Game Gear capabilities, and this will make your game clearer and better

[kevin andersson]

We got greenlit after just 7 days! It's amazing that we're able to continue along the path that we're on and then in the end be able to release it on Steam. Right now we're going to set things up so the game can be started through Steam.

I think that I'll dive in to start making the basics for a proper main menu and set up the achievements that we're going to have.
If you've got ideas for some cool achievements (no problem if you've not played the game, just throw out some ideas) then let me know!

Thank you all for your support!

[Ian_A]

Looking forward to this 

[kevin andersson]

Glad to hear that! It motivates us a lot!

[CullenCoyote]

Looking great! Really nailed the NES aesthetic

[kevin andersson]

Our main focus right now have been to set up a company and we're on our way with that part. In the meantime I've been adding some features and fixing bugs based on feedback from testers. A feature that we've been discussing for a while is to be able to kill smaller enemies by dropping a block on them.

[MekaSkull]

You've nailed the look. Everything is visually really awesome on that last gif. One thing you could check out is how in Kirby games for example, some things are poppy and snappy. You have a pretty even pace in how things happen and it works ok with your approach, but adding a few snaps here and there could liven it up even more.

Snappy things:
Having the block violently expel the enemy from under it. It's a pretty nasty thing to get squeezed to death, so adding to that feeling would be fun.

The explosion has even spacing. Having a longer spaces for the first frames would make it feel like a POP instead of a sizzle.
Also I suggest faster framerate and/or more frames for the explosion.

Anyhow, good luck! It looks like you're on the last stretch to release the game, right?

[kevin andersson]

Thank you for your feedback! I'm putting it on our list (hope that we manage to squeeze it in).

You are right, we're doing the last things for the game. Only a few weeks left, we're going announce a release date soon.

[kevin andersson]

Hello people!

This week and next week is being spent by completing the final feedback features and bugs from the testers and also some bugs that have been lying around for a while. Things are going really good and I can feel the game getting closer to completion. Although it's not there yet it's still pretty close.

[kevin andersson]

We're getting close to start implementing the Achievements in the game, do you have any good ideas for what we could have? All suggestions are welcome!
Speedrunning, completionist, pacifist or Action oriented?

Original tweet if you prefer to answer there: https://twitter.com/AlwasAwakening/status/767310547209584640

[kevin andersson]

This weekend have been really busy! On the programming side of the project there have been over 120 completed trello cards (bugs, fixes etc.). The game feels more polished than ever before. The fun part is that we're about to show the game to the public for the third time this weekend (September 3) and up to every time we've shown the game we've polished the crap out of what we had at the moment. Even though there's a lot to fix, it's not that much as I was afraid of.

We've now also made over 100 builds over the two years we've been working on it. Outside of the actual gameplay we've got achievements in the game and also options where you can change and save settings.

My plan is to upload some photos of this weekend when we show the game, until then you can look at this gif!

[kevin andersson]

We went to an event and showed Alwa's Awakening to a bunch of retro fans, this was the second time we attended to this event. The big difference this time was that instead of having around 40 rooms in the game we had about 500. Which means that the game is almost finished, I'm planning a "state of the game post" soon and will get more in to that later.

This was our third "real" event where we showed the game so we're pretty prepared whenever we go to events, so we didn't have any issues when setting up as you might have the first times (missing cables, something doesn't work), we were prepared this time!




Our tradition before everyone starts to rush in is to speedrun the demo and see who's the fastest. Since we didn't have a short demo but the whole game we didn't have time to complete everything.

The game is coming out on Steam for PC/Mac/Linux but we still wanted to do something physical, so we've got the soundtrack running on an original NES cartridge. It will come with a manual and a nice cover like the old NES games did.

Watching people play is fun, scary and interesting. If a player have a great time and nothing in the game breaks then the player is probably leaving with a good impression and a certain trust in the game. Before every event I try to have the demo done 1 week before, to make sure that no gamebreaking bugs show up. Then we basically spend 1 week playing the game and fixing minor things. We do this to mainly show up a polished version of the game and to avoid the awkward situation where you have to approach a player and let them know that they can't continue because of a bug or something like that.



I promise, more gif:s of the game are coming in the next post! But here's the team with a fan-art that we got when we arrived!

From left: Mikael(Designer), Kevin(me)(Programmer), Alexander(2D-artist),Robert (Music composer).

[NineTattooedDragons]

This looks really good! I'm looking forward to it. You not only seem to capture the old NES feel, but it looks like a great game on top of that.

[PypeBros]

I love what I've seen of monster design ^_^

[kevin andersson]

Thank you! Your comments motivates the team!

[kevin andersson]

CONTENT COMPLETE
So we've now reached a point in development where all of the in-game features are implemented and working. Which is really scary to admit, that what you've been working on is almost finished.
What's really left now (except some bugs and making sure the game is working in general) is to finetune the settings in the options.


WHAT'S BEEN DONE IN SEPTEMBER
This month has been great, it started off with a retro event where we showed of a lot of new cool things from the game. The game is also content complete right now, so now we're only focusing on polishing the game. All of the music, sound effects, graphics, level design, enemy behaviours and all dialogs in the game are final. We also released a new song, here it is!






WHAT'S REALLY LEFT?
Right now you can change and save the volume on music and sound effects but I need to fix so you can select language for dialogs in the game, change resolution and set fullscreen to what ever you like. One big task that I want to tackle as well is giving the option to remap the controller, we'll see how that goes but it's on my radar.

Oh and let's not forget about getting the game up and running on Steam, due to issues outside of the game we've not been able to get the game up on Steam after our greenlight campaign but things are going good so I think it'll be up this or next week. We've prepared with the necessary art assets to help smooth out the process.




UPCOMING EVENTS
This weekend we've got an event that we're going to. It's another retro focused event where around one thousand retro fans attend, the good thing about showing the game at those events are that they are our target audience. We often get a lot of good feedback and it's always nice to boost your self esteem when you see someone get really happy while playing your game!
I think that having deadlines like this is good for the game because you'll have to fix those bugs that are just lying around, you need to make sure that the game work and don't break when you're showing the game. It's important that the player get a good impression of your game.