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[IBwWG]

0.9.0 release is out on itch.io!

0.9.0 (Beta)
============

- New screen allowing you a choice of three save slots or a guest slot to play from
- Zoom in in animated mode and updated help in Under the Spell of Shiny Shimmering Sunbeam Sparkles
- New "play all help in order" mode, default only on first pause per minigame
- More book art everywhere
- New music and stings from Ashton
- BookNarration revamp
- Credits now with individual music track credits, and animated decorations
- Stat Ups screen revamp, tutorial, and end-of-game point-out
- Per-save-lot option to disable announcer guy
- There should be no missing sounds (except perhaps in Aikido)...if you hear a "dong" sound where there should be some text read out loud, please let me know. 
- Fixed the following bugs, among others:
   - Successful Taisabaki isn't annouced Aikido as Mathilda Aikido as Willy bug
   - Music loop starts while paused on start+loop minigames bug pause/help subscreen
   - help text overflows beside picture and mouse instruction bug Dolphin Patterns pause/help subscreen
   - help text read aloud when moused over, even if scrolled under HUD bug pause/help subscreen
   - book narration background music persists to beginning of map bug
   - Menu substates (options, updates-available) still respond to invisible menu beneath bug title menu
   - next/prev phrase doesn't work when speed is slower than third-fastest setting Book Narration bug
   - Skipping ending sequence instead loops forever bug Dolphin Patterns
   - Map should show how many books you've earned on PWYC games bug map screen
   - Clicking character icon stops music bug map screen
   - Start main music loop at speech end bug Collect Fairy Dust
   - Crash if you click a marker instead of "Try Again" in Dolphin Patterns
- See https://github.com/IBwWG/mathildagame-bugs/issues?q=is%3Aissue+is%3Aclosed+milestone%3A0.9.0 for more

Aikido time!  Blender/CoaTools, here we come!

[IBwWG]

Well, today was a bit of a mixed bag.  First, the good news, my collaborators got a lot of stuff in early!  So those are integrated, check.

The mixedness came trying to do the remaining Aikido animations.  I had a goal with this game to make the animations more or less technically correct, by following videos of Aikido practitioners doing the moves, and doing a frame-by-frame remake using Blender, only in 2D because I'm working with 2D painted assets.

The problem is, Blender's not really made for this.  Why use it, then?  Because I had already tried Spriter, which was also not made for this.  "This" not being just 2D animation: Spriter is made for that.  "This" being animating Aikido, which involves changing your sprites just about every frame, because most Aikido moves have you spinning like a Tasmanian devil.  "This" being having your animation software actually key both your sprite changes and z-order changes properly.  Spriter didn't do that, so I switched to Blender because, with CoaTools, Blender could more easily do 2D.  However, Blender also has sprite and z-order issues.  Or CoaTools does.  I'm not really sure.  But on my crap hardware, it's taken me a long time to realize, no, I wasn't just forgetting to make keyframes, it's actually eating them.  Just like Spriter was.  It's really something.

So, my task of making 2D animations of Aikido moves using cutouts went from being A Lot of Work That If I Come Up With An Efficient Workflow Would Be Doable, to being Not Only Frustratingly Slow But Actually Impossible.

The mixedness about this is that a) it's the first day of my latest attempt, so unlike the first few weeks I spent (a few months ago) getting the initial animations "somewhat done" (done except for a few touchups needed...ha! until you try to do them and end up on the z-index/sprite-change keyframe merry-go-round!) I don't have to waste any more time on it, because now I know it can't be done!

And b) now I have to come up with something in it's place, which can be freeing!  The mixedness there, though, is that I cannot think of a way to stay true to Aikido moves without trying to do what I was trying to do.  I don't have the option of going fully 3D because I don't have a 3D artist and have 0 experience myself, and no longer time to learn.  But WTH, it's a game.  I will do what I can and it will probably be more fun this way: I'll make something a bit closer to a more traditional fighter instead of the "multiple choice with lots of eye candy" sort of deal I had ended up making so far here instead.

So, I think, since I'm in the CoaTools/Blender zone still, I will continue to use them, but I just won't rotate the characters at all.  They will be shown from the side only.  I will use inverse kinematics and all the rest, but it will be very strictly 2D feeling.  Did I mention more fun to play?  Also more fun to make.  Also way easier to explain in the help, probably.

I'm trying not to go too fighter-y: I wouldn't feel great, obviously, about a game where, as an adult male, you are beating up a young girl.  The goal will still be to defend yourself and neutralize your attacker without harming your attacker, that much will be true to Aikido.  It's just that *all* the moves will be generic evasion, rather than real Aikido Stuff With Names That You Would Find At An Aikido Class.  But then I can have physics and have a bit more fun with the animations, rather than just having the job of trying to make them look like a white blur on a white background throwing another white blur onto the white floor.  That aspect of it was also a bit trickier and less fun than making games could be.

I'm thinking the characters will both be able to jump and duck, and as Uke the computer will throw a shoulder punch or go for a kind of soccer kick.  Maybe a diving tackle.  If you evade via jumping or ducking, your score stays the same.  If you get hit, it drops.  If you match the correct move to the punch/kick/tackle then you get a point.  If you mismatch, you get hit.  (Sort of like how it is now, just with more flexibility for the jumping and ducking, and you're in control of the physics, and there's actually collision checking.)

So that's the new plan.  Suggestions welcome.

[IBwWG]

OK, after being hard at work on this new plan over the past few days, and sorting out some new library bugs and gotchas (wasted a couple hours this morning before realizing that the single-line memory optimization of dumping the graphics cache once all the animations were loaded actually makes pixel-perfect collision checks stop working, for instance...) I'm proud to offer a brand new Aikido engine for some quick testing.  Download the latest bleeding edge build and play as Mathilda (the Willy animations are not done yet, so you won't be able to play as him.)

The game's a lot more interactive now, since you can evade however you want.  But, you only get points if you prevent your attacker from harm, too, not just yourself.  If you both get hurt, you lose points.

The controls are (since they're not in the help yet):

arrow keys: walk, duck, jump
hold SHIFT and one or more arrow keys: attempt Aikido evasion.

Move around.  Uke will attack at a random moment when close.

Gain a point ("Nice!"): do the right evasion for the given attack to enable a safe takedown of uke.  (with SHIFT held)

Neutral ("Taisabaki!"): just evade.  (without SHIFT held, or at least without doing the key combination that corresponds to the wrong takedown)

Lose half your points ("Ushironage!"): collide (for whatever reason) or do the wrong takedown, or do the right takedown, but too late


Gain 2 points if you manage the right evasion for the kick move.


Enjoy!


PS, the stat-ups are not yet honoured in Aikido as of the bleeding edge just uploaded.

[IBwWG]

Sorry for anyone who tried downloading the bleeding edge, there have been ongoing issues with Google's cloud that itch.io uses so my upload didn't actually go through as I had expected (since, as of last time I tried it, the issues had been resolved.)  I had to upgrade butler again and now it uploaded right away, so it should be available now if you try again.

(What would've happened is, you would've gotten the old Aikido engine.  Quick test would be, pressing the down arrow should make you duck, if you have the new engine.)

[IBwWG]

OK, I didn't *quite* make the deadline, but I'm happy.  I got all the aikido animations done  , and the engine totally rewritten and working with fun mechanics.

Just a few audio touchups, which are not so convenient to do, since it's 1 AM and everyone's asleep here...

Tomorrow morning!  Release candidate time!  Then I would appreciate the help anyone who would be willing to test and try to find bugs. 

[IBwWG]

Release candidate!  Find it on itch.io.

Available for Windows, Linux 32-bit (with or without hardware acceleration), and Linux 64-bit.

0.9.5 (Release Candidate)
=========================

- Aikido features and animations done.
- Final tracks from Ashton.
- Final tracks from Dustin.
- Princess Balapoo is now on the left when you're playing as her, as I had originally intended and then forgotten.
- See https://github.com/IBwWG/mathildagame-bugs/milestone/12?closed=1 for more

[IBwWG]

Some last minute changes, available on the bleeding-edge channel at https://ibwwg.itch.io/mathildagame ...

- Final addition of musical stings by Ashton for Dolphin Patterns and "Under the Spell...".
- Fixed the music track for "Under the Spell..." to actually have music (in 0.9.5 you heard only ocean.)
- The book narration now shows a bit wider view of Michael's artwork than you can see in the print edition.
- Narration is now in stereo, thanks to Dustin reminding me.
- If you were having missing background music on any of the games, that should be fixed now.
- Gong sound added to Aikido.
- Aikido uke will no longer stay stuck to the screen edge during an attack move if that's where uke started the attack.
- Swimming games have a bit more controllable diving mechanic when playing with Adrenaline stat-ups.
- Fix Dolphin Patterns so leaving the game and then trying to skip the ending doesn't make the game get stuck forever.
- Fix help showing despite having played before, only since 0.9.5.
- Allow screenshots (F12) on subscreens.
- Painting Your Dreams now has its sticker rotation slowed down a bit so it's easier to work with.

Also, since things are more or less how they'll be, I took some updated screenshots finally and made a new montage.  You can see it's come a long way since the beginning:



But, the screenshots don't do it justice without hearing the fantastic soundtrack by Jennifer Field, Ashton Mills, and Dustin van Wyk bring everything to life while you play.  Go give it a run!   

[IBwWG]

The game is live!  After 7 months in full-time development, Windows, Linux 32-bit (with or without hardware acceleration), and Linux 64-bit builds are all available now at https://ibwwg.itch.io/mathildagame .  Pay What You Want, currently no minimum.  We hope you enjoy it!   

[IBwWG]

If you were having the Stat Ups screen crashing on 1.0.0, that should be fixed in 1.0.1.  Thanks for leaving automatic crash reporting enabled!  That really helped me in attempting to fix this.

A little more detail, I had a very similar problem elsewhere, but on two different Windows machines here (7 & 10) I could not reproduce it.  However, for our composer Ashton, it was consistent on his Win10 box.  This latest report comes from someone with Win7, so it's clearly not related to the Windows version.  But I'm quite perplexed as to the cause, since it was so straightforward for Ashton to encounter this bug, yet I couldn't get it to mess up on mine.

Anyway, an extra forced check where "I shouldn't need one" should have fixed this in this other case too.

[IBwWG]

BTW there's a Mac version up.  Could anyone with a Mac comment on whether the game seems to work, and what version of OS X you're on?  Thanks muchly. 

Still payment-optional (for now) at: https://ibwwg.itch.io/mathildagame

Oh, also, the OST would be awesome, but unfortunately sales have not been high enough.  Would anybody be willing to pre-order the soundtrack, in order to make it more feasible for the musical composition team to make it happen?  (Would a kickstarter make sense here?)

[IBwWG]

Some bug fixes in time for the holidays!

1.0.3
=====

- Fix slo-mo stat-up effect so it stops when leaving a mini-game.
- Fix slo-mo stat-up starting too late near apex to help on Acrobatics as the Catfish Fairy.
- Fix arcs on neighbouring letters just after repop on Under the Spell of Shiny Shimmering Sunbeam Sparkles.
- Add announcer recording for "uhoh..." on higher difficulties of Under the Spell of Shiny Shimmering Sunbeam Sparkles.
- Fix too-often collisions on Catch Up and not-often-enough collisions on Collect Fairy Dust when playing with certain stat-ups.
- Reveal last hidden treasure when leaving Treasure Hunting.
- Add loading indicator while loading next screen on Treasure Hunting, and load about five times faster.
- Fix map getting stuck on first run-through if you skip the book narration using Esc or the corner button.
- Fix markers fading out too fast to be seen during dialogue in Dolphin Patterns.
- Fix skipping dialog on harder difficulties making it impossible to guess the pattern in Dolphin Patterns.
- Add four stickers to Painting Your Dreams.

Also thanks for the folks who tested the Mac version.  Shout out to Angela and Giorgio for their help with this!  Mac seems to be quite stable, with no reported crashes.

BTW if anyone is willing to show off their demo video skills by putting together gameplay videos I've made (or any you might want to make yourself) please contact me.  Thanks!

[IBwWG]

OK, our gameplay demo video is now up on YouTube, go have a look.    Cheers & the best of holidays to all of you.    https://ibwwg.com/mathildagame/video

[IBwWG]

There are also now many videos of individual mini-games, with and without the Stat Upgrades you can do at the end of the game, and on various difficulties.

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCnOB6bw2yCGin-GpXFNlopQ