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[tinyDino]

The Ambassador is a twin stick shooter that allows you to pause time to evade your enemies and rewards you with gear every time you complete a level. That's it really, we just want to make a fun, polished, combat focused game. No frills, no crazy mechanics that haven't been fleshed out. Just good old fashioned fun. We've found that focusing on combat, enemies and weapons has resulted in the best experience by far so we're going to run with it.

The Ambassador has been somewhat of a nightmare to develop. We've probably redesigned the game four times at this point, each one simplifying down to what we have now. Each previous design was a bit too ambitious or just wasn't fun; however, we've learned a ton along the way. As of right now, April 2018, The Ambassador has been in development for a year and a half. We hope to finish this summer.

Show offables

Who are these dorks?

Right now the game is being worked on by Ryan Throw and TJ Acre. We both have day jobs so progress is better on some days than others. We are aiming at a release date somewhere around the summer of 2018. We both like pizza. That's about it really.

The usual social media links

Twitter: https://twitter.com/SJ8cywPxQPUAqbZ
Tumblr: https://gregorwashere.tumblr.com/

Other media  

Siliconera was kind enough to do a quick review! http://www.siliconera.com/2017/01/25/pausing-time-blessing-curse-twin-stick-shooter/
Ingare just went live and did an interview with us!http://www.ingare.tk/the-ambassador

[tinyDino]

Quick update! I've been working on a couple new elements for the overworld which are pretty standard.

The first the doorways carved into the mountain side. These will lead to shops, ambush zones, mini dungeons, other parts of the map, quest etc. It was interesting getting the collision geometry right for these as it needs to allow the player to walk through it while also deflecting attacks and preventing enemy pathing.

The next are chasms. Chasms are simply areas that prevent the player from passing until they have the gear needed to get them across. This is a really simple way to block off areas of the map when you first start. While they are not the most elegant, I think a mixture of physical barriers and difficult enemies used as barriers can keep the player in a desired location pretty organically. Still deciding if I want to allow the player to fall into them or not....

Thats all for now guys. Ill have more interesting stuff to talk about soon.

[chrilley]

Those are some very creepy enemies 

Also congrats on getting greenlit!

[tinyDino]

Those are some very creepy enemies 

Also congrats on getting greenlit!

Thanks! yeah these are probably about as creepy as the game gets. Were working on plenty of other enemies all in different classes that will be equally or less creepy.

Also I'm glad to see you're back on Jarvis, its looking great man

[tinyDino]

The past couple days I've been working on the cave entrance to the first quest you will embark on. This quest is by far the easiest as you simply have to talk to this man to become an Ambassador. You are then awarded the golden staff which gives you your powers. Please ignore the current staff the player is holding in this image. It is just a placeholder. The beginning of the game is modeled after the first Zelda down to the shape of the starting area. You will spawn with no weapon and have to talk to this man to arm yourself, just like the first Zelda. This is of course by design and is meant to pay homage to that game.

Currently I am working on a bug regarding persistent objects that should remain existent between rooms. Before I explain further I will present an image that defines the problem.

As you can see, the debris from the barrels in the outside area carry over to the inside area. If you are not familiar with GameMaker, then I will briefly describe persistent objects. In GameMaker you are allowed at most one Room (a play area) to be instantiated at a time. Because the world is very big, we have divided it up into multiple rooms. However because of this, objects such as debris, blood, etc will disappear from a room once it is unloaded. Thus when you return to a room that you laid waste to, it will be in perfect condition. This is where persistent object come into play. Persistent objects will not be unloaded from GameMaker when a room is destroyed. Note this works great for the player, camera, hud, light engine, etc. but it sucks for objects like debris where there are thousands of pieces everywhere. It's just too much for the Game Maker to handle. This is where my solution comes in:

Every room is stored in a 2d array of rooms and two global variables represent your x and y position in the array. once the player walks off the edge of the screen, these variables are updated and the room switches. Now there is a persistent object I call obj_Persistence_Engine. When Blood, debris, etc is created, it logs its sprite image, rotation, x position, y position, and world coordinates into obj_Persistence_Engine. When a room is changed all existing debris and blood is destroyed. If there are any blood or debris objects logged into obj_Persistence_Engine in the next room they are instantiated on Room start. The result is the illusion of 1000s of persistent objects being achieved with a single persistent object, obj_Persistence_Engine. Now on to the problem:

This issue is that when room change is made to a cave like above, the global dungeon coordinates are never changed. Thus the debris from the last room are instantiated. Changing the variables would result the player entering another part of the map and not the cave. I will find a solution to this problem and talk about it soon...

I hope I didnt get too technical there. Let me know if you have any questions! Cheers!  

[tinyDino]

How's it going everyone!

Just a small update for tonight and unfortunately nothing to crazy to show. Finished creating the chasm geometry and logic so that flying enemies may path over chasms while walking enemies and the player may not. Spells may also move through these chasms. Planning on moving onto onto the bug that was described previously, tonight.

Sorry for the infrequent updates. I recently moved across the country and started a new job so that has taken up most of my time. I hope that going forward I'll have more time to develop and update.

[tinyDino]

We've got new stuff to show!! Here's a gif of what you can expect combat to look like early on in the game! Wands and magic will be reserved for later and until then old fashioned steal will have to get you by. We've gone through a bit of a redesign as to how the game will be structured but the combat has remained completely the same. You can see more about the redesign in the main page

Cheers! 

[tinyDino]

TJ here
Been working on adding more wildlife to the game.  Drew up some wolves today.
Here was the first model I settled on after drawing several.

Realized it was much too large compared to the player character so I had to shrink it down, then I tried out several different color pallets.
The bluish one might be my favorite.  We'll be sure to show you how they look in game as soon as Ryan can add them in.

[tinyDino]

Last night we finished up most of the work on arena 4. Here we introduce wolves, and trees that are actually in the playable environment. This has allowed us to experiment with a few cool ideas.

The wolves force you to make a decision, let the wolf have your food or pput yourself in a poor position so you can get it first. I think we still need to polish up this mechanic  bit as it looks a bit robotic.

The trees are interesting because we can very easily hide enemies around them. They also make combat with larger heavier weapons more cumbersome.

[tinyDino]

Ryan Here.

So these past few days have been post free due to me reworking the pathing for all of the enemies.It was a big job but we have been complaining all throughout development about some characters movement looking robotic. Because of this I diced to fix the issue before we release a demo in mid June.

The pathing was a simple A* algorithm. A level was divided into a 40x40 grid and each enemy paths toward its target. The path was designed to invalidate cubes in the grid that had walls, objects, and other enemies in them. This would cause the enemies to path around these objects. However the result of this is that the characters move in only 8 directions which looks unnatural.

To fix this we used our current pathing system compounded with steering. For thoe that dont know what steering is I've attached a link to an excellent explanation. The enemy now only uses the path as a reference and uses vector math to "steer" it to the next point along the path. The path is constantly updated each second so the the enemy seamlessly follows it's target. Because the enemy is no longer tied to the path and instead uses it as a guide, we see a more natural arc from point to point which looks more natural.

Guide: https://gamedevelopment.tutsplus.com/series/understanding-steering-behaviors--gamedev-12732

Results: before and after comparison gif

[tinyDino]

Working on some animations for the first boss fight.
First he's gotta finish his beer though.

[tinyDino]

Unfortunately I dont have images to show today. I always feel bad posting an update without some form of imagery.

Today we started by rewriting the devlog. We felt it wasn't personal enough and just was an ad for our game when in fact we really do this to try and get feedback from fellow developers.

Other than that, Today we are working on sound and music for the demo! First of all we have the very talented Tony Manfredonia Composing music for the final game and menu music for the demo. We will have a preview of the track he made for the menu once we find out his preferred method of sharing his work. TJ and I will be browsing royalty free stock music tonight and try to find some stuff that fits the game as good as possible for the demo. Audio jungle has seemed to be a decent source for this but we are also looking for other options.

Once we have all the assets we like I'l  start importing them into the game. Our biggest complaint during the greenlight was the poor sound quality so we really wanted to set aside a day or two to focus on these issues and get them resolved for the Demo.

The Demo is coming out June 15th! Our goal is to have it complete by the time submissions are due for Indiecade. Will post more about this later.

That's about it for tonight. Cheers! 

[tinyDino]

Should be finishing up the sound and music tonight! Ill be posting a preview video of the first level with sound and music either tonight or tomorrow. This weekend I'm going home for a few days to visit family. It should be a great time but I know I'm not going to get too much done while I'm gone. Goodbye until Wednesday! 

[tinyDino]

Hello everyone! Sorry for the gap in content, I took a nice long five day vacation to visit my family back home. We haven't had much to show off for the past week until now! We finally have a demo video of level one which we thinks sums up the feel of the game nicely. We hope you enjoy!

[tinyDino]

Who all is going to be submitting to Indiecade this year??? Tj and are are working diligently through a long list of task right now trying to get our demo ready by June15th. Hoping to post some gifs tonight of some of the new features. Maybe even a new weapon or two?
 

[tinyDino]

Hey everyone! I know I promised weapons in my last post... They're done but then I got to working on the main menu screen and I couldn't help but post about it. Spent the better part of 3 hours working on this bad boy and I'm quite happy with it. Big assets like this have always given me tons of trouble. I finally figured it out today by studying some of Hyper Light Drifters work. The key seems to be to use really broad brush strokes for about 90% of the piece. Anyway I hope you like it... 

[tinyDino]

Just wanted to elaborate a bit on the time stop mechanic of the game.  So down one branch of the game you gain access to the power to stop time.  Which can be pretty overpowered in combat situations.  We have a couple of ways to balance out this mechanic.

There are several classes of enemies the Time Lord will throw at you.  I'll go over a couple of classes here.  If you stop time around them, out of choice or necessity, they will gain health from the energy you give off by stopping time.  As they are powered up they will shift form into more vicious versions of themselves.

This is the runner class.  It starts with a monster code-named Tentakill.  They are easy to kill but can swarm you if left unchecked.  If it absorbs enough energy it will turn into the Maggot, which is faster and stronger.  The maggot will in turn morph into Must Lust.  This floating terror is faster and much stronger than its predecessors. 

This is the Turret class.  They have been so mutilated by the Time Lord that they can no longer move around.  The cyclops has low health, shoots one projectile at a time, and has a slow rate of fire.  The second form is code named Lazy Gary.  He shoots three projectiles at a time at an increased rate of fire, while also boasting a higher health total.  The final form is code-named Sploosh.  He has an even higher health total.  He also fires a swath of projectiles so large that the only option is to stop time, or find cover quickly.

In The Ambassador there are two separate forces acting against you.  The monsters you see above, created by the Time lord and knights and mercenaries sent after you by the King. When you stop time around the Knights they will begin to heal HP quickly, so you have to be careful how much you rely on your time stopping skill.

These are a few different classes of knight.  First is a Rapier Knight.  It has a low health total but moves quickly, charging toward you and retreating quickly making him hard to hit.  The next is the Halberd Knight.  He is a more fearsome enemy.  Boasting a higher health total, and a larger range.  He is slower than the Rapier Knight because of his heavy armor.  Last is the Crossbow Knight.  He is lightly armored, and very quick as a result.  He is also extremely accurate.  When fighting one of these you have to be constantly aware of their location and strafe to avoid being hit.  If you get too close without killing them, they will retreat rapidly and re-position to attack again.

So there are a few of the Enemy types  that will be encountered during our demo which we will hopefully have ready to be released by June 16th.  Any feedback on the mechanics or enemy designs are welcome.

[tinyDino]

Hey everyone! No content update tonight. I just wanted to give a shout out to Ingare, they just went live with their games journalism site and we were lucky enough to do an interview with them! They have some other interesting looking projects on there as well! http://www.ingare.tk/the-ambassador

[Vulduin]

This game looks pretty cool! The visuals and the audio are very nice and the environment/ambiance gives off the creepy wilderness vibe that it seems like you're going for.

One critique that I have, just based on the videos you've posted, is that the gameplay itself doesn't seem too compelling. It seems like it is mostly just running around pointing a stick at something, whether that stick is a torch lighting fires or some kind of staff shooting projectiles.

The game looks like it could go in two different directions, one where the level design makes for more interesting puzzle-style gameplay that makes you think a lot, or one where adding different items and abilities makes the combat more intense and fun. The time stopping mechanic you have could go either way as it can open up a lot of possibilities in both combat and puzzle solving.

Like I said, this is just based on the videos so it's possible that there is more to the game then I can see. So far it looks good, but with a little more I think the game could be great. Keep up the good work!

[tinyDino]

This game looks pretty cool! The visuals and the audio are very nice and the environment/ambiance gives off the creepy wilderness vibe that it seems like you're going for.

One critique that I have, just based on the videos you've posted, is that the gameplay itself doesn't seem too compelling. It seems like it is mostly just running around pointing a stick at something, whether that stick is a torch lighting fires or some kind of staff shooting projectiles.

The game looks like it could go in two different directions, one where the level design makes for more interesting puzzle-style gameplay that makes you think a lot, or one where adding different items and abilities makes the combat more intense and fun. The time stopping mechanic you have could go either way as it can open up a lot of possibilities in both combat and puzzle solving.

Like I said, this is just based on the videos so it's possible that there is more to the game then I can see. So far it looks good, but with a little more I think the game could be great. Keep up the good work!

Hey thanks for your feedback! We always really like knowing what people think about the game, good and bad.

As far as the comat mechanics go this is something that has concerned TJ and I as well. We have been rather poor at posting updated videos of combat and the changes we've made. The game as of right now is broken up into single room levels. Each room has been designed around the abilities of the enemies inside it. This sort of contrasts to the existing footage of combat where we just made some rooms and threw enemies in there for demonstration purposes.

The best explanation I can give for the design of the game is to compare it to Super Meat Bow, which we know is an odd comparison. In that game you have unlimited lives and each level is an almost daunting challenge at first. However as you learn the level and develop a methodology for beating it, it become much more accessible. The result is an experience that may be frustrating at times but is also extremely rewarding when the level is beaten. We want to see if we can produce the same feeling with a twin-stick shooter.

We have a demo coming out on the 15th. If you like I can pm you a link. WE'd love to hear your thoughts on it after playing it.