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[Yong]

Hi all.
Today's post is an update on control options and customizable key-bindings.

Mouse and Keyboard/Gamepad





In case that was too small to notice, here's a close-up on the tutorial text reflecting the change in key-binding.





The tutorial texts will automatically switch over to controller in-puts when one is detected.





Notice the crosshair 'jumping' into place when a controller is detected. Aiming with a gamepad is obviously very different from using a mouse. While the player has free control of crosshair when using a mouse, I think it is naturally more intuitive to fix the crosshair relative to the player's position when using a controller.

And of course, you can change key-binds for controller too.
*BUT I decided to lock movement and aiming to the left and right analogue stick respectively. So those two are the only thing you cannot change.




I've coded the tutorial text to be flexible enough to handle any key-bind settings.
Basically it's: "text(eg: Press)" + Button for 'Jump' + "text(to jump)"
I foresee a potential translation problem though, because obviously not all languages would have the same sentence structure. I'd tackle that problem when it comes...

Also, I've only tested with xbox and xbox-like controllers(the buttons are mapped to the standard xbox controller's layout). For now I'm unsure how it'd react to other types of controllers.

[Yong]

Hi all!
The demo is finally in a state where I think it's suitable for release on Steam! You can now download the demo from 99999's Store page.

The previous versions of the Demo has been really useful not only for drawing some attention to my game, but also for the feedback received. Opening up your game to public scrutiny can be scary but the pros far outweigh the cons. For one you'd get much more honest feedback from internet strangers.

Onto the changes.


Hit Sprites
Amid the chaos, it can sometimes be hard to tell when you get hit. Hurt sprites and animation is now a lot more obvious. Because of the longer animation, recovery time(you can tell by the player sprite fading in and out) is also extended for balance.

Movement
Pressing the down button meant the Player-avatar would get stuck in the kneeling position even if Left/Right was also being pressed, this was an especially common problem when using a controller(moving with analogue stick).
Now, Left and Right directional press take precedence over the Down button. Your avatar now continues to move so long as Left/Right is being pressed.

Going down Platforms
Previously pressing Down + Jump allows you to pass through platforms one at a time. Now you can speed through them so long as you hold down both Down + Jump buttons. You can even do so while in mid-air to speed up the action (previously you can only do so while grounded).

Dodge-roll and Wall-cling
Previously doing a dodge-roll while next to a wall meant that you'll lose the wall-cling and fall quickly down. Now you'll continue to wall-cling even while doing a dodge-roll (should you not want to stick to the wall, going the opposite direction will make you lose the stickiness).

Screenshake
I have gotten plenty of comments, both good and bad, about my implementation of screenshakes. I get that screenshake is very subjective, and personal tastes vary greatly. The default screenshake is now toned down from before. But more importantly, you have the option to turn it off completely if you want to (or put it to max, if that's your thing).

Difficulty
The feedback I've received regarding difficulty tend to be that it is too difficult in the beginning, and actually becomes easier by the end instead of harder(at least to those who didn't give up immediately). That also led to some players feeling a lack of progression because while they got better, the game's challenges did not keep up.

The difficulty has been adjusted and it is now much easier in the beginning to give players the time to learn and get used to the game's controls. The difficult gradually ramps up to give more of a challenge as one progresses.


Shop
Items and weapons costs have been greatly reduced. Since my intention is to encourage the use of new items/weapons and experimenting with different combinations, it makes a lot of sense to reduce their costs. Hopefully this will also help those who are struggling to adopt different strategies with the use of various item abilities.

Future updates
The first thing on the to-do-list is to add global leaderboards!(on Steam) Since the whole point of the game is to challenge yourself to obtain a higher score (hence 99999? no?), I think it'd be cool to know how you fare compared to other players.

Thanks for reading. Please do try the demo and let me know what you think. Feedback is always appreciated!

Steam
Itch
Gamejolt
Twitter
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[Yong]

I'm experimenting with more unconventional weapons. The aim is to give players more options to cater to their play-styles.



I call this one the Void-gun. It shoots dense energy balls that detonate into blackhole-like force-field upon reloading the gun. The energy ball will also detonate when it touches solid walls. While the player will not be affected by the force-field they can be hurt by the resulting blast.


I'm also having 2nd thoughts about the name of my game, thought I'd ask for some opinions here.
I named it 99999 because:
- It's easy to remember.
- 99999 sounds like a high-score, which I think works well because getting a better high-score is a core focus of the game.

However, it seems a little bland and uninspired. It lacks...character? More importantly it might be really difficult to find on youtube (and likely other places as well). Search for 99999 on youtube and you'd find a really popular (and regularly updated) series for Plants vs Zombies that frequently have 99999 in their title. There are also plenty of videos on other games with 99999(usually about a hack, or bug) in their titles as well.

So...what do you think? Should I change the name? Any thoughts? advice? suggestions?

[NowSayPillow]

Played the demo over the weekend and I really dug it. I've wishlisted it and wait with bated breath.

[Yong]

Played the demo over the weekend and I really dug it. I've wishlisted it and wait with bated breath.

Thanks for playing! I'm glad you like it 

[Yong]

99999 is now renamed as Gunkid 99



Why the name change? Well, I'm sure a fair number of you have thought that 99999 was a bad idea for a name. And you'd be right.

Let's first put aside things such as a sense of identity, 'catchy-ness' and other more subjective aspects of a name. For most indiedevs, we simply to not possess the marketing capabilities to "make a name ours". That means if the name of your game is generic, you'd risk being drown out by similar words/term from other search results.

Take my game for example, if you search 99999 in youtube, you'd likely end up with a whole list of videos of other games with 99999 in their titles (with a particular Plants vs Zombies being especially popular). Even if you intentionally search for my game by pairing '99999' with 'game', it'd be useless as the other popular videos with 99999 in their titles are already that of games (just not my game). That means the few play-throughs that I got from releasing my demo are already lost in the sea of youtube videos (sorry guys).
You might do ok with a generic name if the name doesn't appear often with the word 'game'. Take for example, the game Bleed. Bleed, on its own, has terrible SEO. But it is mitigated by the fact that if you search for 'Bleed game', it becomes a more unique title, and most gamers are smart enough to do just that.

Googling Gunkid on the other hand, gives you near zero hits on anything videogame-related, so it has a higher possibility of standing out from the get-go. The 99 is mostly a remnant of the previous name, but by pairing it as Gunkid 99 it will hopefully be more easily searchable. I guess I'd find out soon enough.

So to fellow indies out there, spend more time to mull over your game's name. Do some basic research by seeing what comes up in your google searches. Don't be like me (lol).

*if you already have a Steam-page, you can still change the name of your game easily enough. BUT if you've already released a demo, you'd have to contact Steamworks developer support to change the name of your demo.



On to some updates:




I’ve made some changes to the Training room! Along with unlocked weapons, weapons that are ready for sale in the Shop will also appear in the Training room with a little note above them.

This will allow players to have a taste of the weapons before deciding if they wanna buy em. Makes a lot of sense to me!





Health UI has also been tweaked to make it less cluttered.






I've also recently added Steam Achievements into the game. But I know achievements by themselves are rather meaningless to some players (I'm one of them). So I added actual in-game rewards for said Achievements!




Some of the more quirky Achievements add real tangible effect to the game by unlocking unique Ability Items. There's only 3 now, but there will be more to come.





That's it for this update. If you interested in Gunkid 99 it'd help a lot if you can wishlist!

Steam-page

You can also find me on:
Twitter
Tumblr
Itch.io

[Yong]

I’ve been hard at work making more (unusual) weapons!

Some weapons are familiar projectile types with a twist whereas others are more…interesting. Hopefully the variety will encourage players to experiment with more weapon types and find the ones that suit their play-styles.






Popper
The Popper fires bullets that explode into smaller bullets upon reloading of the gun. It makes for an effective (if albeit chaotic) crowd control weapon.






Void-gun
The Void-gun functions in a similar fashion to the aforementioned Popper. It shoots ‘bullets’ that explode into a black-hole like vortex upon reloading. The resulting explosive blast will instantly kill any enemy (unless your damage has been significantly reduced from equipping certain items) but will also damage the player as well. Incredibly powerful, but also incredibly tricky to use.






Fireball
Inspired by Mario’s flower powerup. Although not especially powerful, the Fireball’s ability to bounce a few times before it extinguishes means that it demands less accuracy from the player while ensuring maximum chaos.






Ring-of-Fire
One of the most unusual weapons in the game in terms of control, because the player's control of the Ring-of-Fire is rather limited. The ring spins entirely by itself, but holding the ‘shoot’ button will increase its range and speed and releasing the button will it to its default state. The Fireball extinguishes itself upon hitting an enemy and do not replenish until all 3 are gone. Very powerful when all 3 fireballs are present, a lot less so when left with only one.






Wheel-blade
The counter-part of the Ring-of-Fire. Unlike the Ring, the Wheel-blade does not extinguish, it trades the Ring-of-Fire's coverage with consistency and reliability.






Boomerang
The Boomerang is powerful but can be quite tricky to use. Only throw the Boomerang at the right moment or you'll find yourself defenceless without a weapon on hand. To compensate for its vulnerabilities, the Boomerang will destroy any enemy projectile it touches.

That’s it for today’s weapons update. Game is now called Gunkid 99 if you don’t already know. If you’re interested, please WISHLIST on Steam, that’ll help a lot

Cheers!

[Yong]

Today's devlog will be a technical one: fixing the mouse issue.
Or more specifically, the issue of disabling the game when you click outside of the game-window. It is almost bound to happen when playing in windowed mode (especially for action-heavy games), but can also happen even in full-screen if there is more than one monitor.

This is an especially common feedback I've received from my game's demo. It is very disruptive when it happens in the middle of the action. Definitely can get annoying real quick, so I fixed it!

Crosshair can no longer go beyond the game-window. Pause and you'll regain control of the mouse:




The following is what I came up with. (Disclaimer: I'm not entirely sure if this is a good solution so if anyone has any better implementation please enlighten me!)

*language is in gml. engine is gamemaker studio(1.4)

Code:

var cursor_x = window_mouse_get_x() - window_get_width()/2;
var cursor_y = window_mouse_get_y() - window_get_height()/2;
//Keep mouse to Screen's center
window_mouse_set(window_get_width()/2,window_get_height()/2);

//Mouse.x relative to camera
view_x += cursor_x / global.mouse_offset;
x = view_xview + view_x;
//Limit x to screen
if (x < view_xview) {
    x = view_xview;
    //Cut back view_x's value
    view_x = 0;
}
if (x > view_xview + view_wview[0]) {
    x = view_xview + view_wview[0];
    //Clamp view_x's value
    view_x = view_wview[0];
}

//Mouse.y relative to camera
view_y += cursor_y / global.mouse_offset;
y = view_yview + view_y;
//Limit y to screen
if (y < view_yview) {
    y = view_yview;
    //Cut back view_y's value
    view_y = 0;
}
if (y > view_yview + view_hview[0]) {
    y = view_yview + view_hview[0];
    //Clamp view_x's value
    view_y = view_hview[0];
}

So basically what happens is that the actual mouse will be locked to the center of the screen with:

Code:

window_mouse_set(window_get_width()/2,window_get_height()/2)

Any movement of the mouse will then be calculated and the mouse object will be moved accordingly instead of the actual mouse. The x and y position of the mouse object is also relative to the camera so it'd work even with a moving camera. Because the game's base resolution is 640x360 and scaled up approximately to the monitor's resolution, global.mouse_offset is used for calculating the actual movement of the mouse. If there is no offset, moving 100 pixels to the left would translate to moving 200 pixels if the monitor's resolution is at 1280x720 (twice the base resolution).

Hope someone finds this useful!

[Yong]

Gunkid 99 is now available on Itch.io for FIRST ACCESS!
https://yongjustyong.itch.io/gunkid99





What is First Access? It's functionally the same as Early Access, where you can help me shape and improve the game with your feedback. Except it's only available on Itch.io.

So why not have early access on Steam then? Well, early access is not what it once used to be, these days an early access release on Steam is more comparable to a full release. If I release the game on Steam now as is it will very likely be buried immediately.

If you get Gunkid 99 on Itch.io now, you WILL still receive a Steam key once the game is ready for release on Steam! (you can wishlist it on Steam: https://store.steampowered.com/app/906600/Gunkid_99/ to be notified of full release)

The game is available now for USD$4.99, with a 10% discount until 21st Oct.

I also made a discord for the game, come chat!

[Devilkay]

I love how you customized the weapons!

[Yong]

I love how you customized the weapons!

Hey thanks!  you can change more than just the weapons but I didn't manage to squeeze it all in the trailer.

[Yong]

Minor Patch
- Fixed an issue where keyboard is locked whenever a controller/gamepad is detected as being connected, even if you are not actually using said controller. Now the controls will automatically switch to either controller or mouse+keyboard depending on which you last use.

[Yong]

Today's update is all making the controller/gamepad more precise and intuitive.

Patch notes
- Performing a jump from a platform might have made you drop down from it instead because of pressing ever-so-slightly down on the analogue-stick. That is fixed now, only more obvious down-push will be registered by the left analogue stick.

- Aim-assist is now more precise and snaps easily from one target to another.



- Engaging in Free-aim gives you a slower but finer control over the Crosshair.

- Aim-assist can now also be turned off if you so chooses!

- Removed a developer's tool/button from the video options that I forgot about. Oops, how embarrassing!

[NowSayPillow]

 

[Yong]

Cheers haha 

Not much to report here except that I've been working on a new world/theme and enemies. It's a huge chunk of content so that's gonna take a while.

Come join the discord if you fancy

[Yong]

Today's update has mostly to do with the movement system, particularly when it comes to falling through platforms. I've made it effortless to drop down from platforms, and as a result I think the movement flows much better now.


Patch Note:
- Pressing down will now let you drop down from platforms. A new checkbox called 'Down Lock' has been added in the Key-bindings menu, enabling this will stop you from being able to drop down from platforms with just the down button. You'd have to press 'Down + Jump' (the previous method) or double-tap 'Down' instead.

- You can now also drop down from platforms while doing a dodge-roll by pressing down. (or the other buttons combination mentioned above) Basically anything to do with moving through platforms is now smoother than before.

- Camera issue for certain monitor resolutions have been fixed. (If you still have problems, please feedback to me!)

- Minor hit-box adjustments.

- Slightly better path-finding for Flying Slime.




The flying Slime's path-finding is a simple mp_potential_step_object* function and thankfully tweaking the mp_potential_settings* led to a much better overall result.
(*gamemaker functions)


- Fixed a bug where the game icon doesn't appear on the taskbar when you ctrl-tap out of the game.

This is I think a known bug in GMS1.4 that happens only when a game launches straight into fullscreen. A simple fix is just to run the game in windowed mode for a step or two before going into fullscreen. Once the game icon can be seen on the taskbar it won't disappear again, so you can safely enter and exit fullscreen as and when you want to.

[Yong]

Fine-tuned some numbers to get a smoother, more natural variable jump height. I have to say the movement system has improved quite a bit the past few weeks following players' feedback. Shows the importance of having others play your game.

[Yong]

Made some changes to the Crosshair so that you can tell at a glance when you're out of ammo. Also makes it less likely to lose sight of the crosshair amidst the chaos.

[Yong]

Update v0.1.4

- Added sound effects to Spikes trap.

- Added sound effects when countdown timer goes below 3.

- Added a little segment to the tutorial stage. Hopefully this will make people more aware of the usefulness of dodge-roll.




I have been hard at work on making new content. Here's a sneak peek at World 4:





World 4 is not quite done yet as there are still lot of things left to do (new weapons and items unlock etc). Hopefully I'd be able to get this big content update out in the middle of December so stay tuned!

P.S. consider joining Gunkid 99's Discord server​ ​if you want to follow along with the development process.

[Yong]

Minor update v0.1.5

Patch notes:

- Getting injured is now a LOT more obvious. New hit sound has been added, injured animation is also slightly longer. An error which used to cancel out the injured animation if the player gets hit while in the air has been fixed.

- The Bazooka will still one-hit-kill all enemy types but its  damage has been lowered. The previous damage figure was so high that even if you equipped multiple items that lower damage, it will still decimate everything.

- The Item, "First-Aid" now takes 40 seconds to activate instead of the previous 90.

- The Item, "Health gain" now takes 100 seconds to activate instead of the previous 120.