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TIGSource ForumsCommunityDevLogsB.O.O.M. You Win - The Explosive Game of Hot Potato
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« on: August 11, 2018, 07:40:42 PM »




Hello everybody! We are Kickin' Rad Games, a group of independent game developers with a passion for video games and utter nonsense. We've actually been meaning to post a devlog here much earlier, but we've been sidetracked with attending conventions to showcase our game. Perhaps you've even had hands on time with B.O.O.M. before! We'll be using this thread to discuss new content as its added to the game and go in depth into our design process. In turn we hope to get valuable feedback directly from you. Yes you specifically. You know who you are.

B.O.O.M. You Win is a multiplayer action-sports game in which players must fight for control of a live explosive. The longer you hold possession of the bomb, the more points you'll earn. But be careful not to hold on too long; get caught in an explosion and you'll lose a large chunk of your points. As the fuse of the bomb ticks down, you'll want to dispose of the bomb by any means necessary, even by throwing it into the hands of an unsuspecting opponent. Alternating between offensive and defensive gameplay is the key to success in this explosive game of hot potato.






FEATURES

  • 10 Unique Playable Characters, each with their own unique abilities tailored to different play styles. Each character can be fully customized with their own unique costumes and hats to allow you to truly personalize your Main.

  • 10+ Stages, each with their own sets of hazards and layouts. Engage in sports everywhere from peaceful, serene temples, to high-speed car chases, and even inside an active missile silo.

  • Several ways to play. Earn the most points to win in the original Sportsbowl mode, go for blood in the kill based Deathmatch mode, or fight to be the last man standing in Survival. Additional gameplay modifiers such as Hidden Bomb fuses allow you to tailor gameplay for new, hectic ways of approaching your favorite gamemodes.

  • Or if you want to gun it solo, take on variety of single player modes to hone your skills. Overthrow the competition and claim the B.O.O.M. championship in Arcade mode, or take on special challenges to unlock new items and characters in Mission Mode.








« Last Edit: December 29, 2018, 08:42:02 PM by Kickin' Rad Games » Logged
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« Reply #1 on: August 11, 2018, 07:52:59 PM »

The gameplay idea of extreme hot potato is awesome!
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« Reply #2 on: August 13, 2018, 05:14:52 PM »

Hey everybody, Kickin' Rad Games here. We've got a real big update coming along the way sometime this weekend, and to prepare for that we wanted to take this week to introduce you to some of the characters we've already introduced into the game: their special abilities, what makes them tick, so on and so forth.

But before we get into our roster roll-call I thought it would be nice to give the crash course on how the mechanics of our game actually work, so today is gonna be dedicated entirely to talking about our gameloop. Then starting tommorow, we'll be starting off our week long character-extravaganza, ending with our brand new character reveal on Sunday.


The default ruleset of B.O.O.M. You Win is set to Sportsbowl, a variation of gameplay in which the winning condition is awarded to the player with the most points at the end of a game. The rules are as follows:

  • Each round of gameplay is divided into "matches", a period defined as the length of time between when a bomb is entered into play, and when it explodes.
  • Each match starts with the bomb being thrown into play by a referee. This period is referred to as "The Toss-Up." Bonus points are awarded to the first player to grab the bomb during the toss-up period.
  • Players earn points for as long as they maintain possession of the bomb.
  • Playes lose a percentage of their score if they get caught in an explosion.
  • If a player throws a bomb that explodes and kills another player, whatever points that defeat player lost, the surviving player will earn.
  • The player who earns the most points by the end of the game is declared the winner.


The best way to achieve victory, as a result, is to earn point by maintaining the possession of the bomb as long as possible, and to blow up opponents whenever the opportunity presents itself. To do this, players will have to alternate between defensive and offensive gameplay.

MOBILITY
Every player has access to a basic pool of mobility options, including double-jumping, wall-jumping, and dropping thru platforms. Learning how to use each to preserve momentum when charging through the map and evading persuers is key to earning as many points as possible.


THROWING
When in possession of the bomb, you'll also have to be constantly mindful of the time left before the bomb explodes. This is indicated by the color of the bomb's fuse, as well as the presence of a rapidly increasing beeping noise. If you can maintain the bomb until it's ready to explode, and let her rip at just the right moment, you can take your opponents out, and steal their points to boot. This is accomplished by simply flicking the right stick (or pointing and clicking while playing on the keyboard) in the direction of your adversaries, or quick toss by simply pressing X/Square/Left Click.


STEALING
Players not currently in possession of the bomb can use their X/Square/Left Click button to Slide and Divekick. A successful slide or divekick into opponent currently in possession of the bomb will allow you to steal possession, as well as temporarily knocking opponents back. The slide and divekick can also be used to knock other players into the blast radius of an explosion. You'll even earn points for the assist!


SPECIALS
Every player has a unique special ability that can be activated by pressing B/Square/Right Click. Special abilities can only be used with a full special gauge, as displayed at the top of the screen in the HUD, but when used wisely can turn the tide of a match wildly in your favor. Some abilities have different properties and effects when used offensively, while a select few can only be used while the player does not have possession of the bomb. We'll be getting deeper into character abilities more this week and how each one can be used for different purposes.


TAUNTING
And finally, you can taunt your opponents by pressing the Y button. Because nothing says "I'm better than you" than blowing someone up and then shouting "Yikes" at the top of your lungs.

You might have noted that a lot of these gifs seem to be taken outside of a typical gameplay match.

We're very proud of our simplified control scheme, but we understand that with every game with atypical game mechanics, you want to ease beginners into the experience, so we made sure to implement a dynamic tutorial engine that covers the core mechanics and controls. The tutorial starts you off with some quick access text tutorials, as well as optional playable trial sections, to help you learn the fundamentals of the game and how you can implement each abilities functions for different uses. Its a must for beginners and experts a like.

Well that's all for us from today. We hope that this quick overview of what we've accomplished so far has piqued your interest and that you'll be joining us soon for our roster overview this week. Until next time!
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« Reply #3 on: August 14, 2018, 03:28:08 PM »


Hello everybody, we're starting off our weeklong character extravaganza with one of the very first characters we implemented into the game, Remmy.

Born of a literal shotgun wedding, Rosemary "Remmy" Bennet is your average, punk rock loving teenager from Montana, with a not so average gun for a leg. While getting by in life with a gun with a leg can be a bit difficult, it affords certain advantages in blood sports like B.O.O.M. While many enter the annual Sportsball tournament looking for wealth or fame, Remmy only seeks the challenge of the sport and knowing that she is truly number one with a bullet. And hey, if the prize money is enough to buy a couple of hamburgers at the diner down the street, Remmy's certainly not gonna complain.




SPECIAL ABILITY: LOCK & STOCK

The lock and load ability is an additional mobility option exclusive to Remmy. When activated, Remmy fires a burst of ammo from her gun leg, boosting her further in the air, and pushing opponents away. A well timed burst can put major distance between you and your opponent, grant you access to out of reach portions of the stage, or even knock opponents into stage hazards and explosions.

Activating the ability is as simple as pressing the B button with a full meter, and can be executed whether or not Remmy is in possession of the bomb. Remmy's ability has one of the shortest cooldown times, making her one of the most useful characters for players who favor their air game.




PASSIVE ABILTIES

In addition to their core special abilities, every character draws two extra abilities from a shared pool of "passive abilities" that bestow additional buffs during gameplay. These abilities differentiate the way each character plays outside of their special abilities, so it's good to try out several characters and see what combination of passive abilities fits you best. Remmy's passive abilities are as follows:

  • Sliding Landing: When Remmy's divekick collides with the ground, she preserves the momentum of her attack and transitions into a slide. This is a useful ability for chasing down opponents after missing an attack, as well as escaping from dangerous situations. And of course, if you find that you've overshot your mark, you can cancel out of your slide at any time by jumping.

  • Divekick Chains: Unlike other characters, Characters with the Divekick Chain Ability immediately bounce back into the air after a successful divekick. This can be used recover from hitting the wrong target, or chain together several kicks in a row on an opponent. Coupled with Remmy's excellent aerial abilities, we're sure players will be able to find all sorts of tech by keeping airborne


COSMETICS

For Remmy's first set of alternate costumes, we wanted to stick to something befitting of Remmy's fashion sense with some off the shoulder graphic tees, biker shorts, and fingerless gloves. While what qualifies as punk fashion is definitely up for debate, there's no doubt that Remmy is dressed to throw down, should the challenge arise.

This is but one of the planned alternate costumes you'll be able to unlock for Remmy through the various single-player modes. We'll be talking about cosmetic updates as they roll out, but the plan is to have a minimum of 4 costume sets for each character.



BONUS TRIVIA

  • Remmy is our art director's favorite character.

  • Although one of the first characters to be implemented fully into gameplay, Remmy's current incarnation is actually quite different from her original design. Remmy was originally conceived as a character named Gunshow, a muscular, Rambo-esq fighter whose fists had scopes on them. A shift in art style early on made the original design less feasible, and so our character designer went to work drafting up alternatives. The team immediately fell in love with Remmy's design and chose her as Gunshow's replacement.

  • Remmy was loosely inspired by the grindhouse film Planet Terror, though while Planet Terror's rifle-legged protagonist was a go-go dancer, Remmy was always conceptualized as a cheery high-schooler. Remmy's leg, in contrast, is also genetic, though we admit we're not entirely sure how the mechanics behind that work.

  • Remmy was the first character design implemented to have an asymmetrical design. At first, this gave the programmer and animators lots of headaches making sure her gun leg was always on the right side of her body. Since then, other characters such as Morgan & Clyde and Blitzkrieg have adopted asymmetrical designs, but Remmy provided the groundwork for those characters to be implemented into code, and for that we salute her.

  • It may be subtle, but if you listen closely you might notice that Remmy has a unique footstep sound whenever her gunleg makes contact with the ground. Our sound designer was quite adamant about implementing this detail.

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« Reply #4 on: August 15, 2018, 12:32:30 PM »


Welcome back everyone to day two of our week long character extravaganza. Today we'll be talking about a fan-favorite character, Mr. Spooks.

Since its inception, Mr. Spooks has held the job title of the King of Halloween Tricks and Treats. It's a pretty sweet gig: you get to eat all the candy you want and no one yells at you for egging the neighbor's place. But alas, Halloween is only once a year, and there are bills to pay the other 364 days. If Mr. Spooks wants to pay this month's rent on time, he'll have to give it his all to win this year's extravagant Sportsbowl cash prize. Or get a day job. But wheres the fun in that?




SPECIAL ABILITY: SMOKIN'

Mr. Spooks has always been known as a bit of a hot head. By activating his special ability, the blue flames that engulf Mr. Spooks' head will grow red hot and his speed will boost substantially, allowing him to offset the speed penalty of carrying the bomb or give him some extra headway while pursuing his opponents.

Not only that, but if Mr. Spooks runs into an opponent who is currently holding the bomb while Smokin' is activated, he'll automatically steal possession of the ball. No sliding or divekicking necessary. Mr. Spooks is perfect for newcomers who may struggle with sealing the deal when attempting to gain possession of the bomb from other players.




PASSIVE ABILTIES

Similarly to Remmy, Mr. Spooks draws from a pool of passive abilities, and even shares a passive ability with the former.

  • Sliding Landing: Like Remmy, when Mr. Spooks hits the ground after a divekick he'll immediately transition into a sliding state. It's only appropriate: after all, Mr. Spooks is unique in that his divekick involves torpedoing himself head first at an opponent, while his sliding animation involves him tripping and falling flat on his face. He really know how to work with his head.

  • Slow Descent: Unlike Remmy, however, Mr. Spooks also has the Slow Descent ability. Characters that have the slow descent special can slow down their fall briefly by holding the jump button, allowing them to hover for a very brief moment. This is perfect for out maneuvering opponents by altering your landing trajector, as well as for giving you the little extra boost you need to reach far away platforms.


COSMETICS

Mr. Spooks' first set of costumes was designed after what we pictured his Halloween costume to look like: a shambling zombie corpse with vintage movie design roots. There's even a black and white color palette for those of you really dedicated to your aesthetic. He might not be the most frightening costume on the block, but he's certainly dedicated to his craft.


BONUS TRIVIA

  • Mr. Spooks until recently was the most played character at conventions and a huge fan favorite. I wonder who's been encroaching on his territory lately...?

  • Although less dramatic of a redesign, Mr. Spooks also went through a few design incarnations before becoming the lazy lovable skeleton you see here today. Originally pitched as a duo character named Big Spooks and Lil' Spooks, Mr. Spooks originally had a tiny winged skull companion who he could throw at opponents, preventing them from picking up the bomb until they could discard of the unwanted tag along. Eventually Mr. Spooks ditched Lil' Spooks and went solo, making a name for himself as one of the more popular B.O.O.M. roster additions. However, his time as Big Spooks and Lil' Spooks did serve as a mechanical inspiration for another character in our roster: the best friend, ghost buddy duo, Morgan and Clyde!

  • One character lost early on in development was a strange underground DJ who wore a bag on his head, referred to simply internally as Baghead. This character was scrapped during the mechanical design portion of our development, however part of him still lives on in B.O.O.M. today. The green smiley face pin Mr. Spooks sports on his tracksuit originally belonged to to the fallen electronic artist. It's good to see that Mr. Spooks is so supportive of his friends.

  • The blue flame around Mr. Spooks head was originally programmed in engine as a hat that you could equip and deselect as desired, but when we started using the flame's color as an indicator for when the special was activated, we set the flame to be equipped regardless of whether Mr. Spooks was wearing another hat. We briefly implemented having the hats burn into ashes when Mr Spooks activated his special, but players missed their hats too much and we quickly rolled back the change.

  • The noise of Mr. Spooks flame grows louder the hotter it is. When its red hot, it's audible even over the hectic chaos of the match. When its been nearly dimmed out post special, you can't hear it at all. Additionally, the flames on Mr. Spooks head do actually have flame crackling particle effects. The sparks from his flame will even get caught on the breeze on stages with strong wind conditions, such as the Silo and the Chase.

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« Reply #5 on: August 16, 2018, 01:34:57 PM »


Hey everybody, it's day three of our character extravaganza. Today we'll be talking about the buddy duo of Morgan and Clyde: a sweet 10 year old girl and her best friend, who may or may not be a ghost.

The adventurous and imaginative little sister of B.O.O.M. superstar Remmy, Morgan has a love for all things baseball and made of cardboard. One day while exploring an old rundown house at the end of the road, Morgan met Clyde, a strange but cheerful little ghost. Ever since then they've been best friends. When Morgan heard that her older sister was entering to become the number one B.O.O.M. competitor, she decided that she wanted to join in on the fun too. She'll have to put up quite a fight to compete in this tournament full of powerful athletes, but she's confident that with the help of her partner Clyde, there's nothing she can't tackle.




SPECIAL ABILITY: BEST FRIENDS FOREVER

Morgan and Clyde are a technical tag-team based character designed to capitalize on their ability to be in two places at once. By activating her special, Morgan can order Clyde to stay put in a specific spot. Then, while in control of the ball, Morgan can activate her special again to toss the ball directly to Clyde. This special can pierce through opponents at short distances, though you'll want to be careful of opponents intercepting the toss on longdrives.

As long as Clyde catches the ball, Morgan will teleport to him immediately. This is great for getting out of sticky situations and covering long distances with a flick of a button. If you see an opening and are getting swarmed, relying on your best buddy Clyde can give you seconds of valuable time to maintain possession of the bomb and inflate your score.




PASSIVE ABILTIES

  • Throw Spark: Unlike most contestants, Morgan actually does not throw the ball with her hands, favoring the use of her trusty baseball bat. As such, you don't want to stand too close to her when she takes a swing at the ball. Stand to close to the trajectory of the swing, and you'll get hit with some slight knock back and stun. This prevents opponents from attempting to make last second steals or from swarming Morgan mid-toss.

  • Slow Descent: Much like Mr. Spooks, Morgan also shares the slow descent ability. By holding the jump button in midair, Morgan hitches a ride and grabs a hold of Clyde, slowing her fall for as long as Clyde can support the weight.


COSMETICS

Morgan & Clyde's first set of costumes takes a dark twist, portraying Morgan as the ghost this time and Clyde as an evil, ghastly flying book. Because ghosts use colored outlines rather than dark blue like the other fighters, we had to put in a lot of effort to make sure ghost Morgan stood out from the backdrop of stages by adding a faint white glow around her.


BONUS TRIVIA

  • Morgan and Clyde is the favorite character(s) of our programmer.

  • Unlike the other B.O.O.M. characters, Morgan and Clyde's design actually existed before she joined the B.O.O.M. roster. Our art director designed her as part of a picture book he wrote for a college course on children's literature. In her story, Morgan enters an old abandoned house looking for adventure, but is surprised when she meets and befriends the ghosts living there, including her B.O.O.M. co-star Clyde. Morgan even has a unique art style for her arcade ladder to reflect her light-hearted origins.

  • While Morgan and Remmy are sisters to the same parents, it appears at a glance that Morgan did not inherit any of the genes that lead to Remmy's gun leg. However, though its difficult to be seen in her artwork, one of Morgan's back molars is actually a bullet shell. That'll be a tricky one to deal with if she ever needs to get braces.

  • Because Morgan favors the use of her baseball bat during her throwing animation, Morgan has to toss the ball up slightly into the air before hitting it. The bomb, as a result, is not keyframed into her animation, but rather, has actual physics applied to it. The longer her swing windup, the higher she throws the bomb before taking a swing at it. There's even a nice aluminum thunk sound for when Morgan hits the bomb dead on.

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« Reply #6 on: August 17, 2018, 01:38:08 PM »


Welcome back to day four of our weeklong character extravaganza. Today we'll be talking about the menacing, core antagonist of our game: the evil warlord Blitzkrieg.

Fighting in numerous international conflicts since she was but a teenager, Blitzkrieg has since gone on to use her military expertise and leadership skills to form her own privatized militia, the Valkyries. Specializing in military technology and nuclear ballistics, the Valkyries are a leading force in the war economy. Now Blitzkrieg has set her eyes on the Sportsbowl championship, and while no one knows what exactly it is she's after, it certainly can't be anything good. Accompanied by her own hired alliance of mercenaries and criminals, Blitzkrieg will stop at nothing to claim the championship for herself: even if she has to crack a few skulls to get there.




SPECIAL ABILITY: CLOAK & DAGGER

It's time to put that advanced military research and development to good use. By activating Blitzkrieg's special, she'll deploy a prototype cloaking device. When activated, her visibility will substantially drop, allowing her to deceive her opponents and set traps. The fuse of the bomb is even hidden and muted from your opponents when you activate the cloak, making it perfect for catching the drop on someone with a surprise explosive.

Of course the device still has some kinks to iron out. If you pay close attention, you can still faintly see Blitzkrieg's silhouette shimmering against the backdrop, but its more than useful to help you slip away before you become the center of attention, or to hide yourself as you close the distance on your prey.




PASSIVE ABILTIES

  • Throw Spark: Blitzkrieg's arms are robotic prosthetic limbs, and as such, she packs quite a punch whenever she throws the ball. Stand too close, and you might get a fistful of metal and some knockback for your troubles.

  • Power Explosive: Additionally, bombs thrown by Blitzkrieg before they explode get extra blast radius, allowing Blitzkrieg to sweep wider areas at once. But be careful; a bigger blast also means you'll have to be careful how long you hold onto the bomb. You'll have less time to escape from an ill-timed detonation otherwise!


COSMETICS

Blitzkrieg's sporting some prototype armor in her first set of costumes. Loosely inspired by The Rocketeer, her costume has a vintage flair to it, sporting a clunky brown helmet and replacing her usual robotic arms with a rusty steel gauntlet. There's also been some modest changes to her attire, sporting a buttoned up jacket as opposed to her usual leather, and a nice bandanna to keep her warm in the cold weather. Truly function over style.


BONUS TRIVIA

  • Blitzkrieg is the favorite character of our level artist.

  • Although one of the first characters fully implemented into the game, Blitzkrieg will actually not be available for play upon initial startup of the game. Rather, she will be one of two unlockable characters on the B.O.O.M. roster and can only be selected after defeating her at the end of B.O.O.M.'s arcade mode, where she plays to role of the final boss. For now though, our patreon subscribers and convention guests will have full reign to try Blitzkrieg out and get a feel for her techniques.

  • Blitzkrieg's design has largely stayed the same for most iterations of the game's artstyle. That is, except of course, for her prosthetic arms. Originally much bulkier and better suited for indiscriminate destruction, they presented some difficulty during the animation process, so the art director shrunk them down into something more streamlined and clean, allowing her to wear her prosthetic under her sleeves with relative ease.

  • Blitzkrieg's original ability, before gaining access to her cloaking device, was a well-timed parry, that if activated at the right moment, allowed her to punch the bomb back at its original thrower, detonating in the process. This was eventually scrapped for being equally limited use and overpowered once you perfected the timing.

  • Most character's footstep sound effects were produced from walking on different flooring and surfaces. Blitzkrieg's are unique in that they were actually created by sampling bass drum kicks. Our sound designers says this was done to make her footsteps sound more powerful and menacing than usual.

  • Blitzkrieg is typically used as placeholder art while the art director works on animations for new characters. This allows the programmer to begin working on special abilities long before the animation work is complete.

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« Reply #7 on: August 18, 2018, 10:34:46 AM »


We're almost at the end of the road for our weeklong character review! Today we'll be discussing Deathproof, the inscrutible, unkillable stunt driver who always does his own stunts.

Deathproof was born in Cuba under strange pretenses: he was born without a heart to pump blood through his veins. Even stranger still, no matter what injury he sustained, Deathproof, like his namesake, could not sustain mortal injury. Deathproof used his peculiar gifts for fame and wealth, becoming one of the most desirable stunt-drivers in cinema. If you had the means to contact him, and the cash to pay for his expertise, there was no stunt too dangerous for Deathproof to tackle. Now working as a for-hire mercenary out of Mexico, Deathproof has been hired by the malevolent warlord Blitzkrieg to assist in her claim to victory at Sportsbowl. What Blitzkrieg plans to do with the prize money is of no concern to Deathproof, so long as her check clears.




SPECIAL ABILITY: A FISTFUL OF PAIN

When Deathproof claims to be unkillable, he truly means it. With just a little applied force, Deathproof can dislodge his own arm for use as a cunning trap on the battlefield. Fired diagonally down, Deathproof's arm can knock the ball out of other players hands as if he had just slid into them for possession.

Whats more, once planted, anyone who dares step over the spot Deathproof has planted their trap will find them ensnared in his grip, leaving opponents vulnerable to having the bomb stolen from their grasp, or defenseless against having a live explosive planted in their arms. To escape, players will have to mash the jump button as fast as they can to shake themselves free from Deathproof's grip. Hopefully they can break loose before they find themselves in a real predicament!

Oh, and don't worry too much about Deathproof. Given enough time Deathproof will grow his arm back, good as new!




PASSIVE ABILTIES

  • Divekick Chains: Deathproof is trained in martial arts choreography and knows a thing or two about the value of a good kick. With the Divekick Chain ability, Deathproof will stay airborne after a divekick makes successful impact with any of his opponents, allowing him to follow up with another kick, or perhaps a well placed special.

  • Power Explosive: Don't let Deathproof's uncaring facade fool you. Despite his disinterest in the stakes of his employers, Deathproof is perpetually filled with anger and rage. To that end, he makes sure every bomb explosion packs an extra bang; sure to clear out larger areas of the playing field with each explosion. Talk about showmanship!


COSMETICS

Deathproof's alternate costume set is still a work in progress and not yet implemented in engine. However our art director has concepted out a slick casual outfit for when Deathproof isn't sporting his skull mask and tracksuit. Fitted with a denim jacket, some ripped jeans, and a skull graphic t-shirt, Deathproof can be an intimidating fellow even off the set of his latest action daredevil flick.


BONUS TRIVIA

  • Deathproof is the favorite character of our sound designer. But on top of that, as of our visit to the PLAY NYC convention this month, Deathproof has usurped Mr. Spooks as the most played character in B.O.O.M. Truly a rising star!

  • You may recall that Remmy was loosely inspired by the Grindhouse film Planet Terror. Inversely, Deathproof was loosely inspired by the second feature flick in the Grindhouse duology, Death Proof. Like the antagonist of the film, Death Proof is a menacing stunt driver looking for trouble. However, the antagonist of the film claimed that it was his car that was death proof, while Deathproof is, himself, the one that is unkillable. With a shared history of inspiration, I wonder if Deathproof and Remmy will have any beef to work out in our Arcade Mode?

  • Deathproof was originally pitched as a character who literally would not die in game. While other characters would get blown off screen by explosives, Deathproof would instead slam into walls and get back up, or parachute to safety when falling out of bounds on stages like the Silo. While this was eventually scrapped for development time constraints, many of us on the design team adhere to the belief that Deathproof is the only one on the roster who refuses to use safety equipment when participating in a game of Sportsbowl.

  • Deathproof was originally supposed to punch the ball instead of kicking it during his throwing animation. However we quickly realized this would be an issue in cases where he had already dislodged his arm for his special, and instead decided to do the second angriest thing we could think of: punting a metal encased bomb as hard as possible at the nearest person's head.

  • Deathproof was the first character whose sound design was implemented with FMOD in mind, while other characters in the roster received FMOD support retroactively.

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« Reply #8 on: August 18, 2018, 01:02:28 PM »

Very interesting! Recently got interested in the concept of arena multiplayer battles.
This seems to be a well executed one, wish you the best! Looks great.
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« Reply #9 on: August 19, 2018, 01:15:58 PM »


Welcome back everyone to the final day of our character extravaganza and the first gameplay reveal of our brand new character. It's been a wild ride this week, but we're ready to finally unveil our newest addition to the roster, Lady Luck. Rounding out or villain trifecta, Lady Luck is a master of gambling and games of chance.

A prominent figure in the Irish Mob, Riley White is well renowned throughout the country for never losing a bet, earning her the moniker of Lady Luck. In Dublin, she runs her own gambling casino, The Clover & Rose: a place where the house always wins and the earnings are used for less than legal affairs. Approached by Blitzkrieg to fund her expedition in to the B.O.O.M. foray, Lady Luck has taken it upon herself to appear in person and participate in the Sportsbowl tournament for self gain. After all the best way to win a bet is to have a finger in every pot.




SPECIAL ABILITY: IRISH HOLD 'EM

Lady Luck's special ability may not afford her any unique advantages on the battlefield, but rather allows her to leverage her assets by wagering her own points on her performance each match. At the start of each match, Lady Luck can wager points from her total score by activating her special, 5 points to the pot at a time per press of the special button. Depending on how well you perform in the match, you can multiply your initial bet substantially, giving you a huge leg up on the competition.

Point distribution is broken down as follows:

  • Jackpot! - +12.5% per opponent defeated. You blew up at least one opponent with a bomb you threw and earn points for each player you hit with the explosion.
  • Stalemate - +0%. You did not defeat an opponent, and you did not get hit by an explosion. Your wager is returned.
  • Partial Bust - -100%, +12.5% per opponent defeated. You blew yourself up, but you also took out some opponents. You receive some of your wager back, but still have a net loss of points.
  • Bust - -100%. You were blown up by another, or failed to blow up anyone but yourself when you had possession of the bomb. You lose your wager.

Players that are confident in their own abilities without the use of specials to assist them can rake in points to overcome their opponents with well placed bets. Just be careful not to bet anything you wouldn't want to lose; once those points have been forfeit, there's no way to get them back but through good old fashioned blood and sweat.



PASSIVE ABILTIES

  • Divekick Chains: Lady Luck shares a set of passive abilities with her partner in crime Deathproof. Much like Deathproof, Lady luck can keep herself airborne with each successfully landed divekick. Perfect for gaining some new vantage points to throw the bomb at, and even better for pushing her opponents into the way of a detonating explosive.

  • Power Explosive: Also much like the other villain characters, Lady Luck has a boost to her explosive range when throwing a bomb on a short fuse. This gives her that little extra range she needs to really rake in some kills for her wagers and earn big on mass wipeouts. She's especially deadly on smaller maps, so keep a watchful eye on Lady Luck in the final moments of a match; especially if she has a big bet riding on it!


COSMETICS

As a newly implemented character, Lady Luck's alternate costume also is not implemented at this time. However, we've already set aside some charming elegant robes for her. Lady Luck is if nothing else a lady who values beauty and material wealth that buys beauty over everything else, so it's only fitting that her alternate costume allows her to really show off her extravagant fashion sense.


BONUS TRIVIA

  • Lady Luck is one of only two characters, alongside Deathproof, who has only gone through a single design iteration in development. There was some internal discussion on whether she should be a redhead or if she should have white hair to match her red/white color scheme, but we eventually approved her design as is for in-game implementation.

  • Canonically, Lady Luck has two bodyguards who are heavily muscled sharks named Tooth and Nail respectively. And yes, that would make them card sharks. Although Tooth and Nail do not appear in any playable capacity, there have been several behind the scenes discussions about how their special could work. We like to think sometime in the distant future they may have their time in the sun, but for now they're perfectly content serving as Lady Luck's lackeys in her arcade ladder.

  • Lady Luck's special went through several incarnations before we settled on allowing her to gamble her own points. While we knew we wanted to have a gambling themed character, we weren't sure what that entailed. Some of the earlier concepts thrown around included having a deck of cards full of RNG effects that would be applied to the match, as well as a particularly powerful special that could only be activated successfully after flipping a coin in match. We eventually decided that the most natural extension of the theme was allowing players to place wagers from their own pool of points.

  • Lady Luck is the only character who has an animated hat. The feathers on her default costume will flutter around based on her movement, unlike other hats which are typically static in nature.

  • Simultaneously, Lady Luck is currently the only character that has unique HUD elements, implemented of course to reflect what shes betting, how much she's earned each match, etc. Unlike other characters she does not have a cooldown bar, as her special can only be activated during a preset portion of each match.

  • The sound of Lady Luck's heels when shes walking around actually were not derived from the sound of real heels. Rather, they were edited from a sound bug that was recorded from Morgan & Clyde early in development.
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« Reply #10 on: October 10, 2018, 11:37:39 AM »

Hey everyone, your friends at Kickin Rad Games here, still alive and... well... Kickin. Its sorta what we do.

Anyway, we've been hard at work since our last post working on a new major feature we're hoping to showcase sometime over the next few months. But until then we've been continuing to tweak and balance the game in a number of ways.



Our biggest change in our most recent alpha build revolves around our favorite gal with a gun for a leg, Remmy.

First off you might have noticed that she looks a bit different than the last time we posted. Previously Remmy's default costume always had her wearing her hood up. This looked a bit silly whenever she was wearing a hat admittedly, so we worked on making a second variation of the sprites where she wears her hood down. Anytime you equip a hat, Remmy will automatically remove her hood, but you can also manually remove it by selecting the hoodless option in the cosmetics menu.

Additionally, we've been analyzing a lot of the feedback we've been getting about gameplay balance, and one of the most brought up points of critique was that Remmy's special was a bit underwhelming, so we've buffed her special ability a little bit. Now she can also activate her special while running left or right to get a horizontal boost instead of a vertical one. Like when used for extra jump height, this will push Remmy forward a fair bit at a fast speed, while pushing anyone behind her away and temporarily stunning them. Now her special is not only just good for making tough jumps and fakeouts, but also will allow players to give themselves some more wiggle room on tight chases.


Our sound designer has also been hard at work since our last post, and has added a variety of new sound effects to Lady Luck's special ability and the trucks in the Demolition Derby stage, as well as recorded a variety of new announcer dialogue, particularly if players find themselves being eliminated from a match as a result of being flattened by a monster truck.

Among our bug fixes, we've made some strong adjustments in regards to low-frame rate gameplay environments. The game is designed to be played at 60 FPS, but some lower-end machines drop below that at times and unfortunately became less responsive as a result. This update will hopefully resolve these issues so even if you're playing at a suboptimal frame-rate, or a frame-rate drop occurs during gameplay, you won't find that pressing the jump button isn't working as well as you'd like.

Other, more minor bug fixes this time around prevents the referee from throwing the ball to players that don't exist in Survival mode, as well as overall tweaks to our announcer's excitement gauge, a hidden number within the game's programming that tracks the overall performance of all the players and adjusts how harsh or excitable the announcer's dialogue is. Previously the gauge would deplete too fast, and we felt this was offputting to new players learning the ropes; now players shouldn't expect to hear the announcer get too salty without really putting in the effort for a particularly poor performance.


Now, with 6 of our planned 10 characters fully implemented, we're currently turning our attentions away from our core competitive multiplayer mode to begin implementing features for our solo modes. We've been laying out the groundwork to this for a while, but we're ready to move on to the next step. It'll still be a ways off before we have our full feature complete arcade mode, but we hope to have the framework ready and playable sometime in the course of the next few months. There's a lot of planned components to how our particular arcade ladder works, so I hope to be able to get into more detail on its structure as we make more progress on its development.

That's all for this time guys and gals. We can't wait to start showing off some of our new solo gameplay mode, but before we can do that we have to actually make the dang thing. See you soon with more news once its ready to showcase!
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« Reply #11 on: December 22, 2018, 11:47:41 AM »


Hey everybody! Happy Holidays! As some of you may know from following our social media, we've recently been accepted for an appearance at the Magfest Indie Showcase next month, so we've been hard at work on fresh new content. So much content in fact we're dividing it into two updates. This week's update is being dedicated to our brand new playable character, Clockblock.

Lara Bennet, also known by the codename Clockblock, is a time-travelling android sent from the future with only one goal: change the past to save the future. Hailing from a timeline in which Blitzkrieg won Sportsbowl and used her new found influence and power for world domination, Clockblock seeks to earn the Sportsbowl throne and in the process save her future from total destruction.




SPECIAL ABILITY: BE KIND REWIND

Although her time travel device was substantially damaged in the process of jumping back through the timestream, Clockblock can still user her Time-Capacitor to rewind her movements for a brief moment. By activating her special, Clockblock will traceback all movements she made over the last few moments, allowing her to fake out opponents and recover from long falls.

While rewinding you'll be temporarily invincible to opponents divekicks and slides, as well as be able to hit opponents with any divekicks or slides you yourself may have made in the past; but you'll still be defenseless against explosions, so be sure not to back yourself into a corner!



PASSIVE ABILTIES

  • Throw Spark: Being made of metal, Clockblock's swings can hurt quite a bit if you are unlucky enough to stand too close to her range. Much like Morgan & Clyde and Blitzkrieg, Clockblock's throws will push back opponents standing too close to her in the middle of a toss.

  • Sliding Landing: Also like Remmy and Mr. Spooks, Clockblock can seamlessly transition between a divekick and a slide. This comes in particular handy when utilized in conjunction with her rewind ability, giving her longer hitboxes to hit opponents with.


COSMETICS

Clockblock's alternate costumes showcases her wearing some sporty flight wear, perfect for exploring the vast abyss of the space time continuum.


BONUS TRIVIA

  • Clockblock was created and designed by an older alternate timeline version of Morgan of the Morgan & Clyde duo. It should come as no surprise then that Clockblock inherited both of her passive abilities from Morgan and her older sister Remmy. This also technically makes Clockblock the final member of the Bennet family to make an appearance in B.O.O.M. as a playable character; albeit, from a much different timeline than the one B.O.O.M. is set within.

  • The original design for Clockblock was very similar to the one you see now, but rather than having a humanoid head, Clockblock instead just had a clock for a face. Can you imagine that? Just a clock for a face? It was weird! We didn't stick with it!

  • Clockblock has some prototype levitation technology built into her body. This allows her to float instead of run, and throw the ball by propelling with clock-shaped energy. Most characters flip directions if you throw the ball in a direction opposite of where you're facing, but because Clockblock's throw is radial in nature and does not rely on her physically handling the ball, Clockblock does NOT switch directions when throwing the bomb behind her. This makes her a bit more difficult to read than other characters when she throws the bomb.

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« Reply #12 on: December 29, 2018, 01:41:47 PM »

Hey everyone, we're back again with part two of "Kickin Rad Extremely Made A Video Game." We've got a lot of improvements and features to go over from this month's development cycle, so let's just start from the top and work our way down.




We've made a substantial amount of changes to our visual engine this month. You may have already noticed last update the new and improved explosion; something with substantially more impact than the small little firework burst we've been working with previously. Additionally we've also compiled visual changes to the wallslide. Previously we just used a reversed falling sprite as a placeholder, but now everyone will press their arm and legs against the wall in a much more visually readable fashion.




Currently we are also testing out a new tech ability we've implemented known as "The Kickback." The kickback acts like a parry that can be executed by divekicking any airborne ball, whether it be from a stray toss, or fresh out of the opponents hands. Upon succesfully landing a kickback, the game will pause for one second, allowing you to re-aim the bomb anywhere within a 180 degree radius in front of you, and then launch it again with substantial force.

In addition to allowing you to deflect incoming explosives, this also allows you to knock time off of a bomb's fuse. On an average bomb it knocks off two seconds of the overall timer, but on bombs that are close to explosion, this has the unique effect of making it immediately detonate upon impact with the next player or surface. If you can time it right, its a great way to spare yourself from an otherwise certain demise. Just be careful not to blow yourself up in the process.

We've also made some tweaks to other techs in the game, including the ability to force a slide by holding down while standing still as well as balance updates to Remmy and Morgan's specials.



Lastly among the smaller portion of today's blog post, this update instates a plethora of new content. The Deathproof and Lady Luck alternate costumes previously showcased in their original character update posts are now available for you to take onto the court.

Additionally, as of this build Lady Luck's homestage, The Casino, is fully ready and playable. Featuring moving platforms and two pinball bumpers on the two far sides of the stage, The Casino sports many maneuverability options for the player to utilize in making their approach or planning an escape. But the big center piece of course is the flying blimp located in the upper realm of the stage. Each round its slots will trigger, causing a variety of different effects for the upcoming bout, including lower gravity, higher speeds, larger point payouts, or even dropping in additional bombs for double the mayhem.





But now that we've gone through some of the tweaks and balances, I'd like to introduce you all to a new feature we've all been working very hard on this month:




We're pleased to announce today the first fully playable iteration of Arcade Mode is complete and ready to make its debut. Available to all seven currently playable characters, the arcade ladder challenges you to take on a series of 7 consecutive matches, each with their own different rules and conditions, on your road to become king of sports. This all culminates in a boss fight against a powerful foe in a 1v1 Survival match, where the last man standing takes the sportsbowl crown. Defeat the warmonger Blitzkrieg at the end of the tunnel, save the world from annihilation, and earn your glory.

Each character has their own unique ladder to playthrough with different focuses and conditions. Morgan and Clyde, for example, fight a series of team battles alongside Morgan's older sister Remmy, while sinister characters like Blitzkrieg will often ally themselves with other evil characters in order to take on a series of good-oriented characters, like Clockblock.




Along the way, you'll be challenged by stronger than usual opponents known as Rivals. Every character has a unique rival counterpart that will challenge you to a fight midway through an arcade ladder. These are difficult 1v1 survival matches, where each player gets one life only.

You only get one chance to defeat a Rival. If you lose, you'll still progress through the arcade ladder as normal. But if you can defeat these powerful opponents, you'll earn a massive boost to your score and unlock exclusive cosmetic items for use in single-player and multiplayer modes.


While we're pleased with the state of our Arcade Mode now, there's still a lot more work to be done in the coming months before its truly complete. Here's a list of some of the features that we are planning for future updates to this mode:

  • Visual novel elements to interject brief moments of dialogue and world building prior to Rival and Boss fights.

  • Fleshing out the Rival fights more in the future. We plan to make the difficulty for Rival matches dynamic in the future, so that they adjust to the general performance level of players throughout the arcade ladder. Players just defeating their opponents by a hair might have easier rival matches than those who continue to dominate the competition at every opportunity. Additionally, because the alpha build does not support unlockables for demo purposes, defeating a rival does not currently net any rewards beyond the glory of victory.

  • Currently leaderboards are not supported, but will be in the final version of the game. Your overall score in each match will be tallied up at the end of a ladder, and granted additional bonuses based on your performance, difficulty level, as well as any retry attempts taken along the way.


We're so excited at Kickin' Rad Games to finally roll out our first single player focused mode, and while there's still a ways to go before we can truly call it complete, we're eager to begin demoing it and gaining feedback and critique from out playerbase. We've still got big plans for our single-player progression and hope to see you all coming along for the ride.
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« Reply #13 on: January 12, 2019, 11:48:44 AM »

Hey everybody, its your friends Kickin' Rad again, back from the trenches at Magfest. It was a lovely experience as it was every year and we were blown away by the support and patronage we received this year. It's become an annual tradition for us to track all the playstats through out the event and give a brief postmortem, so without further ado I'd like to present those to you now: this time in a nice easy to read Google Spreadsheet.

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1X7Lrk7QYEKaKFv-4mNqj7WXN1zasAJF-3DkbhzKxxf0/edit?usp=sharing



There was quite a few pleasant surprises this year when compared to our stats from last year. Namely we *doubled* the amount of rounds played through out the course of the event, finishing this year's Magfest with a wonderful 642 matches played, in comparison to last year's 357. We had technical difficulties last year keeping the game running 24/7, and having fixed that bug this year we think has helped substantially this year.

To not much surprise, Mr. Spooks took most of the gold records again this year, but it was a pleasant surprise to see silver and bronze go largely to Deathproof and Clockblock, characters added in between Magfest this year and last year. There was quite a bit of a power struggle throughout the first few days for the bronze position, with Remmy and Morgan both going back and forth for the spot, but ultimately Clockblock beat them out by just a few games.

On top of just being fun to see who everyone's favorite character is, these stats also help give us a good idea of the state our game. One thing that was of great concern to us last year was that the successful completion of Morgan's special ability was *very* low, sitting at 95 completions over the course of four days. This year, after having spent a great deal of time buffing and rebalancing the character to make her more viable, Morgan sits at a comfortable 237 completions out of 282 specials.

Our focus area based on these stats going forward largely revolves around increasing the rate of successful steals, which sit around 10%. These stats have changed much since last year (our average steal percentage also was around 10% with successful hits being around 30%) and based on feedback from the event we think this could be a result of players losing track of their characters in the chaos of the sport. To address this, we're adapting our UI a little more to make it clear which player is which at all times, as well as exploring visual impact options for divekicks and slides to make it more clear when players have hit specific other players.



Of course, in addition to all these great stats we can read into, Magfest also let us find glitches and bugs we were not uncovering in our development playtesting conditions. These largely revolved around UI issues that presented themselves during long term play, or strange physics bugs regarding the bomb on certain levels.

Sometimes we were just discovering certain abilities were much too strong, such as Clockblock's which we issued a hotfix debuff mid convention to reduce her rewind time and remove her invulnerability frames. Other times they weren't working as intended, such as Clockblock's rewind not skipping past moments where the player is standing still, or Lady Luck not recieving points back on a bet if the bomb didnt explode before the end of a match.

Our biggest bug manifested in an almost gamebreaking fashion during setup when we discovered that several of our controllers were not accepting input. Thankfully we've discovered this is an easily circumventable issue by plugging the controllers in after the game has launched rather than prior, but it is none-the-less an issue we'll be looking into fixing in the coming months of development.

We've already set to work [or have already fixed] most of the issues that we saw arise from the four days playtesting and are eager to roll those into upcoming builds. Our impression with how the game has been received with audiences this year has been staggeringly positive, and we plan to continue going down this road with our future updates by carefully monitoring player feedback and stat tracking. Thanks to everyone and anyone who stopped by our booth at Magfest this year, hopefully we'll be around to see you all again next year as well.
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