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[anonymous_abc]

I've just released my first indie game, Jack B: Nimble - you've probably seen it's progress in this very thread.

^What it looks like in GIF form

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=64yqwVYuXLQ
^What it looks like in video form

Well, it's out now and available on iOS: https://itunes.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/viewSoftware?id=918891211&mt=8

Give it a go, support your bro ;D

Getting coverage in Germany.
http://www.appgefahren.de/jack-b-ni...m_campaign=Feed:+appgefahren+(appgefahren.de)

 

[OccamsBlender]

Power Rangers: The Movie (starts as a cutscene, but all I could find was a pic of the boss battle)

Wow, all this time one of the most respectable boss intro screen compositions has been swiped from a horrid movie game!

Great ideas can be everywhere...

 

[SeanNoonan]

Getting coverage in Germany.
http://www.appgefahren.de/jack-b-ni...m_campaign=Feed:+appgefahren+(appgefahren.de)

Recognised! https://www.facebook.com/JackB.Nimble

 

[anonymous_abc]

Recognised! https://www.facebook.com/JackB.Nimble

Spoiler

too late then.

 

[SeanNoonan]

Cannot unsee.

 

[Ito]

Wow, all this time one of the most respectable boss intro screen compositions has been swiped from a horrid movie game!

Great ideas can be everywhere...

If you say so... that wasn't my point at all.

And that game was a very nice Beat'em Up.

Back in the day, games based in movies/cartoons didn't always suck.

Just think about the brilliant Aladdin for genesis/mega drive.

 

[Pehesse]

Amazing work here, as always. The combat is looking really deep. I'm intrigued about the other gameplay elements besides the combat that you'll put in the game. If I remember correctly there'll be a little bit of customization, level grind, and adventure, right?


I'm only going to post a little animation for a cutscene. I tried a different animation technique this time, the trusty and old-school animation drawn frame-by-frame. It turned out pretty nice, but it's a lot of work. I don't know how Pehesse can take it!

I call this monster Chicken Wings.

That's quite a list you've managed to put together there :-D

Also, thanks :-D Yeah, the other big/main part of the game is about everything stat/story/choice related, you can see it in action here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hzpY8zdfWCo .I'm going back to it once I've added another character, so not before the end of the year I think :-D

And: ooh, frame-by-frame animation! I think it has a fluidity and dynamism I really like. Sure, it takes a lot of time, but you get more freedom doing that, right? Somehow it reminds me of a monster out of Silent Hill that'd be used in some kind of Splatterhouse dynamic, it's both funny and creepy :-D The only advice I could think of would be to desynchronize the arm and leg - as it is he lands on his feet and finishes his arcing movement with the blade at the exact same frame, and I think you'll have even better motion by having one of the two trail off behind the other (I'd say the arm). As for the leg (and possibly the other arm as well), I'd do a recoil motion: shift the weight of the character forward when the foot plants onto the ground, then back again in a frame or two. Otherwise, really good work, especially if it's your first try - isometric view and rotations are not the easiest things to start out with :-D

Well as of the last couple of versions Scirra / Ludei have basically ceased working together, so CocoonJS is no longer a means to release your game to iOS (this is the method I used for Jack B. Nimble...) however you still can use it, just without support or working plugins

So that leaves Ejecta (which ran like garbage when I used it last month) and PhoneGap. It seems Scirra are getting behind PhoneGap now, which is great because I pay an Adobe subscription, so it means I get to use that service without limits However PhoneGap documentation hasn't been updated in 3 years and is therefore out of date and lacking the detail I was hoping for - I find jumping to and from windows and mac environments to be a pain, especially when I'm not that comfortable with Xcode.

So I'm hoping I can just work out PhoneGap and that it provides the same performance as CocoonJS used to. The caveat being, my app will REQUIRE iOS8 from that point on, because it requires WebGL to be accessed natively rather than via a JS wrapper such as Ejecta or CocoonJS.

I'm probably rambling because this is a source of annoyance for me right now, because a lack of Game Center support is probably effecting my sales and word of mouth a fair bit. If you have any questions, just respond. I'll be in and about the thread over the next few days for sure

It's certainly interesting (though I'm sorry to hear it) to read about your troubles using C2's export options. I'm interested to know more about what you tried/what happens - I'll admit I'm not going for mobile export for Honey right now (if at all), but that question is still quite a ways off and things can change, so I'll take any information I can get. Did you try any other exporter? Any problems with the PC side of things, or the other supported platforms?

Agreed with Jobbs and Ashodin, for what it's worth. If the game has been out two years already, it's doubtful that raising the price will encourage more people to jump in, regardless of new features.On the other hand, some marketing along the lines of "now with more content for the same price!" could possibly sway some people though. Obviously I don't know your sales levels, but successfully getting a bunch of new customers to pay full price two years down the line doesn't seem like such a bad deal.

I agree with this as well. Raising the price might sound like a good idea when you *know* what happened behind the scenes, but oftentimes players won't know, or care (and rightly so?) and it just ends up looking bad and turning away new potential buyers.
Plenty of great ideas to make up for this have been posted already though, so there's that :-D Good luck!

 

[SeanNoonan]

It's certainly interesting (though I'm sorry to hear it) to read about your troubles using C2's export options. I'm interested to know more about what you tried/what happens - I'll admit I'm not going for mobile export for Honey right now (if at all), but that question is still quite a ways off and things can change, so I'll take any information I can get. Did you try any other exporter? Any problems with the PC side of things, or the other supported platforms?

iOS wise here's the performance I got for different exporters...
CocoonJS (no longer supported) - 60 FPS
Ejecta - 25-35 FPS
Native web export (pre iOS8) - 25-35 FPS
Phonegap (pre iOS8)- 25 FPS (didn't test extensively)

It sounds as though post iOS8, native web and phonegap should hit the required 60FPS.

In regards to standalone PC versions, you've basically got Node Webkit, which for all intents and purposes is a mini packaged Chrome. There's not much control with this as far as customising the application (there are third party programs and plugins though - most of which come at a cost) and especially for smaller games leads to larger file sizes than you'd expect (something people have complained about to me).

You're up shit creek if you want to port to consoles such as the Vita, though they do support WiiU (but good luck getting a devkit from Nintendo).

However, if you want to make a HTML5 web game (which can be monetised) or even a game for Windows 8 - I don't think anything else comes close.

 

[GulAtiCa]

Yes! Finally! I was finally able to solve my framerate issues with my game. For last few months been trying to figure out the best way to reduce the framerate issues. Finally got it all figured out. Thanks to an image optimization option in the Nintendo Web Framework settings, was able to further reduce issues. Now most renders only take 3ms max for the more static maps, and about 20ish ms for more dynamic maps (only when all the big bots are 1000px+). Not sure if I can reduce it further, but great stopping point for now.

Now I can complete my demo and send it off and finish patch 2 and maybe get it submitted by weekend.

 

[Pasta_Soup]

Hey guys I just launched my kickstarter check it out!
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/865069666/beyond-human-pc-mac-ps4-psvita

This is looking really great - gameplay looks super fun and dynamic! Cool visual style as well. I wish you guys the best of luck in your campaign - I know how tough Kickstarters can be.
---
That being said - I've been working alongside an iOS developer for the past several months on a game called "Combo Queen". I've done all of the art/animation for the game - and I'm pretty proud of the results so far!

It's a fast-paced, hack and slash, runner-esque game where your main objective is to perform lengthy combos against tough enemies. Gameplay consists of timed hits: one finger taps for attacks and two finger taps for parries. The timing system is based on games like "Legend of Dragoon". There's also a simple "limit break system" where as you fight, your meter builds up. A 3-finger tap will activate your limit, and you can tap like crazy to dish out a bunch of attacks. You'll be able to level up, purchase combo sets and upgrade Queen, the main character, with new equipment.

Here are some gifs of the tutorial screen (giant fingers will not be there during gameplay, haha)

Some character animations:

So yeah! If you any of you guys are interested in a more in-depth look at the project, you can check out the video/more details at the KS page here!:

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/alexergas/combo-queen

I'm just glad I'm not helping run this KS like Olympia Rising's - too exhausting for me.

Thanks for any and all support, everyone! Great work as usual in the thread. I need to post more, I lurk way too much

 

[_machine]

That's looks absolutely fantastic!

The flashing for attacks in that one gif seems a bit too much for my taste, but it's really hard to say if it would still work well on the actual device. Good luck with the KS, I think you'll do really well and I hope you get a few of stretch goals.

As for myself, unfortunately we didn't get a friend, an editing professional, to do the trailer for Ancestory which means I'll probably have to do it myself with some help from other local devs so the workload is not easing. I've been working my ass off coming up with a plan for the greenlight and just writing and writing for ever, but it's going pretty well and we are most likely going to be featured in Indie Game Magazine in November, which feels really great. Here's a few of the latest screenshots I've taken:

I also finally set up the DevLog over at TIGSource, so feel free to check it out, but I will off course cross-post all the development updates here as well. Feel free give any tips regarding Greenlight, we can use whatever help can get and off course I'll be sharing our journey and tips for you guys.

 

[Pasta_Soup]

That's looks absolutely fantastic!

The flashing for attacks in that one gif seems a bit too much for my taste, but it's really hard to say if it would still work well on the actual device. Good luck with the KS, I think you'll do really well and I hope you get a few of stretch goals.

Thanks, man! And yeah, I agree that gif is a bit seizure inducing - though you can see the combat as it would appear when not using a limit break in the trailer.

Speaking of which, does anyone have any good recommendations for GIF capturing? I've used a number of different applications, but none of them give me the results I want. LICEcap is the one I usually use, but it seems to capture frames at a strange rate, and whenever I get to the editing of the gif in Photoshop, the speed becomes WAY off after its imported.

Your game is looking great, _Machine! I dig those characters

 

[_machine]

Speaking of which, does anyone have any good recommendations for GIF capturing? I've used a number of different applications, but none of them give me the results I want. LICEcap is the one I usually use, but it seems to capture frames at a strange rate, and whenever I get to the editing of the gif in Photoshop, the speed becomes WAY off after its imported.

Your game is looking great, _Machine! I dig those characters

For brief gifs I've found GifCam pretty useful, even though you can only get up to 33fps. Doing it from actual videos I usually do it in VirtualDub, but it's certainly a slower process than GifCam.

And thanks, we are probably going to rework the characters quite a bit while still keeping the same art style, but it's still nice to hear that people are digging it. We got some pretty fantastic feedback from Riot's Tomas Jech while he was here and it certainly made us rethink all of our animations, but luckily it's the one thing that we simply didn't really focus on the 7 weeks of development the game has gone through so far.

 

[RicoTheMad]

Is keeping a DevLog in TIGSource worth it to everyone? I think I started one a while back but I haven't kept up with it, since it got no replies at all. I have very limited time and already suck at posting up progress on all my proven sites, so I'm genuinely curious.

 

[_machine]

Is keeping a DevLog in TIGSource worth it to everyone? I think I started one a while back but I haven't kept up with it, since it got no replies at all. I have very limited time and already suck at posting up progress on all my proven sites, so I'm genuinely curious.

From what I've heard from my friends, it can absolutely even be a break it or make it place and doing well there can create a lot of coverage for certain audience, but on the other hand it might not be easy to get noticed. I will definitely try to be active there as I think our game is something that developer community might be interested in, even though it's not the most hardcore or different game. We are really happy with the card + grid mechanics and have gotten a lot of great response, but I have to say going for Greenlight is still not going to be the easiest thing. I'd say that for more casual mobile games it might not be worth the time, but you never know and sharing your development story is always a plus in my book.

 

[Pasta_Soup]

Is keeping a DevLog in TIGSource worth it to everyone? I think I started one a while back but I haven't kept up with it, since it got no replies at all. I have very limited time and already suck at posting up progress on all my proven sites, so I'm genuinely curious.

I know that some games have found great success by posting progress on TIG (RainWorld comes to mind), but I haven't found much success with it. The TIG community is kind of strange - I've never really felt welcomed or encouraged whenever I've participated there.

Just my personal experience, though!

 

[Ito]

From what I've heard from my friends, it can absolutely even be a break it or make it place and doing well there can create a lot of coverage for certain audience, but on the other hand it might not be easy to get noticed. I will definitely try to be active there as I think our game is something that developer community might be interested in, even though it's not the most hardcore or different game. We are really happy with the card + grid mechanics and have gotten a lot of great response, but I have to say going for Greenlight is still not going to be the easiest thing. I'd say that for more casual mobile games it might not be worth the time, but you never know and sharing your development story is always a plus in my book.

I know that some games have found great success by posting progress on TIG (RainWorld comes to mind), but I haven't found much success with it. The TIG community is kind of strange - I've never really felt welcomed or encouraged whenever I've participated there.

Just my personal experience, though!

Ha, who are you going to say... I opened a devlog almost a year ago and 80% of the comments are rants about the main character's cleavage. Some guy even posted National Geographic pics to make me understand "how a real Spirit Huntress looks like". Kind of surreal...

BTW, your game looks amazing, I love the character design and how smooth the animations are. A little bit low-res and too minimalistic pixel art for my taste, but a good job is always a good job!

 

[Pasta_Soup]

Ha, who are you going to say... I opened a devlog almost a year ago and 80% of the comments are rants about the main character's cleavage. Some guy even posted National Geographic pics to make me understand "how a real Spirit Huntress looks like". Kind of surreal...

BTW, your game looks amazing, I love the character design and how smooth the animations are. A little bit low-res and too minimalistic pixel art for my taste, but a good job is always a good job!

See, that's another thing about TIG. There's critiquing - and then there's pointless ranting/nitpicking. People post wonderful work and it's torn apart for silly reasons - I don't know, I just get a rude vibe from a lot of the people there. Not saying the community is bad, sure there's plenty of great people there. Just not my cup of tea.

And thanks Ito! Glad you like it. I've seen a number of progress shots from your game and it's looking awesome! Seems like a pretty ambitious project - hope everything is going well with it!

 

[Jobbs]

finally redid the background here a bit, particularly the furthest mountains, making them crisper.


click for big

it's one of the first things you see, so it should look crisp.

 

[SeanNoonan]

I've been working alongside an iOS developer for the past several months on a game called "Combo Queen". I've done all of the art/animation for the game - and I'm pretty proud of the results so far!

While I think I've had my fill of Kickstarters for the year, I'll be picking this up as soon as it's available once it inevitably gets kickstarted. Looks amazing

 

[0xCA2]

How does one approach Unity or GM if they're a semi-experienced programmer and not interested in using DnD tools? Where should I start?

 

[Burt]

Very nice. I'm currently working on a tactical RPG myself.

I hope to see a playable demo sometime soon!

Probably not too soon, but maybe one of these days

Well as of the last couple of versions Scirra / Ludei have basically ceased working together, so CocoonJS is no longer a means to release your game to iOS (this is the method I used for Jack B. Nimble...) however you still can use it, just without support or working plugins

So that leaves Ejecta (which ran like garbage when I used it last month) and PhoneGap. It seems Scirra are getting behind PhoneGap now, which is great because I pay an Adobe subscription, so it means I get to use that service without limits However PhoneGap documentation hasn't been updated in 3 years and is therefore out of date and lacking the detail I was hoping for - I find jumping to and from windows and mac environments to be a pain, especially when I'm not that comfortable with Xcode.

So I'm hoping I can just work out PhoneGap and that it provides the same performance as CocoonJS used to. The caveat being, my app will REQUIRE iOS8 from that point on, because it requires WebGL to be accessed natively rather than via a JS wrapper such as Ejecta or CocoonJS.

I'm probably rambling because this is a source of annoyance for me right now, because a lack of Game Center support is probably effecting my sales and word of mouth a fair bit. If you have any questions, just respond. I'll be in and about the thread over the next few days for sure

Thanks for the details. Things like that are great to know beforehand.

Is keeping a DevLog in TIGSource worth it to everyone? I think I started one a while back but I haven't kept up with it, since it got no replies at all. I have very limited time and already suck at posting up progress on all my proven sites, so I'm genuinely curious.

Considering the relative lack of work it takes, I'd say it's worth it. I've seen a bunch of articles from fairly important indie coverage outlets (RPS, Indiegames.com, IndieStatik... rip) whose authors mention that they first heard about a game on the TIGSource forums. As good as this thread and the official indie games one are, I don't think they're patrolled as heavily by media members looking for games, although they certainly should be. But...

I know that some games have found great success by posting progress on TIG (RainWorld comes to mind), but I haven't found much success with it. The TIG community is kind of strange - I've never really felt welcomed or encouraged whenever I've participated there.

Just my personal experience, though!

See, that's another thing about TIG. There's critiquing - and then there's pointless ranting/nitpicking. People post wonderful work and it's torn apart for silly reasons - I don't know, I just get a rude vibe from a lot of the people there. Not saying the community is bad, sure there's plenty of great people there. Just not my cup of tea.

... these comments are entirely accurate in my experience.

Combo Queen looks fantastic, great job.

Also, I'm probably super late to the party on this, but has anyone else used Incompetech for music? I was stumbling around this morning looking for some royalty free stuff to use as placeholders so I wouldn't have the Ogre Battle music drilling my ears anymore, and it seems like a superb resource that's incredibly open with rights/usage. Just a heads up for anyone looking to fulfill their music needs on the cheap.

 

[SeanNoonan]

Is keeping a DevLog in TIGSource worth it to everyone? I think I started one a while back but I haven't kept up with it, since it got no replies at all. I have very limited time and already suck at posting up progress on all my proven sites, so I'm genuinely curious.

Depends what you want out of it. I was hoping it would be a source to build up interest and generate feedback, but found my thread just got buried, if you've got a name for yourself it's definitely worth while though.

 

[Pehesse]

iOS wise here's the performance I got for different exporters...
CocoonJS (no longer supported) - 60 FPS
Ejecta - 25-35 FPS
Native web export (pre iOS8) - 25-35 FPS
Phonegap (pre iOS8)- 25 FPS (didn't test extensively)

It sounds as though post iOS8, native web and phonegap should hit the required 60FPS.

In regards to standalone PC versions, you've basically got Node Webkit, which for all intents and purposes is a mini packaged Chrome. There's not much control with this as far as customising the application (there are third party programs and plugins though - most of which come at a cost) and especially for smaller games leads to larger file sizes than you'd expect (something people have complained about to me).

You're up shit creek if you want to port to consoles such as the Vita, though they do support WiiU (but good luck getting a devkit from Nintendo).

However, if you want to make a HTML5 web game (which can be monetised) or even a game for Windows 8 - I don't think anything else comes close.

Thanks for the info!

That being said - I've been working alongside an iOS developer for the past several months on a game called "Combo Queen". I've done all of the art/animation for the game - and I'm pretty proud of the results so far!

I like all of those animations a lot :-D As said, though, the repeating flashing can be a bit much, but I suppose it feels a bit different when you're actually tapping/producing the effect yourself?

Is keeping a DevLog in TIGSource worth it to everyone? I think I started one a while back but I haven't kept up with it, since it got no replies at all. I have very limited time and already suck at posting up progress on all my proven sites, so I'm genuinely curious.

As others have said, what determines the success of a thread there seems to be pretty hard to pinpoint, but I'd still say to keep at it, if for no one else's sake than your own - organizing your thoughts and presenting them can be useful from a design standpoint, too, as you get a clearer viewpoint of what's done, what's to do, and how to do it!

 

[Tenki]

GUYS ITS OFF THE RAILS AHHHHH

Which engine are you using?

 

[Dead Prince]

Which engine are you using?

he's using construct2

 

[Ashodin]

Correct! Today is moon rover day! Plus more work on secret letters.

 

[udivision]

was gonna join the gif train, but it turns out i didn't record a video, just took two snapshots

that's why you check your hotkeys people ;_;

 

[Ashodin]

60 fps movement

 

[Jacksinthe]

Just dropping by to say there's some real ass shit going down in this thread, hot damn, everyone! Looking fly as fuck Ash, Jobbs, Flix, Pasta and everyone else.

 

[Ashodin]

Wil Wheaton at feep's house doing VA for TCAE (with Laura Bailey!)

 

[Dead Prince]

not enough shoe on head there.

 

[Blizzard]

RIP Feep, he probably just broke the #1 rule of famous voice actors, you're not supposed to get too many of them in the same place at the same time. They reach critical mass, then POW, nuclear explosion.

 

[Granadier]

RIP Feep

 

[GulAtiCa]

Laura Bailey in person?!? I am so jealous!

 

[bkw]

That being said - I've been working alongside an iOS developer for the past several months on a game called "Combo Queen". I've done all of the art/animation for the game - and I'm pretty proud of the results so far!

It's... beautiful...! Is PC port begging allowed here?

 

[bkw]

Graphics people. When I try to draw the sprites from my sprite sheet, the edges of the sprite look sort of cut off. (In the image, the parts are all separate sprites.) What is this problem called? Is it something to do with sampling? What might be the fix be?

Anything to help me get started on searching would be helpful. Thanks!

 

[Five]

Yeah, you need to put about three pixels of empty space on the outside of sprites to be safe. That effect happens when there are no texels to interpolate with.

 

[bkw]

Yeah, you need to put about three pixels of empty space on the outside of sprites to be safe. That effect happens when there are no texels to interpolate with.

Thanks. I exported my sprite sheet with a 4px border around, then expanded my sprite quad by 2px all around and that seems to have helped.

Another question... do people export their sprite assets at a higher resolution and scale down a bit in game? I need to do some more experimenting, but I'm curious if compression is going to kill the edges of my graphical/solid shape sprites. I recall this happening a while back a previous game. I think I left the textures uncompressed in the end, but is there another solution? Also, my sprite sheet exporter doesn't currently have options to scale up or down from vector, so I want to build my assets at the correct size.

 

[Five]

Thanks. I exported my sprite sheet with a 4px border around, then expanded my sprite quad by 2px all around and that seems to have helped.

Another question... do people export their sprite assets at a higher resolution and scale down a bit in game? I need to do some more experimenting, but I'm curious if compression is going to kill the edges of my graphical/solid shape sprites. I recall this happening a while back a previous game. I think I left the textures uncompressed in the end, but is there another solution? Also, my sprite sheet exporter doesn't currently have options to scale up or down from vector, so I want to build my assets at the correct size.

This is just what I do, but I export anything that stays grid-aligned at 1:1, and anything that rotates, scales a little, or uses decimal coordinates at 2:1 and then draw them at 1/2. I started doing it because the math was simple, but then I read something about audio sampling where to reproduce the original signal you just need double the samples of the output resolution, and sort of figured it would apply the same way to graphics. I could be wrong, but it's worked out nicely for me so far.

 

[omg_mjd]

Finished my first day of recording with Yuri Lowenthal, Wil Wheaton, Cassandra Lee Morris, Ashly Burch, and Laura Bailey.

They were all fantastic, but oh my GOD at Laura Bailey. She's incredible.

I'd never hire Laura Bailey to voice my game.

I'd be too starstruck to get any work done. (Seriously.)

 

[Feep]

RIP Feep, he probably just broke the #1 rule of famous voice actors, you're not supposed to get too many of them in the same place at the same time. They reach critical mass, then POW, nuclear explosion.

Video games rarely do ensemble sessions. NOW I SEE WHY.

After three days of recording, we're wrapped! Incredible experience with incredible actors. Plus they're all just fucking awesome people.

 

[timetokill]

Video games rarely do ensemble sessions. NOW I SEE WHY.

After three days of recording, we're wrapped! Incredible experience with incredible actors. Plus they're all just fucking awesome people.

Very cool, Feep! that's at your house? Huge room!

 

[Ashodin]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BevjwreoO8E

psyscrolr Tutorial Series - SageScrolr!

Enjoy!

 

[Wyndstryker]

Stop making us all jelly of you Feep!

There's too much awesome going on in those pics!

 

[-COOLIO-]

I found out today that my school (DigiPen) has selected a game I worked on last school year to be entered into IGF. See you at... GDC... maybe?

Here's our page if you want to download and play:

http://games.digipen.edu/games/emeth#.VCzn5fldV8E

this has a lot of potential.

 

[spazchicken]

Haven't posted in a little while but I finally got around to putting the titan in the engine, cut apart in pieces, ready for animation and some background art.

 

[MrNyarlathotep]

awesome picture

Damn, if that's your house you are 100% disqualified from the "professionally poor" part of this thread

Spoiler

/jealous

 

[Feep]

Seriously, guys, that's a recording studio, I pay 740 a month in rent in Los Angeles

 

[Ashodin]

So your house is the recording studio!