Hey check out this tornado thing I made. Probably a game in that, right? Yeah probably. I can see it bein fun to throw people around an smash up houses with this. Probably.
God I should get another hobby outside of games.
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This is a work-in-progress of a game I just started making. It's gonna take me about 3 or 4 months to complete. Check back here every so often if you wanna watch it develop. Actually you can click Add To Watch List to get updates.
27th September 2008
Use WASD to move around. Clicking the mouse close to your character will do a melee attack, clicking far away will shoot. Play around with it.
29th September 2008
I won't usually update this often, this is just a one-off.
Checking if vertical platforming is an option. It works pretty well. Arrow keys now usable. Also you can double-tap in a direction for a new melee attack. Climbing animation added for when you get to a ledge you can't quite reach.
4th October
I think I've finished all the animations for this guy. Drew him a sword, added more friction to the floor, made the camera shaky-as-hell to emphasize impact and baditude. New moves added:
Double-tap Left or Right to smash forward
Double-tap Left or Right in mid-air to smash diagonally.
Do a melee attack and hold the mouse down, then release when the sword flashes for a radial special.
The only thing I think I'm lacking is an attack that launches an enemy into the air, and another that smashes them down. My first thought was to use the mousewheel, but they're not as common as you'd think.
I thought about Double-tapping Up or Down, but you can Double-tap Up. As soon as you press Up, you're in the air. So Double-tapping Up for a ground-based attack isn't gonna work. I don't know what I'll do for that.
Anyway, I should probably start making enemies next.
9th October
Okay, alot of development:
Firstly, there's some actual background art now. I've decided that I'm making alot of the art outside of Flash for this one. The Newgrounds team does alot of their artwork in Photoshop and it makes the games really stand out. Makes it look alot more professional, I thought I should try it. Considering I'm pretty useless in Photoshop, I turned to the next best thing on my PC after Flash; 3DS Max. I should be practising 3D anyway.
ENEMY- There is now an enemy. He's pretty standard. His limbs have blades connected to em, and he can align all the blades into a wheel and roll at you. Now I was aiming to not rip off Devil May Cry with enemies, because it's pretty obvious that's the main influence behind the game, and I wanted to come up with all the content myself. Sadly though, I was playing through it this week, and I got up to mission 14 yesterday where you meet an enemy that turns into a wheel and fucking rolls at you. So I felt pretty bad about that.
Anyway, he's about 70% done. I've not full decided on some of his art and the death animation is just a lazy placeholder. I've bin workin on the AI, and I think it's allright so far. If anyone finds themselves beating him by just doing the same move over and over, please tell me about it.
NEW MOVES- I thought for a long time on the Blastoff - Breakdown moves. The obvious choice would be to drag the mouse up really fast, but then the mouse ends up too far away from the guy. I thought about rolling the mouse wheel up, but alot of people don't have mouse wheels and it interferes with the web page. Someone on the forums suggested a good idea; Press DOWN and then UP to smash a guy up. I tried it out, but having to press two buttons for one move was just really bad. You have to be really quick. It wasn't comfortable and I couldn't see everyone getting the hang of it. I think I found a way that works though: Do a melee move, then press UP right after it to launch a guy in the air. When in the air, press DOWN to smash a guy to the ground.
That's it for October 9th. Strangely though, I have one bid for $250. Not for the source script or anything- For the game as it is now. Crazy.
16th of October
DON'T FALL OFF THE BOAT. I haven't done the script that brings you back yet. I didn't work much this week. Well- Nobody's forcin me are they? Also I was busy with that munchdown thing.
ENEMIES: I'm gonna have a hard time coming up with new ideas for enemies. I allways do. We've still got our wheelman in there, but now there's this chomp guy. He's basically this big dumb blob that eats you. IT JUST CAME TO ME. I love how his animations came out, they're great. Still haven't decided on a death animation for all the enemies though.
Second new enemy is the bat guy. Little tiny enemy that you're really gonna have to shoot to get rid of. I'm not 100% happy with his AI. I'm aware that all these enemies are the same colour. Maybe that'll change, maybe it won't. i haven't decided.
GRAPHICS: Made a new bullet shot. I've decided that white is the colour that denotes enemy damage, so the attacks and the shots are all white. I got rid of the particle effect, TRIED a frame-by-frame one. I hated it, it just wasn't random enough. So now I've made this white randomised kind of anime-style bang. It doesn't look QUITE right to me but I like the idea.
BACKGROUND ART: I've decided NOT to do 3D. After a whole lot of unsuccessful attempts to model a light-house, I decided I'm not skilled enough to pull it off. I redrew the docks in 2D, added a little tiny boat in the background, added a boat ride that forces you to beat some guys without really moving, and drew a light-house. You can cut that desk in half, by the way.
The light-house might play some significance in the upcoming boss fight.
24th of Cocktober
The guy with blades on him's got a new attack. It's nothin flash, just an alternate version of his original ROLL-AT-YOU attack for when you stand too close. He jumps you.
NEW ENEMY- I really like the concept of this. I basically took a greyhound and a revolver, and smashed them together. Creative isnit? I got the idea from some shit I saw on Deviantart like a guy with a gun for a face. The AI's not 100% yet, but you get the idea of how it works. By the way, it'll be easier to dodge it once I put an audio cue in of the pre-shot gun click noise. Then you'll know when to jump.
What's that house about? Don't know, I thought the level seriously needed som variety. I was goin for one o those crapshacks you find out in the middle of nowhere on Half Life 2 Episode whatever. Oh, don't lead any enemies in there, they're not housebroken yet and they'll probably flick through the cielings or something. You can smash all the objects in there. Please don't though, they belong to the light-house keeper and it's not fair on him, he's a nice guy.
BOSS!! You'll see the boss I've got planned at the end of the level. I haven't animated it yet- And I know what you're thinking: He'll never animate that; draw it sure, but animate? No way. Well that's where you're wrong, I've made it carefully so it's constructed out of about 5 different graphics all stuck together. I can tween em wherever I want like Madness, no problem. I'm gonna need some grunjy as hell music for that boss fight. I threw in a step ladder by the way so you can take a look at the guy on top. HA, I guess I haven't mentioned the plot atall. I won't spell it out, but if you've played Cannoncrotch you know what to expect. It's gonna be awesome and dumb as hell.
That GO! sign's recycled from an old game I never finished called THE FUCKIN AWESOME QUEST. It was pretty much a prototype for Crunchdown, but you could pick up enemies and throw them. Well- You could pick up anything and throw it. It was cool.
Don't think there's anything else. Is it running slow for anyone? I turned the quality down a notch cos I think it might be running slow. Something I should do: Add some kind of collectible stuff to give you.
Any suggestions on how to beat a giant enemy crab, I'm all ears.
Halloween 08
The boss is done. Enemy crab up n runnin. Tell me how you get along with it.
For a long time it was too hard. I had to slow it down in a few places, pace it out. You should've seen how efficient it was before though- He used to shoot 20 leeches at once, now he shoots 5. Kind of inspired me to save that as some kind of Hard mode.
The little dialogue before the boss fight, I think it's a necessity. Inspired by alot of game, but let's pin it down to Bionic Commando. I LOVED the feel of that game. I was gonna ask a seperate artist to do the character portraits in photoshop, make em look all HD. I think they look OK though, we'll see how I get on. I'm no fantastic artist.
I've got a HUD interface now n all. Life bar and all. I took the GO!! sign off though, I just thought it was unnecessary and redundant.
I spent like a whole day designing and redesigning the HUD though. I'm really into interface- Right now I hate the health bar I've got. It's so boring, it doesn't fit the character, it says nothing about health, I just hate it. I CAN'T THINK OF A GOOD ONE THOUGH. I'll keep working on it.
For a while I had a happy face in place of the health bar, and as you got hit the face turned sadder and sadder, then it turned into an angry face when you were really low on health, then it turned into a skull when you were dead. It was pretty funny, but just so dumb.
COINS- There is now money in the game. Just something to encourage you to explore and give you some instant gratification. I SO tried to avoid using coins. It doesn't fit into the game atall- Why are you collecting money? Why do demons have so much money? Why coins? It's such a cop out. Again though, what else is there? I wish I could think of something better. They don't even look like coins, they're just yellow circles.
When I first put them in, I noticed that it really slowed the pace of the game down. You'd beat a guy, then run up and down collecting the coins, beat another guy and jog on the spot getting the coins again. I wanted people to just steamroll straight through instead of fannying about collecting things. So now, after a couple seconds, all the coins will zoom towards you. Keeps the game flowing AND looks pretty cool. What do you buy with these? Cool stuff.
I think THIS LEVEL is just about done. Maybe add another move or two to the crab, take out the dog revolver (he doesn't fit in, thanks BlueySciuto) then move on to a new level. I really didn't have enough vertical exploration on this level. Turns out there's not alot to build on a coastline. By the way, how's the framerate for everyone? Seems ok for me, kind of drops on the boss. Also everyone confirm for me that you actually read this. For some reason I imagine everyone just clicking the link and sayin "Yeah that's cool" then leaving. So even if you've got no feedback or ought, just tell me, yeah?
Keep an eye out for treasure chests! There's two. God I wish I could have something better than these little boxes, but I'm gonna have to think of a substitute for money first. Maybe I could have some kind of grubs that a trader demon eats and you use it as currency to buy stuff from him? Thinkin off the top o my head here.
I had a health bar for the crab boss, and he could die, but I took it out. It bit a chunk out of the framerate and looked pretty crappy.
EDIT- WOOPS I JUST UPDATED IT. Made the boss a bit more intuitive, got rid of the crazy Terminator leeches. And YES I'll update the enemy's death animations later.
The ninth of November, two thousand and eight:
Things I still haven't done: Made new enemy death animations, thoughtof something better than coins, made the crab fight more intuitive. I didn't spend a whole lot of time on the game this week, I'm busy right, I mean- WHAT THE FUCK, I HAVE A LIFE GUYS. GET OFF MY CASE. JEEZ.
Ok so stuff I did do: Updated the background art and the crab graphcs. Now all the line thicknesses are consistant with each other. I want an opinion or two on whether this looks any better or not. Personally I don't see much of a difference, but if it makes it more professional, then okay.
I also revamped the HUD again. I think the health bar looks magnificent, it's gonna be hard for you to convince me to change it. It's simple, readable, it stands out in your peripheral vision, it's original, not distracting, it's just fab.
Under that is the metre for how much money you have. Now I thought about how I'm using money in the game as the game's currency. I want to think of something less conventional, but for now let's just stick with money. This metre works in the units of casino chips. The purple ones represent one and the green ones are ten. It's intuitive and it looks more interesting than a text box, but it's not very readable at-a-glance. I want to know who thinks it's a good idea and who doesn't.
Also I made a small animation at the end of the level for after you beat the crab.
Finally (and this is the first thing you'll notice) I started work on "level 2". I had this boss idea rolling around in my head and I decided to get it down before I forgot. So this is the "level 2 boss fight" and generally how it's gonna move. I really want to know what people think of the boss's design, because it was hard for me to come up with something original and interesting that would work well in the game environment. These boss designs are following a theme, but I won't say what it is- Don't worry if it looks like I'm being inconsistant. Here's some concept art I made while I was developing the idea.Personally I think the art isn't very impressive or interesting- I don't have alot of artistic direction. Any help on improving this: Greatly appreciated. This is the last time I'll be including "Level 1", unless you have something major to say about it.
November 16th
Alot of small changes this week, some behind-the-scenes stuff preparing to add a Hard Mode (a real one, not just giving you less health), preparing for bonuses etc.
Boss 2 is now about 75% done. It's an (nearly) infinitely looping level, I'm using the same method I used in Cannoncrotch. Alot of the art's halfway there, but the core play is there. There's a couple of blind spots where you can stand and he won't get you, but I'll think of an extra attack or two to sort that out. So is he fun enough yet or what? You tell me.
That boss is a good opportunity to see the bounce thing happen. When you get smashed against a wall, you'll actually bounce off it now and fall. That's not just for this boss, it's the whole game.
Switched the poker chips for generic money. I feel like drawing it better, but I'll do that later. I might as well stick with money for the currency, I've decided. It makes sense.
Made all the changes y'all said last week. The special's alot harder to charge, no more glitches, balcony on the light house, crab's got some visual cues on it. I wanted to do coral all stuck on the crab, but how the hell do I draw that?
By the way, I switched boss 2 to Low quality. but I actually don't think that was necessary, so I'll change it back.
I've decided I need to speed up production on this.
OH- and this is incredible: The game's bin up on FlashGameLicense.com since day 1. I might've mentioned when someone bid on it for about $250. That was crazy right? It's nowhere near done. Well, now it's marked as "20% complete (pre-beta)" and the bid is up to $5000. Yes, $5000. Two spnosors were fighting over it for a while, they're insane. That's WAY more than I got for Crunchdown, and that was 100% done. Speaking of Crunchdown, 5th Best of October. Look who else is in that list, it was a pretty crazy month. Do I win the certificate or what? I think I get the calendar aswell, but I honestly wouldn't recognise half the shit on there. No offense guys :/
I should know how these things work by now.
I should have also added the lightning attack to the crab by now >:(
TELL ME WHAT TO DO NOW YOU LOVELY BUNCH!!
November 24th 24th allready? Christ.
I ACTUALLY did some significant updates this week:
Changed the £10 notes for real ones. That's placeholder, I'll probably change that later.
Added a lightning strike attack that the crab boss can do. Bin meaning to do that for ages- The animation looks really good. He does it randomly instead of the leech attack sometimes.
Added a new move onto boss 2. I don't know whether I'm happy with it, but I put alot of effort into it. He randomly decides (By the way, whenever I say "random", I genuinely mean it. It's a function that picks a random number) randomly decides to smash the player against the wall with a tentacled claw. Sometimes he just lashes out if he can't reach the wall. This move actually targets the player, because I'm trying to get rid of those blind spots people were exploiting. Speaking of exploitation, I think I fixed that cheat where you can scale any wall. You used to be able to wall-jump, then hold down UP and keep clicking on yourself really fast and you'd go upwards indefinately. The problem was that clicking on the left or right side of your guy automatically turns him around, and you could flick around to face the wall really quick. Fixed it.
added a convo with boss 2. Maybe I'll chnage the script a bit, but that's how it'll go.
Also I added our man Johnny to the beggining, I'll probably have him on the title or loading screen. I've not finished animating him yet but you get the idea, it's windy.
STARTED LEVEL 2. This is the level that boss 2 will appear in. You'll be going left to right, and also up stairs and maybe elevators. The backgrounds were hard to do; Flash isn't really made for shit like that, but I don't know Photoshop.
I've made the level really dark, but- Well you can see how it works. Is everyone fine with that? I think it makes things hard because you have to keep the light on what you're fighting, and I like that. I could probably think of some interesting stuff to do with it. Opinions welcome.
I'm gonna be making an enemy that crawls along the cieling next week and jumps down at you.
This might start seeming like a horror game, but don't worry about it, it's JUST this level. This is THE dark level. Everything else will be more like level 1. I tried drawing a mountain in the background of level 1 what slowly reveals the sunset as you get further along the level, but I couldn't draw it :(
THAT'S IT!
The first of December 1.13 megabytes allready? Uh oh.
First things first: CHECK OUT THAT LOADING SCREEN. I had the retro-bar done last week but didn't show it. Then I tried to make the guy and the loading bar look a bit defined from the light background. I wanted something to outline them, but a regular outline looked too neat and clean, so I splashed a load of ink behind it and by the power of magic, it came out great. This isn't a final loading screen but that part in particular, I think, should definately stay. I love it.
Done a bit more of level 2, YO CHECK THAT 3D PERSPECTIVE, I must be doing some awesome scripting right? AS3 yeah? Nah it's an illusion, I'm just moving shapes around.
New enemy on level 2- This is what I spent the most time on by far. Making an enemy isn't as easy as just drawing it, it takes ages. So this guy crawls around the cieling and whips you around. I thought I'd introduce the boss's whip attack through this enemy, considering I've got the gundog doing the laser. Originally he teleported infront of you, but that caused so many game-breaking problems. He'd follow you around the level and get into spaces he couldn't fit. I like the animation on this guy, it mostly turned out great. ESPECIALLY his death animation, I didn't think I'd be able to do disintigration like that. You probably won't even notice it; here's a couple of the crawler's animations. You'll find that he's really easy to beat- But his attacks and movement's are tailor-made to fighting in groups. So just wait til you confront him with a wheelman or gundog.
Also I did a sketch (or storyboard, or proof-of-concept) of the animation that happens when you beat boss 2. It's in the game, but you might aswell click here. Of course the actual one will be more eventful, with smoke and shakey cameras etc.
I can't believe how slow the progress is going on this. It's bin two months since I started and I've still got AGES to go. You still can't spend your coins, there's no hint of a story or anything, how long am I gonna be working on this?
Y'know what- This is gonna sound dumb, but please try not to report any glitches this week. Most of it's gonna be ones that are carried over from last week, reading from a person who doesn't make games trying to explain a glitch is demotivational as balls, and I don't know whether you're doing this deliberately or not, but some of you are very annoying. Finding out what's broke about my game isn't something I look forward to. Look at my history.
Snoop around level 2, see if you can find something.
Also, I realised last week there's something I'm forgetting to put in my boss fights- Transformations. Bosses usually have a phase 1 and a phase 2 don't they? I should think about that for the next one.
17th December
Wow, if I had a schedule for this game- I would be behind schedule right now. I did the boss 2 death animation and level 2's pretty much done. I say pretty much because some parts feel kind of empty right now and I need to throw something interesting in.
Also, background art is not my strong point. Check out my other games, I have a hard time thinking of stuff to fill that massive space. Most of the blockades in production have just bin me unable to think of what to put in the background.
Anything you're about to say about enemy AI: don't tell me cos I probably allready know.
Annual Shopping Festival sponsored by HItla Cola
Check out the pub, feedback feedback, don't do anything else cos it's not changed etc. That's it. Bye.
JANUARY FIRST
Just about everything in the shop works now, you can buy most stuff. Except the Dev Blog and Penis Penis. That shop is an absolute pain in the arse to make, it never works.
NEW MOVES: If you jump at a wall, you'll slide down it. Slashing the wall in this state will let you hang there, free to shoot guys from a safe distance. Also jumping up to the cieling and slashing it will cause you to hang from there. I don't think it adds any strategy to anything, but it definately looks good.
Also when you beat the chomp guys on level whatever, a few smaller guys bust out of them.
I started work on the next level. I know what I've got isn't 100% done, but I got bored of it and moved on. I want it to be a lovely meadow in the sky. I want something like Braid or Fez or maybe GROW, but with the art direction of that RAWR Clothing guy. There's definately something I've seen that perfectly describes what I'm talking about but I REALLY can't think what. And I wish I could.
Drew up some concepts for the next boss. Well I tried to, but then realised I can't draw women very well. I'm sure I used to be able to. I used to not be able to draw men, but now it's flipped? I don't know. So here's where I went with that. The next boss is two ladies. I must be the only guy left on Newgrounds without a Wacom. It's my own fault, I never put my name down for anything.
I'm gonna have to stop this dev blog business soon enough. If I update right up til the day it comes out, then I won't get any money and everyone would've allready played it. So expect to see the last update in a week or two, then a massive gap, then the finished game.
9th January 2009
Okay so last week I submitted all my stuff to Kongregate, and I thought I might as well fix the glitches in Cannoncrotch- and I did. It's like a year later and that game finally works. Lookin at it though; that was SO my best game. I noticed that I packed as many jokes into the game as possible.
Like the "Reception" desk covered in swastika flags, the sign that says "NAZIS ONLY", the Hitler boss shitting missiles and the plane that was way too small for Cannoncrotch.
For some reason I'm not doing that anymore and I don't know why. So I'm gonna try to make this game a lot more ridiculous. The first example of that's on the newly added Level 4: It has butterflies that explode when you shoot them. And it's a pretty badass explosion. I need to add stuff like this all over the place.
So yeah, level 4's started production. I actually started it last week if you go to the cannon boss and right-click play, but I don't think anyone noticed. Clouds are SO DAMN HARD to do. If you think those clouds look good: That's like the 4th time I tried to draw them.
Updated the cieling crawler enemy artistically. I wanted him to have bigass anteni stickin out of his back but never got around to it. Now I have.
Updated the cannon boss's AI slightly. It's not really worth checking out.
Added an action roll to avoid attacks. Hold DOWN and press LEFT|RIGHT. It's not really tested yet, so that probably seems really dumb right now.
SHIT I NEED TO DO:
Put a little man in the fishing boat doing something comical
Have the cruise ship in the background get eaten by a giant squid, or do something funny.
Fill the dark warehouse with destructable items
Work out the next boss. I drew another lady concept. I doubt anyone in the game is gonna look like that but I GUESS THAT'S WHAT CONCEPT ART IS FOR.
I threw the game up on TIGSource.com (The Independant Gaming Source) for feedback. It's got a bunch of big-shot fools on there like the guy what did Gravity Hook, the guys what are doin FEZ and them fools what done Aquaria etc. It's where all the game authors hang out (other than here, duhr) They pointed out to me that there's a bunch of destructable objects in level 1, but none in level 2.
IT'S PASSED MY BED TIME :O
Actually yeah, that's probably gonna be the last update.
