Shifty turns indie - "Adventures" family-friendly cooperative dungeon crawler

[Cjail]

@Shifty Geezer
If you give me a glimpse of the HUD maybe I can come out with something to help you.

BTW can't you just make so that when you are low HP then the mood/status automatically goes to depressed/worried and then goes back to the previous mood/status when healed?

 

[Shifty Geezer]

@Shifty Geezer
If you give me a glimpse of the HUD maybe I can come out with something to help you.

I'll get some screenies together. Art is proving tricky - without a proper lead artist establishing art style and very limited budget, it's a case of working within limits.

BTW can't you just make so that when you are low HP then the mood/status automatically goes to depressed/worried and then goes back to the previous mood/status when healed?

What if the character is depressed but in good health? As they take damage, this can't be shown in the mood. And then on getting healed, although their physical health improves, their emotional health doesn't. The two resources need two different feedbacks.

How about exclamation mark particles above the head? A few little ones when hurting, and loads of big, scared exclamations near the end?

 

[tabs]

Sounds good, perhaps also using a cooler colour for the exclamation marks at first building up to red when they're very low. At the final stage they could vibrate? Might be a bit too distracting though.

 

[Cjail]

What if the character is depressed but in good health? As they take damage, this can't be shown in the mood. And then on getting healed, although their physical health improves, their emotional health doesn't. The two resources need two different feedbacks.

Regarding mental state and physical state then I think that one should effect the other or you risk to send very incongruent messages to the player.
Let's say your charter is badly hurt, near death situation, why should his mood be happy as if it was nothing!?
As I player I would find that quite contradictory and confusing if not ridiculous.

Mood affecting HP/status and vice versa makes much more sense IMO and if you have encouragement/discouragement mechanics then they would be more effective and believable this way.
Examples:
A charter is hurt but if she/he is cheered up by a partner then she/he might recover faster then normal when given a potion or strike harder after that
encouragement.
A character is happy but then receives a strong blow, he/she gets bit depressed/demotivated and as a consequence his/her next attack/s is/are weaker BUT if he/she is encouraged by a partner or performs a critical strike, then he goes back to his happy state and damage output goes back to normal.
This way moral support from teammates, or lack of, really becomes meaningful/impactful and would not be just for show.

Maybe there could be "special" moods like "fearless" or "terrorized" that are independent of HP.
A charter in "fearless mood" could have no penalty whatsoever and still fight despite being severely injured (power of adrenaline) while a "terrorized" character would suffer penalties (damage output reduced, slowed, etc...) despite being in full HP.

How about exclamation mark particles above the head? A few little ones when hurting, and loads of big, scared exclamations near the end?

Exclamation/question marks but definitely would work but unique mood icos would be better IMO.
In magas there are a "signs/marks" for various emotion (depressed, angry, dizzy, annoyed, etc..) so maybe you could use those.

For the record I am just writing down what crosses my mind before I forget it so I am not telling you how to do you own game.

 

[Shifty Geezer]

You're right, and there's some overlap. When you get hurt, morale drops a bit. However, the aim of the game is to (gently) make people aware of the impact of emotional health and encourage positive interactions, and show that being nice is every bit as valuable and desirable as being strong or smart. So I have a discrete mechanic where a character's skills and performance are tied to their emotional health, just like Mana in a typical RPG. This emotional health (morale) is a simple linear from sad to happy, and the only way to improve the morale of a character is through nice gestures. There will be no pickups or spells that a character can use on themselves to cheer themselves up, unlike physical health.

It is a bit weird that a character can be near death and yet hoping around all jubilant, but it's also kinda cute IMO. Hopefully the right physical health feedback will make it less disjointed. Your mention of manga has me thinking of those lines that radiate from some characters heads for shock. I'll try a few ideas and see what works.

 

[Shifty Geezer]

Good god, it's been a year!



So, progess went on hiatus in the Summer. Life was unbearable and I couldn't continue on my own with this, when a friend offered to work on a game project with me. We started a little mobile football game which was only supposed to take a few months tops before I returned to Adventures. It's now been 7 months in the making... Anyway, though Footy is very nearly finished, an opportunity has arisen to show at the Norwich Gaming Festival this weekend (not yet listed in the games). So I'm back on Adventures for this week making a demo to showcase to the public. I'd actually really progressed the engine and I'm surprised how much I had achieved. It's really just a case of getting content and balancing and stuff, with only the procedural dungeon creation needed as a large undertaking. That said, it's still a lot of work to do. When Footy is released, I'll be looking to crowd fund Adventure probably on Indiegogo to be able to pay for some artist and musician/sound engineer involvement (and wages?!). Also looking to Early Access on Steam. I think when people are playing it, ideas will come how to port it to consoles. Vita would be an easy target although the DPad/Stick would be redundant without a more direct control scheme.

As a last update, as mentioned a long time ago the issue of how you show health (or lack of!) was still unsolved, until yesterday when I had this idea...



As you approach death, a little Grim Reaper fades in and grows larger, buzzing around your head. It's kinda cute!

 

[Shifty Geezer]

Back from Norwich Game Festival and it was very good! Everyone who played the demo enjoyed it. Youngest successful player I think was four! Oldest was something like 74 and had no experience of games, but still enjoyed it. Very pleased that the game design is that accessible, and Adventures literally is a game everyone in the family can play.

It revealed a very interesting difference in player behaviour in use cases regards cooperation, and I'd be interested to see if that changes over time when people play more cooperative gaming. First day I was trying to use the local Wifi facilities and they crashed and burned, so could only show the party-based single-player RPG experience. Played this way, each player made sure to constantly encourage their party members and keep morale high. That evening I bought one of these Wifi routers and created a local Wifi network for coop play. In the subsequent coop games where everyone controlled a separate party member, people were more inclined to wander off on their own and not support the team. This lead to much failing - infinite lives in a gameshow demo is a Good Idea! Also, adjust the demo as you go. After each show I tweaked and polished a little more for the next day, getting the balance right.

Everyone who played it put down their name for more news regards the crowd funding campaign. Which is especially promising because it's lacking a lot of the features and content of the final, but still was a game many would have been happy to download and play as is. Network code needs a bit of work, but it's in a good place for now.

 

[iroboto]

Adventures in social experiments!
Interesting observations, the multiplayer may be the result that everyone is interested in doing their own thing and if there is no natural leader, people may feel compelled to run on their own.

 

[Shifty Geezer]

I think it's natural. It's how every other game works and it's how everyone expects to play, so they go off on their own (because they can) and hit monsters (because that's what you do) and have to learn that they want to hang back and let someone else do the work this time.

I remember years ago discussing a true coop game with Snowblind Studios and they said it was a Bad Idea because you have gameplay that's reliant on cooperation and you can't rely on cooperation. For Adventures, the solo game is a party based RTS pretty much, so I don't limit myself to only groups of gamers. For the multiplayer I think it's just something people will learn to adapt to. We saw that to some degree, although I was there prompting. But you literally can't succeed without good teamwork and I think gamers will develop teamwork skills alongside gaming skills just as part of the play. And I'd be very pleased with that because it means the game works on the social level!

There actualyl wasn't need for a lead. The good teams each played their part and called on each other for help. So...

"There's a mummy here. Who's good against mummies?"
"I am, just coming."
"Can someone cheer me up please?"
"Okay. I need a sandwich."
"I've got a sandwich. Hand on, I've just got to get this Jellybean Head"
"There's a cupcake on the floor here."

I also created a coop event that went down really well. There was a big boss dude with a negativity aura. Very hard to take down himself. However, there was a unicorn nearby and it was possible to prime the unicorn with compliments and then send someone to lure the boss down and then fry him with a rainbow blast. There were a fair few moments as a result, like deliberately sacrificing a member of the team by firing early, or someone insulting the unicorn and things getting very tight regards the boss.

It turns out that the limits of the simple AI actually made the gameplay simpler and more workable. Although I'd tighten it up a bit, it doesn't need massive amounts of work.

Also, it's mind boggling how simple/easy games need to be! The average skill level, certainly in a demo with no tutorial, is pretty low. I ramped up the player health a lot by the second day but it probably still needed more. One of the gameplay elements is backstabs. If you run from a monster, you'll get seriously hurt. It's better to stand and block and call in a friend. That was too much to convey in the fifteen minutes of coop play though, so people just died a lot! Added respawn points after the first show and that really was necessary!

 

[orangpelupa]

@Shifty Geezer awesome! I have never demoed my game to public, usually only limited to close friends, and your story is really inspiring.

keep it coming!

 

[Shifty Geezer]

It's a very good idea. TBH I didn't know what to expect. It was an opportunity out of the blue - my sis lives in Norfolk and recommended I show. I thought, "nothing to lose" and gave it a go. Actually there is something to lose, if you are afraid people won't be interested in your work! And with the game being unfinished and imperfect, that was a bit of a concern. However, everyone there seemed to understand this. That is, a gaming show is exactly the place to show WIP games and get feedback. There were plenty of small and indie games and WIPs being tested and visitors are happy to share their views and suggestions. There's also no better encouragement than seeing people enjoy the work you've done and be enthusiastic about being able to play it. I had a couple of people return to play again which is pretty awesome because the content was still very limited! When I have the procedural item and skill system in, it'll be an incredibly deep game.
Also a fair few asks about console and controller support

Worst case, you get useful feedback about direction(s) to take your game. Best case, people really enjoy it and you have an audience and some major motivation. It's really a win/win as long as you can view it as a learning experience no matter what happens.

Edit: Incidentally, it also adds another workload and that's social media. Spent all day so far not developing but updating website and Facebook and Twitter. Need to add some blogs and stuff. A social face is essential and part of the modern day indie developer workload (which quite frankly is ridiculously broad!)

 

[iroboto]

@Shifty Geezer awesome! I have never demoed my game to public, usually only limited to close friends, and your story is really inspiring.

keep it coming!

Agreed. Certainly one of the more interesting threads here on B3D. Quite inspiring considering my experiences with trying to get into games. This is still quite an avenue yet.

 

[Shifty Geezer]

Quick update. Nothing progressed since last report because the 'few days' work completing Footy (shameless plug - best football/soccer game on mobile, kinda in the spirit of Sensi Soccer/Kick Off) stretched out into two months! Software development is...challenging. Doesn't help when you have to wrestle with some truly useless/moronic systems. Here's a few choice examples -

• Your bundle id (com.softwaregeezers.footy) is taken on iOS (why has someone reserved that name?) meaning you have to change the bundle which screws up your Android settings and now your leaderboards are busted. You can't change you bundle id for an app once chosen. Deleting the project to just start again incurs a 7 day wait even for projects that have never been released, and even then the bundle is tied up with Google Services and can't be removed. All of this is of course undocumented. Documentation only ever covers how to do things from scratch with no hiccups and problems.
  
  
• Unity Ads provides instructions on how to integrate adverts into your Unity app for iOS. However, when you submit you have to answer a questionnaire and Unity doesn't provide the info you need in their documentation. So go look that one up with a web search.
  
  
• Uploading to the App Store requires use of Archive Organizer. This is well documented here. What they don't tell you is where the bloody hell it is! Literally unfindable. Again, search the internet and learn that it's launched from XCode under Window > Organizer. Oh, and it failed repeatedly so I had to use the other system anyway.
  
  
• And this doozy - localisation on Google involves creating a page for each language with an optional localised images. Where these aren't provided, the default language images are shown. I think Google recognises users are smart enough to know that the English text will be localised without needing a picture. Also on Google you can just provide whatever screen sizes, again with users being trusted to understand it'll adapt for their device's aspect. Apple, however, require a unique screenshot for every device and for every locale. There are six devices, in 20 languages, and with 5 screenshots per device you're expected to create and upload 600 screenshots. These can take quite a while to capture on the simulator. And most brilliant, even when a screenshot has no regional difference you have to upload it multiple times. I spent an hour this afternoon uploading the same 6 gameplay images (one for each res) 20 times to the same website. Awesome. One really has to look into tools to automate this, of which there are but they seem to be in the typical true-dev gobbledegook of the professional developer.

I could go on, but suffice to say I'm actually able to get back Adventure, and I've learnt I can support an Open Beta on Android. Google let's you release an app without it being rateable so you don't have to worry about bugs killing your ranking with complaint votes. This means I can move Adventure's development into a far more organic, 'early access' form. It also means you guys can sign up and test for me if you want. I may create a closed alpha group for that. What'd be good then is ideas for controller control and thoughts on how to port to consoles. Also development in Unity is going relatively quickly as it's a good design, so there could (overly optmistic? Have I not learned my lesson yet?) be weekly updates for new features and content, keeping it very lively in development.

 

[orangpelupa]

Your bundle id (com.softwaregeezers.footy) is taken on iOS (why has someone reserved that name?) meaning you have to change the bundle which screws up your Android settings and now your leaderboards are busted. You can't change you bundle id for an app once chosen. Deleting the project to just start again incurs a 7 day wait even for projects that have never been released, and even then the bundle is tied up with Google Services and can't be removed. All of this is of course undocumented. Documentation only ever covers how to do things from scratch with no hiccups and problems.

i changed that whole names in android studio just fine using this guide -> http://stackoverflow.com/questions/33081300/renaming-android-package-name-using-android-studio

be sure to uninstall the old app on your phone though. Because it will result in 2 apps with same name, same icon on the phone and it can be confusing.

 

[Shifty Geezer]

Steam Greenlight page:
http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=681013324

Reveal trailer!

Sooo much time going towards promotion! Looking at Indiegogo, they recommend 60 days of preparation before the campaign even goes live. You need to accumulate email addresses well ahead of the curve, so need a landing page just for that purpose - http://adventures-game.launchrock.com/
Most of these cost money so limited options on a shoe-string.

Then there's creating and editing the video and updating pages and blogging and tweeting... And plans for more promo art and attention-seeking. Trying to get the game made is getting in the way of making the game.

Anyway, what do you think of the vid? Any questions? If you're on Steam, probably best to ask there.

 

[orangpelupa]

congrats! maybe also tweeting to various smartphone websites? like... gsmarena... they like to make mini-article about "new games this week".

the video,
there;s a few scenes that looks confusing. like "cooperative skills". but its just a static screenshot, not showing the cooperativeness.

and then when selecting mage, nice person, etc. maybe add a bit a footage of their action?like in 3 vertical splits? so their diversity can be seen.

 

[orangpelupa]

btw shifty you used SAMSUNG brand onyour promo material. maybe blank it?

put the "email box" right before the "stay informed"?
replace the header banner with your video (but add the current header as alternative, so its not blank if video fails to load).

 

[Shifty Geezer]

congrats! maybe also tweeting to various smartphone websites? like... gsmarena... they like to make mini-article about "new games this week".

Okay. Do they cover WIPs? The game's still a ways of finishing.

there;s a few scenes that looks confusing. like "cooperative skills". but its just a static screenshot, not showing the cooperativeness.

Yeah, it's just showing what'll be in. I'll add more vids showing more stuff as I add it.

and then when selecting mage, nice person, etc. maybe add a bit a footage of their action?like in 3 vertical splits? so their diversity can be seen.

There isn't any at the moment! Presently each character has a monster type they are best at killing, so you have to manage who fights who. Eventually it'll be Diablo-esque skills and talents, like one character seeing secrets so when playing coop, they'll be calling out, "hey, guys, there's a secret route here." Sort of thing.

 

[Shifty Geezer]

btw shifty you used SAMSUNG brand onyour promo material. maybe blank it?

Is that a problem? There's also an LG logo on the monitor.

replace the header banner with your video (but add the current header as alternative, so its not blank if video fails to load).

On which page? The launchrock site only allows images AFAICS.

 

[orangpelupa]

Okay. Do they cover WIPs? The game's still a ways of finishing.

Yeah, it's just showing what'll be in. I'll add more vids showing more stuff as I add it.

There isn't any at the moment! Presently each character has a monster type they are best at killing, so you have to manage who fights who. Eventually it'll be Diablo-esque skills and talents, like one character seeing secrets so when playing coop, they'll be calling out, "hey, guys, there's a secret route here." Sort of thing.

gsmarena rarely cover WIP. Android Autorithy and techinasia is more often. Eurogamer usually cover WIP games that is unique and i do think your game is unique (in the way it use "niceness" and multiplayer interaction).

Is that a problem? There's also an LG logo on the monitor.

i think you can get trademark problem.

On which page? The launchrock site only allows images AFAICS.

the front page. it only have 1 page right?

ah so you are using "site wizard". yeah, the options probably limited

btw i just realized. despite your game is focusing on "niceness" and "good multiplayer behavior" and have cute visuals, the overall feels is dark, really dark.

EDIT:
do you have "press kit" to download? it usually have a short explanation in doc or pdf, a bunch of pictures in two resolution (for web, and for print), and sometimes also a pure video file (more often just a link to youtube).