Getting a Good Thwack Going

To get to the final look, I’m iterating on getting more detail into the game. This means more animation and more texture on the graphics side, but also more punch in the game play.

To get a good weapon in a game, you need tight controls and clear feedback. To get a great one, you need to feel the impact it has. This is a function of sound, effects, timing; it’s really a subtle thing.

Along those lines, I’ve been working on getting the Huntsman’s arrows to feel satisfying. In the video, you can see that I’ve moved the arrow count indicator from the hud to the character. I’ve also got the Ogre and the Fire Crows responding to the arrows with a nice kinetic impact effect.

The easy spawn pattern in the video is entirely setup to show off the Huntsman’s strengths, but rest assured that he’ll be just as much a badass when the difficulty ratchets up. In fact, the whole point of the design will be to make all three heroes feel like serious badasses. How else will their fall be epic?

On Gamejamming

This gamejam business is a bit surreal. You talk yourself into trying, and then it’s all visceral. You bolt for whatever you feel is interesting, grudging every moment you’re not making something, anything, because the back your head is telling you that this is impossible; there’s no way I can make something that anyone will want to even look at in 10 days.

But you try anyway, because that’s how you roll. And you bargain and ignore and pile on regrets, but you make something and at the end of the day that in and of its self feels cool.

Try it. It’s good for the soul.

Expanding on Iabreth in the Ouya free-to-play model

Taking a little breather after the headlong madness that was the gamejam, I’ve been thinking about how Iabreth could turn into a game I’d be willing to charge for; you know, something with enough value for the discerning player.

Compounding that is the Ouya’s philosophy on “free games”: You’re meant to be able to download and play any game for free. Once in the game, developers can charge for… well, whatever the developer chooses to. In principle I totally support this move: at the very least it should act as a quality filter, as players won’t be asked to pay for games sight unseen. Practically though, for a little game like Iabreth, this is a bit of a challenge.

What I’ve come up with, I hope, is fair, novel and tempting.

To reiterate, Iabreth is an endless gauntlet: players face the horde pouring in and attempt to survive as long as they can before being dragged under the tide. Scores will be allocated for various actions, and a leader board will let players compare how they did with the rest of the world.

I’m toying with the idea of an in game currency and upgrades to the characters that would persist between play throughs, which fits the genre, but accelerating that process with real money purchases doesn’t seem like it’s enough to me. It’s neat, but I want a little more.

So I’ve decided that what I’ll do is expand on the Iabreth backstory; tell you about how the 4 heroes came to be in this predicament.

In the free game, you’ll be able to play the Last Stand in its entirety, from start to death, including earning any upgrades.

Should you choose to buy the backstory expansion though, a new wrinkle will be introduced: meeting set criteria during the Last Stand will trigger flashbacks: entirely different gauntlet scenes that reveal a scene from Iabreth’s past. Completing the flashbacks takes you back to the Last Stand, the richer for the points you earned, and the wiser for the story you’ve uncovered.

This idea is still in gestation, so comments are very welcome! Let me know whether this would appeal to you, or even what else would appeal to you, having seen the game so far.

Here it is! A video to demonstrate how the game turned out after a week’s effort.

There’s so much that ended up on the cutting room floor but I am, at least, happy with the atmosphere it conveys. Long live gaming!

Calamity at the finish line!

After debugging for a few hours tonight, I unfortunately failed to produce an APK that’s verified to work with Ouya input :( I’ve a APKs building for a few days now, but without a device, there wasn’t anything I could do to test. I was getting input through the OuyaInputManager, but evidently that wasn’t enough to guarantee compatibility with the SDK; I finally enlisted the help of someone at the dev boards and they confirmed that my test build ran on Ouya, but the input didn’t work.

So here ends the gamejam folks. Such is the peril of working with new stuff! I did build one last APK with a patch that -may- work. I uploaded it to the contest anyway, fingers crossed :)

What a fun ride! Despite the stumble at the end, I’m more than happy that I got to play along.

Getting Ouya input in Unity/Javascript

Oi vey.

I write Unity 3D in Javascript for no particular reason. Maybe it’s just for a change; I certainly find it pleasant. Either way, it’s not usually much of an issue: it’s all the same to Unity, and I haven’t used many plugins yet, so I haven’t had any ordering issues.

Until I tried to integrate Ouya input! As you’d imagine, the current version is written in C#, and by default the package just puts it tidily in its own Assets/Ouya directory. All well and good, but that means its not visible from Javascript.

FML.

Luckily, at least this time, the solution was relatively easy: in the editor’s Project view,drag Assets/Ouya, Assets/NGUI, and Assets/LitJson into the Assets/Plugins directory. Luckily they can all see each other in there, they compile before the main Javascript phase, and everything seems to work OK.

Phew!

Design Talk

Iabreth is about plate spinning. The three controllable characters aren’t each more awesome than the other, they’re each frailer. It’s really one character’s abilities in 3 avatars.

The Huntsman is the nimblest. His movement requires skill, but it’s essentially free: he can get anywhere on the field without much cost. His attacks are swift, but are the weakest. He hunts deer, not swamp monsters.

The Lovers are a turtle together: they move slowly like the phalanx of an army. They can take a beating, as long as its coming to the shield bearer. They can also deliver a mean swipe, but it is slow and leaves them vulnerable. Movement cost is malleable for them: they can move faster by dropping their defense.

The Sorceress is ridiculously powerful, but her power charges slowly. She’s also essentially immobile without spending that power on movement, which makes her the most expensive character to get anywhere.

So loosely you want the Lovers to hold the line, with the Huntsman’s help, to buy the Sorceress time to power up. Everything should contribute to this dynamic.

The enemies each are designed to challenge a particular individual, but fall to another.

For example the monkey is intended to mob the Lovers in a swarm, thus negating their directional defense, but is weak enough for the Huntsman to pick off easily.

Hopefully some can do this on more than one front. The Ogre is difficult for the Huntsman to kill, but he can distract it. The Lovers can hurt it, but when defending they get knocked back by its blows. The Sorceress can sweep away Ogres, but meeting one is almost certain death.

How much of this will make it into the gamejam? Yeah, I’m giggling too.

Back to the grindstone.

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