Cosmic Badger v2 (need BETA testers)

Discussion in 'Upcoming iOS Games' started by Cosmic Badger, Oct 24, 2015.

  1. Cosmic Badger

    Cosmic Badger Well-Known Member

    May 10, 2015
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    #1 Cosmic Badger, Oct 24, 2015
    Last edited: Mar 5, 2016
    Currently in beta, this is an action game that draws a lot of inspiration from the Sega Genesis era of gaming. You control a teleporting badger collecting parts to build a rocket to send a celestial bomb into space and blow up a meteor on a collision course for his home planet. Swiping on the screen places two portals, an entrance portal where the swipe starts and an exit portal where the swipe ends.

    I'll be posting updates as the game progresses so this thread will act as a kind of dev blog. Let me know if you're interested in testing.

    New stage mockups - Neon City zone (working title)
    [​IMG]

    Forest zone

    [​IMG]

    Ice cavern zone

    [​IMG]

    Industrial zone (still a work in progress)

    [​IMG]

    Some more screenshots as my gif capture tool washes out the contrast for some reason

    [​IMG]

    [​IMG]
     
  2. djstout

    djstout Well-Known Member

    Jul 21, 2011
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    Sportscaster & football (soccer) coach
    Taiwan & Japan
    Looks great but I am not too good at this genre so I can't really help you with the beta as I won't go far ^^
     
  3. coolpepper43

    coolpepper43 👮 Spam Police 🚓

    Aug 31, 2012
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    Heck yah!!! I really loved the original but it needed a lot of polish to compete in the market. The new graphics look great! I hope this version will get featured. Pm'ed for beta.
     
  4. Cosmic Badger

    Cosmic Badger Well-Known Member

    May 10, 2015
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    Haha thanks, I can appreciate that.

    Thanks coolpepper, you've been added, looking forward to your feedback :)
     
  5. Jayg2015

    Jayg2015 Well-Known Member

    Jan 5, 2015
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    Player 1
    Liberty city
    Just started the beta.
    First impressions:
    I've never played an auto running platformer this unique before.
    The graphics and theme are for everyone.
    Controls are simple and effective. When I first glanced at screenshots I assumed it would be hard to use the portals especially while the screen is moving. I imagined I had to tap and tap another locations . Not at all . just a simple
    Swipe .
    Perfect controls.
    Only played for 15 minutes and wanted to leave a few impressions of the game.
     
  6. Cosmic Badger

    Cosmic Badger Well-Known Member

    May 10, 2015
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    Glad you're enjoying it and thanks for your feedback :)
     
  7. Jayg2015

    Jayg2015 Well-Known Member

    Jan 5, 2015
    3,734
    41
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    Player 1
    Liberty city
    Do u have a Twitter . I would like to follow and promote there
     
  8. dreadnok

    dreadnok Well-Known Member

    Jun 8, 2011
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    I came here to kick ass and chew bubble gum I'm ou
    It's a pretty fun game once you take the time to understand the controls, I found it easier on my iPad since that extra space helps with quick portal swipes. Great look and feel and I like the music
     
  9. Cosmic Badger

    Cosmic Badger Well-Known Member

    May 10, 2015
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    Yes (@cosmic_badger), I'll keep this thread updated regularly though too ;) I've fallen behind a little but I'll be working on stage 2 redesign this week.

    Thanks dreadnok, yeah I didn't actually realise how much easier the precision is on iPad until I bought one a while back too :) Glad you like the music, I (i.e. my music guy) have a load of kick-ass tracks ready for the other levels.
     
  10. Cosmic Badger

    Cosmic Badger Well-Known Member

    May 10, 2015
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    Snow stage update

    Working in the level designs for stage 2, work in progress but here's what I have so far. How's it looking?

    [​IMG]
     
  11. coolpepper43

    coolpepper43 👮 Spam Police 🚓

    Aug 31, 2012
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    The new graphics are fantastic! It makes it feel like an entirely new game. Great job!!!
     
  12. Cosmic Badger

    Cosmic Badger Well-Known Member

    May 10, 2015
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    Thanks coolpepper, appreciate it :) I've been busy working on some new levels, I'll post an update later on today.
     
  13. Cosmic Badger

    Cosmic Badger Well-Known Member

    May 10, 2015
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    New levels

    It's been a pretty eventful couple of weeks. I've had a very successful beta campaign on Android and have been lucky enough to get 1,000 beta testers for the game. So far feedback of the game has been pretty positive. Some have found it difficult, which I want to address without losing any hardcore fans. I might put an easy mode on my todo list ;)

    The next set of levels are complete along with the assets for the following stage. Check them out below. I'll be pushing the updates to Test Flight tomorrow probably so if anyone's still keen on being a beta tester then let me know.

    [​IMG]

    Here's a work in progress of the next stage, the industrial zone.

    [​IMG]

    Based on the feedback I'm considering whether to put some relatively game changing features into the game. A few people have commented about implementing some sort of power ups in the game, and I absolutely want to do that.

    I wrote the original game engine a few years ago (from scratch) and it's starting to show it age. In order to add these new features I think it's time to switch to a new game engine. I'm now investigating porting the game to Unity. It shouldn't be too hard but it's a bit of a set back.

    If it means I can improve the game then I'm happy to do it. More updates soon!
     
  14. Cosmic Badger

    Cosmic Badger Well-Known Member

    May 10, 2015
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    Sexy new game engine

    This weekend I'm busy still porting the game from my own custom game engine to Unity (a much more professional setup). The reason I'm doing this is because in the long run it's going to allow me to much more quickly prototype changes. I want to play with the camera system a bit to set up the ability to do more exciting speed run scenarios.

    I'll also have the opportunity to play with power ups, I'm thinking things like speed boosts, springs and some other power ups that I'm going to keep under my belt until I test them ;)

    This is what part of the world map looks like in Unity, I've got to put in the other obstacles and backgrounds yet. Baby steps!

    Screen Shot 2015-11-23 at 10.10.17 pm.png
     
  15. Cosmic Badger

    Cosmic Badger Well-Known Member

    May 10, 2015
    79
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    #15 Cosmic Badger, Feb 13, 2016
    Last edited: Feb 13, 2016
    Shiny new particles

    So I've spent the best part of two months porting to a new engine and it's looking close to being done (the port, that is). I've changed the camera system to catch up with the player. This'll make it feel a lot faster and allows for players to do speed runs. Today I've taken a break from the main game to put in some shiny particles. I'll be adding more layers of parallax plus some other fancy effects to breath more life into the levels.

    [​IMG]
     
  16. Cosmic Badger

    Cosmic Badger Well-Known Member

    May 10, 2015
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    And here's some new bobbing ice blocks with snow effects. Putting in these bits of polish have been pretty fun :) Next up is to stick in a timer for speed run scores. After that I'm going to look into tracking ghost data for best times.

    [​IMG]
     
  17. madreviewer

    madreviewer Well-Known Member

    Sep 22, 2013
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    I have seen the gameplay I am impressed- I just want to experience the controls
    I would like to beta test this game
     
  18. Cosmic Badger

    Cosmic Badger Well-Known Member

    May 10, 2015
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    I'm glad :)

    I'm still patching up a few bugs and features, the new version will be ready soon. Just sent you a PM
     
  19. Cosmic Badger

    Cosmic Badger Well-Known Member

    May 10, 2015
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    New environments

    Sidetracked from bug fixing this weekend to come up with a design brief for the next stage - an Oriental neon city skyline. I think this one has a lot of potential!
     

    Attached Files:

  20. Cosmic Badger

    Cosmic Badger Well-Known Member

    May 10, 2015
    79
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    New stage

    This is probably my favourite stage so far, I've taken a bit of inspiration from the Sonic games and wanted something super colourful for this one. There's no text in the signs yet but I'll be throwing in some Chinese writing in there once I figure out what to write (maybe I'll even come up with a competition to get someone's name in there ;)). The signs will also be lit up programmatically. I'll probably make them flicker a little along with the lanterns and make the lanterns shake from side to side a bit.

    This screenshot is just a mock, I'm holding off creating new levels at the moment as I might be dramatically tweaking the game mechanics. Hopefully I'll be able to share more on that soon but let's just say it may draw inspiration from yet another Sega Genesis game. For those still waiting on the next beta build, don't worry I'm working on it :) There's still some bugs to fix up so apologies for the delay.

    How's it looking anyway?

    [​IMG]
     

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