[DevLog] Our Ways - experience based puzzle game

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  1. pighead

    pighead Active Member

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    #1 pighead, Feb 22, 2017
    Last edited: Oct 11, 2017


    ==============================================================================
    Our Ways is Available Now

    Download link: https://geo.itunes.apple.com/app/id1199069873

    Date: 11th October 2017
    Price: $1.99. No in-app purchases or advertisements.
    Features:
    - minimalistic art style
    - simple gameplay and challenging mechanics
    - 8 themes and 64 handcrafted levels
    - play and share your own result
    - suitable for both single player & two-player
    - colorblind-friendly mode available
    - touching and atmospheric piano music

    Localization:
    Supports 12 languages: English, Chinese Simplified, Chinese Traditional, French, German, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Portuguese Portugal, Portuguese Brazil, Russian, Spanish

    App Description:
    Our Ways is an experience-based puzzle game about exploring relationship. Using two fingers, control the two color dots to move, approach and meet. Each level represents a relationship. Experience and overcome different situations like 'Obstacles', 'Uncontrollable', 'Lost', etc.

    Each individual like me or you is different, so as every relationship. In Our Ways, the result of each level depends on how far and how many steps the two color dots took. Just as our relationships, there is no perfect one, no right or wrong. It only depends how we see them. Play and get your own results!

    Find your way in Our Ways.
    ==============================================================================

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    ------------------------------------------------
    Latest DevLog:
    DevLog #0 Here We Go!
    DevLog #1 UI, UI, UI
    DevLog #2 Title + Chapter Menu
    DevLog #3 We are coming to Chapter 1!!!
    DevLog #4 Yay! Chapter 1!
    DevLog #5 Make it vital
    DevLog #6 Enter production stage & Release Date Announcement
    DevLog #7 Chapter 4 Implementation
    DevLog #8 Chapter 5 & 6, Game Icon
    DevLog #9 Chapter 7 & 8, Music, We are Almost There!
    DevLog #10 Finally...
    ------------------------------------------------

    Hi all!

    We are Rolling Pig Studio and just started a new project called "Our Ways". This is our second game and we believe we can do better from experience learned. In this DevLog thread, we would like to record and share our development process to all of you. Hope you will enjoy it and welcome any comments/suggestions!

    About the game

    "Our Ways" is an experience based puzzle game about how two individuals get along with each other. The objective of each level is simple: Player controls two dots to meet each other, No time Limit, No perfect result. There will be 8 chapters in the game. Each contains 8 levels and will have different themes and game mechanics => one control and core gameplay, many mechanic (inspired by Braid!).

    We hope to incorporate an experience of how each individual get along with other individual in different situations of life into the game. There is no right or wrong, just "Our Ways".

    Inspired by: Perchang, Braid, INKS.

    Features

    - minimalistic art style
    - simple gameplay and challenging mechanics
    - 8 themes and 64 handcrafted levels
    - play and share your own result
    - suitable for both single player & two-player
    - colorblind-friendly mode available
    - touching and relaxing piano music

    Release date

    October 2017

    About Us

    Rolling Pig Studio is an indie studio formed by Mr. Pighead and Ms. Lumlum based in a crowded city. We both have a day job (programmer and business developer) and make our own games after work. We believe video game is an art form. We hope to share thoughts and raise questions in a fun experience.

    Website
    Twitter
     
  2. pighead

    pighead Active Member

    Nov 8, 2015
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    Our Ways DevLog #0 Here We Go!

    Our Ways DevLog #0 Here We Go!

    Current status

    Core mechanic:
    The mechanic was decided fast. This was inpired when I played Perchang, controlling the gizmos to send the balls to goal. It drives my fingers crazy for the coordination. Then I thought how about a simple gameplay that make two characters meet by two hands control? Prototype always helps. I made a fast prototype with few hardcoded levels. The feel is pretty good! While we were struggling for our next game, why not just make a small one first? Then we decide to go with it.

    [​IMG]

    Theme:
    For a product, we always believe the WHY is important. And one of the Rolling Pig objectives is connect something in life to our games. 2 characters/meet/move along a path => LOVE!

    Game mechanic:
    We plan to have few chapters that each chapter has a topic about different situations. Then each chapter will have the corresponding environment mechanic.

    [​IMG]

    Game design:
    We discussed the result after each level. Any score/star? As we want to focus more on the experience, we decided to not have these things. We will only show a graphical percentage to represent how far of each character go. I think this fit the theme of how 2 individuals be with each other.

    Also, there are two way to fail the level. 1. character collide to the environment/obstacle, 2. character is being controlled for a certain time. The second one is to emphasize the theme that we encourage that everyone should participate in any relationships.

    Art:
    Since we both are not artist, we decide to stick with a clean and minimalistic art style. Here are the styles we tried.

    [​IMG]

    And finally we choose the cleanest one with no shadow and other stuffs. Then we added eyes for the "characters". The eyes make it vital! Also we add footprints for the characters to indicate the path. This will be good for player to share the result in social media.

    [​IMG]

    Next:

    Game design: What result? Score? Star? Any time limit?
    Art: UI Design.
    Programming: Implement the mechanics.
    Other: Will make more gifs to show the game.
     
  3. pighead

    pighead Active Member

    Nov 8, 2015
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    Our Ways DevLog #1 UI, UI, UI

    Current status
    Last week we focused more on UI of level menu, in-game menu and game end menu.

    In Game Menu:
    We think the ending effect of old movie may fit to our game. So we apply it to be the transition of the game. There are 3 states we need transition:
    1. Win
    2. Lose - character collides to environment
    3. Lose - time-out of controlling 1 character only
    Here are the results.

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    For game lose, the game will restart automatically to reduce user action to click button to restart. We think this effect makes it more reasonable.

    Game End Menu:
    We want to deliver a experience to player that no right or wrong. We only want to let the player know how they play the level which can represent by percentage. However, it would be better to express it without numbers. So the below ideas were came up.

    [​IMG]

    Level Menu:
    We think it will be good if player can preview the level and also the previous game result. Then a question popped in our mind: Why cant game end menu and level menu be the same? Finally we decided to use one screen for two menus.

    [​IMG]

    Next:
    Title Menu
    Chapter Menu
     
  4. pighead

    pighead Active Member

    Nov 8, 2015
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    Our Ways DevLog #2 Title + Chapter Menu

    Title Menu:

    In title menu, the logo is important to express the game. Our target logo is minimalistic and has some in-game element on it. We tried about 20 designs.

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    We finally choose this one and will add animation on it for the title screen.

    [​IMG]

    Chapter Menu:

    In chapter menu, we want to incorporate the title message into the menu. And we come up with this design.

    [​IMG]

    Next:
    Implement the ui flow
    Chpater 1 levels
     
  5. pighead

    pighead Active Member

    Nov 8, 2015
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    #5 pighead, Mar 15, 2017
    Last edited: Mar 15, 2017
    Our Ways DevLog #3 We are coming to Chapter 1!!!

    Yay!! As the title says, we finally confirm the UI flow of 'Our Ways" and come to the levels of Chapter 1.

    Long story short, take a look at the video!


    As we confirmed the UI flow, we will move on to chapters and revisit the UI for polishing later.

    Next:
    Chapter 1
    Chapter titles
     
  6. Lavender

    Lavender Well-Known Member

    Dec 31, 2013
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    Although people aren't replying... just want to let you know, that I appreciate and love that you are posting your progress on this wonderful game. It is quite fascinating!
     
  7. pighead

    pighead Active Member

    Nov 8, 2015
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    Hi Lavender, thank you so much for your reply. This is really motivating!
     
  8. geniusx

    geniusx Well-Known Member

    Mar 20, 2016
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    Very interesting game,i like it!
     
  9. Lavender

    Lavender Well-Known Member

    Dec 31, 2013
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    Youu're welcome. :)

    I don't have a lot of time lately, but if you need someone to play a couple times through beta testing or when it's finished; the finished game through promo code, let me know. Just send a pm.

    I can not dedicate months of testing and looking for # bugs but I can certainly give it a few hours.

    Not begging for codes. Just an offer.

    Keep posting though. It's fascinating!
    Good luck.
     
  10. pighead

    pighead Active Member

    Nov 8, 2015
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    Thanks geniusx. Happy to hear that you like it!
     
  11. pighead

    pighead Active Member

    Nov 8, 2015
    40
    0
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    Game Developer
    Sure! We will let you know when the game reach that stage:)
     
  12. pighead

    pighead Active Member

    Nov 8, 2015
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    Our Ways DevLog #4 Yay! Chapter 1!

    Current status

    Color:
    Firstly we reviewed the color scheme of chapter 1 and think this was too dull. So we tried more color schemes.

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    And we choose this one. What do you think?

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    Level:
    Also we designed and implemented 8 levels for chapter 1. Will test and fine tune it.

    Level 1-4

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    Level 5-8, not going to spoil it :)

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    Title:
    For chapter title, We decided to have a poem like paragraph and each line represent the message of chapter. However English is not our native language, we will find our friends to make it better.
    The chaptet title will show in chapter page and result page.

    [​IMG]

    Share:
    We also implemented share function with this plugin https://github.com/ChrisMaire/unity-native-sharing
    Player can share how they play the game to social network.

    [​IMG]

    [​IMG]

    Next:
    Revisit and polish the menu.
    Character eye motion.
     
  13. pighead

    pighead Active Member

    Nov 8, 2015
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    Our Ways DevLog #5 Make it vital

    Current status

    Eye Emotion
    We added few eye emotions to enrich the characters. This make the characters more energetic and player can get into the experience easier. We got 8 emotions:
    1. Idle
    2. Blink
    3. Sleep - when idle for few seconds
    4. Approach - when two characters approaching
    5. Far Away - when two character move away
    6. Shiver - when only one character moving
    7. Fail - when a level fail
    8. Success - when a level success

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    Level Implementation Process
    As we will implement many levels, here are the steps showing how we do it.
    1. Draft with Paint or Google Drawings

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    2. Arrange in Photoshop

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    3. Implement and fine tune with level editor

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    4. Done, here is the result :)

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    Chapter Menu
    We arranged the footprint in chapter menu and also made it scrollable.

    [​IMG]

    Next:
    Chapter 2
    Chapter 3
     
  14. pighead

    pighead Active Member

    Nov 8, 2015
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    #14 pighead, Apr 27, 2017
    Last edited: Apr 27, 2017
    Our Ways DevLog #6 Enter production stage & Release Date Announcement

    Current status

    Chapter 2 - Obstacles
    After the straightforward Chapter 1, we add obstacles to Chapter 2. The meaning is straightfoward though that obstacles are in every relationship.

    Here are Level 1 - 4.

    [​IMG]

    Chapter 3 - Asymmetry
    In previous two chapters, the levels are designed symmetrically. However, the background of people in relationships are all different. So chapter 4 is all about asymmetry.

    Here are Level 1 - 4.

    [​IMG]

    Collider tuning
    We also edit the colliders of environments one by one to get the best collision result.

    [​IMG]

    Timeline
    We are pleased to announce that the target release date of Our Ways is Summer 2017 on iOS App Store!

    [​IMG]

    Next:
    Difficulty Level balance of Chapter 2 & 3
    Chapter 4
    Audio
     
  15. pighead

    pighead Active Member

    Nov 8, 2015
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  16. pighead

    pighead Active Member

    Nov 8, 2015
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    #16 pighead, May 13, 2017
    Last edited: May 13, 2017
  17. pighead

    pighead Active Member

    Nov 8, 2015
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    Our Ways DevLog #7 Chapter 4 Implementation

    Current status

    Chapter 4 - Uncontrollable
    There are 2 special areas introduced in Chapter 4, auto walk and door trigger. We decided to have these special areas in a 50% transparent color of environment. Player will be needed to figure out the function of the area themselves.

    Here are Level 1 - 4.

    [​IMG]

    [​IMG]

    Dead Mark
    Recently we are playing Zelda on Switch and noticed that there will be a mark on the map where the player died. We think this is a good idea for 'Our Ways' to indicate the previous fail location. Player can aware of the marks and move carefully.

    [​IMG]

    Next:
    Game Icon
    Level Design of Chapter 5,6,7,8
    UI fit to different screen aspect ratio
     
  18. pighead

    pighead Active Member

    Nov 8, 2015
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    Our Ways DevLog #8 Chapter 5 & 6, Game Icon

    Current status

    Chapter 5 - Lost
    For this chapter, some obstacles are hidden and will show when character bump into it. Player have to control the characters carefully to let them meet. In a relationship, we always struggle and get lost. But finally we will find our way step by step.

    [​IMG]

    [​IMG]

    Chapter 6 - Unstable
    This is an interesting chapter! The environments keep moving when the player reach certain points. The idea is in reality, everything around a relationship keep changing and there is always a way.

    [​IMG]

    Colorblind friendly
    We know the game has many colors and may not suitable for some players. To make 'Our Ways' more accessible, we added a black & white mode in setting.

    [​IMG]

    Game icon
    We think the characters is good to present on the icon. Here are waht we tried.

    [​IMG]

    And the final one:

    [​IMG]

    Next:
    Chapter 7 & 8
    Audio implementation
     
  19. ROGER-NL

    ROGER-NL Well-Known Member

    May 21, 2012
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    THE NETHERLANDS
    Hi, just browsed through the Devlog and it was very interesting, I like games like yours and gonna play when it hits, good luck with further development and launching.
     
  20. pighead

    pighead Active Member

    Nov 8, 2015
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    Thank you ROGER-NL! We hope you will enjoy it when it launch:)
     

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