Glad you like following along! I don't want to seem spammy, but I love seeing games develop so I like to share everything myself also. -------------------------------------------------------- Video Update #5 A new video update has been posted. In this video I quickly play through a level to get to the end and show you the success screen flow (that I'm calling the "achievement parade"). It's the display of all your stats and new accomplishments as you exit the room. All the art is still temporary, functionality and timing are complete, sounds are ~60% complete. Swipey Rogue Video Update #5 (embedded video links still don't seem to work for my account, sorry) Achievement Parade in Pictures Still all placeholder, temporary 2D art. Here's a quick run of screenshots showing the flow of stats and achievements while exiting a room. Time, Gold, Score. Time and score are always displayed, gold is only displayed if you collect any. How Scoring Works - Your score is based on a combination of a time bonus, an enemy bonus, and a health bonus. - You get points for how much quicker your time is than 1 minute (time limit). - You get points for killing enemies. - You get points for how much health you have when you exit the room. I feel this is a fair evaluation of a player's mastery of a room and encourages experimentation to achieve the highest score possible. Fastest Time, High Score If either your time or score beats your recorded value for that room, there is an extra moment to acknowledge a new accomplishment. Challenges Any time you complete a challenge for the first time in a room, it is also acknowledged on the exit flow before arriving back at the room summary. In the next update, I'll explain how you use your collected challenge achievements to unlock new areas of the mine. Thanks! Thanks for dropping by and seeing how things are going. I finished a major chunk of work last night to create the branching paths to the room progression. The world is now divided into 4 areas, each with their own progression path. I'll post a new update soon to outline how that work was done and all the systems it impacted. Work on the next worlds (areas of the mine) is beginning now! Ice world, Metal world, and Magic world. spoilers!
Just keep going like this, please. Very interesting to see things behind the curtains. Edit: do all the rooms have the same colors ? A bit difference would be nice.
Thanks for the encouragement. The underground mines that you're exploring are divided into 4 areas (Actually, I just did a huge code overhaul last night to integrate this into all systems across the editor, the game save, gameplay, and ui. I'll do a full update explaining all that soon). Each area has its own theme and there are 50 levels in each. What I've shown so far are all levels from the Lava World. So the next areas (spoilers: ice, metal, magic) will have a different look. I agree that more variety is good so I want to try some subtle lighting adjustments and material tinting within the levels in one area.
Overworld Development Progress To maximize visual and gameplay variety, and player access to rooms, the underground mines of Swipey Rogue's Adventure Mode are divided into 4 areas. Sneak peek of the overworld menu in development (strictly functional, art and layout is placeholder). Area Themes Each area of the mine features unique gameplay and visual elements that are inspired by the theme of the area. The first area that has been revealed is Lava themed and features fire based traps and hazards. The other 3 areas that will be included at launch are Ice, Metal, and Magic. Area Unlocking Players earn gems for completing room challenges (the final art for the placeholder stars are gems). These gems are cashed in to unlock areas in the mine. Area Stats The overworld map tracks and displays the following stats for each area: - total rooms escaped - total gems earned (challenges beaten) - sum of high scores (leaderboard) - sum of time under speedrun challenge time (leaderboard) The unlock cost is tuned to completing roughly 50% of the challenges in an area. The goal is for players to have many areas unlocked before completing any of them. 2D Art Progress Concepts have been finalized for the direction of menu elements like buttons and panels. The scrolling progression map for Adventure Mode has been prototyped to prove the parallaxing concept (I'll post video when I integrate more finalized art). And a plan is in place for varying the progression map for each area. Each area will have it's own scrolling progression map. Each map will have its own color theme to match the theme of the area, and will also feature unique elements. The sample concept above shows the lava flows that will be featured in the Lava area's map. For buttons, we've decided on a weatherd look instead of clean to give extra detail. I've implemented the new buttons in the game already (first proper 2D art in the game!) and they look great. I'm excited to get the rest of the temp UI and menus replaced so the game is more presentable. Thanks Thanks for dropping by. I hope you're having a nice weekend. Kind of cloudy and rainy here, perfect for diving into more development. More updates soon.
New development video: Sensitivity Settings for the Hardcore Player Swipey Rogue Video Update #6 (embedded video links still don't seem to work for my account, sorry) I found myself tweaking the distance and duration of a swipe necessary to register in game to super precise values. The problem with very high sensitivity with touch and swipe controls is that you open the door for error. Since Swipey Rogue operates on just cardinal direction swipe input, it's a very bad thing if you thought you swiped left and the game registered that you swiped up. So, I decided that I should put the sensitivity decision in the hands of the player. I created 3 presets that cover a range from less to more sensitive and exposed a means to set which you want through the settings menu. Most players will play with the default setting, but players that are really trying for high score and speedrun leaderboards will probably find that they'll want the ability to do shorter faster swipes. The option in the settings menu is for those hardcore players. I'm happy that the game has evolved to the point where it can be played by casual and hardcore players who can both enjoy it for different reasons. A large part of the reason I'm making this game is as an experiment in bite-sized hardcore gaming on mobile. Most of my past experience is creating twitch action console games. I like to play a huge variety of games, but anything twitch and anything RPG are my biggest interests. This is an experiment to fuse them on mobile.
Hey man, I wanted to thank you for mentioning this. It inspired me to set up a system that can use a collection of grayscale textures and colors to create a lot of variety from room to room. Check it out: Setup - First I organized a bunch of tiling textures into categories for each world area. Anything "stone tile like" is used for the Lava Area. Anything "rocky like" is used for the Ice Area. Anything "metal looking" is used for the Metal Area. And anything "pattern like" is used for the Magic area. - Then I converted them all to grayscale and enhanced their brightness and contrast so they'd work well with tinting - Then I set up a system for all floor tiles to check what world and room they're in when they're created. Each room cycles through the list of floor tile textures for that world area (10 unique textures per area), and there is a unique tinting color for every room. So even though some rooms in an area will share the same texture, they'll have different tinting to maximize variety Result Here's a preview of 4 early rooms from the Lava Area, each using a different floor texture from the pool of floor textures for the Lava Area and a unique color tint for the room. The actual tinting colors are still temp and will change to look better. This is just the initial setup of the system. Each area will have a color theme and all the rooms will tint the floors according to the area theme. This color theme also matches the scrolling progression map for the area. Thanks Big thanks to Qwertz555 for mentioning that the rooms were looking kind of samey. I'm really happy it motivated me to look into it and come up with a system to offer more visual variety. It also paved the way for a lot of optimizations. Now, all hud and particle sprites used in an area are on the same spritesheet as all the floor textures for that area. Each area has a super-spritesheet to handle all things 2D. This has helped again with performance and will allow me to add more detail to the rooms.
Oh, very nice, thank you. I definitely like your thinking with the sensitivity settings, trying to fit everybodys preferences. You're looking ahead. I'd wish more Devs would do that. Well, since i'm here...any chance to involve you in more work (and trouble) with volume sliders for the music and sfx sounds ? Reading a lot of different threads (even though not playing all those games), i know i'm in the minority wanting this option. Seems to be my personel problem that in most of the games the music is too loud compared to the sfx sounds. Anyways, i'm still enjoying your Devlog.
Development Video #7 I've posted a new development video that explains all the changes that have happened to the level editor, the game ui, and the game code to support breaking the world into 4 areas. I also explain how the global and per area leaderboards work, and preview the new area asset manager that lets me create sets of floor textures, floor tint colors, and lighting colors for each area in the game. Swipey Rogue Video Update #7 (embedded video links still don't seem to work for my account, sorry)
Hey everyone, I wanted to post up a quick update today. I'm all set up for iOS development now. My old mac mini and ipod touch were too old to upgrade to newest mac os and ios so I couldn't use those. I was borrowing a 2012 mac mini but that was just too slooooooow. So I've invested in myself and got a new macbook air and ipod touch 5th gen (so scary now that I don't have an income). Everything is updated to the latest mac os and ios and I got the project running and built! I've created the iTunes connect record for the game and I successfully got my first internal tester all set up so I'm good to go. I'll be using Apple's new integrated TestFlight system for external testers so I'll be asking here soon for anyone who wants to help test (maybe next week when I have the leaderboards set up). Thanks again for your support and for following along. I'm really happy to be all set up now for proper development. From here on in, I'll be focusing on the iOS build as that's my lead platform. Leaderboards, video replays, advertising, and in app purchase (to remove ads) are the last major code features needed.
Hey there! I've posted a new video devlog (#8): (yay! I finally figured out how to embed videos.) This is split between dev and gameplay. I show the project building on a Mac and running on an iPod Touch (5th gen, iOS 8.13). In recent days, I've mostly been finishing infrastructure work and getting the Mac dev environment all sorted so there hasn't been much to share. The video shows some new 2D art that I've integrated into the menu flow. Also, I've added effects to the fireball turrets and projectiles. Work has started on special room elements for the 3 remaining worlds. I'll be revealing those over the next week. Thanks for tuning in!
Near Beta - Gamplay Preview (device capture) 1 Minute Near Beta Lava World Gameplay Preview (HD Capture + Stereo Sound) Road to Beta - SFX I've completed the base pass of all sfx. This includes all sfx that are globally used (menus, and across all mine areas). Here's a quick rundown of some of the behind the scenes work creating the assets and SFX manager. I collect and sort a variety of sound elements that I use for designing complex sounds like combat loops. Each combat loop contains enemy grunts, player grunts, sword clashes and whips. I create a pool of variations for each sound event type (enemy combat, wood crate whacking & smashing, metal crate whacking & smashing, coin collecting, etc). I expose arrays for each sound event type and populate them in the editor. When the game is running, the sound manager pulls a random sound from the appropriate sound event list to play. I try to make variations of basic sound events that you hear over and over to help keep the game fresh even if you barely notice. I like to try to add little polish like this if I can. Road to Beta - VFX I've completed the vfx that are needed for the Lava Area. The fireball turret has long been needing a muzzle flash, and the fireballs themselves have long needed an explosion on impact. Muzzle flash on the turret is 3 sprites attached to a root node at the 'muzzle' location. On fire, I rotate it randomly so it doesn't look the same every time, then make it visible. It immediately starts fading and turns off when it is under a visible threshold. (top is gameplay view, bottom is perspective view in editor) The fireball impact splash is a combination of 2 element types. A single sprite that I spawn at the fireball's location that scales and fades, and a collection of small sprites that I "toss" in the air and delete when they hit the ground. It's not very flashy. I didn't want to distract the player too much. The fireball just needed some impact feedback to explain why it disappeared and I didn't want to use particle systems for performance reasons. Thanks As always, thanks for tuning in. I have the new Apple Test Flight set up and the External Tester list is ready for additions. I will add people in waves. Contact me by PM or reply here if you're interested in helping out (mostly helping with coming up with good speedrun challenge times, need lots of people's input on that to make them challenging but fun).
Quick share: Preview of more of the UI overhaul in progress. Anthony has passed along some great drafts! I'm putting them in the game and I'll replace things "in place" from now on as he continues to polish them. It's great to be wrapping up a lot of these menu elements. Once we finish the highly re-useable elements (menu panels, buttons, titles, etc), we'll move on to the scrolling progression maps (each themed to their areas), and over-world map, then main menu, splash screen, logo.... can't wait to see it all transformed! This is what I love about making games. Seeing it all evolve.
Menu Art Overhaul Progress Hey there! I wanted to share a couple more shots of the art overhaul progress. Main Menu (draft background image, draft buttons, placeholder logo): Scrolling Progression Menu (draft room icons, draft separated paralaxing layers with no detail yet): Beta Testing Update I have to go out of town until March 25th so Swipey Rogue development will be going mostly dark for a while. I'll be in and out of mobile / internet access but I'll be bringing my macbook and continuing development work. To anyone currently testing: Thanks for signing up, playing, and sending your feedback by PM and email. Feel free to comment here if you like, but it may be easier to catch me by email (I'll PM you my email if you don't have it). Thanks again! Still room for more testers. PM me if interested, sorry in advance if I don't reply immediately.
I'm back! Hey, I'm back. I was up in the arctic circle (12 degrees south of the north pole!) to catch the total solar eclipse. Success! We got a clear day and it was awesome. It was my 6th Total Solar Eclipse and it still blew my mind. I did some development in the cabin and on the plane but I'm super anxious to dive back in now and finish this up. Road to Beta - UI Overhaul Progress Still working hard with Anthony Coito to replace all the 2D art. He's been making some great work and I'm putting it into the game as fast as he gives it to me. We've updated all the menu buttons now and I've put them all into spritesheets to optimize the memory footprint. Road to Beta - In Game Shop Completed! Yay! Many testers have been asking me: "What's gold for?" Well now I can reveal the shop! It's very basic looking right now but all the functionality is in. Basically, you collect gold in the levels by smashing crates and you can spend it at the shop. The shop sells 3 types of permanent buff items. One to increase your attack, one to increase your defense, and one to increase your speed. These items exist "per world area". So you can save up for the attack buff in the Molten area and it will work forever in the Molten area, but you'll need to buy a different one for the Frozen area and so on. The speed buff is so fun! I'll post a video later today (making it now) to better demonstrate how the buff items work. You can also spend gold to pass any level that you can't beat so you never get stuck. Prices will be fair but will require some work in the game to save up. NO REAL MONEY PURCHASES! All shop purchases are done with in game gold. There will be no continuous payment IAP structures in this game BECAUSE THEY SUCK. PERIOD. Testing Announcement Thanks again to everyone who was helping to test the Molten Area. I got lots of feedback on pain points in the levels and lots of little tweaks have been made. I'm shutting down the current test build and I'll announce another test when the next area is ready for testing (likely the Frozen area first, as that's moving the quickest right now). Video coming later today. Thanks again for your interest and support.
Video Devlog #10 - In-Game Shop Demonstration I posted a new devlog video! In this video I speak incredibly fast and cover a range of topics including the far north regions, total solar eclipses, and of course the game! Specifically, I demonstrate the newly completed in game shop and show the gameplay effects of the buff items that you can purchase in the shop. Also, I reiterate that everything in the in-game shop is only purchaseable with in-game gold. NO IAP. You play the game, you collects the gold, you buys the stuff. You can do it all for free with ads or pay a buck and that's it, the game is yours and it doesn't try to suck more money out of you every 5 minutes. Ok, enough ranting. Here's the video! (The Molten Boots of Awesome are.... awesome)
What I like most about your video is your energy and charisma. You make it really easy to get excited about your game
Hah, thanks. I think it's from trying to talk fast to keep them short (so hard!). Best wishes for Quest Keeper. Really excited for that one! I think you'll dig Gauntlet mode when I share it.
More UI Progress Still hammering away at all the menus. Most of the front end flow is completed now. Still some remaining elements needing replacement here and there on each menu. Lots more stats being displayed everywhere to give you context on your progress. These are all screenshots from the game running. All menus are fully functional now. Splash Screen & Main Menu (draft logos) Settings & Shop Menus (shop needs item effect descriptions) Adventure Mode Overworld Map (lots of visual work to do, all functional) Adventure Mode Scrolling Progression Map (showing color themes for Molten & Frozen areas) Adventure Mode Room Stats popup (shown from map, pause, death, success) Other News I've finished integrating Advertising and Video Replays (I'll share a video of that soon). I've set up all the leaderboards on itunes connect, so next work for me is to integrate GameCenter into the project and talk to the leaderboards. Thanks for following along. Still lots of work to do but all this menu stuff and services stuff is nice to get out of the way. Pretty soon I can focus 100% on level design again (most fun part).
Video Replays I finished integrating the video replay system. I'm using the Everyplay service. It was pretty straight forward to add. So far so good. I've posted the first test video here (clearing Molten Room 16): https://everyplay.com/videos/15648953 I think this game lends itself to sharing your runs. If someone had figured out the way to get the highest score in a room or the fastest run, I'd want to see it (or share it if I was that someone). Hopefully people enjoy it and use it.
