Absolutely! Invite sent (you can remove your email from your post now if you'd like). Invite sent! Thanks so much for your interest! There is still a bit of work to do before it's done, but I think it's getting pretty representative of where it's going. Still working on: - getting final perk icons for Free Running Mode - scoring for Free Running mode - leaderboards & achievements for Free Running mode - then the final half of the challenge rooms for Gadget, Frozen, Magic areas in Challenge Saga Let me know: - if you think there should be a tutorial - if any Challenge Saga room is "rage quit" too hard - if Free Running mode is begging for an artifact collecting system (as much as I think it is)
So far so smooth man. You have a real hit in your hands. I didn't think a tutorial was necessary but then again I can't speak for everyone. As for artifacts in free running mode, what are they and what would they do? (Sorry if I missed an explanation in this thread) One silly thing...the "Swipey Rogue" letters with the purples and and red letters you have at the title and at the beginning of this thread is so aesthetically appealing, do you think you could incorporate it into the final icon? Like an "SR", or those colors with the hero in front of it?
Great comments, thanks so much for playing! Artifacts in Free Running mode would just be a collectible. It would be a set of "rare" gems and crystals that have a rare chance to spawn as pickups and drops and when you get one there would be a lot of fanfare. I'd make a screen somewhere that you could see your progress towards collecting them all. Simplest idea is just a collection (just to have a longer term goal with the game: collect all the rare gems). More complicated idea would be to give them some sort of power, like maybe if you collect all of a certain type of gem then you start with a permanent boost to a perk all the time in Free Running. Like, for example: get all the rare diamonds and get permanent 5% chance of critial hit. Something like that. Glad you like the logo! Anthony (freelance artist) did a great job. Cool idea to incorporate the initials into the game icon. I'll see if he has any ideas on it. Thanks again for playing!
Gladly! Thanks for the early opportunity. I've been following your dev log for weeks. The artifacts idea sounds great.
Dev Update - Final Tasks & Polish As things are finally winding down, I'm getting to the polish and the stack of little tasks that remain. This is a tricky time for any project. It's easy to get buried in a mountain of little tasks and lose sight of your end goal. I'm trying to keep track of everything, complete it, and not get stuck in this phase forever! Maze Generation Tuning Mazes (calling them caverns) in Swipey Rogue's Free Running mode are procedurally generated based on starting templates and rules systems. I adjusted the way mazes are generated so there is a rising level of branching complexity and length. Free Running is meant to try to give that hack and slash, dungeon crawling experience in a short, but intense burst of a game session. Everything starts simple and gets hard fast <--- that's the design goal. So I wanted the mazes to also follow this pattern. I feels good to get to the end of a maze and move deeper to the next level so I wanted to make sure that most people will get to at least the second maze on most runs. Adding Scoring to Free Running A scoring mechanism is now in place for Free Running mode. First step was to decide what gives you points. I chose to parallel XP gains. So anything that gives you XP also gives you points to your score. In addition, I looked at all the stats I was tracking and assigned points to those also. I was able to cleanly integrate score display to the pause and run summary screens by using the existing stats as your score basis. Here's what you get points for: - killing enemies (different value depending on enemy difficulty) - entering new rooms - getting to the end of a maze - ranking up - collecting gold I then needed score to be displayed on the HUD. My experience is that score systems are not compelling unless it's in your face. You have to want to get a good score and if you're not paying attention to it, then you won't really try. In Tony Hawk, we always made sure that "combo string" was prominently displayed right in the middle of the screen. Part of the excitement of getting big combos was watching that string get longer and longer. Also, in Call of Duty multiplayer, XP gains and rank up were always really in your face to get you excited about it. Anyway, I moved the gold display to the bottom right and put the new score display up at the top right. Each time you do something that gives you score, the score number pops up on the hud at your location and flies up to the score at the top right and it pulses. Then, score also needed to be displayed on the Free Running intro menu where you select the areas to include in your generated maze. Since playing Free Running allows you to choose any combination of the 4 world areas, which adds up to a total of 15 different combinations, then I needed to have a leaderboard and saved high score for each of those 15 combinations. SO, there are 15 new leaderboards now! And the game saves 15 different high scores. The area select screen now dynamically displays the appropriate high score for you based on which areas you have selected. The leaderboard button also dynamically takes you to the appropriate leaderboard based on which areas you have selected. It was a lot of work, but as a player, that's what I want. So I think it was worth the work. Thanks! Thanks again for dropping by to check on Swipey Rogue development. This game has taken longer than I originally planed but much of the delay has come from me wanting to make the game better than I originally planned. Much of that motivation has come from sharing my progress here and seeing people's reactions. I got a lot of great feedback and it has helped me so much. I want to thank everyone who has participated in this thread and also in testing. You're the best!!
Wow wow Dev, an interesting and amazing game, looks like it might be the sort of game I will be addicted to. Would like an invite if you could give me one. Sent you an PM.
Thought I'd pop in again and say that I've been playing like crazy and not a single bug or issue. This feels like a finished game. I am looking forward to having a free running score. Cheers!
Nice. I'm glad to hear it. Thanks for the update! A few weird bugs have popped up that I've addressed and I uploaded a new build last night to Apple with the Free Running scoring. Usually takes a day or so for the new build to get approved for testing. Scoring is more interesting with leaderboards. They're connected but you need a game center test account. Anyone can PM me if they would like me to set one up for them. I track and display your high score in game, but I haven't added any fanfare when you beat it. It's needed. It's a little uneventful now without it. Probably do that today. So what do you hate about it? Any "knee jerk" gut reactions? It's late to radically change anything, but you never know what might be an easy change. Something that I'm just too used to seeing, that maybe you notice. Feel free to share. **Edit: Also, this new build will be the one I send out to gaming websites, streamers, and bloggers. I'm looking forward to sending it to our lovely hosts here at Touch Arcade. Someone had noticed my thread a long time ago and posted a little article on it (back in Feb): http://toucharcade.com/2015/02/20/swipey-rogue-video/ Anyone who writes/podcasts/streams or whatever, feel free to contact if you want to preview the game. No writer/streamer too small or too indie for me. Everyone welcome. I'm all about #gamersunite
Honestly if I had to criticize anything it would be that since your character is completely free running it's frustrating sometimes when you don't quite clear a pit or trap when you change directions. I was thinking since there is so much going on that I get confused - maybe the floors could be a flat single color with no texture so that everything else stands out? Otherwise I think once I upgrade to an iPhone 6 maybe I will see better
Ya, good observation. I've been fiddling with that since the beginning. It's a tricky one for sure. At first, player collision was exactly the size of the green circle. I thought that would make it very clear. However, the overwhelming feedback was that it felt unfair to die when your player didn't actually touch anything so I shrunk the collision tighter around just the player. It allowed for tricky maneuvering around fireballs and gave you more room for error (both cool), but it also made it less clear exactly where your collision is. I also tried damage instead of insta-kill for hazards, and knockback also. Both didn't work because they made you less afraid of the hazards and it wasn't fun without the tension. It's a difficult balance. I'll see if there's anything else I can do to remedy the "feel bad" moments. Thanks again for the feedback.
I wrote an article recently on Gamasutra and it got published. It explains why Swipey Rogue (my first indie game) is completely free and only has a single, one-time IAP My reason: I believe it’s more important to connect with players that may enjoy my game and perhaps support my future efforts, than potentially harassing and driving them away with exploitative micro-transactions. Gamasutra blog: Why my first indie game is free and only has a single, one-time IAP.
Awesome man, a lot of people will agree with you. This F2P trend has got to die, even if it is a slow death.
Thanks guys! Check it out, Swipey Rogue is exactly 6 months old today. I started development on January 10. I keep all my old builds and I have all my code in version control. SO, I thought it would be fun today to go and install my very first build from my very first day of development. I made a video (live, first take, no edit) of me installing and playing the very first version to look back and see what it was like. Have a look, it has come so far! I have to thank everyone who has participated in this thread. The feedback and comments I've gotten have allowed the project to evolve into so much more than it would have been if I had not been sharing my progress publicly here (scary, but worth it). Subscribe to the TouchArcade YouTube channel
Incredible progress...good luck with getting some press recognition and a day-one-customer is waiting for one of my most anticipated games this year.
Thanks! I remember you. You've been supporting this thread since the beginning (like 3rd comment maybe). Actually, it was you who inspired me to put more time into this game and try to make it into more than I originally planned. At the beginning, I was just going to make it quick and only have about 50 levels, only one area (molten), no free-running mode, no IAP to remove advertising, just a basic quick free game. I'm so glad you made that comment so long ago encouraging me to try to make it into as good a game as possible. It's why I started posting news about the game here. I wanted to get feedback like that to help guide where the game would evolve to. I knew it would grow into something more than I could imagine by myself with other people's input. New Demo Videos I made a couple new videos to include in my Press Kit (I'll share all the new images and gifs that I also made for the Press Kit tomorrow). Check them out! Challenge Saga Mode (I beat all challenges in Molten Area Room 17): Subscribe to the TouchArcade YouTube channel Free Running Mode (I play through one run until I die, about 4 1/2 minutes): Subscribe to the TouchArcade YouTube channel
