Power Heroes - A Brand New Adventure Awaits!

Discussion in 'Upcoming iOS Games' started by i-kari, Sep 6, 2013.

  1. Andre

    Andre Well-Known Member

    Apr 11, 2012
    3,643
    2
    38
    The last screenshots and gameplays are very amazing. Can't wait until the game release.
     
  2. psj3809

    psj3809 Moderator

    Jan 13, 2011
    12,747
    543
    113
    England
    Looks great, love the graphics. Just worries me what the control scheme will be, you say "Simple two-tap control scheme to control your hero. "

    So are we tapping on the screen on where to walk to ? I was hoping for a d-pad/joystick in the corner ?
     
  3. i-kari

    i-kari Active Member

    The hero walks constantly, and you control how and when he turns:

    tap on the right side of the screen -- hero turns clockwise
    tap on the left side of the screen -- hero turns counterclockwise

    That's it. Combat is automatic.
     
  4. Exact-Psience

    Exact-Psience Well-Known Member

    Jan 12, 2012
    22,664
    2
    38
    The Work-At-Home Guy
    Philippines
    So it's snake(or nimble quest-y coz of the combat), but without the growing part.
     
  5. i-kari

    i-kari Active Member

    Yeah I guess you can describe it like that. And compared to snake you don't die if you run into a wall.

    Someone on my site asked about the combat. I explained:

    "You can think of it as an evolution of Pac-Man: In Pac-Man you are vulnerable to enemy attacks unless you collect one of the powerups in the corners of the maze, which then allows you to eat the enemies by walking into them.

    In Power Heroes, you are vulnerable to enemy attacks unless you have at least 1 power coin collected (collected coins spell out the word “POWER” on the HUD). Each attack costs you 1 power coin, so you have to keep an eye on your power."
     
  6. PointOfLight

    PointOfLight Well-Known Member

    Dec 29, 2008
    4,223
    17
    38
    Programmer
    Indiana, USA
    The more you describe this the cooler it sounds. I'm really looking forward to seeing the finished product.
     
  7. i-kari

    i-kari Active Member

    Thanks, that's encouraging!
     
  8. i-kari

    i-kari Active Member

    Development Update #7: music news, technical framework talk and one design feature.

    Composer on board!

    I'm happy to announce that I have the highly talented Dave Dexter doing music for Power Heroes! Dave has previously worked on various titles like 'The Other Brothers'. I've heard the first bits already and we are creating some powerful stuff together!

    Cocos2d 2.1

    Power Heroes is built using the excellent cocos2d framework. When I started development, I downloaded the latest version which, at the time, was version 1.x. Time goes on and currently the latest (stable) version is 2.1. As we all know new versions tend to fix bugs, implement new features and so on, so I decided to upgrade the framework. It didn't go as smoothly as I expected.

    After download was complete and all cocos2d 2.1 templates were installed in Xcode, I created a clean new project and hit 'Build'. It failed miserably with errors. I tried to figure out what was wrong (I even read the readme.txt!). Maybe it's because I'm running Xcode 4? Nope, the documentation clearly states: "Mac OS X 10.6 (or newer), Xcode 4.2 (or newer)" (I had Xcode 4.4). What if I set the deployment target to another iOS version? No luck.

    After a while I gave up banging my head against the wall and logged into Apple Developer site to download Xcode 5. Clicked 'Update' and... "OS X 10.8 required". I was on 10.7. Well, it's good that Apple released 10.9 (Mavericks) as a free update.

    So in order to run cocos2d 2.1, I had to update OS X and Xcode to the latest versions. I still don't know why the sample project didn't compile in the first place, but at least with the latest tools I got it working.

    From there it was just a matter of fixing all (close to 100) errors in the actual Power Heroes project. Apparently the upgrade from 1.x to 2.x is quite a big deal! Fortunately the errors were easy to fix, majority of them being simple 'deprecated' messages, meaning a slightly different method or variable name. Find & replace is your friend!

    Power mode

    Last time I wrote about the power mode (or 'power attack' as it was then) was in September. In its current form it's a mode that's triggered after the player collects 5 power coins, thus filling the POWER meter to its max. For the next 30 seconds, the player is able to kill enemies with just one hit and is invulnerable to their attacks. Great for increasing those kill combos! Additionally, killed enemies may drop items that are not otherwise available for collecting.

    I feel quite happy about this mode as it adds another aspect to the gameplay. Only thing left is to add more graphical effects to really give an impression of being on a rampage.
     
  9. i-kari

    i-kari Active Member

    The game is taking shape now that I have some music and more sound effects in. And I got the visuals covered too, in the form of some mighty visual feedback.

    Visual effects

    Lately I've been busy experimenting with various visual effects. What I've come up with is a combination of scene dimming, screen shake, some particles and a 'lightning strike' effect. These effects get gradually stronger with each consecutive kill, and combined with big fruit/coin drops, achieving a long kill combo feels really satisfying.

    Some gifs:

    [​IMG]

    [​IMG]

    [​IMG]

    Music & sound

    When it comes to retro pixel art games like Power Heroes, an obvious choice or even general expectation for music would be chip tunes. "Because the game looks like this, it has to sound like that". I wanted to do things differently this time, so instead of chip music I asked my composer Dave to do more or less an orchestral score for the game.

    And I'm happy that I did. The combination of orchestral score and 'chip' sound effects work really well together. About 50% of the music is already done and it really brings life into the game. While Dave has been working on the music, I've been generating more sound effects with sfxr/cfxr tools.

    RPG elements?

    I think I'm going to include some very simple, lightweight RPG elements into Power Heroes. Here are my thoughts and options.

    Buffs

    Temporary gameplay advantages, purchaseable before game start. Buffs could include: more life hearts, more power, increased luck (affects item drops), speed, etc. Buffs expire when the game is over.

    Permanent upgrades

    Maybe 3 stats for each hero that you can level up using coins. Here we could have upgrades to power, luck and life.

    I don't want to complicate things too much, so the number of steps/decisions needed from the title screen to starting the game should be kept to a minimum.

    If you have an opinion on this matter (or anything else), I'd like to hear it!

    Vote for Power Heroes!

    Finally, SlideDB and IndieDB are running a contest for the best indie games of 2013. If you like where Power Heroes is heading and want to support the game (and me), please stop by and vote! THANK YOU! :)

    [​IMG][​IMG]
     
  10. JCho133

    JCho133 Well-Known Member

    Jul 27, 2012
    7,907
    27
    48
    I think the RPG elements are a great idea! It'll definitely add some longevity

    And since you said combat is automatic, and from that gif I see that when you run right up to a monster the knight attacks, but how will the ranger work? Will he just shoot if there's anything in front of him?

    Love the art style, keep up the good work!
     
  11. i-kari

    i-kari Active Member

    That's right, ranger shoots arrows when lined up with an enemy. Different bows have different shoot rates and speed.
     
  12. JCho133

    JCho133 Well-Known Member

    Jul 27, 2012
    7,907
    27
    48
    Oh that's pretty neat! How many different bows are there?
     
  13. i-kari

    i-kari Active Member

    I haven't decided yet actually! I'm currently working on getting the base game done and then moving to adding content, including weapons, maps, enemies.
     
  14. christian29

    christian29 New Member

    Dec 3, 2013
    1
    0
    0
    Looks quite nice, this is a game that i would play and if i like it and its good i would tell my friends to go play it
     
  15. steviebwoy

    steviebwoy Well-Known Member

    Feb 17, 2011
    735
    0
    16
    e-Systems Analyst
    Cornwall, UK
    This one looks nice, loving the pixel art :)
     
  16. i-kari

    i-kari Active Member

    #36 i-kari, Dec 11, 2013
    Last edited: Dec 11, 2013
    I’m pretty excited over here: Power Heroes has been voted into the top 50 in App of the Year Awards 2013 on SlideDB! Big thanks to each and everyone who showed support and voted my game! This means a lot to me.

    But it doesn’t end here! The voting now proceeds to the next and final round where you can vote the top 50 for the next 10 days to determine the year’s winner.

    [​IMG]

    You can vote here. Power Heroes can be found under the “UPCOMING APPS” section in “Hack ‘n’ Slash” category.

    Please note that the vote button on the game’s SlideDB page only redirects to this top 50 page and doesn’t count as a vote. So all voting at this point needs to be done on the top 50 page only.

    Thank you!!
     
  17. JCho133

    JCho133 Well-Known Member

    Jul 27, 2012
    7,907
    27
    48
    I put my vote in
     
  18. i-kari

    i-kari Active Member

    Thank you, I appreciate it!
     
  19. i-kari

    i-kari Active Member

    Hi folks! Welcome to a new dev update. I'm here with some Big Boss News.

    Boss fights!

    Yup! This is probably the last big feature before the game is released. I always had the idea to include boss fights into the game at some point, like maybe in an update after release. Then one day, I had a discussion with my composer Dave. We were just one track short from the goal and Dave asked what the final track would be. After some thought I replied: "a boss theme". And with that, I started working on the boss levels.

    [​IMG]

    Here's how I've pictured them to work. In the normal course of the game, you may come to an intersection where one path leads to a boss room. You can then choose whether to fight a boss or not. Fighting bosses in Power Heroes is not mandatory, but if you decide to confront one (and are able to defeat it!), there will be big rewards.

    [​IMG]

    I have three bosses so far: a giant spider, a skull/skeleton and a giant rat, and I have ideas for a couple of more. All graphics are work-in-progress (especially the rat)!

    [​IMG]

    24 hours to go!

    When I'm posting this, there are still about 24 hours left to vote for App of the Year 2013 on SlideDB.com. If you want to support Power Heroes, the best way to do so currently is to vote and spread the word about the game! Thanks for your ongoing support!
     
  20. JCho133

    JCho133 Well-Known Member

    Jul 27, 2012
    7,907
    27
    48
    I really like the spider! And good luck in SlideDB!
     

Share This Page