Oh nice! The wing tip clip will finally be gone? The cause of most crashes. love Marco's drawings too, especially the last but i think the icon should stay voxel.
I would love to have you as an tester guise, I understand your motivation, but I don't think being a tester for this particular game will diminish the experience of the finished game. I really value the input of the hardcore testers and I think their controbution will greatly enhance the finished product, so I think you should reconsider! I agree, the option screen will have a music volume slider for sure!
It is 100 % feature parity between devices as of now, I might increase the draw distance a bit on air 2/iphone 6 (i used to reduce it on iphone 5), but there is not a huge performance difference between those generations, so I doubt there is much to be gained. It's more important to me that all devices run the game at a rock steady 60 fps, but when I get closer to release I will see if there is something that can be added to the current gen devices. Maybe volumetric fog for instance.
Ok, Fugl 0.4.2 is out! Changes: 1) New bird (purple bird) that are preyed upon by the eagles 2) Lots more birds 3) Jumping goats! 4) Animated water 5) No collision detection for wingtips 6) Smaller radius for catching prey 7) A bit slower eagles 8) Adjusted the icon a little 9) Inverted Y controls (touch the screen within 1 second to enable) Excited to hear how you like it!
The water looks even better. The colored fugls are soo beautiful And the jumping goats are cute, though they do tend to get stuck on rocks they can't climb so they jump on the wall rock. In this version, i planed my fugl out parralel to the water, and was able to touch the water with the wingtips leaving trails behind, then rise up again. That done, i tried a shallow dive veeery carefully, almost parallel to the water again, and just a bit down. For a second the fugl disappeared under the water and the camera turned up, and i thought it was the death-cam. But after that second, i discovered the fugl rose again from the water vertically and i was able to fly up again. It was awesome! Can you make it easier to dive? the water looks so inviting! On the downside, on this version i could catch almost nothing. A handful of eagles and maybe one purple bird, they were all flying and turning away from me too far and too fast. If you intend to make hunting a core part of the gameplay, i think it needs tweaks to become easier.
^^ I agree. The little prancing goats are so adorable but they're also near-impossible to catch. I only managed to catch one by ramming into it head on (thus crashing my bird too). The animated water looks nice but I don't notice it unless I'm specifically looking for it, so it's not too vital if it's a strain on performance.
I must admit I'm very unsure of the whole hunting bit. How do you guys feel about it? Wouldn't it be more excited to be the one being hunted?
For me no, i think it's 50-50. You could leave it as a choice when setting up a new biome run each time? Along with the fugl and its characteristics. Choose to hunt or be hunted.
Hehe! It's not really about diving, but creating this transitional space between flying and crashing in the water, so if you touch the water, you still have the chance to recover, but it's a bit hard because the water slows you down very fast. I'm thinking about diving, but I don't really see the point at this point... Also the transition is kind of hard to do, but that's more of a technical question...
Yes, everything can be options. But i do want a main game, and for me the game is really the flying. Also the biomes will come on after the other, so the game is like a long voyage, going from the cold to the hot and back again, seeing lots of different sights. I want stuff in the game that enhances the wonderful feeling of flight. For me it has very little to do with hunting or being hunted for that sake. I just thought being hunted could add some extra excitement. I'm also going to try falling rocks and meteors and hopefully other enviromental hazards... But the game is all about the flying, so any mechanic that ends up in the game should enhance this feeling of flight and wonder.
Busy times hehe. Those goats indeed are epic hahaha. Nice add. By the way about hunting or being hunted. What about the hunting it is right now + some bigger birds which hunts you. But way less birds that hunt you. So you need to keep hunting (for energy) but also need to keep an eye on those bigger birds (but those should be rare, otherwise you do get eaten every 20 seconds). Did you guys follow it?
Hmm, for sure it would be exciting to be hunted. BUT aren't the hunters usually behind you? sounds like you would need to add something to the UI for that. I like the idea of being hunted by a few, but being a predator as well. Or you could be like a mother bird that looks in the bioms for their little ones, which are prey for the hunters. You save your little ones by turning the predators into confetti Instead of visual feedback about where they are (think radar), their screams/ fighting sounds with the predator get louder the closer you get to them. Add something to collect that's hidden in random places like food and then the objective is flying, exploring, bringing food home and protect the kids. (In a sloppy nutshell)
allright, i gave this some thought and here's what i came up with. As my all time favorite roaming game is Spiderman 2 on the Playstation, i would say copy its formula. So: 1) Don't implement the idea about hunting and energy gain. No pressure on the hunting. 2) Instead, have the main game be all about free flying and the joy of exploring the world however/whenever you want. Within the world, make some spots that give you missions. One could give you a mission to hunt, another a mission to escape, another to pass certain obstacles or complete a course between rocks and holes etc. That way, the main game about the joy of flying will be intact and as wonderful and free as possible. Meanwhile, for those who want it, they can complete hunting or escaping or trials via the "missions items" that start them, in certain spots of the world. What do you think?
Anybody play Glyder / Glyder 2 / How to Train Your Dragon? It's pretty much this. Start in the middle of a map with a bunch of ? marked areas, glide around all you want and explore. Areas become labeled once you visit them, and each have their own unique visual style. In each area are gems to be found & collected. World contains X number of gems, progress pops up on screen every time you collect one. In addition to this there are "mission points" which are triggered by landing on them (G1/2) or flying through them (H2TYD) which may be a 'collect/pop X number of creatures/whatever' in the area, race from point A to point B, etc. missions which save your best time and can be replayed. I still think this engine would make a sweet "Rescue on Fractalis" type of game, which isn't really that complex: the game was even named as such after the fractal-based engine they had to use since PCs of the time couldn't hold data for that big of an area, it was generated mathematically... You're dropped in an area with a few baddies to shoot/avoid and a handful of downed pilots which you have to scour the landscape for and pick up before you can to to the next area. Wash/rinse/repeat with more baddies/downed pilots in each area.
I think something along these lines, except that you are always moving forward, so the gameplay should reflect this. No bases in other words. As the predators will be slower than you, threats from behind is a non issue unless you start flying really slow... Also the sounds they make will tip you off to their location. I plan on having full 3D sound in the game.
I think 1) is most important as I don't want to frustrate new players. It shouldn't be necessary to hunt the animals, as it no matter how I easy I make it, it will still be hard because of the scale of things. 2) is a good idea, I have actually thought about it for an earlier game, but I'm a bit worried about the scope of it. You are essentially talking about a flying rpg! It's hard to make missions when the world is procedurraly generated. The missions would also have to be procedurally generated then, and then you need to test for feasibility etc. It's going to be very hard to do and a little beyond the scope of this project. But the idea is good! I would like to have the game in one neat package, and the point is really to progress (get further towards the sun), so the motivation should reflect this. I'm thinking a possible scenario could be: Someone stole all your eggs and they are now littered across the landscape (mostly in the caves). You need to pick them up and when you do you get a speed boost. Some of the eggs are guarded by predators (later levels?) that you need to lure away/kill in some way to get the eggs. Of course it doesn't have to be eggs, but a similar simple concept would be nice.
