I have experimented with it a bit, but It's not working good enough for a release yet. It's very unsmooth, but I'll work on it some more, I plan to have it as an option!
Thank you! The update is coming along nicely, but there has been much work than anticipated because of the change in level size/structure. I've been reworking all the biomes, I'm also adding a new start biome: Desert. I hope to finish up today, apple will need a day to review it, so thursday looks likely if nothing goes wrong.
Hey Johan, Sorry to take so long to get back to you. I think the visuals are a great hook and a screenshot tells an immediate story. That's what makes games take off nowadays (Crossy Road being the best example). What you've got for a default mechanic is a pretty approachable scheme, if not a bit easy to master. The biggest thing missing in terms of retention for me is clear goals or expression of skill and some way to use the mechanic to accomplish them. I felt like I got better pretty quickly but there was nothing challenging my abilities with the mechanic. After giving the recent stuff in the thread a good look, I get that you're interested in a more organic experience that promotes soaring and flying near the landscape without gamey tropes that bring the player out of the world. My gut says you can accomplish this, although you're going to have a LOT of voices telling you to look at tropes like coins, rings, stars, etc. One game that might be interesting to consider is Tiny Wings. Not just because it's flying, but more because of how it has a soft success mechanism that is really tied to the mechanic. If you do a "good jump" your sunlight meter stays filled (it's not ideal... you just know if you keep nailing jumps, that's good). I may even be wrong in how I understand it... which just further illustrates how vague it is. In Fugl, you could have something akin to energy, and you use it up when you flap, but you get it back when you do "stuff that Johan thinks is cool". No, but really flying close and fast to the world. You could cast rays out in cardinal directions at time intervals. Flying near the ground gets you 1*speed*time energy. Flying through a tiny tunnel on all sides gets you 4*speed*time energy. Your overall success in the game is measured as distance flown from a starting point... so you get to choose the direction. You change biomes over distance. The biomes get more noisy and difficult to follow the further you go. A far distance requires a lot of close flying and gives a single number to brag about. With strong aural and visual feedback when you're "doing it right" and a subtle energy meter, you might have something to work with that promotes the type of activity that you are interested in. And ideally, like Crossy, you can capture those moves into a gif and let users post them on Twitter along with their distance. Just a thought! You could take it a bunch of different ways. It's a great piece of work!
0.8.0 is out! Finally, it's here! I've uploaded to the site, and also submitted to testflight... Too tired to talk about the new stuff., will do tomorrow!
Thank you! I am on vacation and it isn't a vacation without Fugl in the downtime. But -- I don't see the new version in TestFlight... FYI bp
What's the URL for the site? I've only ever been able to access FUGL through Testflight. Totally love the game by the way, honestly one of my biggest timesinks I've ever had on my iPhone.
That's great! Unfortuneately the ad-hoc installation from the site requires a UDID, but I can only register 100 UDIDs on my developer accoiunt and all those spots are taken. That's why I'm using Testflight, as I have over 400 testers now (still room for 600 more!). The only bad thing about testflight is that apple has to review every major update. Usually takes less than a day though...
Hi I'm already testing the game, but I would like to move over to Testflight, email is [email protected].
0.8.0.3 is out Ok, this is the final version, haha... So, what's new in 0.8.0.x? - Reworked level structure: each biome is it's own level - Reworked all the levels, especially noticable with polar and cave - Added volcano-biome (work in progress) - Added atolls-biome (start area, work in progress) - Added clouds with sweeping shadows, biome specific version are coming - Reworked birds hitbox so you can touch the terrain with all wings and tail. - Improved water interaction and added particle effects - Relaxed camera and added a slight wobble - Added FOV effect to enhance sense of speed - Reworked bird look and animation - Reduced soaring length by a bit - Added some turbulence to the birds flying path - More interesting wind-system, with changing wind directions Still no gameplay elements, it's coming!
Yeah, new stuff baby! I will fly tomorrow to enjoy the beautiful art and feel of the game, will keep you posted in the coming days.
0.8.0.4 is out This is getting ridiculous! EDIT: Important: If you upgrade from 0.8.0.x to 0.8.0.4, you need to trash the old version before installing the new one. I changed the order of the biomes, so the colors will be all messed up if you don't, haha.
Wow, I love so many things about this new release! I noticed, trying to see the repeating terrain going left / right - and not being able to find it - that your repeating in the direction of the sun now -- maybe 5-6 visible distances of map before repeat. Does left / right stretch out dramatically now? Even better than the clouds are the shadows that th clouds cast on the terrain. Lovely! Only have a moment here, but I will share more later. Lovely. bp
