Aug 20 2011

OMINOUS HUM

Just a little update – I’m poking Reels of Steel again, experimenting with music and the general feel of it. I’m borrowing a trick from Rez and the way the music builds up in the first stage, building from a simple regular kick thud up to something more complex. Flash doesn’t actually allow you to stitch together procedural tracks in an interesting way, like Rez does, but I can combine basic drum beats and bass drones with occasional musical stings. So that’s what I’m doing!

I also now have Suicidal Torpedo Robot Fish.

In Vigilance news: I’m going to be releasing without a sponsor, so hold on while I drop in some ad code and set up a home page for it πŸ˜€

And one last thing… if you play Starcraft II, I’m working on a little pet project: a rule set for handicapping which lets stronger players play with weaker players without throwing everything off. I’ll be looking for beta testers soonish, on EU.

Aug 11 2011

CONVENTIONAL METHODS

Maybe the biggest problem with not doing the art for a project is, I don’t get to make posts with cool screenshots all the time! I have to use placeholder stuff occasionally while I’m working, especially when I’m trying out new ideas. Like this placeholder font here:

There are conversations between the fisherman and tiger in this game, one per level. We started off trying something unusual; when you finished a level, the camera would pan left and up and text bubbles would appear above them with their conversation.

The problem was, this wasn’t really providing a good sense of closure when you finished the level. I had the conversation synced to a bit of ambient music to make it more interesting, but that just meant it was unskippable! That’s no fun when you have to replay a lot.

So I’m trying something more conventional now, with confidence in the knowledge that it’ll sort of work. I’ve shifted the conversations to the start of each day/level, and reckon the end will work better with a dramatic “clear” splash to punctuate success.

It’s a less original structure, but don’t knock it if it works, right? πŸ˜€ Now I’m building the game back up in this style, and it should come together more easily.

Aug 05 2011

JUST FISHIN

What’s the latest? Well, Vigilance is sitting on FlashGameLicense for another week. My VVVVVV level, “The Tower of Power”, has made several people frustrated and a few people happy. And I’ve been poking Reels of Steel again!

You’re going to get really bored of screenshots of fish if I post a shot every time I talk about it, so I won’t. πŸ˜‰

I’m working on pacing and level design at the moment. The original plan was to feature conversations between the fisherman and his tiger after each level. The big problem with that is that it takes control away from the player for twenty seconds, and that feels horrible! It’s a really long time, and that was just for three lines of dialogue after each level.

I’ve cut this feature out entirely for now and I’m focusing on level design – the patterns of fish you’ll encounter as you play. I’ll try to reintegrate dialogue once the game’s feeling fun and reasonably paced without it. That always has to take priority πŸ˜€

Now, one last thing. If you decide to waste a few minutes on something funny and strange this weekend, make it offbeat adventure gameΒ Murder Dog IV: Trial Of The Murder Dog by thecatamites, who did the equally odd Space Funeral.

Wait. I can put in a screenshot of that instead!