Journey of Coins - Playtest Build 0.0.5

     A few days ago, I released a public playtest build for JoC. You can call it a demo, really. Anyways, it has one playable level, and a way to submit feedback at the end. Interesting, isn't it? If you'd like to, you can go download it from this link:

https://forums.tigsource.com/index.php?topic=52007.msg1207496#msg1207496

     That's all there is to it, just go over there and download it. Shouldn't be too hard. Goodbye.

Journey of Coins

     So Joe and I have finally come up with a name for our current project! That title is (of course) "Journey of Coins" It's a simple title, and gets the job done. The game is (technically) about going on a journey to find some coins, so this works well. In other news, I finished the game's opening cinematic. I have also decided the way each cutscene will look, and how it will be animated.
    
     Cutscenes will be made to look like they're drawn by a little kid with crayons. Why? Well, that is because I feel that the main character is a kid at heart. I mean, come on, he talks to coins and travels to a different dimension just to save them. Really it seems like he's imagining all of this. Also, all of the characters and objects won't have any real "animation" You can see that in this gif.

 

     Don't get me wrong though, the game itself looks a lot nicer than this cutscene. The scene has minimal animation due to the fact that animating this in Spriter would be a bit of a challenge. I won't get into the details of how I animated this, just know that it took a while.

     Finally, here's some screenshots of the game so far. These are taken from multiple sections in the first level. Note, levels are split up into different sections (like in Kirby games) to help with loading. The player animations are actually really detailed, compared to my past games, at least. I tried my hardest to implement animations that I didn't think were possible for me to pull off when I was younger. I was specifically thinking back to when I thought this had detailed animations. (Yes, I made this in Game Maker. It was ages ago.)

 

 

      Anyways, that's it for this post. Sorry for the lack of posts, I just feel like this blog doesn't get too much attention, so I don't update it as much as I should. Anyways, remember to follow me on Twitter for constant updates about this project. Bye bye.

Haxeflixel Tutorials

     So I've begun doing tutorials for Haxeflixel. If you don't know, Haxeflixel is the game engine I use to create games. It's rather obscure, actually, and there aren't very many good video tutorials. So hey, why not try teaching people about the engine via tutorials? That's a cool idea, so that's what I did!

     I'm not claiming that I'm the best at Haxeflixel, but I may be good enough to teach beginners. I have made two videos so far, and have gotten some good feedback on them. If you're interested in the engine, go ahead and give these tuts a look. If you're interested on how to do something specific, go ahead and email me with your suggestion or leave it in the comments.

Saros Digital and Dusted Donuts

     If you keep up with my Twitter (which you totally should) you would have noticed that I made a logo. A logo for what, you ask? Well, it's a logo for my new team, Saros Digital. The team is made up of Joe Swensen and I.

     We formed the team after I left Capl Team. "But Justin, why would you leave Capl? I thought you loved that team!" Well my dear child, I do love that team. There's just one problem with it, and that problem is Helix. Now now, he isn't evil or anything like that, he just doesn't output much work. He takes school a lot more seriously than game development, and since the new school year started I guess he just doesn't have enough time for it. Whenever I'd ask him to do work, it would just end up in an argument.

     "So what will you do about art?" that's a simple question to answer. Before Capl, I worked completely alone. Well, most of the time, at least. I of course had a sound designer with me. Back then I would just do pixel art, which I will have to do again. I am able to do Flash, but my art made with that usually doesn't look fantastic. (It also takes ages to make art with it) I believe my pixel art skills are still alright, though.

     "What will happen to 'Dusted Donuts' then?" 'Dusted Donuts' will be put on hold until both Helix and I decide to work together again. This doesn't mean it's cancelled, but it doesn't mean it will be finished either. This may be sad news, but Saros Digital's first project will take a lot of concepts from 'Dusted Donuts'; so don't worry!

     That's all I wanted to announce, and clear up for some of you. Hopefully this change will be a beneficial one, but maybe not, the future is unclear. I'm also planning to possibly make a website for Saros. Anyways, that's it for this post.

Dusted Donuts enters playtesting with a0.01

     So yesterday, I released Dusted Donuts for playtesting purposes. The version that is currently out is a0.01, meaning alpha stage 0 update 1. Stage 0 just means the game is still early in development, nowhere near completion. Stage 1 would probably be around the beta stages of development, and Stage 2 would most likely be the release builds.
     Anyways, you yourself can playtest the game over on it's itch.io page, which is right here. (Don't worry, you can continue reading. I'll post another link at the bottom of this post.) I've posted the known bugs, version, and other information on that page. I also gave encouragement to give the most brutal feedback possible, have fun with that.
     If you would like to know about other things not listed on that page, feel free to email me. (My email is included on the itch.io page.) In the meantime though, just playtest it and tell me what you think. ^)^

[Playtest Dusted Donuts here]

Dusted Donuts and Newgrounds

     So Dusted Donuts is getting to be a pretty large game. The problem with that is it may be too large to put on Newgrounds! That isn't a very good thing, children. Especially because we were hoping to make it specifically for Newgrounds. Strange, it's like how we were expecting Micromasher to be on Windows only...
     Anyways, if we can't find a way of making the file smaller, then we'll have to settle for a Windows release. We will try putting a demo on NG if it comes to this, though. Hopefully we can compress the filesize.
     That's all I wanted to say, so goodbye.

Micromasher Developer Commentary

     So I lazily decided to make a developer commentary of Micromasher. It gives a bit of insight on how the game was made, including some info about Cleanse and Elastic. Well, not a lot of info, but a little bit. It's really long and boring, though, so watch at your own risk. ^)^

Dusted Donuts Teaser

    So I made a short teaser for Dusted Donuts. It's only 25 seconds long, but it took an hour or so to make. Well, maybe not an hour. I think it was more around half an hour. Anyways, it just shows off what we have so far, and not much else. None of the art in-game is complete, obviously. But yeah, I just wanted to notify you all with that.

Micromasher on itchio!

    Today I released Micromasher on itch.io! Isn't that neat? Why would I do something like that, you ask? Well kids, I did that so I could figure out the site. I have always been interested in using it, and now I am! It's also cool because I can release Flash games on it, so be sure to play Dusted Donuts on it! (Well, unless you can play the Newgrounds release, that one will be a lot better.)

http://juicebox.itch.io/micromasher

Dusted Donuts

     Once again, our little project has evolved! Now it is an exploration game about space, loneliness, and rock people. It also has a name! Or, a code name, really. This code name is 'Dusted Donuts', which is an interesting little name Helix came up with. Right now though, I have been stuck doing all of the art. Hopefully Helix will get off his ass and do something, though. Also, Joe is coming back to do music! Well, he's already done 3 tracks, so that's good.
     Anyways, here's some screenshots of what we've got done so far.

Title Screen

Level Select

Planet One. this will probably change into a tutorial planet later in development.

Back to the Future Day

     So today was Back to the Future day. Guess what though, it will only happen ONCE in FOREVER! So you know how Helix and I celebrated? Well, do you? If you must know, we sat around and watched the entire first season of Rick and Morty. (because I haven't seen it yet.) That was pretty fun. Hopefully I can squeeze some work in today, though. So yeah, happy day of future to back!

Graphics Update thing?

    I feel bad for not posting in a while. So, here's some things happening. I started calling that prototype "Prototato" for some reason, I guess it's kinda sticking. I gave it this new title screen, with its own title graphic.

     It only took a few minutes in Flash to make the title, so it wasn't a big deal. I also made new tiles, just to spruce up the game's look. Along with tiles, I added decorative objects that I can place around levels. Right now the only two "decorations" are Jesus and "Friend Cube"

     In that screenshot you can see I also updated the player graphic, because the old one was really stiff looking. There's also new health pickups, that are represented by those faces on the ground. I also made a few smaller changes to the game, like a better HUD.

     I think I may change the health to be represented with a health bar. I haven't done a health bar in a while, so that would be pretty fun to do. The last major change is the removal of actual enemy AI. The enemies now wander around like they're brain-dead. Well, they kinda are, since they don't have a brain...

     I still have no idea what this game is going to be about. Maybe aliens or something cool like that, who knows? Anyways, that's it for this post. No more posts now. Goodbye.

Coffee Mug Quest

 So, I helped with the development of this game called Coffee Mug Quest. My friend Michael (Pixel Robin) was the one who did the programming and art. I just did level design, which was pretty fun. The game is based off of one of his past games called Pixel Prison. I designed the levels using the old game's level editor. Pretty neat, huh? I was going to draw fan art or something for it, but that's too hard and time consuming. So instead I wrote this blog post. Anyways, you can go download the game on GameJolt.

[link]

Secret fun

     This is a short post releasing some info about the blog. There is a new secret page for you guys to find, the link is hidden somewhere on the site. Have fun finding it!

Prototype Protobites

     Remember that weird pixel picture I posted in the last post? Well that has evolved a little bit. Evolved into what, you ask? Well my dear child, it has evolved into a game full of NOT PIXEL ART! Isn't that just amazing?! Well, no, it shouldn't be amazing. If you said it was, then you obviously don't know who I am. I'm the person who redraws my profile picture every month! Or... Has it been every month? If so, I must be ABSOLUTELY INSANE! Anyways, here's a screenshot of the new prototype. Oh, and by the way, it's probably going to play like Isaac.

 

     Also, it runs in flash player. Do you know what that means? Of course you do! That means it can be put on Newgrounds, AND be played in more than just Firefox and Internet explorer! Amazing, isn't it?

No more donations, but now you can contact me.

     I got rid of the donation page. For the second time, isn't that great? Now I won't be obnoxiously asking for donations! Woo! I replaced the donation page with the new contact page. So now you can contact me through, like, two sites. Amazing!

     In other news, I'm learning a new language/framework! That's right, no more LÖVE2D stuff, or Python stuff, now I'm onto HaxeFlixel stuff! I'm actually liking this a lot more than LÖVE and Python combined. Want to know why? Because I can actually comprehend it! I've been following the tutorial in the HaxeFlixel docs, so I feel like a noob. Although, I did give the project gamepad support to make myself feel competent. So uh, here's a screenshot of that.

Hopefully I'm really back.

     Wow, it's September now. I only posted like, twice, in August. Time to bring you all up to speed. First off, Game #2 is cancelled. Yep. It's a shame. Also, I've been working on some weird launcher thing. You know what it launches? Capl Team games. Yep, it's called the Capl Launcher or something...

     Look at that, WOW! Let me break this launcher down for you. First of all, the launcher will contain all of Capl's free games. It also has some of it's own exclusive games. I've also thrown in some of our unfinished games! (Like Elastic and Game #2) There's also a page for fan art and such. After that, you can see a soundtrack player. It basically plays music from the games included with the launcher. Well, that's obvious. Finally, there's concept art. Not much to explain there...


     So yeah! That's it, I'm back, hopefully.

I am back!

     Wow, it's been a bit since I've last posted. Alright guys, a lot of stuff happened this week. Or, maybe not a lot, but a bit of stuff. It's also probably been longer than a week... Anyways, that doesn't matter. I'm going to go down this little list of updates I must feed to you loyal readers.


     First of the updates, Thumbscrew (or sub-game #1) has been cancelled! After completing the prototype, the game just wasn't fun! We didn't want to get sidetracked with the game and ignore Game #2, either. So we decided to cancel it! That's too bad.

     Speaking of Game #2, we started using Ferr2D for the levels! This way we can make levels more efficiently! Now instead of tile based levels, we have more unique looking pointy levels. Here's a screenshot of Level 1.

     I thought I'd also tell you wonderful people that I'm getting a new laptop soon. It should be shipped by the 20th, but who knows when it will actually be here? I'll use it mostly for school, and working on Capl Team projects while at said school. Also I'm guessing it will be able to run Cities: Skylines, so I'll probably use it for that too. Here's a picture of said laptop.

 

     To finally finish this post, I want to show you all some AWESOME Micromasher fanart we got sent in this morning! So here's that.

Illustrated by MothmanAssociation.

MTG: I broke the law!

     So last I went over to Local Comic Book Store to play in their weekly Friday Night Magic "tournament" Little did I know, that night would be quite eventful.

    Prior to this event, I found some (pretty old looking) Magic cards, and thought "hey, these would be cool to put in my deck!" If only I knew how DANGEROUSLY ILLEGAL one of them was. With my tiny brain in hand, I made my way to Local Comic Book Store. My first match was against some nerd person, like normal. Halfway through our first game, I got the opportunity to use Snap. I put it down on the table and said "well, uh, okay I'm gonna use Snap targeting that thingy"

     The nerd person's eyes grew wide, and I heard him say in fear "Buh- bu- tha card is ILLEGAL!" Instantly, Local Comic Book Store's windows and doors locked as a swat team broke through the door. They started shooting around the Store at random, hitting the nerd person in front of me. I ducked under the table, as the bloodshed began. EVERYONE was getting shot. After a minute of shooting, another police vehicle crashed through the wall, killing the last survivors. I heard one last scream of agony as Local Comic Book Store exploded. Anyways, now I'm writing this post. That's all that really happened, so goobi.

MTG: My First Friday Night Magic!

     So I recently got into Magic: The Gathering, and decided to go to my local comic book shop last night for Friday Night Magic. Even though I knew I was going to get wrecked, it was pretty cool. I got to battle my social anxiety and actually TALK to other people! What was especially neat was that they were all just nerds like me! So yeah, I got wrecked, boo hoo. I also set up my DCI account or something, so there's that, too. Anyways, that's about it.


     One more thing, I'll be starting a new category specifically for MTG posts. Alright, bye for REAL!

Sub-Game #1 - Thumbscrew

     If you read Helix's blog, then you'd know that he announced Capl Team's newest project: Thumbscrew! He didn't elaborate much, so I'll go ahead and do that here.

     Helix mentioned that Thumbscrew was a game about squishing thumbs, but he didn't really mention anything else. The goal is to smash as many thumbs as possible within a time limit, without loosing your grip. By loosing your grip, I mean letting go of the mouse button. The more thumbs you smash, the faster the game goes! But when you un-click the window, you loose that speed.

     When the time's up, that's the end of the game. Your score will be recorded (not globally, though) and you will be taken back to the main menu. We're probably going to let the player (you) select the amount of time for a run. This will probably range from a minute to five. The amount of time you do will also be recorded along with the score.

    Finally, Joe Swensen is coming back to do music for Thumbscrew! If you don't remember, or are new, Joe was doing the music for Elastic. Unfortunately, his computer got the blue screen of death, so we haven't contacted him until we finished Micromasher. Of course, Helix is doing art, and I'm doing programming stuff. That's about it for this article, and I'll post again soon. Goobi.

The Current State of Cleanse

     This post is for anyone who doesn't know about what happened to Cleanse (a.k.a. Project Scrubby Scrub Clean). Cleanse was in development for a while, but we never got much work done on it due to how large we were scoping the game. We were aiming for 8 areas with 8 different and unique boss battles. With me being new to Unity, we could barely achieve anything. At the time, Helix was also bad at leading the team. Which lead to the eventual pause in development. This is when we went on to work on Elastic, which got cancelled. When we came back to Cleanse, we decided we wanted to try making it 3D. Of course, that ended up hindering development. Also around the time we got back to Cleanse, a movie titled Inside Out was all over T.V. Why are we mentioning this movie? Well, basically that movie is about a little girl dealing with her emotions. Or.. Something like that, but we know it has to do with emotions. What was Cleanse about? Well Cleanse was about a little boy defeating all of his emotions. You can see the problem, right? To top it off, Fear in Inside Out has a similar hair shape to Archibold's. Archibold, if you don't know, was going to be the original character in Cleanse. Here's a side-by-side comparison:

 

     Note that I had to draw Archibold, since I couldn't find any of my old Cleanse files. But you can see the resemblance. So obviously, this wasn't good for Cleanse. If we ever were to finish the game, people would say we stole Inside Out's idea, and we even went so far as to stealing one of the character's hair. We didn't want to have to deal with that, that would be terrible! In the end, we decided to just scrap everything, Cleanse, Elastic, everything. And that's when we started work on Micromasher... So yeah, now you know why we don't talk much about Cleanse anymore. I hope this post cleared up any questions any of you might of had. Peace.

Donations are back!

     That's right, I added the donation page back! Now you can go spill a few dollars on us once again!! Well, no one ever donated the first time around... But that doesn't matter! Go check out the donation page, or click the money bag! Have fun!

 

Game #2

So I've been talking a little bit about Capl Team's newest project, (codename) Game #2. So you know what, I'm going to go ahead and reveal a little bit of information about the game here. With Game #2, Helix and I wanted to go back to our roots with platformer games. Of course, our last attempt at a platform game (Elastic) didn't turn out that well. So this time we decided to scope super small, but a little bigger than Micromasher. We don't want to make anything huge, like Elastic was supposed to be. Game #2 is going to have 3 worlds, with 3 levels and 1 boss per each. I'm currently working on the menu system, but I already have all of the world 1 levels planned. You're probably also wondering what platform Game #2 will be released on. After the massive success of Micromasher, we've decided to make this game focused on Newgrounds. We're also going to release it as a standalone game, for the unfortunate Chrome users. (Read about that here) So yeah, that's all the information I can disclose right now for Game #2. I'll probably say more when we finish World #1 and get rid of my placeholder art. Anyways, here's a gif of the menu system.

Newgrounds!

Well, I've started being more active on Newgrounds now. I don't know how much I'll be posting on here, now that I'm also on Newgrounds. Uh, so here's my Newgrounds account.

WOO! NEWGROUNDS!

HTML

     So I've decided to start learning HTML. How? Well it's quite simple with Codeacademy's many courses in webdev. What does this mean? Well in short, it means that I'll be taking over BOTH website design and game design/programming in Capl! Pretty neat, huh? Since I want to test my skills, I'm going to put some simple HTML stuff in this post. Anyways, goobi.

Look at this bold text!

Actually, this doesn't look very HTML-ey. Other than those squares, that are really CSS. Uh, here's a picture that goes outside of the post.

Update - 5/20/15

    
     I know, I know, I haven't posted in a while. So I guess I better update you guys on my shenanigans. First thing's first, Cleanse! I've been working on a *new* prototype for it. If you guys remember, I was working on Cleanse when I first started this blog. If you read my last post, you'd also know that Cleanse is going to be 3D now. Isn't that cool? Now now, it isn't some stupid FPS or something generic like that. Well, it does look kinda generic. Or maybe it doesn't, I don't play enough 3D games anymore. I'm getting off topic, so here's a screencap. Oh, one more thing! I'll be posting development logs of Cleanse monthly here.

     Another thing I've been up to is using the TIGSource forums. If you don't know what it is, it's basically a forum for indie developers/gamers. I've been having a pretty good time on it, and I really like its community. Here's a link. Before I go, I should probably tell you guys that I'm all sick again. Basically I just went to some sports centre, and now I'm sore everywhere due to actual physical activity! Last time I got sick on here, it was also due to physical activity. Maybe I should stay inside like the fat chub I am... Anyways, that's all I wanted to say. Goobi.

Going 3D + Elastic Status

     Last night, I decided to ask myself the most important question any developer should ask themselves during development. Somehow, I forgot to ask myself this over Elastic's ENTIRE development period! What is this question I speak of? The question is if I think my project is fun. To be completely honest, Elastic is not very fun. It's a platform game with a switchable power up system. That's really it. So you know what, screw it. I'm going to suggest to Helix that we should cancel it, and post whatever we have. It isn't much, to say the least. But hey, this was a great learning experience for all of us. That's all it was ever meant to be.


     In other news, I'm going to start learning how to do 3D modelling! You know what that means, don't you? That means Capl can start making 3D games! I know this is going to take a while to learn, and it will be a challenge. 3D games will be a great opportunity, since I grew up with 3D games. This also means that Cleanse will most likely be a 3D title! Isn't that great? Anyways, that's all I wanted to say. I'll see you guys later.

Helix and Stuff

     So today Helix was freaking out because he says the WIP cutscene looks like shit. In reality, it isn't bad, but it just needs work. Anyways, he was saying it looks MS Paint and is really terrible. I don't think he understands that Elastic's style already is based around looking like a kid drew the whole thing. We decided on that back within the first month of development, because his computer sprites are terrible. After I tried telling him that some people like the art style, he said that he wants me to do the cutscenes. Only problem is that I gave up art, and I don't have a GFX tablet. Also, IT ISN'T MY JOB! So I want some feedback, what do you guys think of the incomplete cutscene? That's right, I'm going to post it here, even though Helix doesn't want me to. Anyways, please leave some feedback in the comments. Also (if you have twitter) tweet to @CaplHelix if you like the cutscene or art style. It would help a LOT. Thanks and goodbye.

Elastic Deadline Confirmed

     If you keep up the the announcements on Elastic's Site, you'll know that we have a deadline for the Elastic demo! Helix and I originally planned for us to release the demo on the 15th, but that was back when we were with Desura. As you (should) know, we left Desura because of basically one reason. Anyways, we have decided to wait until the 20th to release! This will give Helix time to make a cutscene, time for me to finish up the menus and other features, and Joe some time to actually respond to us. Did I mention that Joe hasn't responded to any of our emails in the past week? I hope he isn't dead or something. Anyways, that's all I wanted to say about Elastic. Goobi.

Pixel Art

     I don't think I ever mentioned this, but I used to do a lot of pixel art. Nearly all of my past games used pixel art because it's all I'm slightly good at. Well, other than programming and such. Anyways, I gave up doing pixel art after Helix and I teamed up for Cleanse. Since he's doing art, I don't see a need for me to continue with pixel art. Besides, it's pretty mainstream at this point anyways. Oh wait, I'm going off topic. So basically, I made this pixel rubber band guy because I'm really tired and Helix won't send me whatever he's done with the cutscene. So here's the pixel dude. Have fun with him, kids.

Capl's Site Renovation

     As you all know, I've been working a lot on Capl's site. I've added new pages, cleaned up the layout, etc. Basically, the site has changed a bit since it fell into my hands. I'm even working on getting its own domain! Anyways, I just wanted to quickly update you all on that. The main thing I wanted to tell you is that we now have a page for all of our past and current games! So check it out here! Make sure to also help support us by donating to us, it helps a ton!

REAL Name!

     So, I've decided to start using my real name for projects. I'm not going to use my last name, though. Don't want people to figure out who I am or some shit. But I will use my first name and last initial. I'm trying to get the rest of Capl to use their names, too. So yeah, I'll start writing myself as Justin C. in my future projects, including Elastic.

Capl's Site

     So, Retnuh, our web development guy, left Capl yesterday. It's a really sad event, since he's been there since the beginning. He was the original owner of Capl, now that I think about it. Anyways, since no one else on Capl knows how web development works, I have to take care of the site now. I've been putting a considerable amount of effort into the site today. I've even added a donation box and funding page! So, go and support my team here! https://sites.google.com/site/caplteamuser/home

Elastic Log - 4/21

     Hey everyone, sorry I haven't posted in a while. If you read Helix's blog, (I recommend you do) you'd know that I was sick. Anyways, I got back to work today. All I really did was clean up the scripts and such. I also organized everything, maybe a little too much to be honest. I also made the map screen compatable with using WASD instead of E and Q. So yeah, that's about it, goobi.

Elastic Announcment: New Preview and Site

     So I've been working today on a new website for Elastic! It's full of information about the game, team, and development! Isn't that cool? You can view it here. I also recorded a new preview today. So here's that.

Desura is the evilest of evil

     So, Helix and I were looking further into Desura and their publishing policy. Apparently, they don't give you a single cent until your game sells up to $500 in units! Knowing how small Capl is and how little hype there is for Elastic, I can tell you we wouldn't hit $500 in sales. So you know what? We aren't using Desura. I can just hear all you guys crying about it (because Desura is obviously just the best platform out there), but never fear! GamerGate is here! Now now, I know that GamerGate did some shit or something, but I don't care! So yeah, I'm probably going to email them either today or tomorrow and see if we can get Elastic up there. Wish me luck! xoxo - JuiceBox

More proof that I can't draw

     So I've decided that I need to post something for you guys. So here's some terrible drawings I did. to uh, prove that I shouldn't be the artist for anything. Goobi.

I tried a new drawing style. This is me flying on a Javascript file.

This is a furry drawing I did. For some reason, it got over 100 upvotes on /r/furry. Weird.

Some really bad drawing of JS vs C# (They're both pretty nice languages in my opinion)

Rubber Band: Another Preview!

     So I've decided that I should give you guys another preview of rubber band. I've been working on it a bit today, so I think it's worthy of another video. So uh, here it is, I guess.

New Inventory/HUD thingy! (Project Rubber Band)

     So I've finally got some work done on something I've been wanting to do with this project since its first day in development. I made it possible to switch between extra bands! If you don't know what extra bands are, they're basically rubber bands that increase your stats. They mostly edit your movement stats, like speed and jump height. Anyways, you can switch between them by pressing the Q and E keys. This mechanic is pretty early in development, though. I'm planning to tweak it some more in the next few days. So yeah, here's a gif of me switching between the plain and jump bands! ^)^

Well, I just beat Fallout 3.

     So recently I've been playing a lot of Fallout. I was playing a bit of Fallout 2 last week, but then I said "Hey, why don't I play Fallout 3?" So yea. I've been on this major Fallout kick for the past few days. And I beat the game in over the weekend. Don't worry, I managed to fit in some work on Rubber Band. You know, well, wait, I don't even know. Just, the ending was so good. The game as a whole was fantastic! I don't know why I haven't played it much. Now I kinda want to play Fallout 2, but that's a bit too old-school for me. Besides, I'm a bit stuck.


     Anyways, if I don't post in a while, spam me on Twitter to tell me to stop playing Skyrim. Since I'm sure that's what I'm going to be playing next. See you guys later ^ )^

Some enemy designs

     So usually I don't do designs, but Helix and I have been stretched for ideas on Rubber Band. So yea, here's a picture taken with my phone of my sletches.

My soundcloud playlist.

     So, I've decided that I'd share the playlist I listen to with you guys. I usually listen to this when I'm working on Rubber Band or Scruby or whatever. It's mostly game music and remixes, but it's pretty nice. I'm still trying to get it sorted out into one definite feel, so please, no hate.

Rubber Band: One week in development

     So, my side project has been in development for a week now! It's really been a smooth development process; I've been adding some stuff here and there, bug fixing, etc. Helix even started doing some sprites, even though he wants me to handle the rubber band ball sprite (since he can't draw a rubber band ball). Joe is even working on some music for it, as far as I know. So yea, here's a tweet with screenshots.

#indiedev #screenshotsaturday 1 Week of development! Then Vs. Now. pic.twitter.com/zW5IpxBXhH
— JuiceBox (@JuiceBoos) March 21, 2015

Javascript!

     So my friend Ikubod was finally able to convince me to switch to JS in Unity. It's alright, I guess. I still need to get used to it, but yea, it's okay. Not too different from C# either. If any of you guys reading use JS, feel free to leave some tips here for me! Now, I must go take care of Steven. Goobi.

Project Rubber Band

     So yeah, I've been working a little bit on Project Rubber Band. I started developing it on Friday, and here's a video of how far I got over the weekend.

     I'm still working on the movement and background parallaxing and stuff. I don't think you guys noticed, but the player can jump while he's touching the walls and stuff. So yea, movement is clunky and broken right now. And our level design is too. But hey, I'm new to Unity and this was done in 2 days. Also, it's using Sprite Tile which is a tile map editor on the Unity asset store. (I reccomend it. It's gr8 m8.) Also, this video will be launching with the project when it goes on Desura. We might even have a trailer too, I have no idea. Goobi.

Giffest!

     Would you like to see some gifs? Of course you do! Here's some gifs of my two current projects.



     Project.Scruby();

     Project.rubberBand();

     Here's some of my past games!



     game_Dreamer;

    Development Time: 3 Months
    People Involved: 2
    Final Release: November 2014
    Engine: Game Maker: Studio


     Game.Box();

   Development Time: 10 Hours
   People Involved: 1
   Final Release: March 2015
   Engine: Unity 4


     Patch [This wasn't written in syntax since the engine it was made in has no syntax!]

   Development Time: 2 Weeks
   People Involved: 2
   Final Release: January 2015
   Engine: Clickteam Fusion 2.5
   [This is my most despised game.]


     So yea, those were some of my projects. If you want to check them out, they're all on my GJ profile. (Link in the Social Media widget) If you want to see my really, REALLY early games, here they are, right here.

Rubber Band Ball

     I didn't know what to really post today. I don't want to talk about Scruby today, so here's a picture of a rubber band ball I drew with my mouse today. I might use it in a side project, for like, funding. I don't know, but hey, I gave the Patch assets to my new friend. I think he's going to remake Patch in Unity or something. That kinda seems like a waste of time, but he saw potential in it. I don't know. Okay, bye.

Rubber Band Ball

Donate button!

    So I've went through great lengths, and I've made a donate button! It took me a whole five minutes, so maybe you should do your part and donate a dollar. If you don't donate, that means you are not my friend (just kidding) So yea, I just wanted to throw that out there. If you're saying "EH?! WHERE IS THIS NEW-FANGLED DARK MAGIC YOU SPEAK OF!?", then fear not! It's on the right sidebar above my description! Make sure to slap that button! Goobi

Scruby - New musician!

     So I was able to find a new musician to work on Scruby Scrub Clean with me an Helix. He already made 4 tracks in his short time working with us! Isn't that great? The soundtrack also seems to work well right now with the game. So yea, that's all I wanted to say. By the way, Helix is being awesome (like always) so I tickled myself until I was sore. It felt real good!

Unity 5 and Scruby Scrub Clean

Hey guys! I know I haven't posted in a bit, but that's mostly because I've been stressed out recently. I got Unity 5 on launch and it completely messed up Scruby Scrub Clean. I was able to fix everything, but it didn't really make any sense where things went wrong. Anyways, Unity 5 is alright. And uh, yea. That's about it.

     I also want to take this time to talk about my friend BlueSin's project called Chronos! It's another sandbox/platformer thing like Terraria or Starbound, but with TIME TRAVEL! Doesn't that sound cool? He's trying to grow his community for the game, and even is working on a public demo! So yea, that's about it. Goobi.

     Chronos Community

Unity 5 and Scruby Scrub Clean

     Hey guys! I know I haven't posted in a bit, but that's mostly because I've been stressed out recently. I got Unity 5 on launch and it completely messed up Scruby Scrub Clean. I was able to fix everything, but it didn't really make any sense where things went wrong. Anyways, Unity 5 is alright. And uh, yea. That's about it.

     I also want to take this time to talk about my friend BlueSin's project called Chronos! It's another sandbox/platformer thing like Terraria or Starbound, but with TIME TRAVEL! Doesn't that sound cool? He's trying to grow his community for the game, and even is working on a public demo!

10 Hours of No Daylight Jam!

     Hello everyone! If you've been reading my twitter, you should know that I've been participating in the 10 Hours of No Daylight game jam. I also screwed up my sleep schedule for it, but it was worth it. My entry, Box, is a 2D platformer with a small message. I might touch up the game in the post jam version, to make the message a bit more obvious. Anyways, the game was made in 6 or 7 hours with Unity. It's also my first Unity game on GameJolt! But I think the main purpose of this was to teach myself more about Unity; for example, I learned how easy it is to port Unity games to other operating systems. I better write about the other two entries also.


Get to the Trophy


     Get to the Trophy is a weird platformer-ish game, where you have to get to the trophy. If, that wasn't obvious enough... But instead of moving the character around by the keyboard, you click on the platforms to warp on top of them! A very simple game, but still entertaining.

http://jams.gamejolt.io/10hoursofnodaylight/games/get-the-trophy/51875


The Wild Fight

     This game reminds me of Insurgency for some reason... Okay, so The Wild Fight is a top-down shooter with arrow keys and mouse controls. A bit odd, I'd expect WASD controls. It's fairly simple to grasp, shoot the enemies, don't shoot your allies. Or co-workers, I think. It's also kinda funny in its own way.

 

http://jams.gamejolt.io/10hoursofnodaylight/games/the-wild-fight/51857

 

Box

    I better talk about Box, since there's only 3 games in this jam. Box, like I said, has a weird little meaning to it. Really, you can think of it however you want. Kinda an eye of the beholder thing. The game itself is just you, this person with a box on their head, walking from the start of the game to the end. With many silhouettes of people slowing you down. The game has many meanings, but that only adds to it.

http://jams.gamejolt.io/10hoursofnodaylight/games/box-jam-build/51910



     If you want in on the next 10 Hour of no Daylight jam, there's one happening soon! http://jams.gamejolt.io/10hoursofnodaylight2

Devblog - Box!

     So I've been working on a small prototype to learn more about Unity and see how exporting and all that works. Since Helix has been talking about adding a platformer level to Cleanse, I also made this prototype thing a platformer. Since I'm new to Unity, I just used the built in 2D physics. (If you know of a good tutorial for pixel based physics or something, please tweet to me or comment on this post)


     Since I don't really know what to do next with Cleanse, I've decided to turn this here prototype into a game of sorts. Nothing big or anything, just a small platformer with one stage and a small message to go along with it. I'm not going to spoil what the message is, I'll just let the players decide what they think it is for themselves. The game, I'm calling it "Box", has no dialogue in it whatsoever. Just the main platformer mechanics that change depending on certain things happening around you.

Early shop. I am doing the art for this project, since I don't feel like waiting on Helix for it.

     That's about all I'm going to say about it right now. So yea, if any of you could help me with some information about good platformer tutorials or whatever, feel free to leave links to them in the comments. Anyways, I'm going to go see if Insurgency is any good. So yea, goobi.

Unity Tools: Tiled2Unity

     So I've been playing around in this tool for Unity called Tiled2Unity. Its main purpose is to export Tiled maps into Unity as prefabs and meshes and things. If you don't know what Tiled is, it's a tool for making maps with tilesets. And guess what, both of these tools are FREE!

Tiled2Unity Interface

     Also, if you have PyxelEdit, making tilesets would be even easier! I would recommend these tools (Tiled and Tiled2Unity) for any 2D game that would use tiles. If you want to make a pixel game, then I'd strongly recommend getting PyxelEdit for the tilesets and animations.

A level made with Tiled in Unity

Tiled - [DOWNLOAD]

Tiled2Unity - [DOWNLOAD]

PyxelEdit - [GET][Note: PyxelEdit costs $9.00 USD, but there is also a free version]
    

New email!

     Hello everyone! Today I'm here to notify you that I have created a new email address for myself. Therefore, I will no longer be using just0cruzzle5010@gmail.com. If you would like to find out my new email, please check the Capl site(Link on the right). Thanks, and goodbye! ^)^

I DONT Recommend - Five Nights at Freddy's

The horrible thumbnail with Arial font.

    All of you know what Five Nights at Freddy's(FNaF) is. I'm not going to bother explaining what it is. If you couldn't tell, it is the most annoying thing on the internet right now. To be completely honest, I felt like a retard while getting images for this rant. And yes, this will be a rant.


     So let's get started with my first problem, the game itself.  In FNaF, you just kinda sit there, watch screens, and shut doors. Exciting, right?! I know, I'm very scared. The game's "horror" is just cheap jump scares of animatronics looking at you or popping their head in or whatever. And if you're easily scared, then this is the game for you! Also, the game classifies itself as horror! No, no I'm sorry, Scott, but jump scares is not horror. Horror, if you don't know, is being scared. FNaF on the other hand, is just (like I said) jump scares. Sure you might be scared the first or second time, but it gets old. And I mean really, really old.


     Oh, and did I mention it has a "story"? Yea, there's some stuff in the background for fan theories. I'm sorry, but if it isn't truly cannon, then that's not a story. Sure, some of the theories are good, but who'd bother putting that much time into them? I mean, wow, whoever says "I'm going to write a theory about this poorly made game I like!" might be retarded. No seriously, I'm concerned for this person seriously being retarded.


     Anyways, my biggest gripe with this game is that it has a FANDOM around it! This fandom, this fandom is the biggest problem. They're the ones posting about FNaF everywhere. and I mean EVERYWHERE! Let me take a random site that you wouldn't even THINK would have FNaF on it. Let's see, how about GameJolt? Yes, GameJolt is being hit HARD by this fandom. If you go on there, just look at the latest news and I bet you all you'll see is FNaF clone after FNaF clone. Since I personally use GameJolt a lot, I can tell you that most (if not all) the FNaF fandom is just children. I haven't talked to a single person over 18 saying that they like FNaF or made a fan game. One more thing, the creator, Scott Cawthon, is milking it. Don't try saying "Oh no he's not don't say that" because he completely is. The original FNaF came out less than a year ago, and it already has a sequel, and another sequel coming out soon. I would like to bet that there will be a FNaF 4 before the end of 2015, It's worse that CoD!

A stupid promotional image for the second game.

 Another thing, why the hell did Scott use Clickteam fusion?! Really, because according to fans he "doesn't have a lot of money", so why the hell did he buy Clickteam, which is $350 dollars mind you, to make a 3D game?! Another thing is that it took him 6 MONTHS to make the first FNaF! Clickteam, mind you, is probably the easiest engine in the EVER! There's absolutely no programming, simple logic, and it's all drag and drop! And the fact that it took him 6 months to make a game with it, is really sad. I could see FNaF being made in a month. Tops.


     And don't think I can hear you saying "But Juice, he had to do all those animations!!" yea, those simple as hell animations. The textures and models are all right, but the animations are SO. SIMPLE! In the most recent one, there's an animation of one of the animatronics jumping at you during a jump scare. All it does is fling its arms out and comes towards the camera. That's it. I don't think animations took him 6 months to do.


    But, I still believe there's hope in all of this. I think, now hear me out, I think that FNaF might just end. If Scott decides to stop milking this, it should end some time before 2016. Think of it like this: a good game with good mechanics will last forever; but a bad game with bad mechanics will fade away. Think of Zelda, that's a great game with great mechanics. That's why people still love it to this day. Now think of Flappy Bird, that was a bad game with stupid mechanics. And you never hear anyone talking about that anymore! So don't worry friends, this will all end soon.

I Recommend: Grow Home

     Hello and welcome to my first "review" of a game. Today I'm going to tell you all about Grow Home. Grow Home is a 3D physics(ish) game about growing a big plant into space. You play as B.U.D. (Botanical Utility Droid) and your main goal is to grow this plant called a Star Plant. The game is all about climbing up this thing while you grow it by leading its buds into star rocks.


   Grow Home is also about exploring the world and collecting data on the plant and animal life. There are no enemies or bosses for you to fight; it's purely just you, the plant, and the environment. The game looks really great with its low-poly stile. I personally think that the mechanics are great, climbing feels really good. If you play with a gamepad (like I did) you control BUD's two hands with the left and right triggers.


     Climbing does take some time, but it is fun to jump on the star plant's leaves to get a boost. Did I mention you can use a flower as a parachute? Or a dried up leaf as a hang glider? Yea, that's pretty fun. The only real problems I have with this game is that it's hard to climb up stuff while holding an object. If you try to do the game 100%, you'll be doing this a lot to move objects to a teleporter.



     Also, the game is really short. It only took me about two hours to beat! Even though it's a great game. But when I think about it rationally, it would get boring with multiple levels. So I guess that's not too bad. And it is nice that you can still explore and finish the data base after you beat the game. You can even jump onto the ship you came from and see some pictures of older versions of BUD!

BUD Jumping off a cliff, like an idiot.

I think that Grow Home deserves a 9/10. It's great in nearly every aspect, accept those two nit picks. You can buy it on Steam for $7.99. Here's the Steam page right here. I'm sorry if this was a little clunky, but this was my first game review. So take it for what it is.

Welcome to my new blog!

     Hello! Welcome to my new blog! If you've been following me around on the internet, you'll know that I've made 50 million blogs. On my quest to find the right site to host with. For some reason, I've never used Blogger. So this is my attempt at a blogger website. It's pretty nice, since you can edit most, if not all the HTML. Even though I don't use HTML, I'm figuring it out. So uh, I guess I better use this post to introduce myself a bit. My name is Justin but I prefer to be called Juice or JuiceBox. I'm a young independent game developer working in Unity. I've been making pixel games since basically the beginning. My current project, Cleanse, will be my first non-pixel game. It will also be my first Unity game. Currently, I've been doing game development for 3 years. I have some of my games up on Gamejolt.com and my older games are on the yoyogames sandbox. Obviously, I used to use Game Maker 8. I think I was using GM Studio when I joined Gamejolt. Anyways, I'm in a development team called Capl Team. My best friend, Helix, owns it. We're currently making Cleanse together. Since I'm new to Unity, Cleanse's prototype is taking a bit longer for me to finish than I wanted. In a couple days, it will officially be a month since I've started working on Cleanse. Good news is that I do in fact have 65% of the prototype done. All I need to do is add health pickups and a boss and such. So yea, that's all for today. And also, make sure to subscribe to my blog to keep updated on the development of Cleanse and my pathetic life in general. And have a good morning/afternoon/night!