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