Ok don't pay attention to that last post

Artistic Needs

So basically I'm looking for a cool dude artist to help me out, because I don't like doing art myself as it takes a whole lot of time. Also, follow me on Twitter for regular updates. [link]

Devblog Update

So I've decided that I don't get a whole lot of feedback on here from my devblog, so I've decided to move it onto the TIGSource forums. I mean, I haven't yet, but I will. I figure the entire point of a devblog is to get feedback, so what's the point of doing one on here? Anyways, that's it. Bye bye.

Roguelike Devblog - #3

So today I made myself a schedule, that I most likely won't follow. Since I trust you guys, here it is.

Yeah, no way I'm following that. Anyways, onto the roguelike!

So my sound guy, Joe Swensen, asked if I could do layering music. For example, you walk by an enemy and a new layer of music is added to give tension to the situation. After you slay this foul beast, the tension layer fades away. Yeah, that, I'm sure you've seen it before. I said I could try, I mean I still haven't, but I will. So hey, if I can work it out I guess the game will have layering music. Neat.

Today I added this pause menu. I want to give it an options menu too, but that will have to come later, as a lot of the options won't affect anything yet. (Also I usually add option menus in late development) Anyways, here is this pause menu I made.

Isn't that neat? Hopefully it is. I didn't do too much else, other than THIS

See that? The sprite flips! This will be useful... Eventually. But hey, it's nice to get it out of the way early. Anyways, that's it for today. Hopefully I'll see you all tomorrow!

[My Twitter] [Lui's Twitter]

Roguelike Devblog - #2

Instead of starting this post with a paragraph explaining everything I've done, here's a quick gif.

So there's quite a bit to go over. Let me start with the "Generating" screen. Yesterday when you'd start up the game, it'd bring you to a black screen with the map laid out in white. (See yesterday's post for an example of that) I said "begone with that!" and replaced it. Map generation in the game is lightning quick, which is pretty cool. (It actually only takes ~10 frames to generate the map) I'm guessing it will take longer to generate maps the further you get into the game, since after each level the map size gets slightly increased. Anyways, this isn't all cherries and roses. There's one, slight, downside to my amazing generation screen. To generate a new map... I have to restart the game! *gasp*

... I'll probably do a debug thing later to fix that.

Anyways, next thing you probably noticed, depth! Maps now have a bit of depth to them, which is pretty cool. I did this because it looks nice, and that's about it. You can walk behind walls and stuff, which is pretty standard now in these top-down games. There's not a whole lot to say about it, so here's another gif.

Last thing, I added a "light" around your player. In the last post I mentioned that I wanted to try doing a "Fog of War" effect, and that didn't quite work out. Let's just say the game ran like I was emulating a PS4 on a potato. So instead I did this, and I like how it looks. Better yet, it still gives that feeling of mystery and uncertainty I mentioned before. So that's good.

But that's all for today's post. I'll see you guys tomorrow! (hopefully)

[My Twitter] [Lui's Twitter]

Roguelike Devblog - #1

So I'm going to start writing a daily devblog here. Because, well, I can. I considered trying to do this on the TIGSource forums but I can't bring myself to go on there every day. I feel like I have to be formal there. Anyways, here's the first log on this roguelike game I'm working on with my friend Lui.

Today I got map generation done. This is what I thought would be the hardest part of making a roguelike, and hey if I wanted some really good dynamic map generation it would be the hardest part. Since this is my very first roguelike though, I decided all I really need is something dirty and quick. What I did was copy the source of the BSPMapGen HaxeFlixel demo, and then I started modifying it a whole lot to fit my needs. I still need to clean it up a bit though. My code, that is, I keep on tweeting that I'll do it but I still haven't.

Anyways, I was trying to go for map generation like Nuclear Throne or something, but it's obviously nowhere near Throne level of generation. I want to implement a "Fog of War" mechanic, so you can't see all of the map at once. (Or at least all of the map rendered on your screen) Not for technical limitations or anything, just so you don't know what's out there and get a sense of mystery.

Anyways, that's it for today. Hopefully I update you guys tomorrow as well, huh?

[Lui on Twitter]

[Carpetwurm on Twitter]

I'm back, hopefully!

Hello everyone, I'd like to start out this post saying I've changed my name from JuiceBox over to Carpetwurm. This is because I wanted to be a bit more unique, and hey I might actually stick with this one! Now then, onto some news.

First of all, Journey of Coins has been released! I left you guys with the 0.0.5 build, and that was AGES ago. But now the game is complete, and in build 1.2.0. I had to close development though because the engine I use, HaxeFlixel, updated to version 4 after JoC launched, and it would be absolute hell porting it to the new version. Anyways, here's a link.

[Download]

I also participated in GameJolt's Bad Boxart Jam, which was my first big jam. I made a game called "How to be Corny" based on the boxart below. I believe I ranked #72 or something like that, I can't be bothered to check. Anyways, I had fun making something stupid and small, though some people absolutely hated the game. [Link to that]

I started work on a game called Contiave with James R. from theodd1sout, and you know it was going good and such, but then I started a side project with my friend Lui and kinda shifted focus to that. Though if James wants me to keep working on Contiave I will, I just need some more art from him. But what he did give me was great, so I hope the game doesn't get canned. 

[James on YouTube] [Lui on Twitter]

But that's about it, hopefully this blog doesn't die again. I'll see you guys later, hopefully. ^)^

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.