Screenshot Saturday 68 - Rides Again

Cranktrain · 2012-05-26T07:12:07.754276+00:00

Thanks! I can't tell you how much time I've wasted on those two games - been looking forward to this project for a while now. :D

Cranktrain · 2012-05-26T06:49:02.094549+00:00

Yup - I tried to be all fancy, totally misjudged how huge GIFs are at that resolution. Just uploaded some more reasonably sized versions. :)

Cranktrain · 2012-05-26T06:43:45.631986+00:00

The Magnificent Time-Traveling Adventures of Mr. Fiskers is a lane combat game featuring steampunk golems, nefarious creatures from the ancient past and distant future, and a clever dude named Mr. Fiskers who's trying to save the world or something. It's a bit of a dinky little side project that my artist and I wanted to knock out over the summer before getting back to work on "Anything Goes". Always nice to take a break, right?

The gameplay falls somewhere between Plants v. Zombies and Kingdom Rush, with a touch of Siegius and a healthy heap of our own flavor in the form of spells and gadgets that Fiskers can use to bolster the might of his mechanical minions. We're aiming for just a little bit more player interaction than a typical lane combat game (where you just build your units and watch them have all the fun), without overwhelming the player with too many spells and gadgets. The main campaign will be simple enough to clear with a passive playstyle, but the challenge modes will definitely test your mettle (and yer metal, har).

We've got a total of 28 golems that Fiskers will be able to build and upgrade as he fights his way through spacetime, and as of this moment, 26 (and a half!) of them are fully programmed and ready to rock using placeholder artwork. I was planning to not show off the golems until the real art was finished, but my artist accidentally Diablo 3, and I can't resist showing off just a few of my favorites:

Shroom Golem: A mid-ranged support golem, the Shroom Golem lobs deceptively tasty fungi at its foes, poisoning them and occasionally causing them to become confused and turn coat!
Demo Golem: A gatherer with a mean streak, the Demo Golem occasionally builds a nasty proximity mine that Fiskers can drop onto the field to keep enemies at bay.
Arc Golem: Rippling with tesla coils, the Arc Golem is a long-ranged nuker who specializes in ripping apart large groups of unprotected foes with chain lightning.
Quake Golem: A short-ranged brawler, this golem uses the force of earth and fire to drive back enemies who make it to the front line.

Oh, and since you had the patience to check out the placeholder art, here's some of the good stuff my artist cooked up in between D3 burnout sessions this week:

Now, I suppose I should go finish the other half of golem #27, yeah? Hoping to get the last of 'em done tonight so I can start pulling in some of 'dem fancy new monsters this weekend. :D

Cheers.

karnovichvalua · 1 day

bob_newman · 1 day

Fun fact: Notice the awkwardly placed line break before the player's name?

This is a cop-out: it's easier to make sure the player's name is never at the end of a long sentence than it is to write character width and kerning maps to determine whether a line break is necessary or not based on the length of the player's name - especially for a game that will be ported to multiple languages. If you play through the entire game, you'll notice the player's name is never placed on a line with more than one or two words before it.

This also allows them to use specially-colored glyphs to highlight certain words without worrying about awkward line breaks in the middle of a highlighted phrase because the player's name was too short or too long.

The more you knooooooooow!~

One-guy · 1 day

As a programmer, those points are quite possibly the most important things mentioned in the job listing (along with points #3 and #5). Right up there with salary. A shitty work environment and absurd funding milestones are about as bad as cutting the salary in half.

khell · 1 day

For sure, I hear you loud and clear. I'm in the same spot - working a dayjob to keep food on the table, and using the money to fund personal projects. I'm almost to the point where I make enough from my games to drop the dayjob and do it full time. <3

khell · 1 day

Again, you are resorting to ridiculous false dichotomies. There are tons of incredibly wealthy musicians, but if you take a look you'll notice that a very large chunk of them are good musicians who earned their money by writing and performing great music. Yes, some idiots will pander to the radio crowd and sell shitty pop, but we shouldn't let the behavior of those people taint our perception of the entire industry.

Earning money and being passionate about your art are not mutually exclusive, and often go hand in hand.

The only thing I can agree with you on is that money isn't very good as a sole motivator. But it certainly can be a motivator, and I think a lot of people try way too hard to pretend like they don't care about money, which only ends up hurting their art and passion.

khell · 1 day

In my opinion it is question of prioritisation, do you make games to make money or to make good games.

This is a dangerous false dichotomy: the two are not mutually exclusive.

I understand having some trepidation because of the sacrifices some large companies have made, but that doesn't mean we should ignore the profitability of the medium as a whole. Knowing how to spread your game to the highest number of people is an incredibly important part of being a game developer, and so is knowing how to raise the most money in order to fund future projects.

khell · 1 day

The only uncomfortable feelings generated by that quote are the ones that come from comparing video games to hard drugs. If you were to replace the word "addict" with "loyal fan," and change the drug references from "crack and heroin" to "solid gameplay and good multiplayer/social elements," I don't think you'd be having the same reaction you're having now.

Ultimately, there is almost no difference between "studying player behaviors" and "manipulating addicts." One is just a sugarcoated way of saying the same thing.

Nothing that was mentioned in this article indicates that we should go out of our way to say "fuck you" to our players. The only thing it's recommending is that we provide enough added value to keep our most devoted fans playing longer and paying more.

And yeah, I'll take the bait: game development is a business. It's a fun, wonderful business, and I have a lot of passion for doing it (and would probably continue doing it even if it wasn't profitable), but I also make money from it, which helps fund more games, pays for my veterinary bills, lets me buy things for my friends and family. You seem to be implying that making a little money is okay, but trying to unlock the full financial potential of a game is somehow evil or unethical, which is simply bullshit.

It's arguably unethical to sacrifice good things for the sake of money, but this article hasn't suggested anything of the sort. It doesn't recommend we start paywalling or doing any sort of Zynga bullshit: all it's saying is to try to find MTX or other revenue avenues for our most dedicated players. I see absolutely nothing wrong with that.

agatagopee · 2 days

I use the same brand, 90%! I worked my way up from the lower numbers, and now 90% is already starting to taste too sweet. Almost time for 99%, I think!

khell · 2 days

Wait... what mentality? Wanting to provide more value to your players, in order to earn the highest revenue to fund future projects?

Maybe I'm the weird one out, but the "making money is bad" mentality makes me uncomfortable.

theknightwhosays_nee · 2 days

I could not possibly have expressed myself better.

themisc · 2 days

Depends on whether you're talking ink or light. Yes in ink, no in light.

vegetable_offender · 2 days

My first thought.

JohnJohnMcLovin · 2 days

Small nitpick: Java != Javascript.

resonatingfury · 3 days

Skybox was assigned the wrong texture! :D

Pigs_On_The_Wing · 3 days

I try very hard to respect the opinions of people who view 3D as a cheap trick or a gimmick, but I'm of the persuasion that it is the same as color: a cinematic technology in its "Technicolor infancy" that should eventually become standard, once the technical kinks are worked out.

Saying that a movie is in 3D should be no more of a "feature" than saying that the movie is in color. Granted - there are crotchety hipsters out there (as well as serious film critics, I admit) who also believe color has damaged the media. Again, I try my best to let them have their own opinions, but I disagree with them entirely.

It should be no more appalling or interesting to see a great literary work rendered on stereoscopic film than to see it rendered in color, or with audio. The only reason anyone even takes notice of it is because the technology is new, frequently used incorrectly or excessively, and has some technical bugs left to squash (forced focus can lead to headaches and feels unnatural until you learn to let your eyes follow the camera).

That and the fact that ticket prices are higher.

volkovolkov · 3 days

Broccoli brothers, unite!

Apostrophe · 3 days

I don't why you're being downvoted: the nocebo effect is a very real effect, and it has been proven to be effective even if you're aware of it.

will121000 · 4 days

Okay, fine, I'll be the jackass.

You can't eat honor, compassion, chivalry, or the right thing.

(I'm just being pedantic. I loathe patent law, and ~~wouldn't blink twice if I had the opportunity to destroy it forever~~ think it needs serious reform, especially in the fields of software and interface design.)

sortofagamedev · 4 days

I completely agree with that, and I believe that Flash won't be going anywhere any time soon (and that its plugin penetration is the main reason for that).

The reason I think Unity has any chance at all is because they're working on SWF export, which will allow them to play through FP's Stage3D. Of course, that's still Flash, anyway; the content is just being created in Unity.

sortofagamedev · 4 days

Just curious - why?

To clarify, my comment was specifically regarding game development. HTML5 is obviously superior for web development. :D

jetienne · 4 days

Flash isn't going to support mobile devices in the browser, it doesn't matter

This, a million times this.

Anyone developing games in Flash should be using AIR to publish to a native app, anyway. Nobody plays games from inside of a mobile browser.

Thesis_writing_red · 4 days

In the interest of useful science, be sure to also poll communities that don't have a hard-on for piracy and Gabe Newell.

jusksmit

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jusksmit

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