Messages

31

Ask a Question / Re: Sound looping issues

« on: January 16, 2013, 01:24:52 pm »

Sound carries over between scenes, you need to use a "stop all sounds" block before you start the music loop. See the help page: http://static.stencyl.com/pedia2/blocks/sound/sound/Playback.html

32

Chit-Chat / Re: Introduce Yourself!

« on: January 15, 2013, 02:11:31 am »

Hi all. My name is Greg Veit, Roadcat on most forums I'm on. I'm a professional, freelance game designer / developer / project manager - quite a mouthful. I've been involved in making games for about 10 years now and have worked for major companies such as Jagex on Runescape (I made loads of content over the years that I worked for them but, for any of you who know the game, the content that I'm most proud of is the Godwars Dungeon and the Fairytales quest series). I've also worked with several smaller indie companies, lately having released several titles with Drop Dead Interactive for XBLIG.

I'm now freelancing (again) but I have a concept for starting a new studio that works with students in their final year to make and release a commercial game. With so many good studios having closed recently it seems to me that getting your foot in the door of the industry has become even harder than it ever was and that, unless you have worked on a released title, your CV doesn't even get looked at, so I'm hoping to try and help some people overcome that problem.

I gravitated to Stencyl because of a brief that I got from a (hopefully) new client for a game that runs on FB, iOS and Android and Stencyl seemed like the best of the "code once run everywhere" solutions currently available.

33

Game Ideas / Re: Game idea.. may need a bit of fleshing out

« on: January 14, 2013, 03:05:58 pm »

I've played a game similar to this and actually really enjoyed it. You had a resource (dollars) and could buy different types of troops. There was also a tech tree which if you developed it cost you loads of money, but gave access to significantly better troops.

The game was more strategy based as you had to balance tech research against generating enough troops to defend your base.The best strategy I found was to pour cash into research defending your base with the bare minimum and then attacking when you were at the top of the tech-tree.

I'm afraid I can't remember what it was called - it was on one of those flash based game portals, but the gameplay influenced me enough that I remember it as a cool game mechanic.

34

Game Ideas / Re: vendictive platformer. good idea or awful one?

« on: January 14, 2013, 02:58:13 pm »

I'm afraid I have to disagree with everybody above me - this isn't going to win you any fans. There are very few players who's motivation is to get frustrated by a game and by making a game that is fundamentally designed to frustrate them you're not going to get good feedback.

 I've worked in the games industry long enough to understand the desire to irritate the player (I worked on MMO's for several years) but it's bad business practice. Gamers play games as a means of escaping their frustrations in real life, they're not going to love a game that frustrates them even more! Obviously this is a generalist statement and there will be players who find a challenge in overcoming the obstacles you set them (so long as they can die repeatedly with impunity), however they will be the minority. The game will be down-rated rapidly and as a result won't be played by many people.

35

News / Re: Stencyl 3.0 - Design Once. Play Anywhere.

« on: January 14, 2013, 02:43:44 am »

I think the pricing for 3.0 is still protected by the NDA so we won't be able to tell you.

Thanks for letting me know Dom.

36

News / Re: Stencyl 3.0 - Design Once. Play Anywhere.

« on: January 13, 2013, 04:34:32 am »

Well this is a great start to 2013! My brief for a game has been accepted by the client and they have asked me to create a budget and timeline estimates. I'm happy enough with buying Stencyl Studio licences and then upgrading when 3 is released commercially and I've read that early adopters will get a discount. Could anybody give me an idea of how much an upgrade licence from Stencyl Studio to Stencyl 3.0 is likely to be so I can factor it into the quote I'm writing? Thanks for your help.

37

Game Art / Re: Indie game composer/sound designer (gonintendo, kotaku, destructoid)

« on: January 12, 2013, 08:57:28 am »

Check your inbox - I've sent you a PM.

38

News / Re: Stencyl 3.0 - Design Once. Play Anywhere.

« on: January 08, 2013, 02:38:18 am »

captaincomic could you tell more about 3.0 performance  compared to 2.x for us who aren't superscribed thanks in advance   

The submission of non-detailed / false bugs by new users is something that has been discussed and I think everybody is happy with, on the other hand everybody who isn't a subscriber and is waiting patiently for 3.0 would like to know roughly how long they're going to be waiting. As a compromise is opening up the 3.0 forums to be read accessible to everyone but only write accessible to subscribers an option? That way everybody could be happy. 

39

News / Re: Stencyl 3.0 - Design Once. Play Anywhere.

« on: December 23, 2012, 01:26:42 am »

Thanks Rob1221 and Innes. Both very informative posts and that changelog shows huge amounts of work being done. I'll play with the old version of Stencyl and try to wait patiently for 3! 

40

News / Re: Stencyl 3.0 - Design Once. Play Anywhere.

« on: December 22, 2012, 03:28:43 pm »

'm sitting here writing a brief for a game that will be built in the New Year. The criteria are pretty broad, however it must run on Android, Apple and Facebook and prototype time needs to be as short as possible (hence my looking at Stencyl and GameSalad). If Stencyl 3 doesn't appear with it's ability to publish to HTML5 very soon my choices are extremely limited.

Why not just join the private Stencyl 3.0 Beta?

My (potential) client is a major UK supermarket - are they really going to be excited when I tell them I'm building their marketing app with a program that's still in beta?

I'm sure the likes of Microsoft don't keep the public up to date with all the problems and delays on their software - but I'm guessing their beta testers have access to a lot more information than you.

Yes, but (sadly) M$ still has a massive captive market who are dependent upon their whims. You're not comparing apples and apples. Most people who can create a program in Stencyl are competent enough to use the opposition instead. Not communicating with your users when you are not the big fish in the pond can only be detrimental to your brand, period.

41

News / Re: Stencyl 3.0 - Design Once. Play Anywhere.

« on: December 22, 2012, 06:38:33 am »

^ Well we can hope! I'm sitting here writing a brief for a game that will be built in the New Year. The criteria are pretty broad, however it must run on Android, Apple and Facebook and prototype time needs to be as short as possible (hence my looking at Stencyl and GameSalad). If Stencyl 3 doesn't appear with it's ability to publish to HTML5 very soon my choices are extremely limited.