Messages

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Journals / Re: BREAKOUT DUNGEON / work in progress

« on: March 08, 2015, 12:14:31 pm »

I really love brick breaker games. Yours definetly look like something i could fall in love with, but there are few issues you have to sort first.  Ball does not react to player correctly, pretty often it does not matter how i catch the ball, it just go up under 90 degree angle and there is nothing i can do to change reflection angle.
When the ball is hits that thingy on the sides it often ends up trapped just flying over from side to side until the game ends.

Unfortunately i did not finished even first level couse of ball physics issues i named above, but as a lover of block breaker games im looking forward to see theese fixed and after long time have a joy with good brick breaker game.

PS: Are you planning boss battles like in old Brick Breaker Deluxe on old java phonses? I thing it would fit your setting perfectly.

 

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Journals / Re: Awaken - finaly finished! Ver. 1.0 aviable

« on: February 28, 2015, 10:03:17 pm »

Looks like Awaken is about to cross its finish line within few hours as it ll be released on Desura store. When i look back i found ridiculous i spent year working on it and unfortunately 80% of the dev. time was eaten by endless reworks of everything, but in the end i learned ton of usefull stuff during the process and i can use all gained skills and experience in my future projects and thas coolest thing that happened during that year.

Awaken on Desura: http://www.desura.com/games/awaken-underwater-odyssey



Sales update:

Not much changed, but the game just paid it self, so im now sitting at 0, no loss, no profit and im glad about it as if i look realistic at it, a lot of  "first" projects dont have that luck to pay them selves before main release.  Sales on desura are big question, but right now income from the game is enought to pay my photoshop subscription and if desura ll add something extra then woks on my next project ll be even more comfortable.
Not that little ammount of income matters, but it gives person that important feeling that the stuff i do in my free time makes sense and every time email announcing another sale arrives makes the day a little brighter;-)



Thanks & see you by next project as this is probably last Awaken related update.
 

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Journals / Re: Awaken - finaly finished! Ver. 1.0 aviable

« on: February 10, 2015, 09:20:01 am »

Yes, the youtubers is one of the thing i was saving for desura release. However i belive the game is not good enought to contact any publisher. I did not even tried steam green light even when the game was doing pretty good on steam concepts page(70% of voters chose YES).  Another bad thing working against me here is that i dont care about money(i really really shoud change this)  and i treat all of this as a hobby and im happy if i can get a good burger and bottle of single malt whisky as a reward for year of work;-)

Hope i ll be get better with all of this for desura release and especialy next project i started working on as first prototype test version is allready shaping up.

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Journals / Re: Awaken - finaly finished! Ver. 1.0 aviable

« on: February 10, 2015, 08:49:03 am »

Tryzna, I'm really curious how well Awaken has done over at Itch.io I have a page there myself and getting ready to release a few things on it.

Hey Wayne,

Well i quess you are asking for sales figures. In one word, they are "terrible" ;-) If your game is unknow(just few positive reviews) like mine and you consider marketing annoying think you dont want to do then welcome to my club and listen what you can expect.

Itch: 0 sales for first few days, no marketing, no propagation. Just one tweet announcing the release. Its released for about a month now and i sold 12 copies. Positive reviews did not help and i guess only hardcore fans of the genere got the game for their collection.

Indie game stand: game is there for about two weeks, sold 8 pices so far, again, no promo and stuff around it, not even tweet.

Humble: 0 sales till now.

To shorten this, its not what i was expecting(was hoping for double of current sales), but im still glad about it as stencyl license is almost payed(half of the game budget) and i did not even started with any promo or advertising as i was waiting for Desura release(their aproval time is terrible) and game release is now scheduled for 1st of next month. I was holding back that long and ll continue to do so for another two weeks as i realy want to sell majority of pieces on desura as they handle VAT for you and all of that awful stuff i hate even more than doing marketing.

Will write more about month after desura release as im planning to promote the game a bit and im willing to share the data with other stencylers to give you all idea what you might expect from projects like this.

However, while sales figures are terrible right now im glad about them. More than half of my expenses are allready payed if i include sales of some of the assets on envato and if i ll consider desura release and its potential im expecting this game to turn profitable week after desura release. Not much, but i never expected im gonna be rich from this and main benefit i got from working on this game is all the knowledge and experience i learned while working on this project and if the game is going to generate me some extra pocket money, then i ll be even happier.



 

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Journals / Re: Awaken - Demo & early access aviable

« on: January 13, 2015, 10:06:49 pm »

Hello again!

Thanks Bombini for additional feedback! Unfortunately version 1.0 was allready released and is aviable on itch so i was not able to implement all the improvements you are suggesting however most important features and improvements are there, i ll summarize what was added to the demo release.

- every enemy except "popcorn" enemies and bosses now blink white when hit
- torpedoes rebalanced, now they have more power however they do not destroy bullets anymore as bossfights were too easy in solo mode
- added notification to check the controls when the game runs for first time
- Adjusted HUD font size so now shield level is more visible and obvious
- screen shake when destroying enemies reduced to half. When destroying small enemies its hardly noticable now but still give the game desired feel
- epilepsy warning screen can now be skipped by pressing mouse or space
- improved ship handling and removed all friction
- various bug fixes
- decided not to make difficulty adjustments as some ppl were complaining game is way too easy, some the oposite. Thats why i decided to make a compromise and keep it as it is as inhouse testers(both experienced and inexperienced gamers)confirmed the same.

In the end i ve got feeling i rushed the release a bit and now im only waiting for desura to accept the game at their store and the things are going in the right direction negotiating with humble store right now. But still, there was a lot of stuff left to be done but unfortunately i run out of time.
I know my self and im forced to take a break right now and would not be able to come back to this project to finish it couple of months later. Dont get me wrong, im not abandoning this project and im pretty sure there ll be few more patches but i ll dont have time for more than that in following couple of months.
Why? We are moving to bigger place as me and my gf are tired of living on 30 square meters with bunny, 4 parrots and about 200 shrimps. Unfortunately i have to rebuild the new place and repurchase most of the furniture and other stuff, take care of security as we are moving to ground level and in addition im probably getting married.

Hope some of you ll enjoy version 1.0! Thanks again for your support/suggestions/critique!

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Journals / Re: Awaken - Demo & early access aviable

« on: January 05, 2015, 09:49:34 pm »

Hey! Thanks for feedback! It got some very valuable points and i owe you download key when the game goes full, hopefully this weekend! (and if you ll ever come to Pilsen have a stop in our whisky store for free degustation;-))

Now to your points:

"It takes too long till i have control over my ship" - hold on! Its just first mission, no intro sequence in next ones! However i would like to throw player in to the action as soon as he pushes the button but i dont know how to skip forward the audio track as every event durring missions  is more or less tied to music track.

"I died 90% of the time because of ships rushing from the back into my ship." - its should not be possible as enemy ships that come from behind have collisions turned off until they reach their destination as i knew this was the thing that annoyed me in most other shooters so i applied this counter measure since begining. Might happened you hit enemy bullet your eyes missed while trying to dodge enemy ship. As i said above, it should not be possible, but i ll definetly check if everything works as intended.

"blink on hit" - damn, how could i forgot this basic trick! Thanks for reminding, now i have to think about how to do that without need for adding whited out fariant for every animation frame. Guess there ll be something i could use in drawing category.(edit:brightnes effect did the job)

"I didnt understand how to exchange weapons in the shop" - The thing is you cant unless you unlock them. There is lock icon above all of them(guess its my fail its not clear on first sight). For every completed mission you ll unlock pice of equipment.

As everything elese is positive i ll just thank you for your time and feedback i really appreciate it.

Well, the fullscreen, i spent on day working on it trying every possible configuration combination until i found this(see picture in attachment). Noticed it also helps to start the game in fullscreen as when using toggle fullscreen block i ve been experiencing glitches similar to your description. Hope that ll help!

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Journals / Re: Awaken - Demo & early access aviable

« on: January 01, 2015, 02:51:32 am »

Hehe, thanks for advice Bombini, just opened one this morning as compiling times are quite long on my machine;-)



Onslaught mode is finaly finished, options screen added. Now i dedicate week or two to bug hunt and it ll be finaly done;-)

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Journals / Re: Awaken - month and half till release

« on: December 26, 2014, 06:48:33 am »

Hello friends! Finaly, after 10 months of hard work i can present you demo of almost finished game  and early access. Its still not completely finished, but demo contains enought content to give you idea what is this game about, how its played and most importantly it should answer the question: "is it fun?"



I must say past 10 months been quite a ride as i have learned a lot, met some interesting people, overcame deep depressions and finaly, finished something. Well, talking about "finished" product is a bit early right now, but im sure i ll be able to implement the last game mode, tweak difficulty and rework options screen no matter what. 

If you are unsure you want to go and download the demo you can watch the new trailer to give you idea here:  http://youtu.be/eeYke7vvl4k

Along with the demo there is beta version aviable as well. If you like the demo you can support the project by purchasing the beta version of the game whitch contains everything except Onslaught game mode and one ship module. To make everything clear, all beta purchasers will receive link for full game when released.

As mentioned earliier, the game is still not finished, but i feel like huge boulder felt off my shoulders and now i can breathe freely again and switch to more "casual" work mode as i have to wait for feedback for couple of days anyway. But still, i would like to thank to everyone who commented here as Awaken never was great looking, original, or anticipated game and every comment made here mattered to me and helped to keep me going.

Thank you everyone!

Demo can be download from indieDB:  http://goo.gl/D8Kw0b
Early access beta & demo can be found at itch.io here : http://tryzna.itch.io/awaken-underwater-odyssey

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Journals / Re: Awaken - month and half till release

« on: December 21, 2014, 10:41:24 pm »

Yes, im finaly sure it will happen. Everything except onslaught mode and few details is ready for release. By details i mean stuff like "flashing images warning", re check everything again and setup itch page for the game.  If i ll not be hitted by a car or something simmilar happens the game demo ll be aviable next weekend both on itch and indieDB. Beta version whitch ll contain everything the game has to offer except onslaught couple of days latter, probably 1.1.

I ve spent whole weekend by polishing the game, adding dreaded option buttons, creating help screen, pause, players death. Lot of little stuff that had to be done but i ve been always pushing them away until now.

See you by the release!

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Journals / Re: Awaken - month and half till release

« on: December 17, 2014, 09:39:22 pm »

Hello everyone! I dont want to just copypaste news from indieDB so if you are interested to read about current situation in more detail you are more than welcome to follow link http://goo.gl/7zmdpc

For those who dont like reading how im struggling with english i have short version and couple of pictures as well. Game is almost finished, its missing mostly simple stuff like quit button, volume controls, fullscreen toggle and simillar more or less important features. The only "big" thing left to do is Onslaught mode. Its kind of random infinite sruvival level where players goal is to survive and score highest possible score.

Right now im taking much needed break till end of the week as im currently exhausted by my job so i can only work on weekends till new year, but im gonna use that time to make final polishing touches and prepare big and fat demo for you and release it, probably 1.1.2015

After demo release im going to spend one month to fix bugs that might appear, fine tune difficulty and finaly do some marketing, make proper game trailer and contact youtubers covering this subgenere.

Hope you are excited this journey is finaly near end and demo will be worth downloading to you;-)

See you then!

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Windows / Mac / Flash / HTML5 / Re: Space Pirate (demo available)

« on: December 12, 2014, 10:22:56 am »

Glad to see you still enjoy making additions for this game. It ll be blast to play when released!;-)

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Journals / Re: Awaken - month and half till release

« on: December 03, 2014, 09:14:20 am »

Thanks for kind comment & im glad you like the menu! Im still planning to add more details like working repair drones,  more ground crew and robots running around and simillar stuff.

Thare are no prices of modules, once you unlock them(had them all unlocked for demonstration purpose on gif above) you can switch between ship modules as you want.  I had a model based around ingame currency, but soon enought i realized i want to encourage players to experiment with ship configurations.

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Windows / Mac / Flash / HTML5 / Re: Space Pirate (demo available)

« on: December 03, 2014, 09:08:41 am »

How dare you tortue little squid!;-)

No, seriously, im amazed by your progress. Chceked the updated demo last weekend for a while and game plays much better than the early version. 
The game is still pc only or are you considering release for mobile devices as well?

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Journals / Re: Awaken - month and half till release

« on: December 02, 2014, 09:26:11 pm »

After weekend of hard work the main menu is finaly working as intended. Still needs to put in some additional details like options and quit buttons but i ll leave that for final polishing phase whitch is hopefuly just weeks away from now.  Im glad i managed to squeze everything i wanted in to one screen and dont have maze o sub menus. On the left side of the screen you can pick the mission you want to fly and on the right is ship module selection whitch is the place where you can configure your ship to fit your taste and play style.

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Journals / Re: Awaken - month and half till release

« on: November 17, 2014, 10:01:19 pm »

Thx Bombini! Yes, i have to agree with you and i ll definetly try to redraw the skull, unfortunately my drawing skills are quite limited and im afraid i ll not be able to draw it better.

Anyway, game last mission is almost finished, missing exactly one wave of enemies and bullet patterns for last boss. Looks like i ll start working on menu interface during weekend and start preparing beta.

And while at it i ll add couple of pictures from weekend: