Ok so here's the deal:
I think that everyone that is part of this project is going to have to post a progress report on here so we get an idea for about where we are all at. We also need to discuss the manner in which we are going to be releasing these. I had always imagined (and would like) for them all to release simultaneously, however there are quite a few that are nearing completion, and some that aren't. Of particular concern is that I haven't heard from Infected Zero in about a week and a half and haven't seen any of his Snowfield up to this point, assuming he has worked on it. I don't think it would be fair to all of us who finish our stages only to have to wait on one level to be completed before publishing to the public.
Now what we could do is release them as soon as they are finished, but hold off on marketing them until all are done. Then when all are completed we go all out and market them as our project on the interwebs. I'd really like some feedback on how we should go about releasing these levels at this point because like I said, it would be a shame if we are all finished but are held up on releasing and getting plays because of one level not being finished, but then again releasing them all together as one big event would be really something.
Anyway, here is my progress report as of today:
Map structure: 95% complete - Need to create the final scoreboard room
Visuals: 85% complete - Assuming I have enough thermometer, I will probably go back and make things look prettier and add as many decorations as I can without popping the thermo. I would also LOVE to incorporate a helicopter as the spawn point that drops the player overhead, which I plan to do eventually. There's this blackhawk helicopter someone made and gave as an object in his level. DonkeyShow: assuming you still want to do a helicopter escape, we can consider saving us time in creating our copters and using this because while it is pretty huge it looks pretty amazing. We could just scale it down if we needed to anyway.
Enemies: 25% complete - I have some temporary enemies (snipers) in that need to be replaced, and some turrets that I think are pretty good. Ambush turrets that pop out of the ground as well as a functional wall turret that comes out of the wall when you get near it. I need to take that wall turret and put them in the rest of the spots that they appear in the level.
We still need to create and decide on a set of enemies to use between each of our levels. We also need to discuss on the behavior of the enemies so that they not only look consistent, but feel consistent. For example, El Beefo's Energy Zone has enemies shooting from very far forcing the player to dodge bullets in some cases when you can't even see the shooting enemy. The same goes to some of the turrets placed in Ryanardo's Waterfall. While I have no real problem with game play decisions like these, and I love a challenge, I think we all need to decide on how we handle mechanics of the enemies such as - "Do they shoot at all times or only when the player is nearby? What are the lifespan of the bullets? The speed?" etc. Another thing to ask is how do we want the camera to behave on a normal basis? I personally think that keeping tracking all the way up whenever possible and trying to maintain a straight on side-view point is important for the "Contra feel" and the camera angle should only deviate from it for sections that really benefit from the view change. I feel it's important that we all find a balance and get as much consistency between our levels as possible so they feel like a part of a whole. We are going to need better communication to achieve this, though.
Boss - 90% complete - I'll save the details on what more I need to do to not spoil the surprises
Sounds/Music - 90% - I created an opening jingle to mimic the title screen of Contra, as well as the "boss defeated/level completed" music. I sent out an object yesterday of the "boss defeated" one but have since then made changes to it (also some bug disconnected all of the wires and some of my switches, so it's kind of useless unless you position and wire it up from scratch) I think at some point all of us should incorporate that song after the boss is defeated - I'm not the best LBP music composer out there so if you feel you can make a better one than mine (just run through my locked level real quick to hear it) go for it. But in the meantime I think mine gets the job done
As far as the sound effects go, I've pretty much been adding sounds as I go along so they are pretty much done, maybe a few tweaks here and there but they are up to date with the rest of my level.
Assets/Extras - 10% - At this point I'd say all of us are in this range since we haven't really discussed or chosen a set of assets for the stages. We are going to have to have the same working floating powerups that drop either points or a prize bubble with a fun powerup sticker in it (like the M, S, etc.) wall powerups that appear when the player gets near that can be shot and awards points and/or the previously mentioned prize bubbles.
I have a prototype floating powerup at the beginning of my level that I made for fun but it needs work, and we need to decide on the look of it.
Also, Jaeyden and I decided on a Stage Icon logo for our stages. Since Neruthul already has claimed a simple "Contra" logo for the circular level sticker, we thought it would be best if we set ourselves apart somehow. This is the sticker that we came up with:
This is the actual sticker file that you use as the Level Icon. I'll mail it out to everyone when I get a chance so we can all use it on our stage icons.
It ends up looking more like this within the circle, and I think it's pretty cool:
I think it would be even better if we can somehow get player 1 (Bill) in the picture. I find that the Guile hairstyle with blue stickered pants suffices, my only concern is that it will block too much of the Contra text, which needs to be big enough to read clearly. So we might have to just make due with Player 2 in view (Lance).
Bug Fixing - ??% - At some point we should probably put our stages through a beta and have other people test our levels to make sure we don't publish them with some glaring flaw. I'm almost ready to do this, although like I stated previously there aren't many enemies in my stage yet. Also, this isn't necessarily a "bug" but my trolley that carries the spawn point throughout the stage doesn't move fast enough, so I'm going to have to speed it up somehow before I launch the level.
That's all I can think of as of right now - please guys give some feedback on how we should go about releasing these and please post some kind of progress report so we know what's up. These levels are looking really amazing guys, I'm really glad you all decided to participate. I know that a bunch of great games are about to come out, so I'm really hoping we all make as much progress on these as possible before then, and if possible even finish.
Edit: Thanks to Jaeyden for making the sweet Contra font
