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[Djungelfrukt]

Wow, I certainly didn't expect this to be as good as it actually is. After the first level I already sat in front of my monitor with a big smile on my face. It's simple, yet challenging. I find it really charming, and the musical elements suits the game really good.

I'm at level 20 at the moment, and I'll try to get back with some feedback later.

 

[The Friendly Monster]

Wow, I certainly didn't expect this to be as good as it actually is. After the first level I already sat in front of my monitor with a big smile on my face. It's simple, yet challenging. I find it really charming, and the musical elements suits the game really good.

I'm at level 20 at the moment, and I'll try to get back with some feedback later.

Hey, thanks a lot, remember to vote for the game at http://www.indiegameshowcase.com/

P.s. your username rocks my socks

 

[The Friendly Monster]

Bump for midnight-my-time-gaf. I was looking into making an installer for the game today so you don't have to deal with the dependencies bullshit. Unfortunately this proved really difficult, there is a WiX template that some guy made but it doesn't support XNA 2.0.

 

[C4Lukins]

Hey, thanks a lot, remember to vote for the game at http://www.indiegameshowcase.com/

P.s. your username rocks my socks

I am having trouble getting the site to load. I will be sure to vote for it when I get a chance.

 

[The Friendly Monster]

I am having trouble getting the site to load. I will be sure to vote for it when I get a chance.

Weird it works ok for me. Direct link to my game.

Seems a bit unfair to be up against DefCon.

 

[Flunkie]

Just voted for you.

And yes, up against already-released commercial games does seem unfair.

Hope you win anyways.

 

[The Friendly Monster]

Just voted for you.

And yes, up against already-released commercial games does seem unfair.

Hope you win anyways.

Thanks a lot, I was just kidding. Those introversion guys deserve all the awards they get.

 

[∀ Narayan]

I finally took a taste of this.

Awesome work! I like this A LOT.

 

[The Friendly Monster]

I finally took a taste of this.

Awesome work! I like this A LOT.

Thanks a lot, any praise/criticism in particular? Also what was stopping you from trying earlier, the messy install stuff?

 

[∀ Narayan]

Thanks a lot, any praise/criticism in particular? Also what was stopping you from trying earlier, the messy install stuff?

Only praise on this end. I enjoy the overall simplicity you have chosen for this. The sound design also gets a nod from me. I like it all - very, very much.

The only thing that was stopping me, was getting enough time on my hands to try it out. >

Also, I voted for you.

 

[besiktas1]

I love it!

Just change the name IMO, something more catchy and easier to say/remember

 

[∀ Narayan]

I love it!

Just change the name IMO, something more catchy and easier to say/remember

NO. The name is fine. I love the name.

 

[The Friendly Monster]

Only praise on this end. I enjoy the overall simplicity you have chosen for this. The sound design also gets a nod from me. I like it all - very, very much.

The only thing that was stopping me, was getting enough time on my hands to try it out. >

Also, I voted for you.

Thanks a lot, I really appreciate it.

I love it!

Just change the name IMO, something more catchy and easier to say/remember

I'm not a huge fan of the name either, I just can't think of anything I like more! I wouldn't have given it a name if I could've but that'd be more awkward for everyone.

NO. The name is fine. I love the name.

Cool.

Well I agree that it isn't easy to say/remember for most people, but it isn't easy to confuse with other stuff either.

 

[Djungelfrukt]

Wohoo! Finally managed to beat level 29! How many levels are there in total?

EDIT: Only 30 and 32 left now

 

[PhlivoSong]

I was looking into making an installer for the game today so you don't have to deal with the dependencies bullshit. Unfortunately this proved really difficult, there is a WiX template that some guy made but it doesn't support XNA 2.0.

I'll give it a try if you can get an installer working. My PC is in a bit of disarray right now, so I can't reinstall XNA until I repartition Vista and install it again. The idea of pizzicato sounds for sound effects alone makes me want to try it out, cool idea.

 

[The Friendly Monster]

Wohoo! Finally managed to beat level 29! How many levels are there in total?

EDIT: Only 30 and 32 left now

Holy crap, congrats, first person to have done it that I know of!

I'll give it a try if you can get an installer working. My PC is in a bit of disarray right now, so I can't reinstall XNA until I repartition Vista and install it again. The idea of pizzicato sounds for sound effects alone makes me want to try it out, cool idea.

Hey, I had a really good look into making an installer yesterday and it seems unfeasible, unless anyone really wants to help me out with this then it isn't going to happen. Having said that all the installer would have done was to check whether you have the XNA redistributable and installed it if you hadn't.

Note: it's not the entire XNA program you need to run the game, just a 2mb file, the redistributable, is this still a problem? Hope you can get the game running and enjoy it.

 

[Akira]

Good luck with the game, TFM. I haven't played it because I'm on a Mac, but after watching the video you have my vote. Actually, I just voted for you even though I haven't played the game. Hope you don't mind. :lol

 

[Davidion]

Wohoo! Finally managed to beat level 29! How many levels are there in total?

EDIT: Only 30 and 32 left now

Bastard. :lol

I can't beat 27 for the life of me, though 28 was a cakewalk. The lack of obvious movement trends makes the former a lot more difficult, in my opinion.

If you tack on more levels, I think that the game is perfectly viable as a retail product.

 

[Djungelfrukt]

Yeah, we definately need more levels, or at least I do :lol

 

[The Friendly Monster]

Good luck with the game, TFM. I haven't played it because I'm on a Mac, but after watching the video you have my vote. Actually, I just voted for you even though I haven't played the game. Hope you don't mind. :lol

Cheers, I had a quick look at the possibilities of running an xna game on a mac, unsurprisingly no luck there. The video really doesn't do it justice in my opinion, thanks for voting though!

 

[The Friendly Monster]

Bastard. :lol

I can't beat 27 for the life of me, though 28 was a cakewalk. The lack of obvious movement trends makes the former a lot more difficult, in my opinion.

Do you see roughly how to do 27? If so then on the way back try hitting the ball when it's above the centre of each piston, regardless of the height. When you hit the top right piston the ball shouldn't be spinning.

If you tack on more levels, I think that the game is perfectly viable as a retail product.

Yeah, we definately need more levels, or at least I do

If I were to do a downloadable version for retail then I would put a lot of work into a more accessible level creator, I'm still contemplating whether to release the level creator for this one, it'd be a one line change of code but require a reasonable amount of explaining. As it is I'm splitting my time between my first project, which isn't going well, a new project I started today which I need a flash of inspiration on, and following up stuff with this project. I went back and played this game for the first time in about a week and getting a slightly fresher perspective I'm really pleased with the way it has turned out. Thanks to everyone for the help.

 

[The Friendly Monster]

Just noticed that my game is up against the zoo race on the indie games showcase! Might as well withdraw now.

 

[pn18]

Just voted for your game.

edit:

a new project I started today

?

 

[The Friendly Monster]

Just voted for your game.

Thanks, story 10 yeah?

?

No actually, that's my first project, plus. It's perhaps a little disingenuous of me to put "coming soon" on there as I don't have any plans for distribution at the moment. It's difficult for me to find motivation to even finish it right now.

This next game is unbelievably early, but will be 2d and XNA again. Probably another 3 weeks at least before I have anything to show on GAF, although I definitely will be doing another thread like this for feedback etc.

 

[Flunkie]

?

I saw that too. Plus, huh? Looks interesting. Care to splurge any info out about that?

If it's half as good as pizzicati, I'm definitely interested.

Edit: I see. Are you currently planning anything else afterwards?

 

[pn18]

Thanks, story 10 yeah?

Of course.
I hate stories, so it's 10 out of 10 for me.

Spoiler

j/k, but 10/10 though

This next game is unbelievably early, but will be 2d and XNA again. Probably another 3 weeks at least before I have anything to show on GAF, although I definitely will be doing another thread like this for feedback etc.

Awesome, can't wait.

 

[The Friendly Monster]

I saw that too. Plus, huh? Looks interesting. Care to splurge any info out about that?

Very basic rhythm game, the rhythm is defined by the player but the order of the buttons isn't. You just have to stick in a 4/4 time. Minus points for being repetitive. Play along to a track, ideally to whatever track you like but that'd be too much work for me, so a few select songs of mine are in at the moment. Played ideally with a pad, and this'd require a lot of work from me to customize what is essentially a proof of concept.

I still haven't put all the scoring in place, visual feedback, menus etc. The main problem is just that I don't think it's very fun in its current incarnation, and there are a lot of factors preventing me from sharing it with others to try out like I could do with pizzicati.

I do like the mechanic of how you know which note to play next, and the way you can scale difficulty with it however you like. But there's a real conflict between the idea of chilling out hitting buttons while listening to music, and the scoring system of rewarding players for not being repetitive. Perhaps they are incompatible.

If it's half as good as pizzicati, I'm definitely interested.

I don't think it is, sorry.

Edit: I see. Are you currently planning anything else afterwards?

After my third game? Well I'd like to make a 3d game at some point. I just don't have any good ideas yet. I just keep coming to the conclusion that Katamari Damacy is the most perfect game design. I'm also going to look for a job at some point, but even then I'm sure I'll keep up some of this stuff.

I don't know why I've written all this, it's like totally metaphorically blowing my load.

 

[∀ Narayan]

?

I think the logo to this is kind of sloppy. Just saying.

 

[The Friendly Monster]

I think the logo to this is kind of sloppy. Just saying.

In what way?

 

[The Friendly Monster]

OK after doing some rooting around I've found a little app which might be able to help people install this.

http://xnamatrix.com/xnareq.php

It checks you have the requirements for playing an xna game and downloads things you don't have (I think) if this works/doesn't work for people let me know.

 

[The Friendly Monster]

Also posted this in the GAFs Amature[sic] Devs Chronicles thread

Ok motivation is back on track, I made a little demo this afternoon for an idea I had for a simple space invaders game with an interesting twist for an interface. You press two buttons on the keyboard sequentially to fire a projectile, there's nothing to fire at, but it should give you an idea of how it works. If you press two keys on the same row you get a sort of shield/barrier thing.

Projectiles move at a constant vertical rate as I was going to tie it to a music track to reward playing on the beat/enemies which move with the beat.

My aim was to make an intuitive control scheme (as always) for a simple action game, but once I've got it up and running I can't see the way forward from here. It's not as intuitive as I hoped matching the keys with the positions on screen, and I can only think that the game will be trivially easy where not all the keys are needed or uber hardcore (it's easy to make a ridiculously hard game, much harder to make one easy and fun).

So I'm ditching the idea, I've uploaded both the compiled game and the source if you want to take a look, let me know what you think,

Cheers,

http://gcoope.googlepages.com/FourthGame.zip
http://gcoope.googlepages.com/FourthGameSource.zip

 

[No_Style]

Hmm... Sounds interesting. I'll give it a whirl when I'm at home.

 

[The Friendly Monster]

Hmm... Sounds interesting. I'll give it a whirl when I'm at home.

There's almost nothing to it but I thought I might as well share it and see if it sparked any discussion as to if it could be moulded into a workable idea.

 

[pn18]

Also posted this in the GAFs Amature[sic] Devs Chronicles thread

Hey, thanks for sharing this demo!

First - and to me it's the most important thing for now - try to make this demo compatible with different keyboard layouts. I just tried this little demo and quickly noticed the difference between the American keyboard layout and the German keyboard layout I use. It's like playing a game with a wrong controller. :lol

Anyway, I like the idea.

 

[The Friendly Monster]

Hey, thanks for sharing this demo!

First - and to me it's the most important thing for now - try to make this demo compatible with different keyboard layouts. I just tried this little demo and quickly noticed the difference between the American keyboard layout and the German keyboard layout I use. It's like playing a game with a wrong controller. :lol

Anyway, I like the idea.

Yeah, I realised that when putting in the keys, it's set up for my UK keyboard, I don't know if US is the same. If you have XNA setup you can go into the keyboard1 class and change the values there.

 

[dagZ]

Going to have to try this out.

 

[Davidion]

Sounds cool...will try it when I get home.

 

[pn18]

Yeah, I realised that when putting in the keys, it's set up for my UK keyboard, I don't know if US is the same. If you have XNA setup you can go into the keyboard1 class and change the values there.

German/Austrian keyboard layout:

                keyArray[0, 0].key = Keys.Q;
                keyArray[0, 1].key = Keys.W;
                keyArray[0, 2].key = Keys.E;
                keyArray[0, 3].key = Keys.R;
                keyArray[0, 4].key = Keys.T;
                keyArray[0, 5].key = Keys.Z;
                keyArray[0, 6].key = Keys.U;
                keyArray[0, 7].key = Keys.I;
                keyArray[0, 8].key = Keys.O;
                keyArray[0, 9].key = Keys.P;
                keyArray[0, 10].key = Keys.OemSemicolon;    //Ü
                keyArray[0, 11].key = Keys.OemPlus;         //+
                keyArray[1, 0].key = Keys.A;
                keyArray[1, 1].key = Keys.S;
                keyArray[1, 2].key = Keys.D;
                keyArray[1, 3].key = Keys.F;
                keyArray[1, 4].key = Keys.G;
                keyArray[1, 5].key = Keys.H;
                keyArray[1, 6].key = Keys.J;
                keyArray[1, 7].key = Keys.K;
                keyArray[1, 8].key = Keys.L;
                keyArray[1, 9].key = Keys.OemTilde;         //Ö
                keyArray[1, 10].key = Keys.OemQuotes;       //Ä
                keyArray[2, 0].key = Keys.Y;
                keyArray[2, 1].key = Keys.X;
                keyArray[2, 2].key = Keys.C;
                keyArray[2, 3].key = Keys.V;
                keyArray[2, 4].key = Keys.B;
                keyArray[2, 5].key = Keys.N;
                keyArray[2, 6].key = Keys.M;
                keyArray[2, 7].key = Keys.OemComma;
                keyArray[2, 8].key = Keys.OemPeriod;
                keyArray[2, 9].key = Keys.OemMinus;         //-

 

[No_Style]

There's almost nothing to it but I thought I might as well share it and see if it sparked any discussion as to if it could be moulded into a workable idea.

Would it be possible for you to put a ceiling?

I can picture this as some kind of alternate version of Breakout where you can make your own bumpers.

 

[The Friendly Monster]

Would it be possible for you to put a ceiling?

I can picture this as some kind of alternate version of Breakout where you can make your own bumpers.

Sure, like this?

http://gcoope.googlepages.com/FourthGameBreakout.zip

I was thinking along similar lines at one point, but more physics based with a bouncing ball etc. Obviously there has to be a mechanic to restrict/punish firing loads of shots/ making one big wall from Q to ].

 

[The Friendly Monster]

It's hard to get motivation to finish this first project, but I got back onto it today and hope to have it done in a couple of days. Posting stuff on Gaf helped me a lot with the last one but since this is so much less suitable to being shared and tested I thought I'd make a little video to show what's going on:

http://gcoope.googlepages.com/plus.swf

 

[The Friendly Monster]

http://rapidshare.com/files/108872594/Plus.zip.html

Ok decided to share this, it's early, there's no scoring at the moment. I really want someone to try using a 360 pad on this and letting me know if it works.

It might also work if you have a ps2 pad, that's what I have. For PC the left directions are WSAD and the right are Up, Down, Left, Right. Enter is to select an option, escape is to go back.

So yeah let me know what you think, and if you can test it with a 360 pad, that'd be awesome.

 

[YaSeeTheoo]

http://rapidshare.com/files/108872594/Plus.zip.html

Ok decided to share this, it's early, there's no scoring at the moment. I really want someone to try using a 360 pad on this and letting me know if it works.

It might also work if you have a ps2 pad, that's what I have. For PC the left directions are WSAD and the right are Up, Down, Left, Right. Enter is to select an option, escape is to go back.

So yeah let me know what you think, and if you can test it with a 360 pad, that'd be awesome.

Just downloaded it and even though I have no idea how to play I can say that the 360 controller works but only with the dpad, also to select a mode you have to use the A, B, X, and Y instead of just the dpad with the 360 controller

 

[dejay]

Yeah, wireless controller works well. Holy shit the two sided patterns seem a little tricky.

YaSeeTheoo - you select the pattern with the face buttons and select the song with the d-pad.

(edit) I like the way the arrow points towards what the next arrow will be - cool idea.

I'd suggest if you're going to support the 360 controller you match the arrow colours to the face button colours but it's no biggy.

 

[Flunkie]

I like it! The 360 controller was a little unresponsive as far as the timing and rhythm goes, but I enjoyed it for the most part.

 

[The Friendly Monster]

Just downloaded it and even though I have no idea how to play I can say that the 360 controller works but only with the dpad, also to select a mode you have to use the A, B, X, and Y instead of just the dpad with the 360 controller

Oh yeah forgot, the 360 D-pad is shit right? the select a mode is meant to be only with the a,b,x,y, it's trying to show a parity between the up, down, left, right and a, b, x, y. It makes more sense with a ps2 pad i think.

Yeah, wireless controller works well. Holy shit the two sided patterns seem a little tricky.

Yeah you aren't meant to be able to do both at once all the time, basically you are allowed to press the buttons whenever you want as long as you are on the beat (or half beat), I need to make my scoring algo reward switching between the two sides and doing both at once though.

(edit) I like the way the arrow points towards what the next arrow will be - cool idea.

Yeah it's basically the one idea behind the game, you are basically shown about the next 5 or 6 moves usually but the skill is in being able to see that far ahead.

I'd suggest if you're going to support the 360 controller you match the arrow colours to the face button colours but it's no biggy.

That's a good idea, I hadn't even thought that the four buttons were the four colours I'm using. I'll have to redraw my logo though, since i chose to have red next to blue for aesthetic purposes. I'll have a look at that today.

I like it! The 360 controller was a little unresponsive as far as the timing and rhythm goes, but I enjoyed it for the most part.

Did you try with the keyboard also? You probably have to unplug the pad to let that work. It'd be useful to know if the problem was with the xbox pad specifically.

Getting the timing right between the music, the input and the output is frustrating, definitely don't try and make and advanced music game on XNA if you're a rookie like me, even this ultra simple one is an exercise in annoyance.

I want to incorporate rumble but since I don't have a pad I can't really test it.
Thanks everyone.

 

[The Friendly Monster]

As I thought it's difficult to get the intermediate colours looking good on the logo.

from this:

to this:

bleugh.

 

[∀ Narayan]

In what way?

Oh! I forgot to reply to this! :lol

For me, it's the collision of the lettering and the black fill-in they produce when said collision occurs.

That's really it.

I'm pretty sure I'm in the minority for this one, though.

I do like your recoloring, though. It's superior!

 

[The Friendly Monster]

Oh! I forgot to reply to this! :lol

For me, it's the collision of the lettering and the black fill-in they produce when said collision occurs.

That's really it.

Ok, thanks, I'll bear that in mind.

I'm pretty sure I'm in the minority for this one, though.

I do like your recoloring, though. It's superior!

Are you some kind of fiendish saboteur? The new colours look awful! Red and green are complementary so I'd rather not have them next to each other, then we have yellow and blue next to each other which combine to give green, which we already have.

 

[∀ Narayan]

Are you some kind of fiendish saboteur? The new colours look awful! Red and green are complementary so I'd rather not have them next to each other, then we have yellow and blue next to each other which combine to give green, which we already have.

I -- I like them?