infamous space turtle

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Posts posted by infamous space turtle

  2. Posted

    Just finished playing the beta and thought id get a thread going. 

     

    Releases 20 March 2018 and currently in a closed(ish) beta till Jan 31st. 

    I'm excited about this game, though I have some concerns about how long it'll hold people's attention. 

    A few of what I dig:

    • Sea combat is incredible. As a team or alone the process of working to out maneuver the enemy feels really fresh. Huge swell tilts the ship, changing elevation, pirates run up and down the deck with sea spray flying everywhere. Its hectic and exhilarating.

      I love the freedom to approach the combat in less direct ways. One stormy night while sailing alone I spotted a two person ship headed in my direction. I killed the lights, dropped anchor and dived into the swell. They pulled up and boarded my empty dark ship while I quietly slipped up their vessels ladder, lifted the anchor and sent it oncourse to nearby rocks. 

      There's a ton of stories like this with players using the mechanics to devise creative solutions to battle. 

     

    • The atmosphere is incredible, seriously the way the audio cues hit with catching the wind and cresting a wave. I've never felt more like a salty dog. 


    What I don't dig:

    • The combat is great until it peters out into a mushy unclear end. Unless a ship is sunk the battles can become kinda endless. Even if one team boards the enemies boat and kills everyone, the other team will just respawn, kill them and it's back to square one. In some cases this is fine but sometimes it turned a decisive victory into a long drawn out back and forth until one team got bored and left or ship was sunk(often people had ran out of cannonballs).

      You can see this in the video above actually. The guy manages to kill everyone yet there's no real payoff, he just stands at the helm trying waiting for the ship to crash and then gets killed when the team begins to respawn.

     

    • Im worried that the quest system will wear thin pretty quick. There isn't much incentive to go places unless you have a quest objective there and even then its just find the treasure every time. I get that adding AI ships might dilute that "I SEE A SHIP!" experience but i'd really love the to rob merchants on the seas. 


    Overall i'd say i'm excited to see how this goes. There's some really incredible moments in here and i'm rooting for Rare to smash it on release. 

  4. Posted

    Haha I like that in this world the chef will not only deliver the pizza in person, but go to such lengths they'll literally crawl over houses, feet over head, arriving as a tangle of limbs.
    Good job! I had a few issues with grabbing(occasional non response), and the presentation was pretty raw. But otherwise I dug it, really amusing concept!

  10. Posted

    Sooo I re-coded the core stuff and i've been plugging away but i'm really not feeling it.

     

    Heres a bit of where I got to. 

     

    1krMVLF.gif

     

     

    I recently read this http://www.indiegames.com/2009/12/opinion_indie_game_design_dos.html in which McMillen says: 

     

    "Go with what moves you. If you're no longer feeling something, put it down and work on what you want. I've found that all of my best games were ones I made quickly and felt passionate about. The ones that sucked were ones I lost interest in but forced myself to finish."


    Thanks McMillen, ill be using that to justify my leaving this and focusing on smaller quicker projects. There's a nugget in this game that I love so I reckon ill be back.

     

    Looking back at my past games iv got this repeating problem of everything petering out once an aesthetic is established. At its core I think i'm not really making games as much as scenes with a confusing set of mechanics thrown together underneath. My ideas are always sort of visual, tonal and moment based rather than mechanical so I think I need to strip back all the excess and focus on game design.


     

    Also now that i'm not working on this constantly i'm going to play all yall games. 

     

  11. Posted

    Saw it, liked it. I kept getting destroyed by the score/sound so visually it could have been an extended video of Mark Hamill eating soup and I’d have liked it. 

     

    Random thoughts:

    - Out of the 3 new SW films I'd rate this highest with rogue one waayy at the bottom.

     

    - I felt a fair bit of meta emotion which muddied things. Hamil and Fishers careers, the arc of the starwars in pop culture, its role in my own memory.. The film almost acted as a backdrop for broader feelings of both personal nostalgia and larger cultural changes, I suppose that's the intention.. I don't generally care about star wars either so this made things a bit more confusing. 

     

    - I agree about the length/spread being a bit much, however i'd already heard this criticism going in and it may have colored my experience. I don't mind long films. 

     

    - Oh and I loved Rey and Kylo. Great jobs by the actors, they can have a tup. 

     

     

  12. Posted

    Alright, today i'm going back to my basic idea and doing some research to really crystalize what i'm trying to convey. Got a bit muddled during the jam. 

     

    The first thing i'm doing is just reading about advertising and propaganda. 

    I really enjoy this ad patent which i think was talked about on thumbs or IIT.

    Image result for sony patent mcdonalds

     

    If anyone has any other real world examples like this i'd love to see. 

     

    After that ill probably do a rethink of the game mechanics. I want to really make it all cohesive, it was going of the rails previously. 

     

    Then tomorrow i'll get to work and begin by de spagetifying my code, everything's a mess. 

    Im setting a deadline for the end of this month to have a playable game. 

     

  18. Posted

    Primarily I frequent slack and here, but don't post often. I also lurk a bunch of forums, occasionally look at twitter and begrudgingly use facebook when I have to. For me twitter was always been the most enjoyable, I only follow people who tweet like actual humans and not like their trying to sell me something. Despite this I use it less and less for a few reasons, primarily its a massive time waster. Forums are great too if the community is good.

     

    Related politcal side note: A few months ago I took a break from the internet and when I came back I found the echochamberishness to be way more noticeable after disconnecting myself. Its led to me going on everything less. For me peak internet was on this forum a few years ago, the community was very thoughtful and kind and I learnt a lot reading through the threads. I include this because for me at least politics and my browsing habits have a pretty strong link.
     

     

  21. Posted

    haha thanks!
     

     

    I forgot to do a wee game update. Basically what iv been trying to figure out is what works best as "failure".

    The games not really compelling the player to do anything. It feels very bleh so i'm trying to find ways to put some tension in via failures and threats. 

     

    Currently I have a home base thing you setup at the start that if destroyed will cause a game over. The base is modeled after classic RTS towncenter/whatever crossed with a clicker game. In cannon its called an Adfarm and you can harvest Corporation Tokens(the in game currency) generated by dedicated advert watchers and also by actively clicking your way through adverts, earning points for a product.

     

    There are two primary reasons for this weird mixture of things:

    - First is as mentioned I want something valuable to be a definitive in world place the player can represent their stake in the game, if there is not it feels more like a tycoon game or something which isnt really what i'm after.

    - The second is that the clicker element enables the player to come back even if they have lost everything else, they can earn things manually if it gets really desperate. Also there's something kind of amusing about making the player click through ads in a game about them subjecting little people to ads. 

     

    You can assign more than one to an adfarm to multiply its production speed so in my mind late game will have these ad farms across the map engorged by little red characters all pawing away at their next advert buttons. The Adfarm, like some other structures you can build, is deemed illegal by authorities and will be attacked on sight. If you lose all your adfarms and cant build another you will be hit with game over.. At least thats what Im thinking for now, i'm still feeling this game out trying to see what it is. 

     

    So thats what i'm currently getting going, still not too sure about any of it. I might scrap the Adfarm as homebase thing but Ill definitely keep them in some aspect. 

    Anyway thats all, hope this made sense. Im bad with words.

  22. Posted

    So quick update, I will not be finished on the jam end date. Ill put something on the itch but I don't think i'm going to have something playable in time. Iv had way too much shift work so my already ambitiously scoped project wasn't going to happen and I should have foreseen that. I think I have a problem with my process and I really want to get better at actually finishing projects. Still I don't really regret my choice, i'm excited about this and will be not be stopping.

    Anyway today I'll be jamming and tomorrow and the next iv got mostly work so Ill probably just upload stuff or something. 

  24. Posted

    Another day, yes, my brain is fuzzle. 

     

    I tried to get all the advert types done today heres a couple of later game "worshipstatues" 

    dx6T7Tp.gif

    Anyone loyal to the brand might bow down too, though i havnt implimented it yet. 

     

    Hzcke5Y.gif

    A weird sort of dramatic painting type of thing. 

     

     

    a5aSYRh.gif

    This is what took way too much time. Its  a late game hover-bot that shoves ads in peoples faces. The rotor does actually work, its just a framerate thing so it looks like its not spinning in gif form. I was thinking when i have the time i'll change the model a bit, I wanted it to more grotesque and bulbous, many weird eyes and so on. Not just a big fan with screens underneath. 

     

    FWbtJnh.gif

    And I added an actual blimp you can put ads on. 

     

     

    Tomorrow im going to have to knuckle down and just try get it to a place where I can play through it. I don't think whatevers done when the jams up will be enough but Ill do my best!