Sloane

Phaedrus' Street Crew
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Posts posted by Sloane

  1. Posted

    Released a final update mostly changing the balancing a bit.

     

    That was a lot of fun overall! First week went incredibly well, like, everything was pretty much working instantly -- something I hadn't experienced before -- and my code looked kinda clean. (Maybe these two points are connected, I wonder...) Second week got a bit messy but that was partly due to us slightly changing focus.  Happy with the result though, scope felt right for the time frame.

  4. Posted

    Yes, I played Evil Genius and I kinda miss games like that or Dungeon Keeper where you are the bad guy and where there is a more interesting goal / background than just making the most money.

     

    As for this game, yeah, figuring out the balancing isn't easy and we are "not great" at 2D/UI which probably makes a few things more confusing than they should be. For the latest version, we actually went back to the initial tower-defense idea because the path-building didn't really add much and complicated the progression unnecessarily.

     

    For the "old" sim version (with path-building), annoyed, food, Spelunky, puking probably was the way to start, yeah, followed by drinks -> restroom usage / littering, benches, and another ride. Probably should have dropped Hitman from being available at the start to make it clearer. Decoration buildings (like Luigi's eyes or bones) were initially a bit overpowered since they require no usage, probably nerfed them a little too much.

     

    The latest tower-defense build should be somewhat easier. I'm planning on releasing a final update today or tomorrow at the latest which hopefully improves the balancing (a lot easier to test, too, with waves coming in marching towards the exit), clears up the hints and tool tips a bit, and irons out the remaining bugs.

     

    Thanks for playing!

  5. Posted

    33 minutes ago, RKSanders said:

    Glad you liked it! Yes, the exit requires three things to be destroyed. They can be enemies or items. Atm enemies don't have any abilities themselves, so if you kill them they shouldn't be able to attack back.

     

    How was the difficulty? It's pretty random and you can get screwed by having all skeletons spawn in the beginning. Were you able to finish the game?

    Ah, got it! Originally, I had thought I'd always have to destroy three items. I feel like I got attacked back once despite killing the enemy first but maybe I didn't pay attention to something.

     

    Difficulty was fine, managed to beat it on the third try, I think. Before, I died getting boxed in by two skeletons but I always had more than enough items. Final level and

    the cutscene

    are great.

  6. Posted

    Played it for a bit yesterday, really does look and feel like a Brough game -- so good!

     

    I wasn't quite clear though on how the exit opens up exactly... does it sometimes count both items and enemies destroyed? And do the enemies always counter even if you strike first and kill them?

  7. Posted

    00nAp3.thumb.jpg.4a1dc0c0257a7ab1aa8a70af48f5d34a.jpg

     

    Pretty much done but I stumbled into an issue with characters getting stuck after a few minutes that I couldn't immediately solve yesterday and stopped me from releasing. I'll make the download available later today!

     

    Edit: Think I've fixed it, uploaded. Still has a few bugs (missing icons, characters facing the wrong direction) but those should be mostly cosmetic. I'll put out another update later today. UI isn't looking great overall but should be functional.

     

    Download: https://sloane.itch.io/what-remains-of-idle-thumbs

     

     

  13. Posted

    1 hour ago, brendonsmall said:

    Weird question, but what region of the world and/or language is your system set to?

     

    Asking because this is almost surely a "number format region" issue. I think I'm just going to hack in some binaryformatter serialization stuff to deal with it, unless I can figure out a system-agnostic string format :\

    Windows 10 Home German for me.

     

    I tried re-saving the text files which the courses are loaded from with different formats but didn't manage to fix it that way.

  16. Posted

    Can I interest you in some puffin balloons? They totally won't explode or come to life or anything...

     

    puffin.thumb.jpg.8fce94a307bd39c7be06776253ab419e.jpg

     

    Other than that, I mostly did some necessary code clean-up and started writing the tutorial these last couple of days.

     

    Biggest remaining issue is figuring out the AI, in terms of striking a balance between the characters wandering around / exploring the park and following their interests / urges. Currently, I'm experimenting with buildings advertising utility (fun, thrill, relaxation, -hunger, -thirst) and characters finding the building / action with the best offer, while at the same time reacting to what they are perceiving and taking spontaneous actions without repeating things too much or at all... which proves quite difficult.

     

    Still, if everything works out, the game should be mostly playable in a couple of days so we might be able to spend the majority of the remaining time on gameplay balancing, polish, and UI.

  17. Posted

    GifCam is great and super easy, thanks for the tip!

     

    wizard.gif.a947bfa77f77f8f33df4cfc935058837.gif

     

    Wizard still needs a little work but close enough for now.

     

    Things are moving along fairly nicely, we're actually considering dropping some of the tower-defense stuff in favor of actual park building including placing paths and stuff.

     

     

     

     

  19. Posted

    Yeah, that already looks like a game ready to ship. :tup:

     

    Also, thanks for the detailed explanation -- shaders are still a bit of a mystery to me, even with Amplify or ShaderGraph.

     

    (Speaking of ShaderGraph, is it just me or has the amount of optional features Unity offers gotten a bit confusing? There's all that finished and pre-release stuff on the PackageManager, a few official things are still available on the asset store, I think, but there are also additional pathfinding features, for example, which seem to be only available from a GitHub since 2018 or so despite apparently not being experimental?)

     

    Anyway, great work!

  23. Posted

    Got a basic prototype running. Visitors spawn in waves, move towards the exit, and stop at every building that isn't overcrowded. I'm not sure how to do actual waiting lines (in regards to the space available on the map), so every building's probably gonna have a few use and wait positions, and if everything's blocked, visitors are just gonna move on and lose a little health.

     

    I think we're gonna have different emotion / damage types (annoyed, bored, ripped off, sick...) that all count against the overall health but some character types / waves might be immune against an emotion or two. So, idk, some people might not mind slow / boring rides, others might think vomiting is super cool and part of the experience, so you've gotta adapt a bit towards each wave.

     

    Most difficult parts probably gonna be balancing everything out and getting the look down but we'll see!

     

    park-0.jpg

  24. Posted

    Released, download it here: https://sloane.itch.io/what-remains-of-idle-thumbs

     

    Still has a few (mostly visual) bugs, I'll try to iron those out over the next couple of days.

     

    ***

     

    First time participating since Wizard Jam 4 a little over -- yikes! -- three years ago with that Nick Breckon Cheating Hitman game.

     

    We (wife and I) are trying to make something along the lines of Theme Park / Parkitect but instead of an entertaining park you'll actually be trying to build the worst park possible for you are the architect of The Medium Place between heaven and hell. Your job's gonna be to make visitors suffer enough to destroy their souls and send them to hell before they reach the gates of heaven. (Guess hell's paying better for new folks than heaven, idk.)

     

    So: Long lines everywhere? Good! People vomiting all over the place? Great! Visitors getting so frustrated they start beating each other up? Even better!

     

    Since an "actual" park builder is probably way above our skill level, we're aiming for a more tower-defense-y vibe; visitors will enter the park, walk along a fixed path towards the gates of heaven, and it'll be the player's job to break their spirits / annoy them to death before they reach the exit.

     

    Rides will, hopefully, be somewhat Thumbs-themed -- maybe a Cheating Hitman shell game, dot gobblers hunting visitors, a Far Cry 2 coaster with fake lines that never move forward... something like that.

     

    Since Good Bye is already taken, we're gonna call this "What Remains of Idle Thumbs" for now, unless we find a better title! I'll try to post updates starting Saturday or so.