Slide Power G0!

I needed a low area attack and so I have made the Slide into an aggressive slide that also attacks at its leading edge. The reason I have to do this is that I asked for the punch and kick attacks to both hit way to high up, but they will look ace. So instead of changing my art requests I have attached an attack area to the slide, simple solution eh! Now slide doubles as a dodge AND an attack.

Next up I think it will be time to work on the level startup and death sequences for the game.

Once I have the Death or the Startup sequence done, I'll post another video. Once I get some Kal aniamtions I will also do a cideo of them, as I expect them to look amazing.

Laters
Da Voodoochief

Punching Power Go!

Next up is the coding of the punch and kick hits. This means some simple circle to circle collision detection.
I have this collision function already of course for my Kal to object collision. Then I can have some fun with the reactions of these collisions for the objects that get punched or kicked. Smashing loits of effect pieces or throwing the objects off screen in some fun fashion, like to the carmera etc.

I would have gotten this done days ago, only I have the Flu and it is really getting in the way of both my day job and this. I am finding I cannot seem to spend many minutes at the computer, and so far all I have managed since getting ill is the editing of my menu document to cut it down more to a list of suggested art requirements.

Laters all,
Da Voodoochief

Kals power punch and kick

Here is a short development video of Kal (Shaq) throwing his punch and kick, plus the enhanced look, this has a temporary effect for the moves, but it does get across the feeling of extended power.



You can also see the green line drawn circles on Kal. This is my new debug code that shows where the collision circles exist. I am going to display these to tweak the gameplay in various ways. so much easier to see when somehting is wrong, like an incorrect radius for an enemy etc.

Laters
Da voodoochief

Where are the Game Dev Blogs at?

I follow a number of developers Blogs. When I find a new one I also tend to follow those as well. However I am not really finding many. Maybe I should bring them to me? By that I mean ask on Twitter and Facebook for people who are writing game development blogs to let me know about them.

Sometimes I come across a new Blog and get all excited when I read my first post and it is about Actual Game development, and not just some coding references or tips and tricks. Not saying their isn't a place for them, it is just not what I am interested in. I want the Guts the Glory the decisions on big features and how they are chosen, I want to read about the little decisions that I know go into every game. I want to read about problems along the way as well as successful ideas and implementations.

I just don't seem to find these blogs.. Or maybe they don't exist because no one is really interested in them? Maybe people simply want to play games and not be bothered (for the majority) with how or who created it.

Oh dear, I went off track there. So back to the point, I read my first post ona  blog I find and get all excited as it talks about actual game development and then I see the date.. usually several weeks or even months old. And no new update since then.

I do come across these kinds of efforts, where the developer started their blog with all good intentions, but then as they did not attract the readers and the game development process swallowed all their time, they simply dried up on posting. Some have had such great potential, some not so much.

I hope I can find another one soon that the devs actually post into at least weekly, that would be most exciting for me.

Laters
Da Voodoochief

Lots of Minigames

I have been very lucky to get to write lots of games in my career. One of the highlights has been the creation of a large number of what the industry terms as minigames. Today one of my old workmates linked this excellent Youtube video that contains a whole bunch of the minigames that MassMedia has created, and I personally created a whole lot of them hehe. Great memories and something that all games creators feel when  looking back at their work, or I sure hope they do.

I know some of the quality is not so good, which is a pity.

I will also say that I am especially proud of the Nicktoons Movin, as those games used the Eyetoy and now I see all those techniques we created on the fly being used in Kinnect gameplay. And ours was so many years before Kinnect was even dreamed of. And before anyone tells me I did not create those Techniques I have to say we at Mass Media created all our own techniques and gameplay methods to allow the gameplay to work. So much inovative fun.

Maybe I should add all those minigames individually to my resume, lol.

Laters
Da Voodoochief

Dev Videos are a GO!

I did some research into where and how to post development videos. After some good opinions by various people on the internet I ended up at Vimeo.com. I have to say that they rate very highly in the quality department, and some peoples tests really show the difference between them and youtube.com.

So I took a quick video of Hoop Fighter, showing Kal running into some crates. This shows a whole bunch of technology working as it is supposed to, but let me try to embed that video below and see what happens after the break.


kal takes a crate hit from Robert Toone on Vimeo.

Well now that appears to be working, you can expect me to video other stuff as I go. It is nice to not only be able to post text and images.

I should mention that I am using the very easy to use Vimeo App on my Windows 8 phone. Smart eh!

YAY for technology,

Da Voodoochief

ps. I should also mention the video is of the Marmalade Simulator on my new Thinkpad, sweet eh!

Animation Timing pt2

I was putting into the Hoops Fighter game the Kockback or Hit animations. To my dismay they looked real slow and lethargic. So I took my artists advice once again and simply trimmed several frames from the animation. An now Kal looks like he has been hit or impacted by something.

I will be honest here and say I think I may need to add some more of the recovery animation frames, as he recovers a bit quickly. Still I feel pretty good about this method working.

Now onto serious stuff...

I would like to post videos of Kal and these animation alterations, only I am not sure exactly the best way to accomplish that task. I could siomply add them to Youtube, but that seems a bit over the top for my little site. Any suggestions from anyone?

Thanks
Da Voodoochief

Animation and Game Feel Timing

I had an interesting discussion yesterday with my Art director for the Hoops fighter game. I was telling him how my current animations are so slow and dance like, not really suitable for a reaction game of any sort. He suggested that I simply cut out frames that I don't want until I get what I want timing and feel wise. Then he will get the animations reanimated to smooth out the fact I removed various frames.

I have to say that this is a very interesting way to accomplish this task. I am also hopeful that it will work out ok. So last night I ended up removing 7 frames from the punch, leaving 7 frames. The timing is now quick and reactive and I think should work. I may add a frame back in on the after-reaction side of things, just not sure. Also not sure if I should have a different follow through if I hit something with the thrown punch.. ahh details.

Now onto the Kick :)

Laters
Da Voodoochief

XBLIG Sales Figure for 2012

I received an email this morning reminding me that I should go grab all my sales figures before they are deleted. I am not sure which numbers will be deleted and I have no idea why Microsoft deem it necessary to remove any sales history. It's not like it is taking up much space after all on their massive hard drives.

Anyway, here are my 4 published games and what they did in 2012,

A Shooter
Trials: 574
Purchases: 103
Conversion rate: 17.94%

A Dreamland Chronicles Game
Trials: 825
Purchases: 79
Conversion rate: 9.58%

Pellmell
Trials: 95
Purchases: 10
Conversion rate: 10.53.%

Aceball
Trials: 303
Purchases: 47
Conversion rate: 15.51%

All these games ended up at the rock bottom pricing of 1 dollar, and yes they have all been on the service for some time. Aceball for example was one of the first Indie games on the service several years ago.

As you can tell I have barely made enough to cover the 99 dollar membership fee to keep these games on the service.. especially after I take off the percentages I owe my co-developers (artists etc).

I still believe it is worth keeping these games up there, as I am extremely proud of the fact a coupla hundred more people are now playing my games. These games are also IPs that I own and could maybe rework them for machines I am now coding for (handheld devices).

Have a great 2013 everyone,
Da Voodoochief