View Full Version : Thread for Freekybevis, the game Save Jack and other cool stuff
Kensei
12-02-2009, 09:50 PM
Since FreekyBevis (aka Jarred) is still a Junior member and unable to create new threads yet, I have created this one for him to use.
For those of you who are interested. Save Jack was done by ROGER MILLER and I. not george miller wtf. I am jarred lunt. I did everything art related for save jack. roger did all the coding. and we shared the design.
We got an honourable mention in IGN and Gamesutra, and came tied for 5th with last years winner.
the game isnt available for download, but you can view the video at http://video.msn.com/video.aspx?mkt=en-gb (http://video.msn.com/video.aspx?mkt=en-gb), just search for save jack and u will see the vid. the quality is rubbish but it is there
Some of his artwork can be viewed here: SA Game Dev Thread (http://forums.sagamedev.com/topic.aspx?topicid=561&page=1)
SplaT
12-02-2009, 09:58 PM
That link isn't working, it's:
http://forums.sagamedev.com/topic.aspx?topicid=561&page=1
Edit: I really enjoyed your artwork. It's smexy.
xD
Freekybevis
12-02-2009, 10:09 PM
thanks again :)
well heres something i finished 2 nights ago. has a lot of quirks but im bored of it so next project :) .. if u havent seen it on sagamedev
http://img22.imageshack.us/img22/6193/titaniafinaldq0.jpg
Cyberninja
12-02-2009, 10:52 PM
Love the art , man. :P
Higushi
12-02-2009, 11:27 PM
Damn dude!! You got some real talent there man! That's some amazing art work.
Freekybevis
13-02-2009, 01:11 AM
thanks :)
babe yaga concept
http://img266.imageshack.us/img266/7714/babavb8.jpg
HolyMackerel
13-02-2009, 07:00 AM
Wow, those artworks are pure WIN!
FuzzYspo0N
13-02-2009, 09:30 AM
yea they are awesome. you should join over at www.pixofile.co.za and join in the fun over there.
AWESOME artwork mate. Good job on the game too
Freekybevis
05-08-2009, 06:10 PM
brushes away the cob-webs.
large dump. soz. :) mostly personal projects. mixture of 2d and 3d and zbrush sculpts.
http://motionvactor.110mb.com/ (dnt zoom in...)
http://i39.tinypic.com/2j4boua.jpg
early WIP Sculpt of hulk...
http://www.freeimagehosting.net/uploads/f5e966f18f.jpg
http://i28.tinypic.com/vfwduu.jpg
http://i32.tinypic.com/w8nbpv.jpg
http://i27.tinypic.com/15grx9t.jpg
http://i27.tinypic.com/28u1cm9.jpg
http://i29.tinypic.com/2i0uj34.jpg
http://i31.tinypic.com/1feogi.jpg
http://i26.tinypic.com/wvzl9g.jpg
http://i32.tinypic.com/snzb0n.jpg
http://i30.tinypic.com/295e0dj.jpg
dislekcia
05-08-2009, 06:29 PM
Dude, that bored centaur-wolf thing is my total favorite! Really like that style. Concept for anything moving or just an idea?
On the hulk model it looks like you either ran out of patience to do detail in the normal map on the arms/legs or you're using less of the texture there? Have you got the low-poly model rigged at all? That's the real test of low-poly, when it's deforming and bending all over the place. There are a couple of quads on the knee that look like they could do with having their inner edge turned or look funny when the knee bends. But it's been so long since I last did that sort of work... Looks good :)
Nandrew
05-08-2009, 06:37 PM
Freekybeevis, I'm not sure how I missed this, but I've been keeping an eye out for one of the Save Jack devs for a while. I'll send you a PM.
Freekybevis
05-08-2009, 06:38 PM
ure totally right man, i got OVER bored with hulk and rushed the texture and sculpt towards the end. And yes the model was rigged, really badly though, lazyness being a big factor. i actually stopped working on him half way through to start with dominance war 4 (www.dominancewar.com) which i also didnt end up finishing because of a lack of time.
the half wolf indian thing started out as a doodle that ended up in me only going to bed at 6 am that following morning, glad u like it and thanks for the comments bruv :).
np nandrew :)
onona
05-08-2009, 07:07 PM
Your work isn't bad. I think your Hulk has some anatomy problems, but I'm assuming those are intentional stylistic choices. Your colour map is perhaps a little saturated and you've got some shadows on him that go a little too dark. Your spec is very plastic-looking, but I guess getting interesting real time spec off a 1k map is tricky. But it's not bad.
Your 2D stuff is quite nice. Your last two head sculpts should be less symmetrical, but I'm guessing that's coming though as these are WIPs? The creature sculpt has some anatomy problems which detract from its organic nature. Even non-existent creatures should follow basic muscular anatomy, and in this case, you've got very inorganic, hard forms which look quite unnatural, particularly around the neck. It also suffers ever so slightly from that classic lumpy look-at-my-ZBrush model look along the head.
dislekcia
05-08-2009, 07:20 PM
Your spec is very plastic-looking, but I guess getting interesting real time spec off a 1k map is tricky. But it's not bad.
Luxury, sheer bloody luxury!
When I was a lad, we used to get up before we went to bed to work 28 hours a day on 256x256 diffuse maps and bake in specular where t'owner thought it looked good. And we'd pay for the privilege.
onona
05-08-2009, 07:27 PM
When did you become a Yorkshireman?
Freekybevis
05-08-2009, 07:30 PM
sup onona
yes, the hulk has some terrible anatomy, the extensor muscles on the arms are terribly done and the wrist flexors arent even sculpted in, as for the rest of the body there are numourous errors, but i dont claim to be perfect :), and i dont claim to have spent more than 2 days on this in total. the diffuse is muddy and rushed. like i said in a previous post. as for the speculer, the model being rushed and all i actually didnt even make a specular map. i jst greyscaled the diffuse and left it at that (so no specualer colour which ended up in the classic plastic look). btw there is no "dark" or shadows painted into the diffuse. the diffuse is comprised totally of midtones and the shadows and dark areas are cast from the 2 lights in the scene.
The 2 head sculpts where my first heads ive done in zbrush. they were merely tests. im trying to make the move over from mudbox, so yes i proberly did go overkill on some very kewl blobby brushes (the magnify and clay brushes where fantastic), and other new things zbrush offered me that mudbox didnt quite. if you could point out the wrong anatomy on the aliens head instead of being a tad vague that would be much appretiated :)
thanks for being honest :)
onona
05-08-2009, 11:35 PM
btw there is no "dark" or shadows painted into the diffuse. the diffuse is comprised totally of midtones and the shadows and dark areas are cast from the 2 lights in the scene.
But the point is that you need to get rid of those dark tones. They're not really very attractive. And if that means changing the light rig to add additional fill lighting in, then that's the solution. Remember, if you have any light, then you simply cannot have black, as it does not occur in nature where there is any source of nearby light (unless it's a black hole). It's a creative no-no. Fill lighting is your friend.
if you could point out the wrong anatomy on the aliens head instead of being a tad vague that would be much appretiated
Sorry for being vague. I'm talking about the neck muscles, the sternocleidomastoid and surrounding muscles. Since your character has a humanoid neck, the muscular structure should ideally follow that of a human. Your surrounding muscles don't flow in a natural pattern, and the throat area is very in-organic looking. You should fix that. If you were were going to rig that, especially for cinematic quality (not really sure what your intention is for the final output), you'd need it to behave correctly in terms of muscular movement, and with your current structure, you'd have a hard time building a smoothly working muscular motion. From a stylised design perspective, it's interesting, but from a practical perspective it's, well, impractical. If you know what I mean.
It's very important, when designing humanoid characters, to ensure that they have humanoid musculature. This not only makes them practical for rigging and muscle simulations (if any), but also makes them more believable as living creatures.
Freekybevis
05-08-2009, 11:51 PM
now that you mention fill lighting i did have a sun light in the scene. i must go back and check that.
If you know what I mean.
totally man, im aware that humanoid characters need to have familiar muscle structure, its actually like that with everything, four legged animals, fish shaped monsters, pretty much every well designed creature doesnt stray too far from real life anatomy. like you said, the familiar anatomy makes the unrealistic design more believable. i tend to get lazy with personal works like these so i guess i slacked off around the neck, the soldier / firefighter dudes neck leaves much to be desired as well.
btw most of my stuff is targeted for ingame use. and concepts for ingame characters, so some things u can get away with, depending on how big the character is onscreen. and the zbrush sculpts were meant for normal maps.
Im busy with this "zephie" character from magna carta that i did the model sheet for, will post some updates soon. im trying to make her more polished, than the rest of my personal projects.
ty for crits
Freekybevis
26-08-2010, 11:38 PM
Sup peeps :D
Seems I still cant create a thread :S. Anyone know why ?
My colleage and I just released our trailer for our game Circus Pomch?.
Can check it out at : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KOZoFMS39q8
Or you can visit the website at : www.bashgames.net (some screenies and stuff up there as well :) )
Fengol
27-08-2010, 08:25 AM
Awesome to you see you setting up shop! The visuals in the video look incredible although apart from moving the blocks around, I couldn't tell what the objective and gameplay was.
The video and website also doesn't say what platform you're developing this for; from "Will be available for digital download" and rapid cursor movement I presume it's for PC? Are you going to be developing for other platforms?
How are you doing your digital distribution?
Looking forward to more...
Chippit
27-08-2010, 10:04 AM
Seems I still cant create a thread :S. Anyone know why ?
It's based on your post count. You only become a fully fledged member after you've made 20 posts on the forum, at which point you should be granted the ability to create new threads.
Freekybevis
27-08-2010, 11:59 AM
I thought it was 10 posts :S, my bad.
Fengol, Thanks man.
In the trailer you'll see 2 viewports, the aim of the game is to get the main viewports blocks, into the same arrangement as the little ones blocks are.
Distributing for only PC atm. And its gunna be done through steam and our web site (through e-junkie) for the time being.
Fengol
27-08-2010, 12:09 PM
When you're done, let us know how the steam application went. I read an article on http://www.gamesindustry.biz/ from Introversion that getting onto Steam was challenging but it saved their company by providing continuous sales
Freekybevis
27-08-2010, 01:26 PM
They have around 2.5 million users log in a day, as an indie dev u cant pass up :S, will let u kw how it goes :P
Freekybevis
27-08-2010, 02:14 PM
Thought I would posts the screenies here rather, seems a bit pointless jst posting a bashgames link.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KOZoFMS39q8
http://www.bashgames.net/images/gallery_image1_large.jpg
http://www.bashgames.net/images/gallery_image2_large.jpg
http://www.bashgames.net/images/gallery_image3_large.jpg
http://www.bashgames.net/images/gallery_image4_large.jpg
AndrewJ
30-08-2010, 02:14 PM
I like your work Freekybevis.
Freekybevis
30-08-2010, 11:28 PM
Demo is live on the site. (:
http://www.bashgames.net/files/CircusPomcheDemo.msi
dislekcia
31-08-2010, 11:56 AM
Demo is live on the site. (:
http://www.bashgames.net/files/CircusPomcheDemo.msi
Just gave the demo a quick playthrough, here are my comments:
It's very short, especially for a demo. The puzzles never get to a stage where they're difficult at all and you kinda feel like there could easily have been another 10 or 20 at the rate they were going... I don't think it really sells the concept of the full game, unless there's really nothing else to it. What most puzzle game demos do is pick the early puzzles for their learning value to the player and then choose interesting puzzles out of the rest of the game to show off cool features (and also to show how many puzzles there really are, jumping to puzzle 3-14 is always a good thing for your player perception of content).
I've got a widescreen and the game's tutorial messages kept hiding the goal viewport. Is that supposed to happen?
You tell the player they can build anywhere, but then when I built something that was out of alignment with the goal viewport (rotated 90 degrees) it didn't recognise it. Is that intended? If it is, could you at least have a message for the player to tell them that they need to rotate their solution?
The tutorial was rather strange... Not only did it not tell me that the goal viewport was what I should be emulating until later, it expected me to rotate the camera before I was told how to do so in order to move the left-most block to the painted X. That was strange... I think you need to take a look at your tutorial and rescript it after watching new players try to figure the game out.
Is there any particular reason that you don't have selection feedback on the blocks as you mouse-over them? Also, it felt odd having to re-select the same block every time I wanted to move it, would it be better to keep the block you just moved selected?
Finally, do the puzzles get more complex? Are there any blocks with special abilities or things the player needs to consider beyond what was shown in the demo?
I'd say that if you're planning to use that demo to drive sales, it needs a lot of work: It's not upsell material just yet, yes it works, but it's not "OMG must buy now!". If you're using it to get feedback, well then - here it is ;)
Fengol
31-08-2010, 05:10 PM
dislekcia, you just have art envy :)
Fengol
31-08-2010, 05:31 PM
Ok, here's my feedback with Luke looking over my shoulder.
I feel dislekcia is correct about only learning to navigate the world. First thing shown should be how to rotate the view. You could also use different mouse cursors to show you're rotating and it would be awesome if I could use the arrow keys to rotate so you didn't have to move your mouse away.
It would be cool if you could interact with the parrot. It occasionally animates but when I click on it nothing happens. It needs to squawk or repeat snippets of the tutorial "Squawk, use left arrow to rotate!".
D makes a good suggestion about keeping the last interacted block selected so I don't need to keep selecting it every time.
The game is really stylish and highly polished. It really does look amazing and the graphics do a great job of selling the concept. The demo needs to be a little tighter and should have more "wow" moments and show off the other features. In the screenshots you have coins and spikes; those needs to be in the demo!
I don't know if you should be calling this a demo. Demos should sell the game and this feels more like a private beta used to garner gameplay feedback.
Freekybevis
01-09-2010, 02:17 PM
1) It's very short, especially for a demo. The puzzles never get to a stage where they're difficult at all and you kinda feel like there could easily have been another 10 or 20 at the rate they were going... I don't think it really sells the concept of the full game, unless there's really nothing else to it. What most puzzle game demos do is pick the early puzzles for their learning value to the player and then choose interesting puzzles out of the rest of the game to show off cool features (and also to show how many puzzles there really are, jumping to puzzle 3-14 is always a good thing for your player perception of content).
2) I've got a widescreen and the game's tutorial messages kept hiding the goal viewport. Is that supposed to happen?
3) You tell the player they can build anywhere, but then when I built something that was out of alignment with the goal viewport (rotated 90 degrees) it didn't recognise it. Is that intended? If it is, could you at least have a message for the player to tell them that they need to rotate their solution?
4) The tutorial was rather strange... Not only did it not tell me that the goal viewport was what I should be emulating until later, it expected me to rotate the camera before I was told how to do so in order to move the left-most block to the painted X. That was strange... I think you need to take a look at your tutorial and rescript it after watching new players try to figure the game out.
5) Is there any particular reason that you don't have selection feedback on the blocks as you mouse-over them? Also, it felt odd having to re-select the same block every time I wanted to move it, would it be better to keep the block you just moved selected?
6) Finally, do the puzzles get more complex? Are there any blocks with special abilities or things the player needs to consider beyond what was shown in the demo?
Thanks for taking the time to give such constructive feedback, we really appretiate it :)
1)We where worried about it being too short. And yes it is way to short. The thing that worries us is, the learning curve. Stage 13 is substantially harder than stage 4. During our beta testing we tried skipping levels and making the game harder faster, but people 90% of the time jst looked and us and asked if we were mad. The puzzles do get way harder, there are 46 stages, and different kinds of blocks do come into play.
The thing I am worried about having 14 stages from the game in the demo, because that means 40% of the ful version is the demo. Which seems like too much ?
2)Would you mind sending me a screenshot to jarredlunt@bashgames.net ? The game automatically sets its aspekt ratio to your screens aspekt ratio and it might be a positioning bug. We have only just entered proper testing for the full version :S
3)Yea it is intended. You main viewport must match your target viewport in rotation. That is a bit confusing thanks for bringing it up.
5)Easy change will give it a try.
6) The puzzels do get way harder. and in Theme 2 there are other things like spikes and blocks u cant u move.
Fengol - Thanks dude. most of your comments have answers somewhere above. We only recently changed the camera movement. It was controlled with the arrows before. Gunna take a look at trying to have both forms of navigation instead of just mouse.
"It would be cool if you could interact with the parrot. It occasionally animates but when I click on it nothing happens. It needs to squawk or repeat snippets of the tutorial "Squawk, use left arrow to rotate!"." Good idea :) pressed for time a bit but its going on the wish list.
dislekcia
01-09-2010, 03:17 PM
Thanks for taking the time to give such constructive feedback, we really appretiate it :)
1)We where worried about it being too short. And yes it is way to short. The thing that worries us is, the learning curve. Stage 13 is substantially harder than stage 4. During our beta testing we tried skipping levels and making the game harder faster, but people 90% of the time jst looked and us and asked if we were mad. The puzzles do get way harder, there are 46 stages, and different kinds of blocks do come into play.
The thing I am worried about having 14 stages from the game in the demo, because that means 40% of the ful version is the demo. Which seems like too much ?
This sounds like a problem with progression more than anything else: Whenever you introduce a new concept to players in a puzzle game, you want to take the game's difficulty way down for the next few levels. Take the player through a set of very consciously designed puzzles that force them to explore each new implication of the new mechanic in order, only then can you start upping the difficulty again.
Just thinking about your puzzle mechanic and the ways that you could increase puzzle complexity, I'm imagining more positional awareness (ie: Blocks that have very different, easily identifiable sides that need to be "up" for the puzzle to be complete, the easy option here is dice) and blocks that stick to other blocks as they're rotated. The sticky blocks could be really cool in their implementation, gooey and stringy. Sticky blocks can't move on their own and can only be moved with another block when they're only stuck to that particular block, not multiple others. You'd have to "peel" non-important blocks off a sticky block to get it to be mobile, it'd feel pretty cool to play with.
Finally, I'd focus on adding some more juicyness to the game's overall mechanic: Have the things the player clicks on to move blocks be visibly related to rotating the blocks themselves (arrows will work quite nicely, even showing a ghost arrow or two for mouseovers on the current green rectangles would be an improvement). I'd also slow down parts of the block rotation animation and make it much more obvious that blocks were clamping together with loud clangs and visible secondary motion cues on the block that's being hit by the rotating block. You could probably play with a couple of particle effects to denote "bonding" so that players aren't surprised when blocks are being held up by others.
2)Would you mind sending me a screenshot to jarredlunt@bashgames.net ? The game automatically sets its aspekt ratio to your screens aspekt ratio and it might be a positioning bug. We have only just entered proper testing for the full version :S
Sorry, already uninstalled the game (and it didn't have an uninstall link in the start menu section that it added, grrrr!) but you should be able to see what happened quite easily by setting your screen to 1440x900 and running the game.
5)Easy change will give it a try.
Don't forget to visibly disallow selection of blocks that can't move because they're holding up others. Then you won't have to signpost that mechanic as much ;)
P.S. 46 puzzles really isn't that much... Remember that a demo is all about creating the want to purchase the game, not about how much of the final product you show or not.
Hi
I'm the developer of the game, along with Jarred. I would like to give some feedback on the decisions taken.
First off, thanks for the feedback, it was great.
1) I agree it is short. But you have to remember, our main market is going to be the casual game audience. You can't really compare it to a core game such as CS, or CoD. Casual gamers like to be surprised so we don't want to showcase everything. After your comments we have decided to put in a couple harder stages but I think that's going to be about it.
2) The reason why Jarred asked for a screenshot is because the game automatically snaps to either 1024x768, or 1280x768. If you are saying the tutorial is over the target shape, this is intended, as we want players to actually read them. We put an Ok button there for players to remove them. If your issue is more serious than this, then we would really appreciate a screenshot.
3) Tutorials. Agreed. We need to make this clearer. The reason the tutorials seem jumpy at the moment is because we are jumping in the levels, but I guess we need to start the learning curve in the demo. We are also going to make things a bit clearer. Regarding the rotating of the camera, we are going to remove the (x)'s as they just cause confusion. The initial levels we designed in such as way so that the player didn't have to rotate his view. But those first (x)'s just broke that.
4) Selection feedback? What would you like to see when mousing over, that would improve the gameplay? I assume you are referring to a hover state, like how a checkbox or button works. We could give this some thought. It's not a bad idea. Regarding the retaining the block selection... this is really a matter of preference I think, and if we did it, it would need to be an option players can toggle. The one thing you need to remember is that it goes further than just keeping the block selected. We need to show the highlights, or no highlights if the block can't move. This is do-able, but at the same time, you don't really want to be cluttering the player's thought process.
5) dislekcia, regarding your question about the game complexity etc. Please take no offence to this, but I have to say that that is a bit of an arrogant question. I agree we can put more in, but to ask if we essentially made the game fun or not is not really fair, and sort of makes a mockery of us, especially when you have watched the trailer (i assume?), and seen the screenshots.
6) Regarding the "visually showing the block movement instead if signposting". Jarred and I went over and over about this, and had some arguments. We agree it is a good idea, but it brings in some difficulties that at a first glance you don't see. We decided that once players know where they can and can't move, there won't be a problem. There is also the other angle that when you are on stage 15 or so, you don't need all that, as you know how things work. So it would also need to be an option players could toggle.
7) Clicking on the parrot. This would be nice and will probably be implemented in a later episode.
8) Keyboard camera control. This is kinda funny actually, cos as Jarred mentions we switched to mouse camera control at the last minute, based purely on how casual gamers usually play. Core gamers usually have their hand on the keyboard; casual players sit back and only use the mouse. We have decided to enable both though.
I hope I didn't offend anyone in anyway, but what's important is that you look at it from a casual gamers point of view. Your comments are really valid, and we accept all of them, but at the same time there is a big difference between how casual gamers and core gamers perceive things.
Thank you once again, we really appreciate the feedback :)
dislekcia
02-09-2010, 10:49 PM
1) I agree it is short. But you have to remember, our main market is going to be the casual game audience. You can't really compare it to a core game such as CS, or CoD. Casual gamers like to be surprised so we don't want to showcase everything. After your comments we have decided to put in a couple harder stages but I think that's going to be about it.
... Frankly, I'm stunned at the presumption that nobody here knows anything about casual games. It's cool though, you're new :)
For the record though, you want to have much more feedback and less ambiguous difficulty progression in a casual game. The distinction between core and casual is vague and unhelpful at best, but the biggest difference seems to be in terms of the pre-learned play tropes that players bring with them: You can assume a certain amount of pre-knowledge of basic FPS game mechanics, but you can't assume the same starting competence for a casual puzzler. Note that it's STARTING competence, nobody likes being condescended to and casual players can and do get seriously into the games they really enjoy. We've seen exactly that happen with DD so far.
Also, I don't know if you could call CS a core game... Barring the fact that it started out as a mod, the cross-section of people that play it are mostly people that wouldn't play other games anyway, making it far more of a casual player thing. See how the core/casual label is sorta off sometimes?
2) The reason why Jarred asked for a screenshot is because the game automatically snaps to either 1024x768, or 1280x768. If you are saying the tutorial is over the target shape, this is intended, as we want players to actually read them. We put an Ok button there for players to remove them. If your issue is more serious than this, then we would really appreciate a screenshot.
If you're saying that's what you intended, cool. It just seemed rather odd that the tutorial message was appearing over another standard interface element, especially when it was talking about that element itself. To be honest, given how you've responded further down, I'm not sure if I feel comfortable giving you crits, comments and ideas on your tutorial so far....
4) Selection feedback? What would you like to see when mousing over, that would improve the gameplay? I assume you are referring to a hover state, like how a checkbox or button works. We could give this some thought. It's not a bad idea. Regarding the retaining the block selection... this is really a matter of preference I think, and if we did it, it would need to be an option players can toggle. The one thing you need to remember is that it goes further than just keeping the block selected. We need to show the highlights, or no highlights if the block can't move. This is do-able, but at the same time, you don't really want to be cluttering the player's thought process.
Toggle is good. I'd suggest playtesting with it randomly on or off and seeing which players seem more fluid while playing.
5) dislekcia, regarding your question about the game complexity etc. Please take no offence to this, but I have to say that that is a bit of an arrogant question. I agree we can put more in, but to ask if we essentially made the game fun or not is not really fair, and sort of makes a mockery of us, especially when you have watched the trailer (i assume?), and seen the screenshots.
Uh. Whoa. What?
Arrogant? I asked if the game ramps up in complexity, not if you'd made it fun or not. Frankly, having played the demo, I know pretty much exactly how fun you've made it. Giving you ideas on what else might be cool for the game is sort of my way of saying "Hey, this is interesting, why don't you try X and see what that's like with this?" if I didn't think it was a worthwhile game at all, I wouldn't give comments. So, yeah, I'm going to assume you messed up that response there - nobody's mocking anyone, unless of course you keep insisting nobody here knows anything about casual games ;)
6) Regarding the "visually showing the block movement instead if signposting". Jarred and I went over and over about this, and had some arguments. We agree it is a good idea, but it brings in some difficulties that at a first glance you don't see. We decided that once players know where they can and can't move, there won't be a problem. There is also the other angle that when you are on stage 15 or so, you don't need all that, as you know how things work. So it would also need to be an option players could toggle.
Vaguely confused here. Are you talking about the green squares that show legal block positions, or the stuff I suggested regarding the actual block movement animation?
I hope I didn't offend anyone in anyway, but what's important is that you look at it from a casual gamers point of view. Your comments are really valid, and we accept all of them, but at the same time there is a big difference between how casual gamers and core gamers perceive things.
Trust me, people are coming at this from a casual perspective. I'd say that none of the posters in this forum are even capable of the misunderstanding you seem to think is so rampant...
Thank you once again, we really appreciate the feedback :)
If you do, you may want to leave out phrases like "arrogant" and "making a mockery of us", as that tends to y'know, annoy people who are otherwise freely giving their time trying to help make cool games.
Frankly, I'm stunned at the presumption that nobody here knows anything about casual games. It's cool though, you're new :)
I'm new? New to what? I never said people don't know about casual games. We based out decisions on what we saw from people playing the game. Just as you say there is a preconception around certain games styles... that also exists in the casual game world... not a particular playing style of a game, but the whole makeup of a casual game, so when someone is deciding on whether to buy a game, I think it's more about meeting their initial expectations, because they assume if the beginning is good and they like it, the rest will be good, rather than showing them everything the game supports. But I think we could debate this for hours.
Uh. Whoa. What?
The reason it seemed arrogant to me, it because you almost assumed the game was just plain boring and we hadn't really put any thought to it? Which to me is like saying, "Did you make it fun and does it get any better than this?". Well that's what I see from a question like that at least. I know you were just asking, it probably didn't come out in the way you were intending it to, or I didn't read it the way you were intending it. And I know you didn't mean any harm. I also didn't dismiss any of your comments, I simply gave reasons as to why we decided on what we did. It was more of a, "we didn't do all this work for nothing" gripe :P so don't take it the wrong way :)
Frankly, having played the demo, I know pretty much exactly how fun you've made it.
I doubt that :) There really is a lot more to the game, and Jarred and I have decided to showcase it more. But we still don't want to "give away" everything. There is more to the first environment, and the second environment brings in brand new elements which really change things, whether that should go in the demo, tbh, i'm not 100% sure?
Ok, well, this is how i see the demo. It needs more, we all agree on that. But i don't see players throughly going through everything to decide if they want to buy it... it's more of a confirmation that it is what they were expecting.
xyber
03-09-2010, 10:37 AM
Just finished the demo.
The tutorial is fine, you could perhaps tell me earlier as to how to rotate the screen. Did the natural hold right or hold left mouse buttons and drag, which did not work, so I assumed there was not a way to rotate until the message came up about moving to edge of screen.
The demo is a bit easy and too simple - I know its supposed to show the basic idea behind the game and is part of the tutorial but you might want to show the player how it could get "harder" by adding one or two more levels showing different game mechanics that he will encounter in further stages.
Sounds and graphics is cool.
Nice job.
dislekcia
03-09-2010, 11:07 AM
I'm new? New to what? I never said people don't know about casual games. We based out decisions on what we saw from people playing the game. Just as you say there is a preconception around certain games styles... that also exists in the casual game world... not a particular playing style of a game, but the whole makeup of a casual game, so when someone is deciding on whether to buy a game, I think it's more about meeting their initial expectations, because they assume if the beginning is good and they like it, the rest will be good, rather than showing them everything the game supports. But I think we could debate this for hours.
New to this forum. As such, you don't quite get how everyone operates here: We're big on criticism because it's how we can get the best input on how to make our own games better, crits are as constructive as the receiver lets them be. That doesn't mean that we hate on games, far from it, a game that's good is far more likely to get a lot of crits because people pay more attention to it and it's easier to see smaller issues with a good game (of which there are always hordes) than 1 or 2 bigger problems with a game that needs a lot of work.
Yes, casual games have certain identifying characteristics, the biggest of those are: Extremely robust feedback, everything the player can do in the game needs to be obvious and reinforced continuously; And little to no assumed player tacit knowledge of how to play, this has resulted in all sorts of neat tutorials, skippable features and monitoring hint systems to get around the problem of teaching your player to play without condescending at them. I would argue that as seen in the demo, you need to up your feedback mechanisms quite a lot and really sit down and work out your tutorial's progression in order to get players into the game better. Have you thought of a system that doesn't allow the player to input other actions except the one you're currently signposting in the tutorial? What's the order of features and interactions that you're trying to teach right now, could it be more atomic?
The reason it seemed arrogant to me, it because you almost assumed the game was just plain boring and we hadn't really put any thought to it? Which to me is like saying, "Did you make it fun and does it get any better than this?". Well that's what I see from a question like that at least. I know you were just asking, it probably didn't come out in the way you were intending it to, or I didn't read it the way you were intending it. And I know you didn't mean any harm. I also didn't dismiss any of your comments, I simply gave reasons as to why we decided on what we did. It was more of a, "we didn't do all this work for nothing" gripe :P so don't take it the wrong way :)
Sorry, could you point out what I said that showed I assumed the game was just plain boring? I asked if it got more complex and how so that I could be of more use in difficulty progression. That single sentence came out exactly how I intended it to: As a question. Which you haven't answered, instead you've just told me that not only did I assume your game sucked (which I haven't given any evidence for at all, stop being so touchy) and you've told me I asked the question poorly. If you know I didn't mean any harm, why not just clarify what I was asking?
Which is more constructive: Asking "Do you mean more complex in terms of the game not being fun or in terms of mechanics in later puzzles?" or having to go through this whole rigmorale?
I doubt that :) There really is a lot more to the game, and Jarred and I have decided to showcase it more. But we still don't want to "give away" everything. There is more to the first environment, and the second environment brings in brand new elements which really change things, whether that should go in the demo, tbh, i'm not 100% sure?
Ok, well, this is how i see the demo. It needs more, we all agree on that. But i don't see players throughly going through everything to decide if they want to buy it... it's more of a confirmation that it is what they were expecting.
Well, then I'd argue that your demo isn't doing what you want: The prime purpose of a demo is to upsell the commercial version, to drive players to buy the full game. If players don't have a meaningful sense of how much fun your game is from the demo, how can you expect them to go on to buy it? It's not like you can personally interact with every player that plays your demo like you can with me here, trying to convince them that the game is more fun than the demo.
So, how do you plan to make the demo be a more accurate representation of the amount of fun the full version presents? I've raised what a lot of successful (in terms of upsell desire and conversion rates) game demos do, which is to pull selected puzzles from all over the game to create a subset of the skill progression players would go through in the game itself. You guys don't like that, ok... What about including a video at the end of your demo that goes over some of the cooler levels of the game, showing off a little, etc? Yes, you're still essentially spoiling some of the things you seem to want to keep hidden, but I don't understand that anyway: Why not see those features as things to entice users, to get them keen to play with more, to see what you do with them and what you ask them to solve?
Fallen
03-09-2010, 12:24 PM
Wow looks great ... will definately download the demo and give it a play!
dislekcia
03-09-2010, 12:38 PM
@dislekcia ... don't chase away the devs ;D
... What?
FuzzYspo0N
03-09-2010, 04:08 PM
@Fallen, asking for feedback is the one way to get feedback. Whether you like the feedback or not - you got what you wanted.
I am yet to play this little demo, but i watched fengol play a little. The comments i read above make sense from what i saw (and it just didn't draw me in enough yet to stop working and play).
Ill give it a bash later.
Fallen
03-09-2010, 05:41 PM
No fair enough ... didn't mean anything by it.
Just that dislekcia is a bit harsh on a new user. Look at xyber & fengol's comments, they have similar opinions ... just said it in a nicer way :)
FuzzYspo0N
03-09-2010, 05:50 PM
But making it sound personal is retarded. This isn't the first time he or anyone else on the internet has been to the point and direct :) (Ps. there are hundreds of posts prior to that one. You may notice a pattern and nothing new here - as he said).
roar
dislekcia
03-09-2010, 05:51 PM
Just that dislekcia is a bit harsh on a new user. Look at xyber & fengol's comments, they have similar options ... just said it in a nicer way :)
Explain in more detail, please. Otherwise I'd have to think that the evil thing was going into more depth and even riffing one or two ideas on that gameplay mechanic. People generally seem to like that, so I wouldn't want to stop doing that unless it was really a huge problem.
But making it sound personal is retarded. This isn't the first time he or anyone else on the internet has been to the point and direct :) (Ps. there are hundreds of posts prior to that one. You may notice a pattern and nothing new here - as he said).
I must say though it's the first time in a long while that someone's told me I don't know anything about casual games ;)
Fallen
03-09-2010, 06:05 PM
Explain in more detail, please. Otherwise I'd have to think that the evil thing was going into more depth and even riffing one or two ideas on that gameplay mechanic. People generally seem to like that, so I wouldn't want to stop doing that unless it was really a huge problem.
Look you just seemed harsh ... you were the first to reply after he said the demo is live and you kinda hammered the flaws. It is a good thing ... maybe just give him a chance to learn how things go on this forum first. New users don't always know what they are in for (ask me I know :P)
PS
Also downloading the game ... will give feedback tomorrow or so!
FuzzYspo0N
03-09-2010, 06:09 PM
Yet you are still here! You must value something about it :)
Anyway, i played the demo. Its pretty cool, the tutorials coming down from the top i actually ignored at first (dont know why) , but i realised i missed the important one and was confused what to do. Only thing id suggest is keep the tutorials with a next/back button for players who miss them, or make them more in your face.
dislekcia
03-09-2010, 06:48 PM
Look you just seemed harsh ... you were the first to reply after he said the demo is live and you kinda hammered the flaws. It is a good thing ... maybe just give him a chance to learn how things go on this forum first. New users don't always know what they are in for (ask me I know :P)
I replied to FreakyBevis, who has been a member here for ages. We both had games in the DBP 2008 top 20, I'm assuming that Ridd was also involved in Save Jack, but I could easily be wrong on that.
Still, I'm not seeing how you're suggesting users should get to know how these forums work if we stop acting like ourselves for their sake, then they'd learn the wrong things ;)
Evolution
04-09-2010, 11:35 AM
Cool game, I like the polish.
Freekybevis
07-09-2010, 10:03 AM
No egoes here boet :P, I always think to myself (being an artist) how would I take the advice im giving, if I would be offended by it I usually tone it down a bit. Thanks for the great crits as always. Dis isn't chasing anyone away by having an opinion, and to be honest if ppl get offended by constructive critism, in any manner of speaking, they in the wrong industry.
There is a new demo on the site btw, if anyone is interested. It has the changes we could accomadate within our budget and time constraints.
http://www.bashgames.net/files/CircusPomcheDemo.msi
FuzzYspo0N: If the Tutorials made a sound when they came down, would that help ?
dislekcia: I didnt kw u were in 2008 DBP!@ SHO! Thanks for the crits again, you raised some interesting points. I think that there are 6 stages now. I havent actually played the demo yet.
Fallen: Thanks :)
xyber
07-09-2010, 12:06 PM
New demo is much better.
Evolution
07-09-2010, 12:55 PM
You can try adding one or two hard levels at the end to leave ppl wanting more.
dislekcia
07-09-2010, 02:08 PM
dislekcia: I didnt kw u were in 2008 DBP!@ SHO! Thanks for the crits again, you raised some interesting points. I think that there are 6 stages now. I havent actually played the demo yet.
The other SA team was us, Spacehack.
I'll have a go at the new demo tonight.
FuzzYspo0N
08-09-2010, 09:40 AM
@Evolution, we seem to have moved forward and you are harping on. SHH.
I will try give the new demo a try as well,
@FreekyBevis , I dont think sound will help that much. Soon as a player has none, he loses out again. Perhaps an overlay (like, darken the area that is not in the tutorial) will make you immediately see the tutorial? Even if only for the first time.
Freekybevis
08-09-2010, 07:31 PM
Kewl thanks spoon, will give the black BG a try with the tutorials.
dislekcia- ahh yes, memory is coming back now :P we entered DBP again last year and didnt place in the top 5 , was in top 20 though. The teams are getting too big in that compo as far as im concerned. Theres only so much 2 people can do if you going for gold.
Anyhoo, thought Ide post some stuff Ive been working on lately, seen as this thread is for art goodiez :P
All photoshop.
http://i53.tinypic.com/2vxosuq.jpg
http://i51.tinypic.com/rcq8vp.jpg
http://i51.tinypic.com/5uol0l.jpg
http://i51.tinypic.com/2cnipeo.jpg
http://i51.tinypic.com/o8fi3t.jpg
I quite like the unraveling man :P Keep up the good work
AndrewJ
09-09-2010, 02:09 PM
Guys, I think Bevis just volunteered to do artwork in our games. :-)
The muscles and anatomy definition/structure/look on the unravelling man is really good!
BlackShipsFillt
13-09-2010, 09:42 AM
Really really nice! Work... second on Bevis doing artwork for gamedev games :P
Freekybevis
15-09-2010, 11:01 AM
If i had a million rand and a life time supply of ultra mel custard i would make art for everyones games ^_^, but atm:
Game got denied on steam :(, Still waiting for big fish to get back to us. Any other ideas for publishing ?
dislekcia
15-09-2010, 11:36 AM
Game got denied on steam :(, Still waiting for big fish to get back to us. Any other ideas for publishing ?
Ouch. They give feedback on that decision?
Freekybevis
15-09-2010, 02:14 PM
Got a one liner that looked like an auto responder, they made out like it was the wrong genre.
BlackShipsFillt
22-09-2010, 02:00 PM
That's unpleasantly opaque of Steam.
Big Fish sounds like a good option. I hope they snap it up.
Could it be ported to iPad or iPhone, you wouldn't have a problem with rejection with Apple.
And there were a couple other indie distributors last time I checked, like Reflexive, though I have no idea what sales there look like.
Freekybevis
10-02-2011, 01:34 PM
http://www.gamehouse.com/download-games/circus-pomche
Finally Published! What a mission! Such a long process and so many bumps and hurdles its rediculous :(
Anyway enjoy :P
-Bevis
Fengol
10-02-2011, 04:25 PM
I saw your post of Twitter! Well done on getting published!
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