Nothing interesting has been happening lately because our current top priority is to patch up our grades and such. As a lame compensation, I'll provide some links to places you can contact/spam/stalk/harass us online in case you want to see some more activity from us and are interested in what we do outside the world of Polyboy (it's not a whole lot so don't get too excited).
Carcity's e-mail: carcity_h@hotmail.com
Carcity's deviantArt account: http://carcity.deviantart.com/
OneHand's e-mail: rasmus.karicka@gmail.com
Michaedee's deviantArt account: http://michaedee.deviantart.com/
Wasp's e-mail: ragingteenager@gmail.com
WARNING! The following links may contain harsh language and otherwise inappropriate and immature content because Wasp does not understand the concept of being a professional, decent human being. Enter at your own risk!
Wasp's deviantArt account: http://lionsharkalligator.deviantart.com/
Wasp's YouTube account: http://www.youtube.com/user/WaspCarcass
Wasp's Twitter account: https://twitter.com/#!/WaspCarcass
So that's about it for now, as soon as school is over in a few weeks we'll have a lot more time to continue working on Polyboy. Unless we're busy with our vacations and personal lives, which is most likely the case but we'll still have more opportunities to work than we have right now. Stay tuned! Or not, whichever you prefer.
/Wasp
Wednesday 30 May 2012
Friday 4 May 2012
Roll the end credits!
Except it's not over yet. So, today we gotta turn this project in. We decided to not partake in the LBS Game Awards because I'm a terrible graphics artist who can't keep up with the schedules, therefore the game looks like crap and we'd just be embarrassing ourselves. BUT there's always next year, eh? And by then I probably won't get all tangled up because AUGH HOW DOES ONE MODEL A SCARF? (Note to self: don't start modeling a scarf BEFORE you're done with the rest of the body)
To my everlasting shame, I never got around rigging, animating or texturing our hero, but at least he no longer looks like a drunk ReDead with a nasty case of throat cancer. The proportions seem to add up but Unity is being it's usual jerk self and for some reason refuses to show half of Polyboy's head. We tried reversing the normals and changing the materials (so now he's pitch black) but nothing seems to work.
On a more positive note, Carcity has added little text blurbs strewn across the stages to give the player hints on the objective and controls (filled with movie references and terrible puns, of course). Most bugs have also been worked out, it sortof feels like playing a game. Now if we just had some interesting visuals...
Like I mentioned before, this project is far from done. We will keep tinkering with it until it becomes a glorious finished game that people can actually enjoy playing in a totally unironic way. And if things go well, we might even do a super clichéd sequel, but that's a bit of a stretch for the moment being.
It's been a fun (and frustrating) ride, we'll see ya all later around summer!
Over and out. We'll be back.
To my everlasting shame, I never got around rigging, animating or texturing our hero, but at least he no longer looks like a drunk ReDead with a nasty case of throat cancer. The proportions seem to add up but Unity is being it's usual jerk self and for some reason refuses to show half of Polyboy's head. We tried reversing the normals and changing the materials (so now he's pitch black) but nothing seems to work.
On a more positive note, Carcity has added little text blurbs strewn across the stages to give the player hints on the objective and controls (filled with movie references and terrible puns, of course). Most bugs have also been worked out, it sortof feels like playing a game. Now if we just had some interesting visuals...
Like I mentioned before, this project is far from done. We will keep tinkering with it until it becomes a glorious finished game that people can actually enjoy playing in a totally unironic way. And if things go well, we might even do a super clichéd sequel, but that's a bit of a stretch for the moment being.
It's been a fun (and frustrating) ride, we'll see ya all later around summer!
Over and out. We'll be back.
Tuesday 24 April 2012
Test results and future plans
We had another game testing session last Friday and this time we weren't chased by an angry mob with torches and pitchforks! In other words, Carcity worked out most of the control bugs/issues and the wall jumping sortof works like we intended it to.
OneHand finished the first stage with some minor alterations and we also tweaked the first version of the stage as well, making a slight increase in the difficulty level. I finished the plans for the next stage and if I'm not mistaken both Carcity and OneHand are adding the finishing touches right now. Because of time restraints (and general laziness) we're going to use the tweaked tutorial stage as stage 2 instead. Carcity has also fixed an intro screen/menu of sorts that you return to when you die. You'll have the option to either have a look at the controls or to start the game.
Now, I bring both bad and good news. The bad news are that we have less than 2 weeks left until our deadline for the LBS game awards (yeah, fat chance) and I'm making very little progress with the graphics so our game will most likely be butt-ugly and unfinished.
The good news however, is that we intend to continue working on this game after the deadline, except OneHand, who will work with HB (from the Heroes of Armarond dev team) on an older Flash based platformer we worked on a year ago. I have agreed to chip in with some 2D graphics and level designs for that game as well since I too was a part of the original dev team on that project.
We have run into some problems regarding the continued development of Polyboy though: we have to turn in our laptops at the beginning of summer and I'll only have my ancient Sony Vaio to work on and I'm not sure if it can run Maya properly because of it's severely outdated hardware and lack of space. Same goes for Carcity. His computer at home is known for being unreliable with all the crashes and slowdowns it frequently suffers from, and Michaedee (being the only member responsible enough to have a real job) will most likely have to spend a lot of time working.
I know my laptop once had the power to run Unity and I have an old copy of Photoshop at home in case SAI would fail me. If I remove all my games I might have enough space to continue working this summer, you don't need anything more complex than a pen and paper to plan stage layouts, enemy placements, concept art, themes, backdrops and storylines. It's the more advanced graphics that worry me.
So yeah, that's pretty much it for now. Although our deadline is closing in, that doesn't mean it's the end of the project. We've had too much fun so far and there are still a ton of bad puns that we haven't used yet. It would be a shame to have it all go to waste.
Until next time!
/Wasp
OneHand finished the first stage with some minor alterations and we also tweaked the first version of the stage as well, making a slight increase in the difficulty level. I finished the plans for the next stage and if I'm not mistaken both Carcity and OneHand are adding the finishing touches right now. Because of time restraints (and general laziness) we're going to use the tweaked tutorial stage as stage 2 instead. Carcity has also fixed an intro screen/menu of sorts that you return to when you die. You'll have the option to either have a look at the controls or to start the game.
Now, I bring both bad and good news. The bad news are that we have less than 2 weeks left until our deadline for the LBS game awards (yeah, fat chance) and I'm making very little progress with the graphics so our game will most likely be butt-ugly and unfinished.
The good news however, is that we intend to continue working on this game after the deadline, except OneHand, who will work with HB (from the Heroes of Armarond dev team) on an older Flash based platformer we worked on a year ago. I have agreed to chip in with some 2D graphics and level designs for that game as well since I too was a part of the original dev team on that project.
We have run into some problems regarding the continued development of Polyboy though: we have to turn in our laptops at the beginning of summer and I'll only have my ancient Sony Vaio to work on and I'm not sure if it can run Maya properly because of it's severely outdated hardware and lack of space. Same goes for Carcity. His computer at home is known for being unreliable with all the crashes and slowdowns it frequently suffers from, and Michaedee (being the only member responsible enough to have a real job) will most likely have to spend a lot of time working.
I know my laptop once had the power to run Unity and I have an old copy of Photoshop at home in case SAI would fail me. If I remove all my games I might have enough space to continue working this summer, you don't need anything more complex than a pen and paper to plan stage layouts, enemy placements, concept art, themes, backdrops and storylines. It's the more advanced graphics that worry me.
So yeah, that's pretty much it for now. Although our deadline is closing in, that doesn't mean it's the end of the project. We've had too much fun so far and there are still a ton of bad puns that we haven't used yet. It would be a shame to have it all go to waste.
Until next time!
/Wasp
Thursday 19 April 2012
Look out for the trojan!
Well, not exactly..
I've picked up some modelling for the sake of getting some things done so we actually have a finished level to show. I approached probably one of the most stupid enemies we wanted to implement in our game, a Trojan horse.
However, currently it just looks like Batman's lost steed. And at one point it looked like Moomin.
- michaedee
I've picked up some modelling for the sake of getting some things done so we actually have a finished level to show. I approached probably one of the most stupid enemies we wanted to implement in our game, a Trojan horse.
However, currently it just looks like Batman's lost steed. And at one point it looked like Moomin.
- michaedee
Monday 16 April 2012
Happy gamers
A tad bit late, but here are the pictures I took from the game test just before our Easter holiday.
We all had a pleasant day, part from some laptops shutting down on us and Unity being it's usual silly self. Make sure to check out our fellow classmates' blogs as well and their game projects.
- michaedee
POLYBOY TESTERS
HEROES OF ARMANOND TESTERS
ANCIENT MAGICKS TESTERS
PAM TESTERS
"VILSE I ÖKNEN" TESTERS
We all had a pleasant day, part from some laptops shutting down on us and Unity being it's usual silly self. Make sure to check out our fellow classmates' blogs as well and their game projects.
- michaedee
Friday 13 April 2012
Enter Vertexboy
I don't think enough people appreciate the kind of sacrifices I make for this game, because the picture you're about to see mortally crippled my dignity. It also pushed me to the limit as an artist, but in the wrong way. It was hard to ignore everything I know about anatomy and muscles to draw what is basically a stick figure. So prepare to shield your eyes everyone, we're about to reveal the face of the infamous impostor and Polyboy's arch nemesis, Vertexboy!
He's not exactly finished yet, I mean, for something that's supposed to be a Square Enix/shitty fanart by talentless animu fangirls parody he doesn't have nearly enough belts, weird hair, chains, rainbows, mismatching clothes etc., but this will have to do for now. I won't have the time required to fully include all details in the finished model anyway (not to mention that mapping it will be worse than death itself). He was also supposed to be leaning on his weapon of choice, the mighty sword VertExcalibur (Carcity deserves a medal for coming up with such a cheesy name), but I forgot how to draw swords the size of a truck.
The general thoughts behind Vertexboy and his designs is mainly to contrast Polyboy, but also to make fun of all the horrible, twisted fanart of pretty much everything in existence. Just go to deviantArt and search for any franchise that comes to mind, like South Park and you'll see that 99% of the most popular images are bastardized manga versions of the characters that are so different from their original designs that they no longer even resemble what they are supposed to be (ESPECIALLY male characters).
Maybe it's just my personal distaste for incredibly inconvenient clothing, but this whole "bishiefication" deal is just as offensive to me as plastering shamelessly giant cleavages on female characters. You're not really creating interesting or sympathetic characters, you're just catering to the most shallow groups of fans (in this case, to 13 years old girls), adding more to the already bloated sea of dull and uninteresting carbon copy designs *cough*FinalFantasy*cough*. And when you design a character like Vertexboy, can you imagine him having any kind of likeable non-stereotyped personality? What really breaks my heart is that if we were a recognised studio we'd get a crapload of requests from hormonal fangirls demanding that we make Vertexboy the main protagonist instead. Or maybe they wouldn't, maybe, by the time we're ready to hit the REAL gaming industry the world magically stops being stupid.
Anyway, here is something else that I mainly drew to boost my injured ego but aslo because it greatly amuses me. Hopefully you find it as funny as I do (I know the hands are messed up, I will fix them later when I have less pressing matters to deal with).
I'll try to finish Polyboy's model and textures by Monday. As far as I know, Carcity also fixed up the momentum issues with the controls and the wall jumping. We might also scrap the dashing/sliding, it isn't that vital to the game. Have a great weekend, y'all!
/Wasp
Monday 9 April 2012
Still Alive
So uh, delays, anyone? Yeah, as you might have guessed, the game tests didn't go as well as we had hoped. BUT, we still got some pretty neat feedback!
We have to get those graphics ready pronto, and the physics are more than just a tad broken at the moment. The player keeps sliding around and there's way too much momentum, giving it a reverse Action 52 feeling in all the wrong way (if you don't know what Action 52 is then I'm sorely disappointed in you). We also had OneHand redo the tutorial stage in the last minute so it would match the (scrapped) motherboard backdrop, but because of the lack of proper visual cues most people got disoriented.
Needless to say, we're going back to using the old design. From this, we learned that changing the layout of a stage for the sake of potential aesthetics is a VERY BAD idea, and from now on I'll be fully in charge of designing the stages while OneHand puts them together.
The wall jumping and sliding don't work as they should, and switching weapons with 1, 2 and 3 is very cumbersome with the current controls. The main purpose of dashing is to slide over gaps that have obstacles blocking Polyboy from jumping over them, or to have as a substitute for crawling under tight spaces, but since the player moves like Sonic the Hedgehog it renders dashing obsolete.
We also got a suggestion claiming that we should (I'm not even joking) add a Portal gun for puzzle elements. After we were done marveling over our classmates's remarkable (in)ability to spell, our one week school break started which explains our inactivity. During this time period, we continued to tinker with ideas for the game and decided to add a new element to flesh out the stages a bit: collectibles.
Collectibles will, aside from providing guidance for the player also change the way the game is played to somewhat relate to the story. The objective is to collect Cookies containing information that the fake Polyboy drops to prove the innocense of the real Polyboy so he can regain his reputation.
You can complete a stage without collecting all the Cookies, but similar to the Special Hearts in Yoshi's Story played in Story Mode, you won't be able to open new worlds without collecting a set amount. This will require more exploration but will also allow the stages to be a little shorter as I don't think that either of us will have the time to design and build stages of the Super Mario World calibre.
There will also be a sub-collectible that mostly serves as bait or a sort of subconscious guide to the player, much like the bananas in Donkey Kong Country. Their exact role in the game is uncertain at the moment, they could be used as currency in a shop where you can purchase temporary boosts and upgrades to your health and equipment, but can also be used like coins in Super Mario where you gain an extra life for every X amount of coin.
Regardless of their role, a platformer NEEDS collectibles, because if there's something I learned from playing that abomination known as Metroid: Other M, a game becomes boring and monotone very fast if you don't have some kind of object to casually collect or pick up at regular intervals, even if it's just health packs or ammo.
Right now we're thinking of having Microchips as sub-collectibles, small sparkling potato chips. It would go with the food theme. Now we just need a terrible pun for the health and ammo items and we're all set.
Oh right, and before I forget! We had a bunch of photos taken during the game test, but a lot of people didn't want their faces to be seen on the blog (I don't blame them) and since it already took me half an eternity to convert the 75 pictures to JPEG from NEF one by one I don't feel like spending the other half on coming up with a clever way to censor every single one.
None of the pictures show anything from the game itself anyway (don't look at me, I'm not the photographer) and the quality is really meh. You'd think that a camera that saves all the pictures as NEF-files would at least have the courtesy to make them look halfway decent to spare us the trouble. The nerve of technology these days.
Alright, that's it from us for now. We've sparked some fresh ideas so if everything goes right we should have a new update in a few days covering other topics (looking back at our records I wouldn't count on it though).
/Wasp
We have to get those graphics ready pronto, and the physics are more than just a tad broken at the moment. The player keeps sliding around and there's way too much momentum, giving it a reverse Action 52 feeling in all the wrong way (if you don't know what Action 52 is then I'm sorely disappointed in you). We also had OneHand redo the tutorial stage in the last minute so it would match the (scrapped) motherboard backdrop, but because of the lack of proper visual cues most people got disoriented.
Needless to say, we're going back to using the old design. From this, we learned that changing the layout of a stage for the sake of potential aesthetics is a VERY BAD idea, and from now on I'll be fully in charge of designing the stages while OneHand puts them together.
The wall jumping and sliding don't work as they should, and switching weapons with 1, 2 and 3 is very cumbersome with the current controls. The main purpose of dashing is to slide over gaps that have obstacles blocking Polyboy from jumping over them, or to have as a substitute for crawling under tight spaces, but since the player moves like Sonic the Hedgehog it renders dashing obsolete.
We also got a suggestion claiming that we should (I'm not even joking) add a Portal gun for puzzle elements. After we were done marveling over our classmates's remarkable (in)ability to spell, our one week school break started which explains our inactivity. During this time period, we continued to tinker with ideas for the game and decided to add a new element to flesh out the stages a bit: collectibles.
Collectibles will, aside from providing guidance for the player also change the way the game is played to somewhat relate to the story. The objective is to collect Cookies containing information that the fake Polyboy drops to prove the innocense of the real Polyboy so he can regain his reputation.
You can complete a stage without collecting all the Cookies, but similar to the Special Hearts in Yoshi's Story played in Story Mode, you won't be able to open new worlds without collecting a set amount. This will require more exploration but will also allow the stages to be a little shorter as I don't think that either of us will have the time to design and build stages of the Super Mario World calibre.
There will also be a sub-collectible that mostly serves as bait or a sort of subconscious guide to the player, much like the bananas in Donkey Kong Country. Their exact role in the game is uncertain at the moment, they could be used as currency in a shop where you can purchase temporary boosts and upgrades to your health and equipment, but can also be used like coins in Super Mario where you gain an extra life for every X amount of coin.
Regardless of their role, a platformer NEEDS collectibles, because if there's something I learned from playing that abomination known as Metroid: Other M, a game becomes boring and monotone very fast if you don't have some kind of object to casually collect or pick up at regular intervals, even if it's just health packs or ammo.
Right now we're thinking of having Microchips as sub-collectibles, small sparkling potato chips. It would go with the food theme. Now we just need a terrible pun for the health and ammo items and we're all set.
Oh right, and before I forget! We had a bunch of photos taken during the game test, but a lot of people didn't want their faces to be seen on the blog (I don't blame them) and since it already took me half an eternity to convert the 75 pictures to JPEG from NEF one by one I don't feel like spending the other half on coming up with a clever way to censor every single one.
None of the pictures show anything from the game itself anyway (don't look at me, I'm not the photographer) and the quality is really meh. You'd think that a camera that saves all the pictures as NEF-files would at least have the courtesy to make them look halfway decent to spare us the trouble. The nerve of technology these days.
Alright, that's it from us for now. We've sparked some fresh ideas so if everything goes right we should have a new update in a few days covering other topics (looking back at our records I wouldn't count on it though).
/Wasp
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