domingo, 23 de octubre de 2011

Development Day 101: This is My Last Chance to Talk


Hello. I don't know where to start...
I've been busy all these days because I'll be going on a long trip to Europe, I'll be going from Oct 25 to Nov 16. Which is like three weeks.
The bad thing is that I won't be taking my laptop to the trip.
Why? Because we're not staying on a hotel more than two nights, we'll be traveling across France, Spain and Portugal; and being carriyng a laptop in my backpack would be very exhausting since we'll be walking for countless hours in order to meet the places and stuff.
So that means, no Development Day updates... For a month -_-
But I'll try to write a post each week about my tour and some ideas for the game as well.
I hope you understand. It is an important trip for me and my family (yes, we're going together) and carrying a heavy laptop all day may screw some of our plans.
I'll be taking the Traveling Buni Project, which is to take a printed Buni from the comic series around the world.
And again, I'm really sorry, I hope you understand :/

lunes, 17 de octubre de 2011

Development Day 96: I Need Your Vote!

Hello again. Thanks for comming :)
I couldn't do much today because I've been busy... I'm going to Europe! :D
Yep! I'm going for 3 weeks, but don't worry, I'll be able to work on the game as usually :)

Oh, yes. I did little changes, like:

Flais can now be killed with the Tamarind power-up. If you shoot them they throw up a black smoke particle.




I don't know if it is a good idea to keep the Flai's deaths like that...

And talking about smoke, when a Tamarind bullet touches a block it will get destroyed and will leave a bit of dust...



Uh, yes, that's the dust.

I changed the spikes. In fact, I made two models:


I can't decide which model should I use...
The one at the left combines with the kind of art from the background, while the one at the right is more notable for the player.
Please, I need your vote, COMMENT BELOW!

I also changed something little from the background, it is unfinished, so I don't have a snapshot at the moment.

Oh! Jonathan Leek made new levels! He will send them to me this night. I can't wait :)


Well, thanks for reading another post of the Development of Ooni. I hope you liked it because I stayed up late to do it >:(

sábado, 15 de octubre de 2011

Development Day 95: I'm Sure You Will Get It On Your Hands


I'm sorry, really sorry.
As I just said on one of my previous posts, I am a student. And as a student it's my obligation to study and get ready for exams.
I had five exams this week. So I was not able to work on the development of the game or post something for the Dev Blog.
I also stayed past night at Eduardo's (my matey) house. I didn't take my laptop, so that means no development for today :/
I'm staying one more night, so I took the decision to write a Blog post from my iPod and send it to the Dev Blog and IndieDB. Because it's been like four days since my last post, and I feel bad and irresponsible because of that :(

I won't waste more of your time making you read more of my regrets, so I want to discuss about the game's platforms.

The main release for the game is and definitely going to be iOS devices (iPhone, iPad and iPod Touch). I'm not in to this, but I know that there's a war between iOS and Android users. So, the next aimed platform of Ooni will be the Android.

But why iOS is going first?
I don't have anything against Android, I just don't have one. I own an iPod Touch and an iPad, so those are a good start to see that the first version of the game works properly at both small and big screens of portable devices.
I'm looking forward to buy an Android phone for myself to personally make sure that the game runs properly on it. I'll try to buy the Xperia Play; it runs both Xperia Play and Android apps. So that means I'll be able to make Ooni XperiaPlayABLE thanks to YoYoGames's Game Maker Studio's amazing magic!

It will be cool that people from both smartphone religions could have Ooni on their hands. But let's be realistic, not everyone owns a smart phone, and I really want people to know Ooni.
The good thing is that YoYo Games is also offering an HTML5 exportation system, which lets you play games inside a web browser without the need of a flash plugin.
This means that Ooni will be able to be played on your web browser. NO MATTER IF YOU OWN WINDOWS, MAC OR EVEN LINUX!! :D

But putting the game simply on a website with a safe engine for payments will be hard to develop. Not impossible, but hard.
Making it not safe puts your credit cards in the risk of getting hacked, or me in the risk of getting loads of demands :S
The website may come, but definitely not soon.

But where can I find a web store platform? Maybe I could take a look to social networks!
Yes, Facebook is filled with lots of games where you pay to expand your inventory or coins or whatever; for example the famous Farm Ville or They Need To Be Fed, a game made on Game Maker. This leaves me complete sure that I'll be able to make Ooni affordable on Facebook! Good news!
Oh, I'm also looking forward to publish it for Google+ users :)
The price? Oh, it will be between $2 and $3, and you'll be able to play with it forever at any computer as soon you get logged into your Facebook or Google+ account :)

Now, there are people that would like to have the full experience of the game on the big screen that the computer offers today. Yes, full screen.
I'm aiming Steam, Mac App Store and Desura for that; they are awesome platforms for gamers that will publish any indie game like Ooni as soon as it is fun :)
The price will be between $3 and $5, and like the other ones, you'll be able to play it forever as soon as you get logged into your Steam, Apple or Desura account :D
Of course, they won't accept the game unless the game gets no bugs. So, as my job indicates, I'll delete those bugs and make your purchase worth. Leave it to me ;)

So, let's see, Ooni will be able for...

· iPhone
· iPad
· iPod Touch
· Android
· Xperia Play
· Steam
· Desura
· Facebook
· Google+
· And probably more...

So there's no excuse. If you are reading this, it means that you CAN buy Ooni :)

So thanks for reading such long post. I'm really interested in your opinions and recommendations, really. So, please leave a comment below :)

Oh, I see no pictures in here, so here's a picture of my dog! :D

lunes, 10 de octubre de 2011

Development Day 90: Yes, I went Bananas

I didn't do a lot today since its Monday. Anyhow, I added significative stuff to the game!

The Banana


Did I say what does this little boneless curved fruit does? I don't remember, so I'm going to say it anyways...

The Banana gives the player the ability of Invincibility (it rhymes!). This makes the player unable to be hurt by an enemy or Flai.



Like any other Fruit, the Banana glows and turns Ooni into the Fruit's main color.




As you can see on the screenshots above the player can walk across any kind of enemy without getting killed.

Oh! It also works on spikes!
But remember that the ability will only last 10 seconds, use them wisely!


Tamarind Bullets

The usernamed noTformaT on the IndieDB community said to me:
- "Background has more detail than the game objects.
I love lizards! :)" 
I immediately tought on the Tamarind's bullets, which looked like this:
Yup! This is a pixelated circle that I was using to test the Tamarind while I was still developing it. Well, this goes dedicated to noTformaT, so here's the new look of the bullets:


Isn't it neat? :)
Yes, this is more or less the way the look now. I love pixels and 8-Bit related graphics, but they simply won't fit on Ooni :(


 (Click to enlarge)

They now look better and smoother.
Oh! And they're also smaller now. Their size was 30x30, and now they're 26x26...

I also made new variables for the achievements, but I can't explain that to you :)

I hope you've enjoyed my post. Remember that I'll post something new almost daily!
Oh, by the way, the first Tech Demo of the game is on it's way! So I can finally try to make a funding campaign and gather the money I need to make this game dream real :)

domingo, 9 de octubre de 2011

Development Day 89: Goin' Bananas!

On the last post I talked about adding a new fruit to the game. That would be the Banana...


I didn't work on it since I took the day off and went to shopping with my parents, so I will just talk about what it does.
The Banana will give the player the ability to become invisible. While invisible, the player can walk across enemies (Flais) without getting damaged. Spikes are still being considered to be evaded by invisibility.
The invisibility will last 10 seconds, so try to spend them well ;)

Oh, this is a shout to Henl3y, an IndieDB executive director. His job is to read IndieDB blog posts and fix any grammar errors.
He got mad at me because my last post was filled with errors. I want to tell him that I'm sorry :(
I ALWAYS add a ton of effort to my grammar, but since I'm Mexican it is hard to keep it up.
So, Henl3y, I'm sorry :(

sábado, 8 de octubre de 2011

Development Day 88: That Post Gave Me a Feeling

I feel bad. I can't believe that it's been 88 days since I started this game, and it's not even Alpha.
This is because I'm a student, I'm busy with school, homeworks, mid-day chores, hanging with my friends; but most of all it's because I'm lazy. Lazy as heck. In total, I've skipped like two months and a half of work because of lazyness and when I work I don't work more than half-hour.

But yesterday and today, I worked hard. And I can't believe it was fun!
It feels pretty good when your project goes on and gets bigger and bigger :)
So, if you're a Developer (and even if you're not!) give more effort at the projects you're working or you'll work at. Don't say: "When I get older I will....." NO!
Today, we have something called: "Internet", it can show you anything, ANYTHING you want to do. There's a tutorial for everything! I mean it!
It doesn't matter if you're 10 years old, you can be (let's say) a musician. In places like Google or YouTube, you are able to find thousands and millions of ways to create your own songs!
Maybe you may end like the next big musician of the time, I don't know.

No one likes to grow up and say: "I wish I have done this......".
The only frontier is the lazyness, that's the only frontier......


Uh.... Well....
NOW BACK TO OONI!

I havent done too much, but significant changes in Ooni.

Several days ago, I talked about introducing a new fruit that will be able to destroy Flais. In fact, there is going to be 2. But fist I would like to talk about the Tamarind:


What does this thing do? Magic.
No, this is a new power-up that will be able to shoot bullets. The player won't need to press any button to shoot, Ooni will automatically shoot bullets with a time rate of 2 bullets per second.
I've been working hard on this fruit, specially because I had troubles at the time rate of the bullets and lots of bugs as seen on my previous post.

Anyway, this is pretty much how it looks in the game.


As you can see the Tamarind and all the other fruits emit a ring with their color. This makes it look a little better and more notable.



When the player reaches any fruit, Ooni will acquire the color and the power-up of the fruit, but it will only last for 10 seconds!



The Tamarind will shoot immediately. It will shoot (as I said) 2 bullets per second, or 19 bullets in 10 seconds.



As you can see, the Tamarind's bullets can destroy the Flais when they touch them.
See? Magic!
Uhmm, yeah. I think that's all for now for the Tamarind...

Well, I have also experienced troubles with the variables for the achievements. The achievements only worked if the game was loaded with the achievements viewer as the first room of the game, or else it crashed.
I have already fixed that. The game now has a loader that prepares all the variables in order to run the game properly, and it will also load the player's saved data. But not now.


That is how it looks now. It places a random fruit in the lower right corner that moves.
I know that it is an ugly black rectange, but it takes less than a second to load it all.
It will also be removed at the final release of the game.


I've got a new Level Designer, Jonathan Leek.
He has been working on some stages, and they're so damn hard to clear!
He just sent me 3 in order to know if he's doing his job properly, and he is!

This is what the mail said:

Here are the finished levels so far; I have a handful that are still drafts; I'll send them to you when they're cleaned up a bit. 

As you can tell, I'm not the greatest artist, so I used notations to try to make things as clear as possible.

Squares with F inside- falling blocks
Squares with x inside- destructible blocks
Filled in squares- Crates
Circles with arrows- Flais with arrows showing movement
Circles with A's inside- Aviator flai
Powerups are shown by their initial i.e; B is a banana, T is a Tamarind, etc.

Let me know what you think, if you have anyquestions, etc.

Jon


Take a look, and click to expand.



 I've been taking a close look to them and they're really cool! I've also started making this one real:


This is how it looks:





I know that the stage doesn't look really stetical (and by that, I mean: "good-looking"), but it's my fault, I will change it later :)
Uh, yes, I added spikes :P


So, yes. Today was a day of lots of work, and I'm happy about it :)   <----See?
I know that Ooni has been growing slowly and it's because I'm lazy.
But I can tell that if I keep working like today, the mechanics of the game are almost done, so the Alpha version of the game may come between one and two weeks! And if I keep like this the Final Release may be done before Christmas! :D

I hope you took seriously what I said at the beginning of the post. You only live once and no one would like to die as a Mr. Nobody. Do whatever you want without affecting other people and shoot for your dreams and that...

Ehm... I have recently made the Ooni's IndieDB Blog, the posts are pretty much the same but you'll be notified when a new one comes out, and IndieDB is a great place to discover and support new projects, seriously, take a look :)

Hah, so thanks for reading such a long post, in fact, the longest I've ever writen about any of my projects. So, again, thanks :)
And I want to make this post even longer, so here's a pic of Ooni in my shitty $30 cellphone...


LOL!
Have a nice day, and come back eventually :)

Oh! I forgot, expect a new fruit tomorrow :D

viernes, 7 de octubre de 2011