Development Day 19: Facts of the Pre-Pre-Development

I'm just going to put a quick post so I can keep going with my entry for the Game Jam...

Well, just a little bit of you may know that there was a Development version of the game that went catastrophicly wrong before the current version of Ooni's Development. A bit confusing, but yes.

Well, I'm going to tell you some funny facts about Ooni's first Pre-Development!

• The Ooni game was first planned just one day after YoYoGame's grand iOS publishing post (I cried when they made that post, seriously).
• The first design of the Ooni character came up while I was drawing at MsPaint on the free time of my computer class. There was no previous sketch...

After I came back from school, I immediately made it's design of Adobe Flash...

Perfect... *Sniff* *Sniff*

• At first, Ooni was suppossed to be an Iguana; but then I tought that if that's so, it would need some kind of spikes on it's back. That would definitely make look Ooni pretty bad, so I denied, and now Ooni is officially a Lizard.
• Ooni's basic orientation is Mexico. For example, all the fruit that appear in the game so far, are popular fruit cultivations in Mexico.
• I considered adding bees and other kinds of bugs as enemies.
• In real life any fruit is bigger than a lizard, and a lizard is bigger than a fly. On Ooni's world, most of flies are bigger than a lizard, and a lizard is bigger than a fruit.

• I also considered to put many characters with different abilities, like in Super Meat Boy, but if I would do that, each character would need to eat fruit or else the stages would be impossible; and that would make the game's Development like four or five times slower.
• The first version of Ooni that was "supposed" to be for iPhone/iPod Touch, was going to have only 1 World, 20 Stages, 1 Final Boss, 45 Achievements, 10 Fruit, and 3 Enemies. But then, I said: "FUCK!", and now the FINAL VERSION of the game is going to be like 48 TIMES BIGGER! (and I'm just counting levels...)

Well, that's all for now, I hope you enjoyed some of my Pre-Pre-Development's Fruity Fun Facts!
Ugh, actually, this took me a lot of time, I better keep going for the Game Jam...

Development Day 18: Theme Song!

OK, since I'm busy, I would like to make a quick post. So I tought this is the perfect chance to show you the Ooni's Official Theme Song!

Color (Ooni's Official Theme Song) [by Garret Beelow] by ZuperZ_Music

Thanks to Garret Beelow's musical awesomeness for writing this song!

Development Day 17: The Jam has Begun!

Just telling that I'll be working on an entry for the Game Jam.
I'll make a Dev Blog so you can see what's going on:
http://SoulSnatcherGame.blogspot.com/

(Spoiler: It is REALLY Outdated)

Development Day 16: Spreading the Jam

This is just an update to tell you guys that I'll participate in YoYoGame's Community  3th Game Jam!
And I've got an amazing partner for this, Eamon (Fireball16), who is going to help me in programming.

We don't know yet what game are we gonna do, since the contest is going to be based on a theme, and they don't want anyone to take advantage.

Development Day 15: High Score!

I would like to talk about how the Score system is going to be like.
At first, I didn't want to add scores to the game because makes the game a little more complicated for the player.
BUT now, I decided to add them anyways, because it makes the game more competitive!

Through the game, you'll earn points (pts.) per stage cleared. Depending on how well you've cleared a stage, you'll earn a quantity of points. And finally, putting all those scores together, you'll get your Total Game Score. Which is the score that will be displayed on the Global Leaderboards of the game!
I guess that this will make the game, as I said, more competitve, and also more self-challenging and fun!

But how can I get many points on a stage?
Well, at the end of each stage, you'll get points depending on:

• How much time it took to clear
• How many times you died
• If you got the Blue Orb
• How many Flais you killed
• How many Fruit you've eaten (It doesn't count if you ate the same fruit twice)

And finally we'll give you a ranking of how well you did by using Stars!
You'll receive a Star on a stage if you:

• Clear the stage before the recommended time goes out
• Clear the stage without dying even once
• Get the blue orb before you finish the stage

The max stars you can get on a single stage is Three.
But if you clear the stage way better than perfection (and I mean WAY better), you can reach the Platinum rank, which is literally 4 Stars or something, this will be really hard, I'll be sure to make it hard ;)

Also, you can get points through Achievements! But each Achievement have a different value.

This is all I can tell you about this for now...

Development Day 14: The Price

Sorry for posting too late, I've not been in my house all this time! -.-
And, as you may think, I couldn't develop anything for today, sorry.

But I think that today is a good day for talking about the price of the game.
I have already stated that the first version of my game, Ooni, will be released with:

• More than 100 Challenging Stages (3 Worlds: 30 Stages each + Boss Battle + 3 Cutscenes) 
• It will include More than 20 enemies
• Over 100 Achievements
• Challenge Mode
• Global Leaderboards
• Up to 10 Fruits (Power-Ups)

And that's just the First Version!
If that's not enough for you, add monthly Updates, that will give you more Worlds, Game Modes, Enemies, Fruit and more!

Now, the question is: How much should I charge for the game?

Well, I am a 15 year old guy, I don't basically NEED money for now, I mean, I would like to get lots-o-money to buy stuff and that, but Honestly I rather making a game that almost everyone can buy, not too expensive.

So, my decision (for now) is to publish the game at $2.99
I don't know what you guys think, but I think that this is a fair price for now; and it may go up as the game slowly grows.
Also, I am going to put the game in -67% during the first week, that should be $0.99! So be ready until The Day comes :D

So, I think this is all for now...
Oh! Today the Dev Blog is Two Weeks Old!
Yay!

Development Day 13: Introducing the Introduction

Every good game needs a story. I decided to make the SIMPLEST story I've ever done.
And there's no better way to put a story into a game compared to Cutscenes!

Yes! Ooni will include Cutscenes! In fact, 10 on the first version of the game!
(I'll add more Cutscenes to monthly updates, I hope).

Here's a leak of the first Cutscene:

I might have to add that the Cutscenes are not going to be like "comic strips with movement" or "static images with text". No, they are going to be animated cartoons, like the ones you could find on Newgrounds...

So, what's the story gonna be like? I'll tell you.... WITH DOODLES!
Why!? Because it's funny and cool!

Well, so Ooni was on a forest, with a delicious Pie.

And so, two Flais came and started staring Ooni's Pie.

So, without thinking twice, the two Flais stole Ooni's delicious Pie and flew away!

Ooni wanted revenge! And it won't stop until it gets it's Pie back!

So, that's how basically the story is. I hope you will enjoy the Cutscenes when they're done. I'll make them as hilarous as I can!

Development Day 12: Nothing

This is a quick post to tell you that I won't be able to work on the Game of today (by the way, you lost it).
Because I'm going to a funeral. That's all I'm going to tell.

Development Day 11: Steam's Grand Next Step

I'm afraid to say that there is no big thing to say about Ooni's development for today, because I hung out with my friends again (don't blame on me! It's summer!).

But I was reading my Steam Publication Plan and I found something interesting that definitely will make the game even better!
This might not be new to most of you, but I need to tell you that Steam is currently working on "The Big Picture" project. This will be a free service (I believe) for all Steam users that puts your Steam games on your T.V. and you will be able to play them on your living room or wherever you have a T.V...

This is what THEIR article says:

"They’ve got the big screen,
now give them the big picture.
It’s time to come out of the den and explore a few more rooms of the house.

Heading to the living room—or anywhere there’s a big screen—is Steam’s soon-to-be-released big-picture mode, offering simple, easy-to-read navigation designed specifically for TV. With full controller support, big-picture mode will let gamers kick back and enjoy their favorite games on the biggest screen in the house."

I don't really know how are they going to do this without some kind of wireless console or something. But It is going to be awhsome!

ROVIOwned!

Just tellin' that I've just sent an application to get a temporal work for Rovio (Angry Birds) as a Game Artist!
And the best part is that I can work from home!
It would be such an honor to work with such important developers. In fact in MY oppinion I could do a good job. And I do not presume about myself. It's because my cartoons look pretty much like the Angry Bird's style!

 (The pic of the bird might be seen very bad, but click on it to see it in HD)

Well... I hope that they accept the application. I'm so excited 'bout this...
But I'm afraid to say that if this occurs, the Ooni's game developing progress will be slowed, and maybe the final version might be delayed to late this year...

Development Day 10: A Declaration

With the last post I might have revealed some stuff before time...
But I will not modify the post! I will talk about it!

Yes, I showed some places like "The Forest", "The Electric Avenue", and "The Volcanic Vast".
Those, indeed, are going to be worlds. On the first version of Ooni I will introduce 3 worlds, and then, I will put a new world each month (If I can)! Each world holds 3 cutscenes, 30 stages and a boss. So expect More Than 100 Stages of Fun on the First Version!!

I might also said something about: "3 Stars", "Red Stars", "Blue Stars", "Yellow Stars"?
Well, when you clear a stage you will be able to clear it with a ranking from 0-3 Stars. But unlike other games, those three Stars are not obtained through scores/points or excellence.
There are Three ways of getting Stars:
To get a stage's Red Star you must clear the stage without dying or restarting.
To get a stage's Yellow Star you mest clear the stage before your time is up (if a stage's time is up, you wont die or have to restart the stage)
To get a stage's Blue Star you must find the little shiny blue orb that is hidden.
You will be able to get those stars in the order you want. You don't need to unlock all the 3 Stars at once for getting perfection!
Well, maybe I will change this in the future, I need to think about it...

There IS going to be a way to kill Flais, it will be through Fruit, in fact, three or more of the fruit that will appear on the game will have the ability to kill Flais, but I won't tell which ones.

There IS going to be a Tutorial to teach the players that are not familiarized with games or platformers how the game is played, and how to use the first five fruits. If you are a gamer, Tutorials should be boring, but look it like this, if you clear the Tutorial, you will unlock an achievement!

There IS going to be a Challenge Mode, it is a Super Nightmare Hard Mode! It has a stage dedicated for each fruit. I'll talk about it later.

I might also have revealed that the first Boss name is the "Big Buzz"... I think I wont post more about the other ones because it would be Spoiler...

I hope I clarifyied some questions, if you had them....

Development Day 9: Planning Some Achievements

Achievements are an important part of games. They are like additional goals for a game, and the player must complete the tasks in order to unlock an achievement. With the technology that companies like GameCenter (Apple), OpenFeint and of course, Steam, bring us today, you can compare yourself with the unlocked achievements of a friend of yours! You can compete! That makes a game even More interesting!
But sometimes it is very disappointing when you buy awesome games like World of Goo thar only have 5 or 6 achievements. Most of the games that you can find have from 15-20 achievements, but sometimes they are too hard to unlock!

So, as I want to create a very complete platform, I want to put over 100 Achievements on the first version of the game!
Here you can see the first 56!

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

This has Just Begun!	Clear The Forest in 100%
(Unnamed)	Clear the Electric Avenue in 100%
(Unnamed)	Clear the Volcanic Vast in 100%
(Unnamed)	Clear 10 Stages with 3 Stars
(Unnamed)	Clear 50 Stages with 3 Stars
(Unnamed)	Clear 70 Stages with 3 Stars
Serial Killer	Kill 20 consecutive Flais without dying or restarting a stage
The Beginning	Finish Your First Level
Graduated	Clear the Tutorial Mode
Goin' Bananas!	Clear Banana's Challenge Mode
The Size is Not Important (Well, a Bit…)	Clear Lychee's Challenge Mode
¡Enchilado!	Clear Chili's Challenge Mode
(Unnamed)	Clear Avocado's Challenge Mode
Super Sniper	Clear Tamarind's Challenge Mode
(Unnamed)	Clear Lime's Challenge Mode
(Unnamed)	Clear Mango's Challenge Mode
Epic Fail	Die 50 Times
Now Who's the Boss?!	Defeat the Big Buzz from The Forest
(Unnamed)	Defeat the "____" from the Electric Avenue
(Unnamed)	Defeat the "____" from the Volcanic Vast
Forest-Proof Badge	Clear All of The Forest's Stages without Dying
Electric-Proof Badge	Clear All of the Electric Avenue's Stages without Dying
Fire-Proof Badge	Clear all of the Volcanic Vast's stages without dying
(Unnamed)	Eat Your First Banana
(Unnamed)	Eat Your First Lychee
(Unnamed)	Eat Your First Chili
(Unnamed)	Eat Your First Avocado
(Unnamed)	Eat Your First Tamarind
(Unnamed)	Eat Your First Lime
(Unnamed)	Eat Your First Mango
Homicide	Kill 10 Flais
Why aren't You in Jail?!	Kill 30 Flais
Show NO Mercy!	Kill 100 Flais
Hungry	Eat 50 Fruits
Starving	Eat 300 Fruits
Famished	Eat 500 Fruits
Die Hard	Defeat a Boss without dying.
Harassing	Follow Us on Twitter
Me Gusta	Like Us on Facebook
Nobody Looks at These	Sectet Achievement
Wait for it… Wait for it…	Sectet Achievement
More?! It's Unpossible!	Secret Achievement
(Unnamed)	Get 10 Blue Stars
(Unnamed)	Get 50 Blue Stars
(Unnamed)	Get 70 Blue Stars
(Unnamed)	Get 10 Red Stars
(Unnamed)	Get 50 Red Stars
(Unnamed)	Get 70 Red Stars
(Unnamed)	Get 10 Yellow Stars
(Unnamed)	Get 50 Yellow Stars
(Unnamed)	Get 70 Yellow Stars
I Like this Game!	Play Over 5 Minutes
Yes, You Like this Game…	Play Over 30 Minutes
Fan	Play Over 3 Hours
TRUE Fan	Play Over 10 Hours

Development Day 8: Drawing Evilness!

I'm happy to write on the Blog for such an important Update of Ooni's development!
Today I will introduce some of the dozens of enemies that will appear through the game.

First, I will talk about the Lil' Flai:

This little fella is more lethal than you could expect. Look at it's face! (Do it) That face hides horrible thoughts and terrifying actions! It gives me gosebumps! It is the Baby of EVIL!!!11!!1!

Well, back to reality; the Lil' Flai's (Evil) ability is to (Sadically) move from left to right, and it bounces when it collides with a wall.

That would be the Lil' Flai's size compared to Ooni.
There's not too much to talk about this (Bloody) little fella. So I will move up to the next enemy!

Our next Flai would be the Bungee Flai:

Now, what's with this chubby cute Flai that is tangled in some kind of web?
The thing with this chubby cute Flai that is tangled in some kind of web will be "pasted" on a roof and it will go down and up rapidly. It's hard to explain, I'll show you later in a video...
I don't have a preview of this enemy since it has not been added to the game yet...

So, next I'll be talking about the Falling Flai:

This is quite different than the other Flais that just move from left to right, up to down, or in circles. The Falling Flai will be on a roof waiting for you (Ooni). And when it peeks you, it will fiercely toss itself toward you!

Take a look!

It will toss against you... As you saw.

Now, let's talk about the Merry-Go Flai:

Why "Merry-Go"? Because of the Merry-Go-Rounds! And if you've never got into one, your parents didn't love you as well....

This enemy's chore is to move slowly in circles... That's right! Circles! Not triangles, not squares. Circles!
But I tought this Enemy was way too easy to avoid, so I made some kind of partner/upgrade/bro to this Flai......

It would be the Scary-Go Flai:

Since this one is more difficult to avoid, I wanted to put it a more terrifying name! But it should rhyme! Like "Scary" instead of "Merry"!! I'm a genious, and I'm proud of myself.... MEH! Maybe I change it's name in the future...

So, what's the difference between the Scary-Go Flai and the Merry-Go Flai?
The Merry-Go Flai moves in big circles at a low speed.
The Scary-Go Flai moves in small circles but goes really fast!

Well, I don't know what else to say... I guess I'm finished for today!
I hope you enjoyed such a big post for a Development Day!
See ya tomorrow!

Development Day 7: Shift the Way You Move!

I was thinking of how slow Ooni moves. It made me mad, and I felt uncomfortable the whole day...
To relax and free some tension, I played Super Meat Boy, but I don't know why, that game makes you even more stressed!
Well, I played a bit of Super Meat Boy, and I looked of how Meat Boy moves. He doesn't move slow at all, but when you press "Shift" it goes even faster!

So I realized that this can be a cool addition to the game! To press "Shift" to run faster!
Thanks Edmund McMillen! Your game is a gold mine for plagiarism!

Well, yes, you can now run on Ooni by pressing "Shift".
I also planned some enemy stuff. But I will tell you more about that tomorrow.

Development Day 6: Takin' Ah Break...

Guys I just decided to relax and hang out with my mateys for today. That means no updates of the game for today, sorry.

But! You can stare at this picture of a derp horse if you want! :D

Derp Herp!

Enjoy!

Development Day 5: Even Moar Gravity Codes & Sprites!

Well, I doesn't have too much to say for this post...
I just made some Ooni movement sprites, but those are not assigned yet to the keyboard. And I changed some little gravity issues... Now Ooni moves faster...

Uh..... Here's a pic of Ooni Jumping, this is the Sprite that you will see when it jumps:

Enjoy hours of fun staring at this pic! Good Bye!

Development Day 4: Going to a Calmed Place with No Inter... Kill Me

Sorry about the way I talked in the last post. Some of you may not understand quite well...

Now, I moved just for a week to a relaxing house with lots-o-nature near a river... It is orgasmic (well, if you were a plant).

Wonka's Chocolate River!

And most amazing of all...

WTF!? A ROCK!

Yea.... Uh, it is so "greeny" that is like an infection; like the nyan fever, but instead of shitting rainbows you poop leaves!

I was so "greeny" that I drew up some fruity fruits for the game! That's right! Those are the Power Ups!

I bet you can't guess the powers they'll give to Ooni! Well, the Chili is pretty obvious, but the other ones should be very difficult to guess!

I'll tell you moar about those later. But now, I will just relax...

Development Day 3: Reinventing the Second Law of Motion

As some of you might already know, the Second Law of Motion is in a single word: "Gravity". And that's what I'll be talking about in this post.
But, I finished the god damn game's gravity on the third day!? I can clearly see that I'm lazy as heck...

But well, I began working on the issues that made me begin from zero the Ooni, and the issues that made me fail on some other stuff I would not like to talk about, the Gravity.
On the previous Alpha Version of Ooni, I was getting trouble with the mechanics of gravity, Ooni was getting stuck on walls, and you were able to basically float when you repeatedly pressed left or right.
So, before I began, I started thinking why this happened. The answer: Ooni's freaking silhouette!

That's right! Since this sprite is not similar on both sides, the sprite was usually getting stuck on walls.
So what I did, was to make what developers call (or at least me) a mask. The mask is a perfect rectangle that has all the gravity and movement mechanics.
And... Success! It worked! Here you can see 3 Pics of what I got!

Ooni Jumping:

 

 Ooni walking through the Room (Avoiding the Flai):

Ooni Jumping while turning left:

So that's what I got of gravity, it seems to work well, all I have to do for now is to patch Ooni's sprites to it's movement.

Uh... Thanks for reading? See you tomorrow?

Development Day 2: Drawing Ah Background!

I've been slowly progressing with the game...
So, I believe this is a small post for a Development Day.

I just started drawing a static background for the game, it didn't take too much time at all, but I got a busy day today.

There you go. Isin't it look neat? I'm a drawing god! Obey! Obeyyy!!!

Now, talking seriously, that's all I have for today, sorry.
See you tomorrow.

Introducing the Floating Face of Evil: The Flai

Alright! As I told you in the previous post, I'll be talking about the Flai:

As some of you may already know, flies are lizard's biggest rivals. Well, I continued the battle in Ooni!
And yes, this is an enemy in the game. The only thing it does is to move up and down.
You heard read that right! Up & Down! Terrifying isn't it?

Development Day 1: Beginning from Zero, Again

Well hello again...
This is my first Development Day review, so, I think I should begin with the details of the current state of the game...

Ooni is a game I began like half a year ago for the iPhone. YoYoGames was supposed to be my Publisher for the game. But YoYoGames didn't seem to do a thing to beginner developers, like me; so I just said: "Fuck!" and I forgot about them until they say something interesting.
Then, I got troubles with a gravity issue that made the character (Ooni) to get stuck in the walls. A problem I didn't know how to fix; so I just said: "Fuck!!" again and I gave up (Rage Quit!!1!), well, not literally, I just left the game to fix later...

Some months later, a friend of mine (this is a shout for Dennot, follow him! He's a Graphic Designer, and a Doctor!) told me about this Online Store, it was called: "Steam". It was like a heaven of games with discounts!
So, I got more inside this Steam thing, there was a form for publishing a game title, so I read it and I almost cried at the part where it says: "Your game doesn't have to come from a big name studio, as long as it's fun we'd love to see it." Well, I was in the bathroom when I read that so I supposed that I cried and shitted at the same time, but that's not the point...
The point is that Steam could be the Store I was looking for, a place where they don't care if I'm Indie, they will publish my game.

OK, now let's focus on the game, I just begun Ooni from ZERO.
Why? Because I can make a HD Version of the Game playable for PC & Mac, but also I am making the game in a way that it can also be playable in iPhone, iPad and PSP!
How's that?!

As I said, I just begun the game, this is a footage of the new version:

I put'd some sprites that I used in the previous version, like: Ooni, some Blocks and a Flai (I'll tell you more about those later).

Well, that's all for today.
Stay tuned for more news!
:D

Introducing Our Fruity Hero: Ooni

Tada! This is Ooni!

As you can see, it is a handless green lizard, it is not a frog, it is a lizard.

Ooni is not like the other handless lizards, it's got powers! (wow, too much originality ¬¬)
Well, it gets it's powers through fruit! (Now THAT'S what I call original!)

Well, you're going to know more about this lil' guy soon, as the Development goes on...

Ooni's Development Blog Created!

Uh, I don't know how to start here... So, I'll just introduce myself.

My name is Rodrigo G. Maitret, but I should be better known as "The Green Tie". I am a Game Developer, so you should already know that this is the Blog where I will post stuff about my projects, I'll tell you more about that later. Where was I? I am mexican (yes, mexican), so if i get some grammar errors don't get mad or something. What else? 15, that's my age, I'm 15 years old...

Now, the projects, or project in this case; is going to be Ooni.
Ooni is a new Indie platformer game introducing some kind of handless green lizard as our playable character.
But what makes Ooni different from all platformers? Well, I've been a fan of video games since I was a little kid, I've played hundreds of different games. So what I am going to do is that I am going to put everything I've learned from video games into one, Ooni, of course. But when I mean EVERYTHING, it's everything! This will incluede all kinds of obstacles, enemies and power-ups that you can imagine.
This is really hard to explain, but you will see as the development goes on :D

So, this is going to be the Development Blog of this game, Ooni; and I will post here everything I do, add or change to the game, I will give you news daily, if I can.

Don't forget that you can help the Development!
As I'm going to post news of the games, you will be able (I believe) to comment!
You can tell me if I'm doing something wrong or if I should do something different, I would appreciate that :)

Well, I think I'm done here, it's my first post, I hope I didn't screw up anything.

What else can I say?
Let's Begin? Boom Goes the Dynamite?