Josh's Adventure (Released!)

[1ce]

Re: Josh's Adventure

So most of yesterday I playtested the second world to see what kind of bugs and glitches I could fix. There were fewer things to fix, surprisingly. I guess as I moved on I have been getting the hang of things a bit more. I still have the issue of resetting switches in the hubworld that I need to do. I have been having a hard time figuring out whether to turn switches off in individual levels, or have the hubworld handle it all.

Another increasingly frustrating aspect of the game I haven't figured out is the tutorial. I don't now how to make one, plain and simple. I've tried having the player go through a mock level, a simple text window with appearing items and a movie-like experience, but none of them feel right. I'm starting to think of just dropping it entirely. Have the player play the game and figure it out for themselves. I dunno. It's getting on my nerves that I still have no idea what to do with it.

So, I'm near done playtesting. After that, I plan to make the world 2 boss, and wrap it up shortly afterward for the demo. Will post more as progress develops.

[1ce]

Re: Josh's Adventure

Today was spent putting an extra level of polish on this game.

Good news and bad news, in today's progress report. The bad news, is I have writer's block. That is to say, I have no idea how to do the second world boss. Very frustrating. The good news is that I've gotten around that by polishing up the title today, going back and adding little improvements to the game that I've wanted to add for a while now. It's so nice to do something you have planned to do, but haven't gotten around to it for whatever reason.

First and foremost, the title has switched from "switches turned off by level" to "all switches are turned off at the hubworld". A change I've wanted to do for a long while now. Now when you warp to the hubworld, all switches that should be turned off, will be. It could have gone either way really, but I think I prefer this setup. This also meant removing old code, which wasn't a huge deal.

Of course, more changes to the text were made in World 1 for consisency.

Another big addition I'm doing is adding the Death Count to every monsters last life event. Not too hard, one would think. Until you reach the first boss level. Instead of that room having one event duplicated several times, the whole room is filled with lots of small events. And to change anything in them, requires you to change ALL of them, which sits around 90 seperate events. *sigh* I'm going to be at this for a while.

Pretty soon I'll also just post a little ramble about the game. One thing I've started to stray from is actually TALKING about the game itself. I'm getting into the habit of not saying much about it, leaving it secret for whoever plays it. That's NOT the best way to approach your audience. So yeah, one of these days I'll get around to doing just that. For now, about 90 events are calling for some editing.

[1ce]

Re: Josh's Adventure

Some more good progress was done today.

First and foremost, I re-coded a bit of the first boss's level so that when you lose your last life, you'll actually warp back to the hubworld. That wasn't in there when I went through the game the first time....baffiling. I don't know why I didn't finish this up, but oh well. It was about 60-70 events long, but I got them all down good.

The second thing and more importantly was to start making new content. For quite a while I've been stuck, not knowing how to approach the second boss. To sidestep this I've been polishing up the title and going back to look at my prior work with a fresh eye, but I've just about run out of things to playtest. So here's what I decided; my original idea had the boss chasing Josh through most of the level, with Josh finishing the level after passing the finish line. I like the idea itself, but the level was pretty crappy. It was an arena, derby style racetrack, and it simply didn't feel like a part of the game. It was my attempt to recreate a similiar racetrack I had made earlier for an ending in A Work in Progress, but it didn't look as good. So my new spin was to make a better level that allowed more freedom to do something creative. I personally love the open, colorful worlds I make, and I love making areas with water or clouds in the background; it gives the game an open and airy feel.

So the new level has more platforms and jumps, and all the while the evil horse will chase you, and you have to run away while dodging obstacles. There are a couple tricks the horse has up his sleeve (technically speaking). It can get a running hop to jump gaps, it can activate bridges to continue chasing you, etc. Only by passing the finish line can you prove your dominance and beat the level.

I got the entire layout done and some simple scripts done. It's looking real good! Hopefully the scripting will go just as smoothly and use the level design to make a challenging level.

It also seems that I actually work on rpgmaker projects during my off days. So Sunday and Monday should be very productive days. Any other day? More than likely, nothing gets worked on. But that's alright, because a good deal of work gets done, and I'm always looking forward to continuing progress.



Something else I noticed. Say videogames are cakes. Usuru was a bad cake with lots of frosting; in the end it still gave you a bad taste in your mouth. Josh's Adventure is a great cake, with little frosting. It doesn't have anything terribly fancy, but the cake is good, which is all that matters. Which makes me wonder....how can you get people to play that? I mean, short of thrusting a controller in someone's hands, good gameplay is a tough sell without anything fancy to go with it.

Just a thought I had.

[1ce]

Re: Josh's Adventure

I wanted to work on this yesterday, but we had to put down one of our dogs, and much sadness ensued. Despite not feeling like it, I worked on JA today.

I have the basic layout for the second boss done, which consists of several grassy race areas. I'm going to start getting in the tricky area of enemy placement.

But rather than do that, I worked on some tweaks today. In the demo, there's a machine that will allow you to access special options once you've obtained at least 60 tokens. You can reset a special Josh's Adventure graphic display, you can get a special item, or unlock the normally locked tutorial level. And today I made sure everything worked on like it was supposed to.

And....that's about it. Not a lot of progress, I guess, but it's been increasingly difficult to work on this project, so hopefully the Magcon debut will give me some much needed motivation and feedback.

Next post will be more cheerful, promise.

And hey....do me a favor, and gimme something to do by asking me a question in this topic: http://www.rpgmmag.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=64&t=8588

[1ce]

Re: Josh's Adventure

Alright, new slight progress.

I've got most of the enemy placement down. I'm currently playtesting to see whether the enemy placement is too difficult or easy.

I have yet to add events that allow the horse boss (named Thunderhoof), to travel between the different landscapes, which I'd like to work on today.

Funny really how much of a roadblock these boss levels are. Both levels so far have taken a long time to develop, with Captain Calcium taking a long time to make and figure out, and Thunderhoof taking forever to find a concept I liked. Actually, I wonder....what if there were fewer bosses? I mean, levels generally take a while to plan, develop, playtest and finish; but boss battles take a lot more resources. Maybe one boss every two levels would be good. But I also kinda hate the idea, because boss battles are kind of expected from the player, and it allows me to use unique ideas I couldn't otherwise. I think I'll stick with the one boss per world, but I'd like to hear more opinions about this.

I also have some new plans for World 3. While I don't have a fancy name for it yet, it would be themed around rocky cliffs. Climbing up and down perilious cliffs, dealing with snow and ice, and of course, long falls and tricky jumps. This will be a step up in difficulty from the previous two worlds.

God, it's so odd. For the most part this game has been unplayable and, for the most part, unseeable to the majority of you. So being able to let everyone play my stuff is still kind of a shock. I mean, nobody's played this other than me, and now within a short span of a month I'll release it to anyone to see. What I hope to see is a lot of reactions to this; obviously, something I've been working on for so long, I hope there's alot of people that want to try this out. And I also hope you guys will give me lots of feedback on this as well.

[1ce]

Re: Josh's Adventure

A bit more work today.

I continue to chug away at the second boss level. Thankfully this level is not nearly as complex or big as the first, so it's just more tedious work than difficult. The transitions between certain platforms is what I'm working on next. You jump to a new platform, and the evil Thunderhoof finds ways to keep up with you, and that's primarily what I'm doing now. It's nearly finished.

Come to think of it, the entire demo will be finished very soon. I don't think it'd be unrealistic to say the demo could be finished within a week. It slighty disappoints me that I'll have a completed demo sitting in storage for nearly a month waiting for Magcon though.

I do think, however, that I need another motivational boost. Working on the game is becoming a bit more difficult, and I think I'm just getting eager to see some reactions to what I've been doing.

So, here's some information for the demo version:

There's 2 worlds, 2 bosses and 8 levels.
(I can't remember the level names off the top of my head. May be subject to change.)

World 1: Monster Beach
1-1: Dive
1-2: Sandy Beach
1-3: Bridges
1-4: BB Gun
Boss: Captain Calcium

World 2: Kentucky Bluegrasslands
2-1: March
2-2: Wild Green
2-3: Risk
2-4: Trial
Boss: Thunderhoof

In the game is a machine that you can trade tokens for special items. In the demo you can unlock special features by collecting more than 60 tokens. You can reset a special Josh's Adventure graphic display, you can get a special item, or unlock the normally locked tutorial level.

There are some items you can collect that have no real value; points can be earned for bragging rights, and death counts add up so you can track how many times you've died in the game.

Oh, and there will also be a man in a tux that meows; he'll give you the item that allows you to access World 2, without having to finish World 1 first.

Right now the game doesn't have a save point in the hubworld either...I'm beginning to wonder if the demo needs one? Couldn't hurt to add it, I guess.

I'm out for now! More progress next time!

[1ce]

Re: Josh's Adventure

So the coding on the second boss is nearly complete. Most of the coding is complete, there's only a small portion of coding left to do, some playtesting to make sure it all works, and the demo will be ready way ahead of schedule.

I'm pumped!

Actually, come to think of it, there have been fewer responses from other members lately....am I scaring you guys off? Intimidating? Or do you not have anything to respond to? Am I ignoring you? I wanna hear some voices! Someone out there has to be excited for this...other than me, anyway. Hopefully these little progress updates aren't boring.

[1ce]

Re: Josh's Adventure

Big work done today and a big update. The demo, as far as I can see, is complete!

I went through and finished all the coding I didn't already have down phat. And, realizing I was basically finished with the demo, I playtested and added a few new features.

It still has everything I mentioned in a previous post, and some extras.

After beating the second world, some people will say different things, such as the meowing tux guy. I've also added a save feature to the hubworld (at last). I've made a custom graphic for the carrot you can pick up in World 2.

One of the coolest features of this demo (and a hidden one), can be found by checking the bottom-left of the hubworld after completing the second world. You can view unused levels! I still have levels that I made but aren't being used in the game's memory, and I figured I might as well let the player view them, and see what Josh's Adventure looked like in beta form. I plan to delete the levels pretty soon, so the demo will be the only way to check out these levels.

So, I plan to send out the demo pretty soon to get ready for Magcon, and you can look forward to playing this after that event. I'm thinking I'd like to upload it the day after the Josh's Adventure video goes up. I absolutely cant wait....I'd like to upload this now, to be quite honest! But I'll try and be patient, and I'll ask you to be as well. Now that the demo version is complete, I'm going to start working right away on the third World, where the game will be split apart into seperate memory cards for the first time! Get psyched!

[1ce]

Re: Josh's Adventure

What's so lovely about being ahead of schedule? You have time to improve your stuff. Tonight I went back and re-did some sprites. If you look at my current sig, the letters aren't sized properly, and the edges are a little pointy on most letters. Today I formatted them all to fit an equal size. So now they all look much better together, and I also finished some last minute bugs.

Now that the demo is complete, I'll move on to new material from here on.

[1ce]

Re: Josh's Adventure

Very small update. I'm mostly trying to take a break from the project until it's unveiled as a demo, and I'm getting interested in other activities. Most of that is new stuff, like new games and anime. But I've also been trying to write for a bit, and have a small series planned out for writing. Nothing commerical, just for myself. But, back to the issue at hand.

I've split the game into two cards now starting today. Altogether I have 15 blocks of information, so it was much needed at this point. I had to actually stop for a while just so everything could fit into one card for the demo. I've again started working on more anime maker sprites, this time working on a death animation for Josh when he runs out of lives. Unfortunately this wasn't going to fit on the demo, even though some sprites can still be found on the demo. In any case, they're all dran up and soon I'll be playtesting to see if it works like I have planned. I also have started working on World 3......well, the entrance to it anyway.

And that's it for now. Only about a month away from the public demo!

EDIT: Oh, and I better mention this before it's too late. Back when I first started making this, I wanted the game completely finish by February 2010. I know predictions are always somewhat inaccurate, but man, was I completely off the mark. Well, at least I got two worlds and a finished demo done, so that counts for something....right?

[1ce]

Re: Josh's Adventure

So, no actual work today. Just chatting and thinking. I gotta make sure I stay fresh in everyone's minds!

Speaking of thinking, I'm having second thoughts on the rocky mountain level. It just seems so....blah. Bland, boring, (insert other words that start with the letter "b"). I think I'll try thinking up a new idea sometime in the next few days.

Yeah....no progress. I figure, however, that I'm talking a bit too much about the facts and am not talking about how the game will be though. I think I tend to ramble about how much progress I've made. What do you think? Post your thoughts.

It's really hard to get motivated to work after a completed demo, but I'll try and get something done within the next few days. The WIKI page is always being updated, so check that out in my sig.

EDIT: And could someone tell me WHY this topic has so many visitors? I can't think of any other topic that I've made over a thousand views!

[1ce]

Re: Josh's Adventure

A bit more progress today. I was chatting in the Mag chat room, so I had some motivation to work.

I'm working on a new level, 3-1 Cliffs. It's a level with lots of highs and lows. It's also the first level to have a hidden level available for the Normal difficulty! I designed the entire level and got all the jumps functional.

Unfortunately, I worked and chatted a little too much, because I have to get to bed. Bedtimes suck! But alas, I'll be back to report more as it develops.

[1ce]

Re: Josh's Adventure

Well, I hit a roadblock with my progress on World 3. I don't know what sort of 'theme' I want to go with. I had planned a rocky mountain, but to be honest, I hate it. It's the color, really, or the lack of it. It's all brown and monotone. I tried making a diverse level, but it didn't come together that well, so I deleted it. So, I'll need to figure out a redirect around this roadblock pretty soon.

Anyway, I did get some work done. I had all the elements and custom graphics set up, and today I made a complete 'death animation'. It's not terribly complicated, but I think it's a unique idea, and it's really good for getting around my limitation of not being able to draw very well.

Originally I had the idea of doing what fufu did, and if you're not familiar with how that works, I'll explain. Basically when Fufu the acid trip bunny dies, he moves back and forth, then disappears into sparkles. I was going to do something similiar, but manipulating a graphic that's so complicated is no easy task. So, I got the bright idea of altering the color scheme. By adjusting the color, I could make Josh look red in the face, and his hair turn from yellow to green, like he suddenly looks really sick. I then made several graphics to make it look progressive. So, at first he doesn't look that bad, but then the redness gradually increases and he looks pretty bad. Then he's warped to the hubworld looking ready for another playthrough.

I love it. It's something creative, different, and original. I'm still rather disappointed I couldn't get this in the demo, but I didn't have enough room. I tested this and refined it in a test room, and now I'm ready to start copying and pasting this to every enemy in the game insofar. The first boss and it's 100 plus enemies wont be fun. But alas! It must be done.

On a completely different note, it looks like the game is currently using two cards of memory. Depending on how many worlds I go, I don't see the game going any more than 4 cards if I stick with four or so worlds. But we'll see.

If you've been keeping up with these little progress updates, thanks for sticking around. Hopefully I'll be able to up the ante pretty soon, and get some more serious work done.

[1ce]

Re: Josh's Adventure

More work! Woohoo!

Actually, it's just me copying and pasting the new death animation to the first world. I got it all done! I intergrated some more unique ideas into it as I went along. Dying at a regular level will send you back to the hubworld with Josh saying something like "Drat, I lost! Better try again.", while dying at a boss will give you a different response.

I also managed to do all 100ish events in the first boss level. Since they're all unique, it's quite boring going through all the events to bring them up to standard. It goes like this; Paste the new code into the event, delete the old stuff, and then copy the new stuff and move on. You gotta copy the new stuff, otherwise when you paste you'll paste what you cut. Pain in the ass? Oh yeah. Hopefully this will be the last time I have to touch the events in this particular level.

A big surprise awaited me as I worked though. I noticed in the boss level that the new code took slighty less memory than the old stuff, even though there was more code to the new stuff. It wasn't a huge difference, mind you, but after it was all said and done, I shaved 200 blocks of scenario data from that level. Perhaps some day someone will determine how much memory individual event commands take up. I totally see someone doing that in the next couple of years.

And as for the new level? I think I have an idea of what I'd like to do. The third world will be based on a tropical island with an active volcano, and the fourth will be in space. Depending on how much scenario and system memory I have left, I'll see if I can squeeze in a co-op mode like I've been wanting to.

The gravy train is starting to roll again, so be prepared for new updates!

[1ce]

Re: Josh's Adventure

Yesterday I worked on the title, and today I plan to do a bit more work.

While half of the work yesterday went to copying and pasting the new death animation in the 2nd world, the other half was developing the third world! I still have no idea what to call it, but I'm probably going to stick with the tropical island theme, with an active volcano thrown in for good measure. I made a new level, 3-1 called Shoreline. As you can guess, it mostly takes place on the shoreline, as you cross the sandy beach and make your way into the volcano for the next level. There are ropes tethered to some trees you have to utilize as well. It's a short level, but there are many enemies. It's nearly done. Monster placement is the only thing I really need for it now, and I can move on.

Oh, and I may have found a huge oversight in the game. On the level 2-4, when putting in the death animations, I realized the enemies didn't do any damage. In fact, their event pages were blank. So they move around, but don't hurt you at all. Quite the mistake. To be honest, I can't remember if I fixed that or not, but I think there's a high possibility that particular mistake is in the demo.

Whoops.

Well, it's not game-breaking at the very least. It has been fixed, needless to say. But then the question: Will you fix it for the demo? Probably not. Like I said, it's not breaking the game, and I don't particulary feel like sending anything more to Lantis for the Magcon; I've done that enough already, trust me.

Something else I've been thinking about is when to upload the public demo. How many days after it appears on the Magcon? One? Two, three, more? I still haven't figured that out. I think the rough idea I've had in my head is two. Tell me what you think.

*ala F-Zero GX*

And that's it everyone! We'll see you at the next progress update!

Quixotic TV.....

Thanks for playing!