[Mattias Gustavsson]

I'll work til I fall asleep at the keyboard tonight :D Not that it will mean I'll actually *finish* it, but I'll get *something* out anyway..
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www.mattiasgustavsson.com - My blog
www.rivtind.com - My Fantasy world and isometric RPG engine
www.pixieuniversity.com - Software 2D Game Engine

[Mattias Gustavsson]

It's been intense, it's been fun :-)

I didn't finish - not even close. But I'm still seriously proud of what I managed to do between friday and now :D

My game can be downloaded (for windows. quite large file I'm afraid) here:

>>> The Jade Figurines<<<

Conrols A, Z, X, and CURSOR KEYS. SPACE to skip dialogs, ESC to exit.
F8 for editor (but it will crash unless you create an empty Data\Levels folder)


I ran out time on this one. There's only one short level and the beginnings of the next one.

Here's some actual screenshots too - but don't just look at them, download the game too and give it a try :-)













I will continue working on this for sure - I want to finish it off.
_________________
www.mattiasgustavsson.com - My blog
www.rivtind.com - My Fantasy world and isometric RPG engine
www.pixieuniversity.com - Software 2D Game Engine

[increpare]

was there anything to do after that second screenshot? (there's a barricade to the right) the dogs were pretty hilarious. i wasn't sure if I was hitting the thieves or if they were dodging from the animation.

:)

neeeeds sound

[BadMrBox]

It looks awesome and I really like the comic book feel. I found the barbarians jump animation to be hilarious :),
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[Mattias Gustavsson]

Nope, it ends right there at the barricade - didn't have time or energy to do any more :P

But I'll continue working on this - want to make it so you can find all three figurines, more enemies, better fighting, sound(!), etc etc. :)

Oh, and thieves aren't dodging, they're being hit - animation is not my stronger side :P
_________________
www.mattiasgustavsson.com - My blog
www.rivtind.com - My Fantasy world and isometric RPG engine
www.pixieuniversity.com - Software 2D Game Engine

[Puddinlover]

Nice visuals!

For some reason it keeps crashing on me after the first building (have winxp)
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Check out my game development on My Programming Blog!

[Mattias Gustavsson]

[Verious]

Mattias, your game looks stunning and runs very smoothly (even inside Virtual PC). I love the graphics and parallax scrolling. The sword indicator works very well to illustrate the path and show when the player can travel in other directions (such as the exit of the first level).

The controls generally work well; however, I found the inability to turn around while the sword is drawn very frustrating.

For example, the dogs are quite fast and often knocked down my character before I could attack, by the time I put away the sword to turn around and chase them, they were long gone. Chasing after them with the sword drawn is futile because the character would run backwards and get hit again when he caught-up and ran into them.

I assume the inability to turn around was a conscious design decision to allow for man-to-man duals; however, I think the game play mechanic could be improved by requiring the user to hold down a key to prevent the character from turning. Perhaps the user could hold down "Z", since the up arrow key already jumps and two identical keys seem redundant.

I don't know if there was supposed to be sound effects or music, but my computer did not play any.

I enjoyed experimenting with the in-game editor; it was neat getting a behind-the-scenes look at how the game engine works.

Are the speech bubbles pre-drawn images or did you create a function to render them on the fly? They really enhance the style of the game.

The Jade Figurines is an outstanding foundation for a really fun game. I look forward to playing the full game!

[Rainer Deyke]

Not a complete game, but an impressive start of one. I really like the comic book speech bubbles, and the use of parallax scrolling is also nice.

I understand that the reason for sword drawing interface is to allow you to step back in combat without turning your back to the enemy. However, I found it awkward in practice, as I often forgot to draw or sheathe the sword, and turning around in combat takes three keystrokes. Maybe a better user interface would be to automatically draw the sword when an enemy appears and automatically sheathe it when the enemy is gone.

[Mattias Gustavsson]

Thanks for the comments guys, great stuff :-) I agree that there's quite a few things to work out, and your feedback will help me a lot with that, so thanks :-)

Some things that might not be obvious: you can run - either by double tapping a cursor key from standing, or by briefly releasing and quickly re-pressing the cursor key while walking. In the same way, you can double-tap to turn when you have sword drawn, or do the release-repress when backing away to turn. The dogs can't be hit - you have to jump over them, and you're not supposed to run fast enough to catch up with them, though it might be possible in the current build due to poor balancing :P But yeah, I do agree that combat needs more work to feel ok

There's neither sound nor music - didn't have time for it :) The speech bubbles are just pre-drawn bitmaps - I'd like a system where text is drawn on them in-engine, but didn't want to risk the time-sink for now. I wouldn't attempt any sorrt of system to automatically draw the actual balloons though - getting them to look right is bloody hard: I got these from blambot (great resource).
_________________
www.mattiasgustavsson.com - My blog
www.rivtind.com - My Fantasy world and isometric RPG engine
www.pixieuniversity.com - Software 2D Game Engine

[DeveloperX]

Wanted to inform you that I was able to run the game under WINE version 1.0

System Specs:
Ubuntu Hardy Heron 8.04 64-bit Linux.
Intel Core2 Duo 2.0Ghz
4GB RAM
512MB GeForce 8600M GS


Great start Mattias!
I cannot wait to play the whole game!
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Principal Software Architect
Rambling Indie Games, LLC

See my professional portfolio

[codeugly]

I laughed when a thief came up to kill me and the guard standing immediately behind me just walked off. Thieves must pay their taxes here. :)

Like the game, love the art. The endless sea of buildings made me feel like I was playing Star Trail again. Looking forward to seeing more. Oh, and yeah, I always twitch on the attack button when I should jump the dog. Once you get sound working maybe give a bark before the dog enters the scene, nothing like a sound that says oh crap to the player.
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As seen on TV
http://www.codeugly.com

[DeveloperX]

[Mattias Gustavsson]

[DeveloperX]

You also get my "seal of approval" Mattias



I want to see you make a full game out of this..its such a damn great start!
_________________
Principal Software Architect
Rambling Indie Games, LLC

See my professional portfolio