Easter surprises

It is time to unveil what I have been working on in the past couple weeks! This project has undergone tremendous design changes and it has been no walk in the park. At last I have played it safe by making a game based on Defend Your Nuts. After all, defense games are still my specialty.

Below are some screenshots. Note that this is an early build:

(typo)

As you can see, you will play as a bunny rabbit with the quest of recovering large magical eggs using up to seven unique weapons and specialty items (walls, other bunnies, etc). Weapons and items are found inside the eggs themselves, which hatch successfully unless the enemies manage to destroy them beforehand.

There will be an optional gore mode, but either way this game is not for young children. I'd like to move away from violence next year.

I still plan to release this free-to-play Flash version for the web, and iOS and Android versions containing premium content. But due to the Easter theme, it will probably be released sometime in March.

In other news, The King's Path has just been announced as Ansca Mobile's App of the Week! I am flattered. Thank you! If any of you would like a free copy, then send me an email and I will give you a free promo code! In the meantime, I am working on putting together a small video to show some of the gameplay, as requested.

Game Kite

I am pleased to announce that The King's Path has been released for iPhone and iPad. Along with this announcement, I will now be doing business under the name Game Kite LLC. The name is short, simple, and meaningful to me because right before I quit my job in April to go independent full-time, my friends and I took a trip to the windy Rehoboth Beach in Delaware to visit the Dogfish Head Pub, where we the spent the next day shopping around in small stores - including a kite shop. It was perfect weather for kite flying. Additionally, we noticed a vendor that sold flying pig sculptures, and coincidentally this all happened the week after I released Pigs Can Fly. Whether or not we saw a squirrel loading up his hiding spot with acorns and bazookas is another question...

The website will evolve over time so what you see is mostly placeholder.

Although there are actually very few advantages of starting a limited liability company as an individual, I figured it would be best to start now than later. It is still just me, taxed personally, which by definition makes me the sole proprietor.

Already I have found a problem with The King's Path. The in-app purchases for the iPad HD version somehow got excluded from the app review process, but it's a minor problem because the actual game is still playable. I plan to release Android versions in January and finish up the current project in the meantime.

The King's Path

At last I can announce that I am submitting the already finished tower-defense game, titled "The King's Path" to the Apple app store today! This means it will be going through a review process for approval, so may be available in one week!

It took some time to transition from an individual membership to company status, and I was never in a rush in the first place. In fact, I am spending the day making some final touches and even polishing and balancing some of the features - which is far easier now that I have taken a break from it. I am also adding achievement support for OpenFeint, and a better ending.

I will be announcing its release soon...

What else is new? I finally got around to releasing Defend Your Nuts on Kongregate, which is currently on the front page, so that's awesome. It has been ranked well on AddictingGames, a more casual site that owns a non-exclusive license for the game. I had to go through Android's legal department to get two versions removed from their app store because the game is intended to be free for the public, not 99 cents.

Also my current Flash and soon to be ported mobile game (see previous entries) went through some very preliminary play-testing. Only three people actually tested it for me, but each person can represent tens of millions of players on the Internet. I concluded that although it is fun, it targets such a narrow audience so I am changing it again.

I am still confident that I can finish this entire project by the end of the year. Already progress is going smoothly. This time, it is a 2D game with left and right controls (no 2.5D depth) and will play as a beat 'em up defense game. Between each round, the player can buy new weapons and items from a selection of 30, and then slay enemies that come from the left and right sides of the screen.

Some weapons have special abilities, like stealing life hearts, stunning enemies temporarily, freezing them, catching them on fire, etc. Part of the inspiration comes from the dueling scene in the classic film Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon, where (avoiding spoilers) one opponent has to keep getting a new weapon because they break easily. The weapons in my game will probably break by limited durability in order to force the player to conserve weapons and buy new ones. It would be uneventful if they could just rush and get the best one for the rest of the battles.

Nearing the end

The project is nearing the end! I expect to reach beta by next week, but I anticipate that there will be a tremendous need to revise features and heroes once I gather some feedback.

All the primary features are finished, including the team layout for hiring and upgrading heroes.

And I decided against some kind of treasure map or aerial view, in favor of a simple network of nodes.

Here is a screenshot of a battle taking place. As a reminder, it is a turn-based game similar to the Disciples series. There are interesting items including grave dust to summon death, a glowing orb that blinds an enemy, and a potion of invisibility that allows a hero to be invulnerable for a couple turns.

(Ignore those two buttons in the top left corner - I use them for debugging).

Already I am thinking about what to work on next.. I plan to revisit Pigs Can Fly to make a worthwhile sequel. Even better, I plan to hire contractors to help me create levels, leaving me to just polish and redo all the art. It may or may not may ship with a level editor because it all depends on how things go.

Big sale on small potions of health!

Progress has really picked up in the past couple weeks. All 18 of the warriors (including spell casters) for the three races are functional and almost all of the interface screens are finished (battle selection, shop, talents, etc).

I would say that this is shaping up to be roughly the same amount of work as the previous game, but on the contrary, is turning out to be much easier because it's the second time around and follows a similar formula.

As you can see, there are six different talents that the player can take advantage of (tokens are earned by finishing battles). Money can be earned to buy items in the shop and revive fallen warriors. Items are unlocked over time so the player is not bombarded by too much content up front. None of this is final, but should serve as an indication of how this project is turning out.

Dancing in design land

Well, I must have changed the genre of the game at least half a dozen times, over the past few weeks. It has been a very rewarding experience, to say the least.

This game started under the beat 'em up genre, where the player has complete control of just one character. It was functional, but I had so much trouble getting the game to feel compelling, intuitive, and less repetitive. Plus, balancing the game was a serious issue, so I allowed the game to evolve into a different genre.

I realized that with my 18 characters, I was able to group them into three teams based on appearance: humans, undead, and the cursed. It was entirely coincidental. There are over 20 weapons, so each character gets their own. The game is now turn based, and the following screenshot should give insight as to how it will play:

I'll hold off on explaining any of the rules, because as usual, a lot of this is subject to change. But to get an idea, just watch some videos of Disciples II.

Probably the free-to-play web version will only feature one race to choose from, and the mobile app will have the other two. Plus I can create some ridiculous weapons as additional content - a large trout anyone? How about a rolling pin or an oversized teddy bear?

By the way, the previous tower-defense game is going to be available in the next couple months. It is 100% finished, but my Apple developer account is undergoing an upgrade so I cannot submit anything until it is ready.

Art update

Progress on the new project is going very well. I am cranking out characters and environments while planning the story. I want at least six more characters. Currently there are 18 weapons, but that will go up to 30 once I begin to paint the crossbows. It sounds like a lot, but each weapon is categorized for a particular animation set, so no additional work needs to be done. The backgrounds are overlayed with a dirty texture. There is a visible seam down the center of each environment, but it will be fixed.

The two unarmed characters and the jester are friendly townsfolk.

Next comes the fun frame-by-frame special effects for spells, such as fireballs and explosions. I found this inspirational article that describes the basics.