new alpha version download

here is a new alpha-version for you to try.
=link discontinued=
http://dl.getdropbox.com/u/44618/cracklepop_alpha_0.115.rar

fyi: please use spacebar to jump
as there is a known issue where the mouse button doesn't work all the time.

known issue 2: you get stuck occasionally. hit escape, then restart.. hopefully I'll fix this soon.

patch-notes:
I noticed some problems with play-control and have since change the way you move in the following ways:

1.No more charging to jump. Now you will intantaniously be jumped according to the lengh of the vector (how far your mouse is from the ball). I noticed a problem with the charging, and releaseing. Since you always wanted to be able to react quickly to a bounce you would charge up a jump. Often this would cause you to have too much force when you only needed a small jump. Now you can jump with any force and direction you want at a moments notice making the game more enjoyabe due to better play-control.

2. Graphics. I added some pretty particle effects. Some just to be purty.. and others to be functional. For instance you will notice that when a jump is available you will see the ball lights up. This gives you a visual clue that makes it easier to know when you can jump.

3. Limited jump-spamming. There was a bug where a player could keep hitting the space bar over and over again to fly around the level.. that's since been smashed.

pre-alpha demo download!

demo download:

=link discontinued= https://dl.getdropbox.com/u/44618/cracklepop_alpha_0.112.rar

Don't expect too much, but I have a demo level compiled. Lots of work to do still. Let me know if you have any good ideas on inprovements.
cheers!
-nic

ps. Here's the time to beat: 16.3 seconds! Remember, getting stars rapidly gives you combos which increases your time.. each star only gives you 1/10th of a second normally.

demo level

New video. Demo level. I'll see if I can post the level. Please give me some feedback and tell me what you think, and any suggestions to improve gameplay. If your feeling competitive you can try to beat my score in the video.. 10.1 second. Getting stars shaves off 1/10th of a second. Getting combos greatly increases subsequent time increases from stars. For instance your 21st star gives you half a second added to your time.

note: theres still a sticky but.. reset the level if you get stuck!

collision problem continued, and a new feel

I want to discuss 2 things.

First, what the heck is going on with this collision problem! It seems to be the most problematic when it's hitting a slight slope. Anyone have a solution to this buggy behaviour??

Secondly, what do you think about the new size of my guy. He certainly looks more intersteller-orby.. which is kind of the way I'm trying to work in now. I also increased his size to make it easier to see what he looks like in normal play, and changes some of his behaviour. Let me know if you think it's a good or bad move and why. Heres the vid:

Collision problem, help I'm stuck in the sand!

I've been having recurring collision problems from the very beginning of development. It seems that somehow the collision system gets confused and places my toon slightly inside the object it has collided with.. then it stops accepting any response from it. It's very possible that I am screwing this up by the way I am setting up my physics/collision model. I'm going to bring it up in a thread with some folks over at GG and see what they say. Here's a video showing my problem. It also shows off how I now use extensive overlapping collision boxes to work around the "only concave" collision box limitation.
-nic


details of my physics and collision rollout:

parallaxing demo

I made a little 2 minute video of my unfinished island level to show some of the new parallaxing functionality. Expect to see some terribly jumps, some crappy textures, and the end of the map a couple of times.. also look for the unintentional falic island at the end. Anyways enjoy. Please leave comments if you have them.

hand drawn levels

I decided to stop pixel-monkeying around and grab my wacom tablet and doodle up some levels. That way things look like they gel a little better even if I'm a terrible artist. Here are some preliminary pics:

slopes in TGB

here's how it looks in game (sort of)

You cannot create concave collision shapes in TGB. This means that you can't technically make a pretty slope or hole or anything in any of your levels. Well, that's not entirely true. You can fudge it pretty well. I have a picture with collision boxes turned on so you can see the slope the way it was created, and now it looks afterwards.
While this works pretty well, there seems to be a probem with getting stuck in certain places in the game. You get glued to the floor, never to move again. It's kind of a bummer, and I've noticed it happens more if you stick a bunch of shapes next to each other like I have done here. I have seen some people complaining about this kind of thing on the forum, so hopefully they figure out how to fix it so I don't have to "hack" a fix in.

picture highlighting the curve construction:

working on a combo system.

task list

accomplishments short list:

[to do]
create score board
create basic restart/quit menu
enhance combo graphics
add sound for charging jump
add collision sound

add splash sound for water (wait for patch)
add bubbles for underwater (wait for patch)


[done]
done - add incrementing pitch, combo sound.
done - add floating chain text
done - Limit charges
done - Show Charge Arrow
done - Camera view zoom
done - limit power
done - make an initial level
done - change ball color when jump is available
done - create timer with best time on it
done - add death trigger for out of bounds
done - cap zoom level far/near
done - new level - done
done - water splash (done but bugged in the current engine version: 7.2.3)
done - add stars to collect
done - add coin sound (took forever because I didn't know I had to reload env to get sounds to play)
done - fix coin problem (adding too many when level restarts)
done - collect coins to win (done bet triggers are broken in current envine version)
done - chain combo code

New level. I am playing with different kinds of levels. I added a "splash" when falling into the water but the trigger seems to only work once... something I'm working on (edit: this is a known problem in the new version of TGB 1.7.3). In any case this level has a little more scenery. I'm still looking for an artist to work with to help me hash out some of these levels. Enjoy!
-nic

ps, this video has my collision boxes turned on which gives it that yellowish outlines to all my primitives.



image showing the whole level:

First demo level and (small) gameplay movie!

Here is a picture showing a view of the first demo level in the editor. I threw it together in a couple hours.

















Here is a Video of first level. This level is actually pretty hard. Take a look at some preliminary gameplay.

Initial images from my latest project.

about latest game

I just started on a new project. I set aside 4 hours to make a super simple game. The idea was to have a one-button game. I would have a wheel that would roll around. There would be a rocket attached to the wheel that would release a burst of energy when you pused the space bar. The idea was that by simply timing your jumps with the rotation of the wheel you could move around. The problem is durring play testing the game just wasn't fun. Simple tasks were too hard, and the wheel would get spinning too fast and make it almost impossible to really time things correctly. I could reduce the friction making the wheel turn slower, but then you would often be waiting too long for the wheel to come back around to direct your next jump; Also it made the physics look akward. If I wasn't using a physics engine, you could probably do a better job of making it fun by making it more like a puzzle game, but it just wasn't working out.

controls

I decided to start over-complicating things right off the bat by adding directional "jumping" by using the space bar, to jump towards the mouse. This is an intuitive way to move around and using the mouse give you very fine-grained contol over your direction. To make things interesting, I disable jumping again until you collide with something. This allows you to still chain jumps, but keeps you from doing too much in-air maneuvering.
By holding down the spacebar you will see an arrow pointing towards your mouse, filling up indicating how much power you have stored up. Upon releasing the space bar you will be hurled forth!




























gameplay

You can beat levels by ether completing it in a certain ammount of time, or a minimal ammount of jumps. Either way will win the level, but you will have to earn a bronze in either one to progress. You will also be rewarded for completing levels in both ways and by getting gold medals for exceptional efforts. There will be many natural obsticals to overcome as well as bad guys to avoid. As the game progresses you will get powerups to handle these situations including lazer-guns and rocket launchers.