Elysian Shadows

k1net1k wrote:I don't know whats considered good, but that seems like a good trial > sale conversion rate

sales aren't posted but there is a thread that a ton of people put their sales on. I would say the average is about 5-10%, but a TON of games have little to no content in them so its not too surprising. Comparing to other games in the top rated, their rate is about 30-50%, and i think fortress craft (who has sold over 500,000 copies at $3 each) is about 60%.

Thanks EDuck

Light-Dark wrote:When i renew my xbox live gold and get some more microsoft points im definetly buying this, its wonderful to see how this game has evolved!

i prob have a few codes left ill send you one, just PM me as a reminder. TCR comes first, it's the reason i became interested in game dev

Congrats on the sales, pretty good for the first outing.

Regarding the gamescore tracking app, can you port it to WP and release it free? It seems it would be better as a driver to your undead game/ads than a sales force itself.

Nice doc btw, especially impressed with the tracking of dev estimates/actual dev time. I don't think most people want to have that written down where they can actually see it.

Happy to announce that our kickstarter project has reached it's goal today! So expect to see it on PC this year!

Hopefully working things out with steam to get it on Steam as well , which would be awesome. Thank you so much to anyone that donated, and am excited to add some new stuff to it.

check it out: 100% wooo!! so exciting
http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/big ... hooter-pca

i like how the link shortener modified the end of that link

EdBoon wrote: http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/big ... hooter-pca

i like how the link shortener modified the end of that link

Lmfao!

I love PC ports yaaaay :D

Hi again, it's been a while since my last update but the summer has been extremely busy for me. Work has been crazy and have had to travel a few times, along with a bunch of other things that have come up. I still am working on the PC port and the expansion to Undead Empire. I've decided to work on some new material with the port so it isnt the exact same game. I decided to add a couple weapons, new enemies, new bosses, and new environmental effects. I'm hoping to get through it in the next 2 months.

Going back I cannot believe how horrible the coding is in this game. It's amazing how much different my coding is through just a couple of projects. It will be interesting to look back at what i think is good structure in my newer beer pong kinect project in a few years.

Hopefully I will get back to getting some new content on here every week or so to keep me on track and motivated.

Here are a few assets from the new project:

Hey man, awesome to see you still going at it. That portrait is fantastic.

Thanks dandy.

I am trying to put together some new maps for my game and have a few questions and requests for advice from you guys, first here is some of the tiles laid out in my map editor:



(there are a few tiles missing, like the 3 corner lava tile)

First my concerns:
1. The column tile does not look right against the floor. The tiles are each 64x64 and the characters are about the same size too in that looks weird while standing next to it. I think it looks out of place almost like a pickup item. i think i might try and make the top of the column a different angle so it looks more flat, making the far side much wider. Also i may try to make it 4x bigger to cover 4 tiles, maybe it will look more of a pillar then. Any suggestions? it seems hard to do on a top down view game.

2. I find it hard to think of objects to make the environment more exciting and believable. I am a programmer (contracting art out) so it is important that I come up with detailed lists of assets that I need, but I find it difficult to be creative with stuff like random items you would find in a dungeon, for example. Also it is important that it be the least amount of tiles possible to reduce cost. I realize random items will be extra tiles, but am looking for creative ideas maybe to mix and match things around the room to cut down on the tile count. Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

3. There are a few torches on the map which are hard to see, i have asked the artist to try and put a white outline on them so they are more visible, but i think it may look out of place being the only object with a white outline. Are there any other ways to contrast it from the floor better?

ideas:
4. I was thinking of adding a layer on top of all the game objects for ceiling objects, like dungeon style chandeliers, etc.. I think it will look odd if it moves around at the same rate as the floor does on screen scrolling, so I would have to add a scale to the movement so it looks like it is closer to the viewer. Do you think it would add to the environment? or do you think it would just be annoying to the player to have something in the way? I could also add transparency while the player is below the objects if that would help. good idea or nax?

Also, you might be able to tell on my excellent map layout design from above, but my map layout skills are terrible. If anyone is interested or talented in map layout/design i would be willing to throw some money into cool designs for levels, but that may be better placed in help wanted.

Any suggestions/criticism is appreciated, trying to work on my level design as i think it was a weak point in my original release of Undead Empire. The new changes dealing with environment will be environmental damage (lava) and map animations (like the torch).

Thanks guys,

I think the issue is more with the floor. It's fairly busy and initially looked like a wall to me for some reason. And the reapeating pattern is a bit too obvious IMO.

The lava transition is a bit too stark/sharp edged. It needs a drop shadow or something similar.

Agreed on the columns, the white outlines make them look like a pickup or something. And I think they're a bit small for columns at that. I would say anything thats sticking up should be at least 1 character height beyond its collidable (So you could fit a player behind it basically). Ahh, nm, I see you're doing strict top down. In that case I'd yank the column, I don't think its going to work without some kind of perspective on it..

Torches look like they're hanging, although that might go back to my initial impression of the floor as a wall.

I wouldn't worry as much about ceiling stuff. Based on the gameplay it'll just be noise most likely.

teamtwentythree wrote:I think the issue is more with the floor. It's fairly busy and initially looked like a wall to me for some reason. And the reapeating pattern is a bit too obvious IMO.

The lava transition is a bit too stark/sharp edged. It needs a drop shadow or something similar.

Agreed on the columns, the white outlines make them look like a pickup or something. And I think they're a bit small for columns at that. I would say anything thats sticking up should be at least 1 character height beyond its collidable (So you could fit a player behind it basically). Ahh, nm, I see you're doing strict top down. In that case I'd yank the column, I don't think its going to work without some kind of perspective on it..

Torches look like they're hanging, although that might go back to my initial impression of the floor as a wall.

I wouldn't worry as much about ceiling stuff. Based on the gameplay it'll just be noise most likely.

thanks for the input (a little late on the reply, my bad) i've been doing a lot of work trying to get the top down to work and still create an environment beyond floor tiles, tough to do. i did yank the columns, just didn't work. I created a glow created from the lava to smooth out the transition between tile floor and lava, i think it looks much better, and added some animation in the lava to add some life to it.

Also added a freeze gun and fireball gun, really liking the freeze gun, really helps when transitioning around the map or picking up pickups. i have some housekeeping to do but most of the implementations are done and i need to clean up the online multiplayer a bit then add PC UI and input then i should be good to go.

Decided to go a different route on the art and got some new assets in. I think the new tiles tie in well with the character animations and the overall feel for a fire dungeon setting:


I've got almost all my assets in and also thought it would be cool to have cutscenes in the game, something I have wanted to do for a while. I plan to have 3 cutscenes, 1 before the main menu which outlines what happened in the previous game (this is the expansion), 1 when you play a new game which transitions from the first video walking down into the dungeon to the dungeon maps, and a final one after beating the end boss.

I have the first cutscene done already, i think he did a pretty good job on it:


I have the maps completed and am just working on balancing the levels, cash to enemy ratio, etc. so HOPING to have it out in the next 2 or 3 weeks since i finally have some time free from work with the holiday vacation time.

I also tried to put it up on Steam Greenlight, but didn't seem to be getting much positive feedback on the art thus changing directions on the tiles, probably resubmit sometime soon.

Woah! That looks INFINITELY better than the previous screenshot! Excellent work man, I'm loving how this is turning out. If you post it on Greenlight please link us so we can all support you.

Thanks Dandy,

I am pretty much finished up with the game. I might try to optimize the online multiplayer a little bit more and put all the assets into an array instead of creating new objects for each new enemy and each new projectile. This will help with the garbage collection hiccups you commonly see in xna titles due to how the GC functions. I should have done this from the start, but then again I should have done a lot of things differently, remember this was my first game program.

I decided to go another route for the cover art and ask a guy on my hockey team to do it this time. He is super talented and am excited to see what the final product will look like. it will be similar to his work on www.ambrosehh.com

here is a concept draft he sent me, I wanted to make sure that this time there was a turret on the cover considering its a major part of the gameplay:



Oh yeah, and Happy New Year

Stencil before painting the cover:


or much more detailed version: http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8053/8379 ... fdc7_k.jpg

Absolutely love it.