The Next Penelope (2D F-Zero / Ulysses 31)

I got TNP bundled with the latest weekly HumbleBundle deal - it's excellent! It reminds me of those 2d top-down Amiga racers. Fun to play. And the graphics are butter smooth on my machine.

Nicely done - 8.5 out of 10 from me. Rather humbling to see one man, Aurélien Regard, do all of that on his own. The art style fits the game wonderfully well.

Btw, the third level kept repeating "final lap" the first time I played. Second time around, it worked.

A question for the developer: I noticed many of the PNG files are not very well optimized in the final version, causing the in-game graphics to be often up to three times larger than necessary (visually). Any reason for this? Time constraints?

Also, the static backgrounds are saved as 256 colour versions, which suffer from a lot of dithering, which leaves me to wonder why high quality jpg files at much reduced file sizes were not used instead?

Thank you for your hard work. I am really enjoying playing the game.

Humble bundle deal with The Next Penelope is still available for 11 hours!

Hurry before time runs out!

https://www.humblebundle.com/weekly

Hey check out what i got today!!!!

Yeah i already got the game on Steam, but just wanted the box version because....is there even a reason to explain???

Looks like a great game, good luck

hey, can I ask about the status on The Next Penelope on Wii U? I don't beleive there's been an update for some time

[quote:2cv4orgp](I'll be the most transparent I can, please read until the end if you have a bit of time. Also, please excuse my experimental English, I wish I could be more subtle with words now)

Is Penelope cancelled on WiiU?

Sadly yes (not my decision, coming from the company who proposed to port the game and invested months and money in it).

Even if the game is a very small one, being made using html5 and pushing it hard definitely makes it nearly impossible to port on consoles without recoding everything from scratch (= more expensive than the money a niche game like mine could ever bring back).

That's the 3rd very capable company to throw in the towel after investing in this project ("3.5th" if you count my own attempt during the first year using the official Nintendo html5 framework).

These news made me super s(/m)ad, but I know they're very good people and sincerely tried their best.

From here, I since have done everything I could to find other solutions, even with the WiiU now being discontinued ( < hint: this doesn't help to find new partners).

In my mind, the game was made for a Nintendo console from the beginning, so... well, you get the idea. It's not pleasant.

I also would like to add how people at Nintendo Europe have been supportive and helpful with me.

It sounds like PR bs? It's not. Having the feeling you're talking to (good) humans is very much appreciated, rare, and they rock at this. (Guys, if you're reading this at some point, me and my clunky English are very grateful for your time!)

Now, some other brave/cuckoo/masochists friends of mine are trying to port Penelope to the Switch, but nothing sure yet.

It could be as technically difficult and never happen, so please don't hold your breath on this (I hold mine but shhh).

This is absolutely *not* an announcement or something. I so learned my lesson here, let's not announce anything until it's 100% finished now.

Speaking of lessons, the new game I'm working on for more than one year now is made using Unity, so this situation never happens again.

(http://wccftech.com/unity-nintendo-swit ... mario-run/)

I can't wait to show some fresh stuff in the coming months so we can share some more joyful news : )

Cheers, and thanks a lot for caring!

Aurelien.

oh dear........

[quote:3t5it9ar]Even if the game is a very small one, being made using html5 and pushing it hard definitely makes it nearly impossible to port on consoles without recoding everything from scratch (= more expensive than the money a niche game like mine could ever bring back).

This is why i keep....ugh.....oh well....

I got me a Nintendo Switch and played this on there. Runs great!

http://www.seaven-studio.com/bringing-t ... to-switch/

Cool article, perhaps there is hope for bring C2/C3 to the Switch after all!

Cool article, perhaps there is hope for bring C2/C3 to the Switch after all!

Except...it's not really C2/C3. Scirra doesn't seem very interested/capable in making their engine run on consoles. As it stands, we still depend on third-party plugins like Steam4C2 to provide desktop games with the features people expect to be supported on the largest PC game store, let alone consoles designed and optimized to run games specifically.

Read between the lines, they hacked the TNP source files.

Try loading some of the cap files into an editor some time to see what's really going on.

Construct is mostly an xml editor, a pretty darn good one at that, but the real magic happens in the runtime. Which is what they chose to dedicate their time to, rather than have some half assed attempts at making it work on other platforms like all the other so called cross platform exporters. Sure it's html5, but its the only one that gets it right.

Read between the lines, they hacked the TNP source files.

Try loading some of the cap files into an editor some time to see what's really going on.

Construct is mostly an xml editor, a pretty darn good one at that, but the real magic happens in the runtime. Which is what they chose to dedicate their time to, rather than have some half assed attempts at making it work on other platforms like all the other so called cross platform exporters. Sure it's html5, but its the only one that gets it right.

What flavor *is* that kool-aid, I wonder?

I dunno about you, buy I make games to sell them, and I want to sell them in as many places as possible where people buy the kind of games I make. Construct seems to actively prevent that, despite repeated mentions - for years, now - of plans to support other platforms, as well as the features people who buy games expect on those platforms. End of story. Not everyone wants to make knockoff games built on purchased templates in a misguided attempt to generate money through mobile ads.

Anyways. Good on Aurelien for finding a way to bring his (pretty awesome) game to other platforms. Shame it had to be achieved in such a time-consuming, roundabout way, due to the misleading claims of the original engine's creators. Live and learn I suppose.

What flavor *is* that kool-aid, I wonder?

I dunno about you, buy I make games to sell them, and I want to sell them in as many places as possible where people buy the kind of games I make. Construct seems to actively prevent that, despite repeated mentions - for years, now - of plans to support other platforms, as well as the features people who buy games expect on those platforms. End of story. Not everyone wants to make knockoff games built on purchased templates in a misguided attempt to generate money through mobile ads.

Anyways. Good on Aurelien for finding a way to bring his (pretty awesome) game to other platforms. Shame it had to be achieved in such a time-consuming, roundabout way, due to the misleading claims of the original engine's creators. Live and learn I suppose.

Same flavor as yours, except no p**.

The fact that this can be possible in some form is still a good thing.

With that said, i'm actually enjoying it more on the Switch than i did on the PC. The ability to play it on a portable device does make a difference.