Billy Bleeks's Forum Posts

  • Here is a sneak peek of the caves in GunnSwitch. The Player graphic is still prototype and will look better soon when our artist is finished.

  • We tested a GunnSwitch export streamed from PC to mobile, we used a Bluetooth controller to play it. It looked so good on the small screen and ran smoothly. Tested it on a 42 inch TV as well and it looks nice and clean at 1080 resolution, even when we zoom in (scale) everything is looking good.

    The light rays you see in the screenshots have been upgraded using some Sine language...get it? cough cough...anyways, bad jokes aside, using Sine to change the size and movement with some rays having different period offsets is creating a wonderful effect that can only really be appreciated in video or live...screenshots dont do it justice. Everytime we do a tweaking/polishing phase, which there are multiple passes, the game starts to take shape and come alive.

    I'll try to put together an animated gif to show off the lighting, I dont like to show stuff this early as things are still evolving but I also want good documentation of the changes we make through the dev process...oh well! Happy gaming!

  • We are officially out of the prototype stage for the most part! There will be ongoing tests as we delve further into development but the core foundation for the game play systems and structure is pretty solid already. Feels good to play and the controls are tight, the game is unique and blends some awesome games like Metroid, Megaman, Blaster Master and Metal Slug into something new with a deeper narrative than those games.

    I'm beginning to think about testing 2 player local Coop modes and local battles and eventually have an online mode that's fully featured with customization, boss rush, challenges and 4 player + battles. Probably will be released as free DLC a few months after the release of GunnSwitch.

    I cant wait to have some of you play it in the new year and test it out. We want to showcase what Construct 2 can do, our goal is using physics, effects, particles,scaling and smooth camera panning, multiple paralaxing layers, 1080 HD graphics, and more all running at 60 fps on middle end PCs and up.

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  • Great news, was worried about a bit of stuttering on the start of my layout when previewing my project on C2. When I exported it to NWS the game had no stuttering at all and was running a smooth 60 FPS. This means I have room to play with more particles and effects.

  • Growing up I was an avid video game magazine reader/collector as that was the best way to get new info on games before the internet. I loved when strategy guides in the magazines would piece together screenshots to show the whole layout of a stage map on a page or two. This screenshot reminds me of those spreads, this is the cave map layout so far:

  • Small Update:

    First pic is of the newly added green mushrooms and the new crate sprites.

    Second pic is a hint at a cool mechanic in the game.

  • Here is a new tilemap for the cave we are testing:

  • As development continues we find ourselves going back and tweaking or even changing the logic, the artwork, mechanics and refining them. Its rare when you get everything perfect on the first try. Learning to use tile sets in imaginative ways and making everything line up is challenging but we're getting our heads around it. Tile sets are efficient for keeping the object count down but are also awesome for putting levels together quickly.

  • Here is a look at a couple of concept animations of the character Gunn that you control in the game.

    We are using 8 frames of animation for the run, later on we may double that to 16 frames if the game can handle it after everything is in place when we during our polishing phase.

  • Here are a couple more sneak peeks into the prototype. Graphics are mostly placeholder.

    First is a look at an action stage.

    Here we have a look at Gunn, the main character. This is only a test graphic for the character but gives a good idea of how Gunn will look.

  • You always hear that prototyping your game is important before going into full development of your game all the time in game dev circles. Nintendo comes up with their brilliant game play mechanics through their constant prototyping of ideas. Usually I will prototype the initial idea for a game and once that works I then just run with it. With this project I've gotten over the need to rush in and now am taking my time to learn and understand what I'm doing and what I want to accomplish before starting to deep dive into development. I've been prototyping ideas and game mechanics for GunnSwitch for a year now and its amazing how much smoother the development of the game goes when you build a strong foundation through prototyping and writing out ideas. Along with prototyping I write in my note pad, drawing out ideas and game mechanics as they come to me and plan the story. I also write the character bios, world areas, Hud ideas, menu systems, enemies and spawn ideas and more. I have a full notepad that I refer to as I go as well as when I have extra time I compile that information into a game design document that I share with my brother the artist on the game. Another part of the prototyping experience is going back over the game mechanics and refining them and adding and taking away from them as needed. Making smaller games before this project I also learned many new skills with each project that are all contributing to the fluidity of making GunnSwitch. Happy game making friends.

  • Along the way randomly I will try to drop some tips I learn through development. I am learning and using families effectively, functions, lerp scaling and lerp camera movement. Also enemy spawning and AI, using tile sets, lighting, particles, physics and a lot of optimization tricks to share and more. Right now in the process of getting rid of very small and short frame drops during lerp scaling and at the beginning of a layout. After a few seconds of the start of a layout the game runs perfectly at 60 frames per second and is better once its exported to PC. More soon, cheers.

  • Here are a couple concept art pieces to give you an idea of what we are going for:

    Crystal Caves Concept

    Rebel Base Concept

  • GunnSwitch is coming along nicely, many of the games systems and game play features are already implemented and working just as we imagined. Development and testing the prototype has surprised us with the depth of new game play ideas that come about as we get further into development. Here are two very early screenshots of the prototype, testing some lighting and particle effects. Most of the art in the screenshots are just placeholder while our artist works on making Anime/Heavy Metal Comics stylized graphics and animations. The tank is hte only artwork in the screenshots that will be in the game and is still being polished. More updates to come soon.

  • We are making steady progress refining our game systems and trying to perfect the little things before finishing the levels.

    Our plan is to release a half hour long demo with four playable sections sometime next year following it up with some attempts at crowd funding on KickStarter or other platforms. The demo will feature two small exploration areas and two action stages.

    We will be sharing some game assets sometime soon, these won't be final versions but will give you an idea of the art style and look of the tank. This project is shaping up nicely with lots of game play abilities and variation.