Me and a mate have been hard at work for about a year on our first independent game, it has now finally hit steam so I'm hoping to drum up some interest
The game is a rather unique combination of puzzle / racing. You guide a ship without any direct means of propelling itself, exploiting gravity and various entities scattered throughout the levels. It's light on story but heavy on gameplay. It gets rather challenging after a while, but I take it that's nothing negative for the TL crowd :D
From the trailer, it looks amazing. I would buy it right away but short on money for now. Any chance of a demo going up? Would buy it right away if I ended up liking it .
We'll try to focus on creating a neat little demo as soon as we get a little time over, sadly it will probably be a few weeks until it's available, but it's certainly on the to do list
On October 26 2010 22:59 Adeeler wrote: Game looks nice, reminds me of mario/sonic art for some reason.
How hard is it to get a game on steam? How much of a cut do they take? Can you release games in any programming language?
We had a contact that helped us. I do think if you have something neat to show they'll be happy to evaluate it. Overall most places require you to have something playable to show, and preferably one should have a video / screen shots to show straight up. I reckon most get sent a whole slew of games / concepts every day so something which requires a low time investment to get them interested is overall king, this goes when sending things to publishers as well, most people won't go through complex installation procedures or download executables from untrusted sources.
Sadly I can't disclose their cut as our agreement is under NDA.
Any programming language goes AFAIK. I know for a fact that there's a few XNA games on steam for example.
On October 26 2010 23:22 Liquid`Jinro wrote: Looks very nice, Im buying it as soon as steam stops giving me error messages ^^
Awesome, looking forward to your impressions of it :D
Congratulations on your release. The video looks very good, nice pace and visuals and gives an idea about the gameplay. Good luck with the sales, hopefully worth of mouth will be kind to you (p.s. I hate contract nda's)
Excellent job Sairon! This game is incredible. Reminds me a lot of Elasto Mania, challenging to complete the levels but it's a whole different ball game if you try to get some good times. Congratulations you guys should really be proud of yourselves!
So glad i purchased this, have been playing non stop for the last 3 days. Managed to get the high score for level 5-2 Made a little video sort of as a guide to get that speed run achievement: :
It's not off the wall revolutionary but it's pretty fresh and fun. It's a solid game mechanic and the levels are very well designed.
Art is a little sparse and that's too bad. The environments and music are too simple to keep interest.
There's $100m budget games that aren't fun to play *cough*All Points Bulletin*cough* but this is fun. At a fundamental level this game is a success. On the other side I liked VVVVVV a whole lot more as far as indie puzzle platformers go (If you allow me to call it that). If you liked nimbus definitely try VVVVVV.
On November 01 2010 21:06 Fyodor wrote: It's not off the wall revolutionary but it's pretty fresh and fun. It's a solid game mechanic and the levels are very well designed.
Art is a little sparse and that's too bad. The environments and music are too simple to keep interest.
There's $100m budget games that aren't fun to play *cough*All Points Bulletin*cough* but this is fun. At a fundamental level this game is a success. On the other side I liked VVVVVV a whole lot more as far as indie puzzle platformers go (If you allow me to call it that). If you liked nimbus definitely try VVVVVV.
So you came to this guys thread promoting his new game.. to promote a different game?
I will pick this up as soon as I have some money to throw around, bookmarked!
On November 01 2010 21:06 Fyodor wrote: It's not off the wall revolutionary but it's pretty fresh and fun. It's a solid game mechanic and the levels are very well designed.
Art is a little sparse and that's too bad. The environments and music are too simple to keep interest.
There's $100m budget games that aren't fun to play *cough*All Points Bulletin*cough* but this is fun. At a fundamental level this game is a success. On the other side I liked VVVVVV a whole lot more as far as indie puzzle platformers go (If you allow me to call it that). If you liked nimbus definitely try VVVVVV.
How can you criticize art for being sparse on Nimbus, then try to promote VVVVVV? I'm not hating on VVVVVV, but to say that someone who liked Nimbus is going to like VVVVVV is pretty asinine, since they hardly share any concepts except the camera view.
In Nimbus you are flying bullet thing that is racing through levels by hitting speed boosters and ricocheting off walls to get to the finish. In VVVVVV you are a little dude that is running around an open world with the ability to flip upside down in order to maneuver through puzzles to find some other missing dudes.
On November 01 2010 18:51 IzzyNZ wrote: So glad i purchased this, have been playing non stop for the last 3 days. Managed to get the high score for level 5-2
Just beat it by a sec I've been playing this way more than I expected, too. Well worth the money.
Edit: Woah, your route was much better than my initial one. Did a clean run with the new one and shaved two more seconds off.
Hmm, can't seem to get any better than 19 secs. The timing system for this game is a bit weird, it seems you have to have a constant 60fps otherwise the game will slow down but the timer still keeps ticking by at normal pace.
Well, I didn't exactly copy everything from your video, just they key order. There are a few more places where you can get significant savings. I've recorded my current best as well, will consider getting it up somewhere tomorrow. done
And yeah, your speed is affected by framerate. This is very noticeable if you limit your fps and not ideal for speedrunning. Apparently Sairon was about to do some testing to see if changing this is feasible.
On November 01 2010 21:06 Fyodor wrote: It's not off the wall revolutionary but it's pretty fresh and fun. It's a solid game mechanic and the levels are very well designed.
Art is a little sparse and that's too bad. The environments and music are too simple to keep interest.
There's $100m budget games that aren't fun to play *cough*All Points Bulletin*cough* but this is fun. At a fundamental level this game is a success. On the other side I liked VVVVVV a whole lot more as far as indie puzzle platformers go (If you allow me to call it that). If you liked nimbus definitely try VVVVVV.
How can you criticize art for being sparse on Nimbus, then try to promote VVVVVV? I'm not hating on VVVVVV, but to say that someone who liked Nimbus is going to like VVVVVV is pretty asinine, since they hardly share any concepts except the camera view.
In Nimbus you are flying bullet thing that is racing through levels by hitting speed boosters and ricocheting off walls to get to the finish. In VVVVVV you are a little dude that is running around an open world with the ability to flip upside down in order to maneuver through puzzles to find some other missing dudes.
It's fair to call me out on the art thing, art isn't abundant in VVVVVV either. But I have to defend that these two games are very similar. In VVVVVV a lot of the obstacles are done in a free-fall while bouncing around (especially in the later stages). Which is what you do in Nimbus too.
There is SOME aspect of adventure in VVVVVV but when you look at it, the different stage/levels are fairly linear and the open parts aren't very interesting.
this is a great game. Only thing I wish for is some sort of multiplayer, perhaps in the same style as trackmania, where players get like 5 minutes to get the best possible time. I find myself loving the racing aspect, constantly trying to beat my friends.
The puzzles are also really cool and refreshing, plenty of fun solutions
Thanks you drunkonjudgement, we're really happy you guys liked the game, we're really proud of the 5 / 5 beers score!
And a big thanks to everyone who's bought the game!
It's pretty interesting because just today we talked at the office about how the heck xantatos & delvin could get so damn fast times on that level, as the guy who designed it thought the 30 second time attack achievement on it was pretty hard.
We've talked about getting some multiplayer & ghost added to the game as a free add on, as that was the plan before we started to run out of cash, sadly it had to be cut for the release. We have a patch going internally which will fix a few issues found so far, and get some better controller support added as well. We'll hopefully be able to have it tested and ready before the end of the week.
I just purchased this and have gotten through quite a few levels already. The game is very addicting and some of the levels so far seem quite tricky and I feel there is a ton of replability trying to shave precious seconds off for a run through. It's so satisfying to finally put together that one perfect run..only to realize that you still have room for improvement. So far I've only gotten through to about level 3-6...but I can safely recommend this game to anyone as it's easily worth it's value of only $10.
I can't seem to crack the top 10 yet on any of these levels...I'm hoping fps issues aren't preventing me from reaching that .
Has anyone gotten all the stars yet? I've been working on it and have 48 so far but there are a few levels I can't seem to unlock. Has anyone been able to complete the easiest secret goal in the game (really!?!?) yet? This can be found on level 4-1. Is there a more active forum for this game? I completely love this game and am hopelessly addicted .
On November 05 2010 08:12 Bairemuth wrote: Has anyone gotten all the stars yet? I've been working on it and have 48 so far but there are a few levels I can't seem to unlock. Has anyone been able to complete the easiest secret goal in the game (really!?!?) yet? This can be found on level 4-1. Is there a more active forum for this game? I completely love this game and am hopelessly addicted .
We don't have a demo yet, and an out of steam version is on the horizon, but I can't give any time frame for that. We'll have a demo up shortly, it's almost complete.
On November 05 2010 08:12 Bairemuth wrote: Has anyone gotten all the stars yet? I've been working on it and have 48 so far but there are a few levels I can't seem to unlock. Has anyone been able to complete the easiest secret goal in the game (really!?!?) yet? This can be found on level 4-1. Is there a more active forum for this game? I completely love this game and am hopelessly addicted .
We don't have a demo yet, and an out of steam version is on the horizon, but I can't give any time frame for that. We'll have a demo up shortly, it's almost complete.
I can't post yet on steam forums because i'm in moderator que or something. Hopefully that is resolved soon. I'd really like to know people's progress on this game. I've now collected 64/68 coins but can't unlock two secret levels. One I can't even find where the exit is to unlock it (broken bridge across from 2-3) and the other...well that's level 4-1 which seems mind boggling impossible...I even took it literally...as in it's super easy, but that's not the case.
So far I'd have to say unlocking the secret level across from 2-1 was the most difficult challenge I've accomplished thus far. I still have a few levels left in the scrapyard, so I'm sure some craziness awaits for me there.
Anyways, I wish more people would get this game. It's insanely fun and addicting and one of the best "bang for your buck" games ever created.
EDIT: Just unlocked the secret level across from 2-3...haha that was brilliant. I kind of feel ashamed because I literally "stumbled" across it
For those of you curious about this game Totalbiscuit whom I dont normally pay attention to actually gave this game a pretty good review. He's pretty hilariously bad at it and shows the mechanics as they're introduced in the demo levels.
On November 06 2010 08:32 iCCup.Raelcun wrote: For those of you curious about this game Totalbiscuit whom I dont normally pay attention to actually gave this game a pretty good review. He's pretty hilariously bad at it and shows the mechanics as they're introduced in the demo levels.
I just skipped forward a bit to watch him play a later level...anyways it seems like to me that his game is like on super slow motion. I don't know...seemed quite slow. Anyways, the game does get much more difficult than what he showed in case people were curious
i was going to wait for a demo before deciding to buy but now that I know the creator posts on TL I'll totally buy it after i finish this term paper Im working on :D
On November 06 2010 08:12 Bairemuth wrote: well that's level 4-1 which seems mind boggling impossible...I even took it literally...as in it's super easy, but that's not the case.
Not going to spoil it all for you, but the sign is right, it really is easy
I streamed this game a bit yesterday finally broke down and paid the 10 bucks and it was a ton of fun. Had a lot of random ustreamers popping in asking what the game was and where they could get it too. Might do this some more later tonight after MLG if you guys are interested in seeing the game before you buy it look for it after MLG is over on mys tream.
Yeah 4-1 secret was sickly easy haha. Scrapyard is pretty crazy...4-3 and 4-4 is insane. Only levels I havn't been able to beat. I don't know how this game doesn't get more publicity...it's so good
Names for the ships and trails more than half the time I get a trail unlock I can't tell which is the new one. So that instead of you have unlocked a new ship! You have unlocked a new Ship! (Killer Whale) or You have unlocked a new Trail! (Flashy Red)
Before you spawn but the level has started the environment is moving this means on some levels by waiting 3-5 seconds before you spawn you can actually get a faster time. Maybe make the environment not move while you're waiting to spawn. But this might cause an issue with grandfathered times...
Make the game run at 60 FPS or lower, when trying to record this game with FRAPs the most common screen recording device FRAPs forces the game down to 60 FPS and this slows down the game but not the timer. This makes it impossible for the truly competitive people to record their attempts at a #1 time on a given level as when you're recording you'll automatically get a time in the 300+ range.
Also for the record streaming this game works fine IE using any screen cap program like camtasia, VHScrCap etc etc that doesnt modify the framerate like FRAPs does.
I just tested this:
I used FRAPs and Camtasia on level 4-1 for the easiest secret in the game Fraps: 27 seconds Camtasia 19.7 seconds (lol new personal record)
Set the scoreboard max characters length to the same as a Steam Username, my username from Steam gets cut off on the leaderboard ending in frustration when you finally hit a top 10 time see below
Many times on a level where you must use a circle pattern through some kind of a booster in order to gain speed for a bonus or objective after a few tries I start to get motion sick I game pretty much constantly and for me this is an extremely rare occurance. But I'm not sure what in particular might fix it
That's about all I can think of but besides that I hate you for level 4-12 -.-; I know HOW to do it but it takes so long to do it and I'm 5+minutes in then I have to do it again from the start if I make one mistake and die; can't you implement a checkpoint type block in those levels?
On November 08 2010 16:21 iCCup.Raelcun wrote: Suggestions:
Names for the ships and trails more than half the time I get a trail unlock I can't tell which is the new one. So that instead of you have unlocked a new ship! You have unlocked a new Ship! (Killer Whale) or You have unlocked a new Trail! (Flashy Red)
Before you spawn but the level has started the environment is moving this means on some levels by waiting 3-5 seconds before you spawn you can actually get a faster time. Maybe make the environment not move while you're waiting to spawn. But this might cause an issue with grandfathered times...
Make the game run at 60 FPS or lower, when trying to record this game with FRAPs the most common screen recording device FRAPs forces the game down to 60 FPS and this slows down the game but not the timer. This makes it impossible for the truly competitive people to record their attempts at a #1 time on a given level as when you're recording you'll automatically get a time in the 300+ range.
Also for the record streaming this game works fine IE using any screen cap program like camtasia, VHScrCap etc etc that doesnt modify the framerate like FRAPs does.
I just tested this:
I used FRAPs and Camtasia on level 4-1 for the easiest secret in the game Fraps: 27 seconds Camtasia 19.7 seconds (lol new personal record)
Set the scoreboard max characters length to the same as a Steam Username, my username from Steam gets cut off on the leaderboard ending in frustration when you finally hit a top 10 time see below
Many times on a level where you must use a circle pattern through some kind of a booster in order to gain speed for a bonus or objective after a few tries I start to get motion sick I game pretty much constantly and for me this is an extremely rare occurance. But I'm not sure what in particular might fix it
That's about all I can think of but besides that I hate you for level 4-12 -.-; I know HOW to do it but it takes so long to do it and I'm 5+minutes in then I have to do it again from the start if I make one mistake and die; can't you implement a checkpoint type block in those levels?
I actually like the fact that the environment is moving before you even start the level. This really adds another level of consideration when trying to acheive the top time. Maybe I'm biased because I've used this exact mechanic to get #1 times on a couple of levels.
Also, the way the clock works with FPS I think is a good thing because it prevents potential abuse...You could make the game run really slow thus giving yourself more precise movement, which would allow for more consistent and potentially better times.
And yeah...I know what you mean about the motion sickness...but I don't forsee any way to prevent that other than taking a break after a couple of tries .
Some good suggestions there iCCup.Raelcun. We're working on another approach to how the physics is stepped, which would eliminate the need for consistent 60 FPS in order to have optimal chance at taking times, it's not yet ready however. We'll take a look at increasing the leader board size, if it gets to large it will clip with other elements on lower resolutions however, but I'm sure it can be a tad larger than it is now. I'll add some better descriptions to the todo list as well.
As for 4-12, there's some checkpoints there, are you playing on hard perhaps? On hard there's zero lives in all checkpoints. We've added a note which better describes this in the patch which we'll roll out later today
nice to hear that you are thinking about / working on a non-steam version. This game looks really cool, but i don't see me installing steam only for this. I'm going to wait for the non-steam version and get that as soon as you release
On November 09 2010 03:29 Sairon wrote: Some good suggestions there iCCup.Raelcun. We're working on another approach to how the physics is stepped, which would eliminate the need for consistent 60 FPS in order to have optimal chance at taking times, it's not yet ready however. We'll take a look at increasing the leader board size, if it gets to large it will clip with other elements on lower resolutions however, but I'm sure it can be a tad larger than it is now. I'll add some better descriptions to the todo list as well.
As for 4-12, there's some checkpoints there, are you playing on hard perhaps? On hard there's zero lives in all checkpoints. We've added a note which better describes this in the patch which we'll roll out later today
Yeah I've been streaming it on hard and I was never quite sure what the difference was between hard normal and easy some sort of explination of that would be nice ^^
This game is incredible! I love it haha. I seriously havent had this much fun trying to beat times in a long while. I dont know if its a bug a lot of people are encountering or if its just me but if I improve my time more than a few times it wont let me improve it anymore, seems like its only when I get one thats decently high on the leaderboard. heres a screen.
Times get randomly ignored, it's known and high priority issue for the next patch. Haven't seen it happen more than once or twice so far myself (of course it could happen more often but can't see it when not breaking a record) and replaying the level would give me the record correctly so it certainly doesn't shut your times off until game restart or anything like that.
Excellent! My one suggestion would be a community scoreboard, maybe another option on the main menu. Just so you could scroll through the top times on each level and then maybe a total times page where you can see the top players total times. Not a big deal but it would certainly be useful for the competitive people. Again great job!
Wow, does "me and a mate" imply this was done entirely by two people? That is insane. The amount of creative level design that's gone into this is so wonderful, and as I just got to a Christmas world, I have to ask: was that in since the beginning?
Also, it'd be nice to have a little tutorial for the customization screen. I still have no idea what the seemingly blank choices are, with the colored lights spinning around them.
Overall, though, I just love the feel so much. Like someone said previously, it's got the same spirit as Sonic: zip through as fast as humanly possible, but if you can't do so carefully enough, you'll go flying into a wall of spikes! (or lasers).
Thanks for making this! I'm definitely recommending it to all my steam friends.
95% of the game is just 2 guys, we've had some help from a few mates, mainly with the music. The Christmas world was patched in a few days before Christmas. The customizations screen could probably use some clarification, the colored lights are trails for the ship.
Really glad you're liking it!
That's what we were aiming for Kyrth, we've tried to put a lot of focus on game play. The world map in particular is inspired by Super Mario Bros 3
We're working on it full time, it started out as a completely different game with top down shooter mechanics. Turned out it was impossible to hit anything, but that's what it evolved from.
We'll see where we go from here, been really hard to get some attention for the game and we've sold poor sadly. We're living like hobos and beyond the occasional beer it's mostly work or SC2 so hardly burning through cash though :D
Pretty fun game so far. I always get to the leaderboards and am like, "wtf, how are people doing it so fast" and have to retry again to go for the quickest route, which for me gives it a lot of replay value.
Some parts of it are hilarious too, in a game design sort of way. I spent 20 minutes trying to bounce this ball just right to sneak under it and not be hit by a laser. Eventually I made it, and the secret wall I expected was indeed a secret wall! However, it led to an inescapable pit of spikes. Awesome secret. Also great was the long dead-end death trap, with the troll face at the end. haha. Was gonna screenshot but couldn't get it to work.
And yeah, the replay value is surprisingly good. I thought I'd be fed up with the difficulty after I beat it and got a few coins, but it keeps pulling me back, not to mention the quest for better times.
I have a quick recommendation on the ghost implementation though, it seems like it should spawn when you do. As it is, it spawns almost immediately after the level starts so you can be behind it, or even ahead of it if you start fast enough. Sorry it hasn't sold well This is one of the most fun games I've played in a while
On January 04 2011 05:21 Kyrth wrote: I have a quick recommendation on the ghost implementation though, it seems like it should spawn when you do. As it is, it spawns almost immediately after the level starts so you can be behind it, or even ahead of it if you start fast enough. Sorry it hasn't sold well This is one of the most fun games I've played in a while
We decided on having the ghost as it is now because the game simulates straight away when you enter a level / hit reset. Some players use this to get better times on some levels, for example where there's moving spikes, the way it is now the ghost is always in sync with the level so that you can test different timings. We'll keep at it until we run out of dough, and we have a few opportunities which we're exploring which hopefully will give us enough for another game
Glad I got a gamepad to use for this also. Speaking of, is there a reason there was no XBLA or PSN release for this? Seems like it's pretty friendly to gamepad, and would get a lot of hits from people who use the console. In fact it seems like it would have been on consoles first then ported to PC, just by how it's built, similar to SMB.
We tried contacting both Sony & Microsoft, it's very hard to get your game onto PSN & XBLA when you're as unknown as we are though, so sadly we didn't have much success in that area.
We're running a deal with 50% off in case there's anyone who's been meaning to give it a whirl. This is our steam page: http://store.steampowered.com/app/50000 . If there's any problems or questions just drop them here and I'll be as quick as possible to assist
EPT
I've been playing this way more than I expected, too. Well worth the money.
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