EDIT: Alpha test is over now! The game goes viral on the 26th! Consider it a XXX-mas present. :3
Well, well, you lucky dogs! The saintly sponsorship man at Kongregate has agreed to allow an “Alpha Test” of William and Sly 2 here on my blog! Anyone who wants to play, comment on this post (it’ll ask for your email) and I’ll send you the super secret link!
Don’t forget to come back and let me know if you find any bugs (or just to lavish me with praise, I’m a total attention whore, you know. I suppose you could say it sucks, too. That’s still attention…). The game is done, so this is an unusual alpha test, but I’ll rest easier knowing the game is bug free when it spreads it’s quivering wings and flies out of my clutches.
Any portals who are interested in hosting the game, post an email so I can send you the file when the game is released.
So, it’s been seven months, but I finally added Azurefish to the site, lol. They say laziness is a vice; that must be why is feels so goooood.
In other news, William and Sly 2 has been sent out to sponsors. It could be only a week or two away!! Everybody scream!
I think for my next game I’m not going to be so quiet about progress’n’such. It’d be more fun to post screenshots and talk about what I’m working on. I just wanted William and Sly to be a big surprise, haha.
So anyhoo, for my next game I’m thinking either RPG or fighting platformer right now – something nice and violent. I’m sick of pretty little forests and cutesy foxes trotting around nibbling mushrooms. What do you guys think? An RPG would probably take a lot of work, but I have a fun story planned out for one. The fighting platformer I’m thinking about would be a lot of fun too. I’m thinking surreal dreamworld full of bizarre candystriped monsters (I was inspired by those new poptart commercials, hehe).
Soo, just wanted to make a quick apology to Lachlan. I didn’t actually delete your post on the Skrillex video, it was just waiting for approval because you posted a link, and I never check that part of the wordpress dashboard…
I changed it so it’ll send me an email now, though, so POST WITHOUT FEAR!
As for your actual comment: I liked that video you posted, but it’s very bizarre lol. I thought the Skrillex video was well paced to the music while making a narrative, which is mainly what I was wishing we could see more of in the movies.
However, the two styles are pretty different. I think The Venetian Snares are trying to do something more elegant, like you said. Well, aside from the part where the blue screen error happens. I think I nearly lost an eardrum, haha!
In case anyone’s wondering, here’s the link Lachlan posted:
On an unrelated note, William and Sly 2 will be done in just a few days! Don’t get too excited though, I have to be a good little capitalist and make money off it before you get to play it. :P
I’ve been really excited about the new hardware accelerated Stage 3D option in flash, but after doing a bit of reading on it I’ve found out that it will only be supported by graphics cards with drivers newer than 2009 that support Pixel Shader 2+.
I’m wondering why Adobe made the decision to do this seeing as how most flash gamers/developers are in the casual market where older/slower computers are the norm. I looked to see if I could update the driver on my computer but the latest driver I could find was for 2006, so no deal. And anyway, what casual gamer is going to go to the trouble to update their graphics card just to play a flash game. They have a software option, but it’s not worth spending any time developing for it in my opinion.
So I’m just wondering how many people can actually use the hardware rendering.
Make sure you’ve installed the latest update of the flash player (version 11) then scroll down past the tutorial part to the first example in that link. It’ll say in the top left “3D Mode.” Mine says “Software (Direct Blitting).” I think if it’s running on your hardware it’ll tell you “Direct X” or “Open GL.”
Work on William and Sly 2 is going very well. I think I can safely say I’m close to the end (meaning a few more weeks of work). I have a fair bit of world building left to do, but I have all the game mechanics in place and most of the animations done at this point. The music is also completed.
The look of the game has changed somewhat significantly since that last screenshot, but since I’m rather close to the end now I’m going to forgo posting any more shots so you guys can have some surprises. I’m really excited to see what people think of the game. Fun times ahead! :)
Well, that title should SEO all over William and Sly 2. You know, the sequel to William and sly. Also known as world 2, or version 2. Eat that you pesky search engines. YOU TOO PLAYHUB! STOP SITTING ON MY NUMBER 2 GOOGLE SPOT! (Yeah I snuck another 2 in there, hehehe…)
Here you go Lachlan, you rabid fan jackal! :3 (I love Jackals! They’re so cute!)
As you can see I’ve been wasting all my time on production values. Of course, last night I added another tool to my mapmaking arsenal. I can paint and carve cliffs now, like…paining…or sculpting. It’s actually a lot of fun. I’m going to start world building soon, I think. I still have lots of graphics to do: those funny black squares in the screenshot should be dense foliage, and I’m going to have towering pines (think Sequoya). But I’m sick of drawing right now, so all that can wait.
Wow, this blog is bumpin’ now! I figured I’d answer all the comments on my last post with a new post rather than a bunch of comments.
First, here’s a picture since this post is long. :3 You probably will never get to see this in its entirety anywhere else since it’s the very back layer of the game:
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@ Matt: Or anyone who wants to send me an email: Luke(at)particlasm.com. I should put an email link on the side somewhere…
You can post your ideas here too, though.
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@Victor: Thank for the ideas!
I’ll start out by saying I don’t believe in artist block. I’ve always felt that every drawing or painting (or anything, really) is a struggle and you just need patience and discipline to get through. Obviously patience will run out at some point and you move on to a new piece of work, but the more you can hold that off, the better your work will be. Everything we make will go through an “awkward teenage phase” (as one of my art teachers liked to call it) and it’s best to just grit your teeth and plow onward ‘till it’s at least somewhat acceptable. Artist block is just an unwillingness to practice the hard stuff or work in spite of frustration. Even a perfectionist can make himself happy if he keeps on trying. The key is allowing yourself to enjoy the process and wait for the outcome to be great.
Now, I’m not saying I’m any good at getting over those humps. I just find it a lot easier to call it what it is and realize I’m just being lazy, haha.
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@Somebody: I always felt that way about RPGs after I played Chrono Trigger. I’m definitely flattered you feel that way about WaS! :3
I know what you mean about the gameplay, too. I always try to put gameplay first, and in spite of my more recent failed attempts, I think I finally understand what I need to do. Platformers are my favorite type of game, so I feel very comfortable making one. WaS2 should play just as well as the first one, if not better.
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@Lachlan: There aren’t any rustling leaves (at least not yet, I’ll see what my particle system can do, hehe), but the trees have 4-5 layers of parallax on them, so when you move they look really voluminous. The screenshot is just a very small sample of what I hope to get in there. I’ll definitely have lots of pine trees, maybe some waterfalls too.
Also, The music is fantastic, if I may say so myself. ;)
The look I’m going for on this game is that eerie pre-storm coloring you get mid-summer when the thunderheads are rolling in. I wanted the first game to feel really grand, but I had to sacrifice that because my tile system was pretty limited. The rainy day worked well because I couldn’t do shadows. This game has dynamic shadows and 12 layers of parallax and tons of layering possibilities on every tile, so I can build it as a whole working composition rather than an assembly of parts.
As far as story goes, I’m on the same page you are. I’m going to build the story indirectly with things like the signposts in the first game and little journal entries. The game starts with William complaining that gnomes stole one of his journals, so a sidequest will be to find the missing pages. I though this would be like the mushrooms in the first game except they would have more of a purpose than score (which I don’t think anyone really cared about). I’ll keep them sparse and short, though, so they’re a nice resting point rather than a choppy distraction.
Also, no talking foxes. Sly is smart, but he’s not a human. :3 No boss battle, either. No one liked that, lol.
Hooray, I was able to pass the point of no return! Work has been going pretty smoothly with William and Sly 2 (should I actually call it that? Maybe I’ll go “world 2″ like Fancypants…), so I thought I’d post a screenshot to make you all drool. :3
I’ll try to do updates more often, though I don’t really know what to post since I don’t want to wreck the impact by showing everything before it comes out. I suppose only the most rabid fans are still coming here after two years, so I may as well give you all something to feed on. FEED MY DARLINGS!!
I’m still not entirely sure what the story is gonna be about. I’m planning to have a bit of back story in there, but since the graphics and music seem to be setting a mysterious dramatic tone I feel like I should have some character drama. DRAMA!! But maybe not. I have to animate characters, after all. ;) Maybe they’ll be invisible characters, or long dead characters. I can steal the only good idea Looming had (if you haven’t played that, btw, don’t bother).
What else would you guys be interested in seeing on here? I could always write scathing reviews of crappy flashes I watch, that’s always fun. I really should post my art, but that seems like work. Does anyone know of a good wordpress addon for art galleries?
P.s. I dedicate this post to Lachlan, who made me feel guilty for not divulging more information. :3
P.p.s. Divulging sounds rather gross doesn’t it? Like: I had the flu and divulged my dinner all over the floor.
Hello poor neglected blog. I still love you, I really do. It’s just, I have all this TV to watch, and all these books to read. :3
My progress on WaS2 has been about as slow as my posting on here. I’m picking away at it like an old scab, and it’s starting to bleed. A grossly apt analogy, that. I’ve finally put my foot down, though, and decided to deprive myself of everything good each day until I put in a solid four hours. I mean, it’s not like it’s grueling hateful work, right? There’s obviously something wrong with me. Anyhoo, I should have some delicious screen shots soon.
In other news, I finished an old song the other day (it’s been loitering on my HD like a bum) and decided to submit it to the robot day competition on NG. Check it out!
December 5, 2011 at 5:51 pm
