[FINISHED] Akiro the squid <3

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Currently I'm experimenting with the background. I kind of know the general feel I want, I just have to try some quick sketches into the game and see if feels okay. Probably going to skip the whole sandy bottom, and make it more like an underwater cave.

 

Cleaned up my project, and finally made the shrimp and puffer into prefabs.
Next priority: Having the puffer fish change animation and behaviour within a certain range.

 

I finally got OverlapCircle to work, so now the puffer fish change animation within a range.
I don't think Akiro really appreciates the spiky hugs though.

 

Art is very cute, I like it.
What are your plans for gameplay?

 

not the spiky hugs!!


although, they don't look very "spiky" when they've puffed up. Maybe extend the black spines a little further as the fish expands?

 

Welcome!

Jimmy P: Thank you! My plans for this game is to create a casual one button click kind of game, where the player (blue squid, Akiro) gathers shrimp for points, and dodge nasty enemies. If all goes well, I will release it on Android, maybe iOS and free websites. (Newgrounds etcetera?)

Thanks for the feedback LeftyRighty!
My initial puffer design had two pixel spikes instead of one, but I liked it better when I removed it. I will go back and redraw with double-spikes and take another look. Thank you.

 

Agree, you may also try drawing a couple random spikes within the sprite body in addition to the spikes on the outer silhouette.

I like the BIG eyes. It instantly reminded me of the original Mike Tyson's Punch Out when they reacted to your punches. Good stuff!

 

Hello and thank you for the feedback, theANMATOR2b.
I went ahead and roughly sketched down to try a few of the things you mentioned. I'm getting dozy now, so these will have to do for the moment.

2) This is what I had originally, or close to it. The black pixel placement is really ugly at the moment, so bear with me as I try out different designs.
1 and 3) I like the black dots covering his body, but I fear I might have overdone it here. I will continue experimenting tomorrow when I've gotten some sleep.
I greatly appreciate all feedback, as I am here to learn and have fun. Feel free to point out anything you think looks off, and I'll be sure to take a look on it.

 

I like number 3 in the image but not sure how it would look small

 

I was under the impression it would look too extreme, but I have to bow down - It doesn't look nearly as bad as I thought it would be. I will definitely play around more with this. Thank you for the suggestion guys.

 

Wow - I was going to say #1 but scaled down #3 really does look the best imo.
Maybe reduce the number of internal spikes slightly or change them to a dark brown instead of black. I think that will do Tetraodontidae justice.
Nice work. will watch for updates.

 

I agree! I'm changing the spritesheet as we speak, and I plan to upload a gif later showing the new design in action.

 

I will try more designs, but I'm liking the direction it's going. Thanks for the suggestions, guys.
Hmm, I'm thinking about trying out lighter coloured spikes. That would probably make it easier for the player to see the danger as well.

 

I just had to share this, I laughed. Hard.

 

That is very realistic natural behavior of puffer fishes!
I've seen them do that before in nature.
It's there way of churning the water to confuse it's enemies.

Spikes look better too.

 

Hoooh! *can't breathe*
I would literally be too scared to go take a swim for the rest of my life if their behavior was like that in real life.

... It would probably be the most interesting aquarium in the world, though.

 

So far today I've fixed the puffer movement script, added semi-working shrimp movement and made a level-resetter. Next up I think I'll try to create some sort of "floating randomly space-ish underwater feel" for the shrimp.

 

Believe it or not, this is a big step for me. In two ways, actually. I have what I can call my 'very first' actual prototype, designed myself. Second: I've been so scared people will steal my idea. Or rather, scared someone will execute it faster and better. I've heard several times that it never really happens, but even if it did - it's not really stealing. I didn't invent it.

Anyways, here's a gif of Akiro actually moving about and collecting shrimp for dinner:



I think this is a good step for me. Even if somebody does "steal" it (which isn't too obvious in the gif anyways) I'm at least not hiding things from in the gifs anymore. Now I'm fully committed.

 

Totally understandable when you are invested in something and passionate about it.
But don't worry....
We stole it last week and it will be out next week in complete immersive 3D on all systems!

Nice progress.

Edit: Maybe adding a quick gulp animation when he eats a shrimp to the squid similar to the putter fish blowing up would be nice.
Reminds me kind of like the original Dig-Dug animations when he pumps up the enemies. (Reference material)

 

Thank you! I'm kind of relieved now that I just showed exactly how much I have made. It's silly, and I can't say I've been like this before, but I guess it grows on me when working with that is largely what I spend my days on, even though I barely make any progress (I should probably go through all the tutorials and actually learn stuff, not learn as I am making a game.)

Edit: I've been thinking about a gulp animation! I think it would be cute. Never played dig-dug before, going to take a look.

 

I was also going to say - the movement of the squid looks nice. It looks like he's really out in the open vastness of the ocean. Looking good.

 

"Testing the water" with a new enemy - the jellyfish. Testing it with such high speed because I'm trying to get the feel if I want a swordfish randomly flying towards the player at that speed, and of course a lot fewer than those. (So basically in this case, the jellyfish are swordfish placeholders). Will test more tomorrow.

 

I'm finally becoming stable enough to not have to ask other people or look up tutorials to do something. I was tempted to ask on this forum how to rotate something towards the player, but I'm feeling fairly confident I can achieve it by testing it myself and looking up the API.

Things are great. The jellyfish work perfectly, and I'm fairly sure I can easily implement the correct movement (make them launch towards the player when outside spawner radius, therefore not shooting out into nothing.) and I'm now looking at adding a Swordfish enemy. So here's a list, mostly for tracking my own objectives, but for others to see as well:

Future goals:

Pool enemies when outside spawner radius.

Playtest and find MAXIMUM four enemies for the game (I believe three works best. I'm going to find playtesters soon, but I imagine it's too frustrating if the player can't immediately see which enemies does what. I want my game to be super easy to pick up for a beginner, and have them find it fun the second they tap the screen.)

Implement 'character' into the enemies: Puffer fish should rotate slightly to either side to further show that he no longer controls himself. I should replace jellyfish placeholder soon, but it's not something I'm going to stress about. When the game works correctly, I'm going to use whole days to work on the art either way, regardless of what I have now. And last but not least, what I'm looking forward to: Adding a "boost" to the shrimp. In my mind this is what will give the game an extra "fun-factor". I can't wait to try this out, and I'm feeling fairly confident it will turn out like a fun little game.

It's not perfect, but it's my game. My only hope and goal for the game is to finish it, and hopefully make one person (or more) smile and have fun. Just finishing it is a massive goal in itself, and I'm happy just to have gotten this far.

 

I've no idea what the hell is going on with these anims but I want more.

 

Haha, I had to laugh a little there hippocoder!
And yes, there's definitely going to be more. A whole lot more!

 

I have mixed feelings about the swordfish. In a way it totally works, but it also feels like even two enemies that fly towards the player is too much. That might get fixed by playing around with the spawn timers. My initial thought was for the swordfish to spawn more rarely than the others, so let's just see what feels right.

 

Hey Mothhil - I think if the sword fish is going to spawn more rarely - I think it wold be good to make him move faster. Maybe even twice as fast as he is now. Also was thinking his pointing angle/direction of travel could be within 10-20 degrees of the player characters initial position when he comes on screen. Kind of like a near miss all the time, and it's scary because he's moving so fast! It's up to the player to not run into the sword fish.
I don't know if the player can stop or stay motionless, but if they could stop - that would keep them from running into the sword fish, because the sword fish never moves straight towards the player.
I'm not saying give the player the ability to stop, just explaining how the sword fish will never hit the players initial position when he comes on screen. So the only time the sword fish will hit the squid is when the player accidentally 'dodges' into the path of the sword fish. Does that make any sense?

Keep it up!

 

I can definitely see where you're going with this! I have to try that out later, but to be honest I'm not sure if it would work. For one, my player can't stay totally still, but that could easily be fixed by adding more degrees to each side. The second is that on smaller devices, the player won't have any time to react. When play testing a couple hours ago it didn't feel too good with the current puffer and swordfish speed on my small device. I'm not sure how I should go about fixing this. But thank you so much for the feedback! I will definitely try it out.



Photo: After play testing with this small device, I ran into two problems:

1: There's very little room for the player to react if something speedy comes from the sides. I don't know how many people have such small screens, but I won't allow myself to design around bigger screens just because I'm not able to think of a way to fix it. I will fix this one way or another.

2: The right thumb (most people are right handed and tap with their right thumb) will sometimes be in the way of things moving from south east (thumb area). This might break immersion, so I will have to think of something clever here.

 

I knew I explained that badly.
Lemme try again.
Set up the sword fish to be faster and to shoot towards the squid, but not directly at him. Maybe 10-20 degrees off from directly at him.
Keep the movement you have now on the squid. The squid (player) won't have to dodge the sword fish, he will just have to avoid dodging "into" him as he speeds past.
Of course allowing the squid to be motionless would break immersion of the wide open ocean. I was just using that as an example to explain the direction of the sword fish in relation to a motionless squid.

The complexity (fun) comes from normally dodging the puffer fish and jellies, and all the sudden, a sword fish comes streaking by.

Was also thinking the game was laid out in landscape instead of portrait.

Like on centipede when your are shooting the centipede slowly moving down the screen, and all the sudden there are other quicker things that come down toward the player faster. As the player you are focused on shooting the centipede but have to concentrate briefly on the faster moving object so you don't move into the path of the faster moving object. Weren't those objects spiders or fleas that fell faster? I can't remember.

 

I see! That would be extremely cool. Thank you for the input! I'm going to try add that and test with it, because it sounds like a real fun way to kind of "break up" the way the player has to think.
On another note, I just cleaned up my Spawner code. It's probably the nicest looking piece of code I have ever written. I'm certain it can be written better, but that's by far the nicest piece I have to date! Fun!

Spoiler: One slice of pizzaCode.

 

Hmm, I just had a fun thought. What if the swordfish waits before attacking? It would be cool if I did it like the puffer, just except for flying off in a direction, the swordfish waits and watches the player, and then launches like theANMATOR2b suggested, slightly over or under the player. That sounds like it could be fun! I'll make sure to comment that into the script for tomorrow.

 

I've been playing around with another enemy design: A larger squid-like creature, for now it's named "Bigboy". I told myself I should exit Unity an hour ago, but it's so fun creating various enemies for the game.

Bigboy chases Akiro within a certain range. Think of him like a slightly faster angry jellyfish.

 

I guess it's time to work on what I've been procrastinating about... Maximum spawn and pooling. It's probably the least fun at the moment, but once that's finished I'm one step further to working on the art. Which is something I'm really looking forward to!

... I have no idea what to do with the background. parallax tiles? sprites floating randomly? ... I'll get to that later.

 

I'm overly excited that I got the pooling to work almost right away. It so cool! Ahh!! (Takes a deep breath.)
Okay, so now that it works, I have to add it to the other mobs as well. Oh, and I should really consider cleaning up those scripts when I'm done, because basically now they all have duplicate code. I'm pretty sure there's a way to just add the range checker to all of them with just one script, instead of writing the same thing on all of them.

 

I finally got everything to work. The spawner script is really bad, and I've asked on this forum as well as somewhere else, so I should fix it soon. It's just a bunch of copied lines for each of the enemies, and there is definitely a better way to do it. The separate enemy scripts also look quite bad, with recurring bools to set and remove mechanics on the mobs. It works, but my gut says it's not optimal.

I was also debating on whether or not I should draw with more frames, but I kind of like the three frame swimming animation. It was hard to draw more frames and still maintain the same kind of swimming. But yeah, now it successfully pools set amount of enemies, and those enemies work as planned. (Need to update art soon, though).

I have no idea what to do next. There's tons of artwork to do, and start menu, pause, general UI. Later comes high score and ads, but I want to fix everything else before that first.

Maybe it's time to find playtesters? hmm.

 

Hey Mothil - all above is pretty greek to me regarding code and cleanliness, but if I was in your position I would proceed with functionality rather than art.
Since the scoring will be a self contained part of the game I don't think any work you do on that at this point will be effected by reworking the other aspects you mentioned above.
It's really best to get as much functionality fleshed out as possible before spending the time on art.
I think your past the point where you could put in a lot of time on art and it turn out to be wasted time - if you end up scrapping the game, because I think your on to something interesting. But my gut just says - work on all the (in my mind) boring stuff as much as possible - before dedicating time to better visuals.
Just my own opinion though - roll your own as you see it.

 

I agree, get the gameplay logic all/mostly fleshed out first. Once everything is working as you'd like, start making it look the way you want.

 

Thank you both! I agree, it sounds like the most effective way to go about things now. I just have to sit down, take a deep breath and figure out which of the problems to tackle first.

 

Sketch up an little pixel art of architeuthis or vampyroteuthis while your taking a break and planning the next steps.

 

Haha, will do!
I think it's important to take a small step back once in a while and just look at the whole picture and let it sink in. I'm very happy with the direction the game is taking right now, so as long as I keep to my "vision" I think it'd turn out pretty decent. One of my main goals is to make people smile, therefore I want to keep my art-style and enemies as "silly and innocent" as possible, trying to tap into the old-school Nintendo feel of picking up a game, yet just drawing what feels right at the time.

I'm not making this for the money. If the game ends up paying for a coffee, that's more than I ever thought it would. The biggest 'payment' is the fact that I am actually well on my way to finishing a game, not procrastinating or playing around in the engine only to put it down the day after.

 

I just sat down and played my game for 10 minutes straight, and I have to admit it was a lot more balanced than I thought. I mean, the swordfish feels slightly off (going to try what theANMATOR2b suggested later. I think that would be the missing piece to making this hard but not frustrating.)

Of course, I'm going to let others play test as well. Both my brother and my girlfriend, though they haven't really tried that much, never really reached 5 shrimp. At this 10 min session I got 9 shrimp at most. That sounds to be like it's quite balanced now, and it's probably going to get slightly easier when I fix the hitboxes.

Overall, I'm a lot closer to finishing this game than I thought. There's still tons to do, and I still might remove some enemies or redesign them, but that comes later.

 

Rough 'sketch' of start menu is working. I'll get to balancing the game and fixing stuff now. I realized when trying the game on my phone that the swordfish is going to be a big problem on smaller screens.

The way it is now: the bigger your screen is, the more advantage you have. I have no idea to fix this, if it even can be fixed.

 

I decided I should work on the marketing part today, so I fixed my mail, opened up a pinterest and tumblr. It doesn't look too good right now, but hey - it's a start. Tumblr.
Apart from that I've just been thinking a lot today, about how I can balance and fix things.
And for those who are Pinterested.

EDIT:
And I'm now heading over to the feedback section. Scary. PLAYABLE HERE.

 

Maybe for the sword fish - the player character can display a directional "sense" the swordfish is coming. But maybe have it set to display at a random interval 1-2 seconds before the sword fish flashes by on screen.

 

This looks like fun! I don't know if you mentioned it or not, but do your press a location on the screen and Akiro heads in that direction?

 

That's an excellent idea theanmator! Just a couple hours ago I was thinking something along those lines myself, only with the shrimp instead - it makes much more sense that the highspeed target has it.

Tayer: It does not matter where you press on the screen, as long as it is not on top of the (not yet implemented) pause button.

 

It's finally time for what I've been really looking forward to: Messing around with all the designs!
I guess I could fix a lot more in the code, but the game is pretty stable, menu works, enemies are almost finished mechanically (and if I do decide to leave some of them out, I might as well find out through design.)

Expect a lot more visuals in the upcoming hours-days! I'm so excited to soon start making the background.

 

Akiro sketch-time!
I'm going to draft and think about all of my sketches, as self-criticism is an important part of creativity. You are perfectly welcome, or rather, I encourage you to say what does not work and what does. I'm here solely for learning... And having fun.



Arctic: The original. It works, but I'm going to experiment a lot to get it right.
What I feel it does right: It has cute, innocent colors. It makes it feel more like a baby squid, lost in the deep ocean (which is indeed the case.)
What I think it does wrong: I believe it might need a tad more contrast, and I fear for how he will stand out when I start making the background. Maybe blue isn't the way to go?

Cobalt: This is the Yang to the Arctic Yin; Darker blues, tons of contrast.
What I feel it does right: It pops the character out of the screen, sort of.
What I think it does wrong: It blends too much into the background, making it harder to see on smaller screens. This is critical, as the player should know _AT ALL TIMES_ where he/she is and where they are heading. The darker contrasts also make Akiro seem less innocent.

Lemon: Everybody likes yellow, right? A little lemon party in the sea?
What I feel it does right: Contrary to Cobalt, this one stands out and makes the player know it. I believe this might be one of the stronger ones, considering yellow is a 'happy' color, usually representing warmth and the sun.
What I think it does wrong: With a strong color like this, I think it should have a lot less contrast. Probably more towards the gold-ish feel instead of bright yellow.

Emerald: Probably nauseous from all the swimming.
What I feel it does right: It pops out in a good way. Green usually represents good things. This one has a good feel, and the green doesn't conflict with any of the current enemy designs.
What I think it does wrong: Squids aren't colored this way... Or are they? :O

Orange: Lovely color.
What I feel it does right: This one has a really nice coloring, and pops perfectly out of the ocean, it's just a shame that...
What I think it does wrong: it's the same color as one of the enemies, but that can be fixed.

Beige: It looks... familiar.
What I feel it does right: It's a bit more neutral, which is always a good thing in a 'chaotic' game.
What I think it does wrong: It doesn't have that much character I think. I would probably have to see this one animated before I talk more about it.

Coal: The badass of the ocean.
What I feel it does right: I don't have much on this... The eyes pop out better?
What I think it does wrong: Seeing as my background will contain bits of darker blue, I fear Akiro won't be as visible as he is on this background here.

Chocolate: Yum.
What I feel it does right: It's a nice color, can't see anything apart from that.
What I think it does wrong: It doesn't look like a squid at all. (That can be said about several of the above).

Rose: If I choose this color I might have to release it as 18+.
What I feel it does right: Well... It does stand out.
What I think it does wrong: 7/10 too much red. I'm being hard on this color, though. I'm pretty sure that a lighter color could make this work.

Cotton: The Mario fan.
What I feel it does right: It looks like a normal squid. It doesn't conflict with any of the other designs. Quite nice!
What I think it does wrong: The white in the eyes are almost not visible at all, and he looks like a little ghost.

EDIT: Friend requested purple.

 

Is the playable set up for keyboard/mouse?
I wasn't getting any feedback/movement from any inputs.