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GEISHA NOVIA - Ever wanted to be a merman geisha?

Posted: Sun Jun 17, 2012 2:13 am
by Skomakar'n
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WELCOME! :mrgreen:

YOUTUBE progress: day 10

It's all in mumbly Swedish since I just recorded these pre-announcement clips for the other guy working on the game, and it's a bit of a lousy recording of the iPhone screen by the iPad, but you can see what it looks like, although there isn't much sound yet. I might subtitle it this evening or something. There is a lot of graphical detail missing in the main gameplay at the moment, and planned are, for example, gems to collect.

I recommend beginning by watching the video, but to get the stuff you saw explained, read on.

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A brief look on the plan here:

* The game will be made in about 2,5 weeks. About half remains at the moment.
* The game will be released in the iPhone App Store this month.
* This will be the first published game by Royal Railway. :shock2:

Know well that the current screenshots of the actual gameplay is graphically lacking. There will be backgrounds and a sky and whatnot. Not just a white background. Also, there will be stuff, and equally importantly, sounds, making sure you know what's going on and how you score.

I am the programmer and artist and on board is also Erik for music and sounds.

Twitter: RoyalRailway
Facebook: Royal Railway

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Taking some time away from Bottoms Up! (there is a thread in this subforum), which has gotten too big for the moment, I wanted to work on some smaller things for a while. This is the first fruit of this. I've been working on it for about ten days now (today will be the eleventh) for at least 10,5 hours each day (some days more) and the progress is rapid. Great fun! My friend Erik and I are putting some really weird design decisions in here. :waaagh:

It's an iPhone game (we'll have to see about Android later on) that's just supposed to be easy to pick up, and equally easy to put aside when you feel done playing for the time being, and as such has only one way of input; one finger constantly touching the screen to steer the character Novia about. He's a geisha with a sad excuse for a haircut and and the tail of a fish propelling him through the water.

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Avoid mean rocks or they will cause your screen to shake and your device to vibrate as they change their faces and wiggle about violently if you swim into them. Most importantly, they will take one life away, and you only have three, so the game is over and the final score shown when the last one goes.

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Ouch! :shock:

Along your way, collect rings. Gems are a semi-planned feature too. Don't miss any rings, because the more you can get without missing any, the more points you will get for each; this counter starts over entirely as soon as you miss one. There is also a bonus for every sixth ring.

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Another thing you can do to increase your score is to take any opportunity you see of a path to the surface that's not filled with obstacles, and jump out of the water and dive into it again. This will always earn you points, but making sure you land nicely with the nose first yields even more points than a regular, less elegant, jump.

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Game Center shall be incorporated, and we can see obvious proof of that in the main menu (as well as on the death screen):

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Re: GEISHA NOVIA - Ever wanted to be a merman geisha?

Posted: Sun Jun 17, 2012 2:41 am
by Skomakar'n

Re: GEISHA NOVIA - Ever wanted to be a merman geisha?

Posted: Sun Jun 17, 2012 11:44 am
by dandymcgee
Skomakar'n wrote:Taking some time away from Bottoms Up! (link in signature)
No it's not.

Re: GEISHA NOVIA - Ever wanted to be a merman geisha?

Posted: Sun Jun 17, 2012 12:42 pm
by Skomakar'n
dandymcgee wrote:
Skomakar'n wrote:Taking some time away from Bottoms Up! (link in signature)
No it's not.
I thought it was! D: There is a thread in this subforum. Oh, well. I'll edit that out for now rather than adding a link to an inactive project to my signature.

Re: GEISHA NOVIA - Ever wanted to be a merman geisha?

Posted: Sun Jun 17, 2012 6:23 pm
by Skomakar'n
Here's the video of today.

Subtitles have been added to the clip. Just turn annotations on.

Just look at the visuals and keep in mind that the new stuff is the following:

* The game now runs on the 3G (to the right), and uses half-resolution graphics. No lag or anything.
* The game runs better overall.
* The settings (sound and vibration on/off) are now working and are saved until the next session.
* There is now a help screen with four informative boxes that tell you how to control Novia, how to pause, what to avoid and what to collect and that breaking the surface earns you even more points.
* I am aware that the title of the help screen doesn't move along as the screen animates in and out, but simply pops up. I will fix this tomorrow.

Screenshot of the help screen:

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Re: GEISHA NOVIA - Ever wanted to be a merman geisha?

Posted: Mon Jun 18, 2012 5:31 pm
by Skomakar'n
New video for today's progress.

Subtitles have been added to the clip. Just turn annotations on.

I had less time on my hands today since I had to pay a visit to the tax authorities to set other things regarding the company up. Here are the news (I forgot to mention at least one thing in the video, but it's all there too see):

* The initial speed is a bit higher, but it increases slower.
* Novia has been moved a bit more to the left to allow for some more knowledge of the upcoming obstacles beforehand.
* A parallax background of two layers of rocks in the distance as well as some fish have been added to increase depth and life. Also pink sky.
* Visual response to actions such as collisions and getting points in the form of flashing vignettes (green for points and red for hits). The score box is also animated when more points are added.

Re: GEISHA NOVIA - Ever wanted to be a merman geisha?

Posted: Tue Jun 19, 2012 8:54 pm
by Skomakar'n
No video today, because I still haven't finished the only task I had today and I really need to sleep. I'll finish it up tomorrow and include it in that video. Good night.

Re: GEISHA NOVIA - Ever wanted to be a merman geisha?

Posted: Wed Jun 20, 2012 7:19 pm
by Skomakar'n
Video log: days #12 & #13

Subtitles have been added. Just turn annotations on.

Summarizing both that of yesterday, which got no video, and that of today. Other than the sad story of me dropping my iPhone 3G into a cup of tea, news include the following:

* New animation for Novia.
* Smoother movements.
* More level saturation.
* Less frequent vignettes. Reduced to bonus points only.
* Registered for Game Center, but haven't embedded it yet.
* Created an application icon.

Here's the icon:

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On the phone (sorry for the JPEG quality):

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Re: GEISHA NOVIA - Ever wanted to be a merman geisha?

Posted: Thu Jun 21, 2012 6:20 pm
by Skomakar'n
Video log of day #14 is up.

English subtitles have been added. Turn on annotations to see them.

Today I have been embedding Game Center to view and upload scores.

Re: GEISHA NOVIA - Ever wanted to be a merman geisha?

Posted: Thu Jun 21, 2012 10:36 pm
by bbguimaraes
To me, the thing that needed to be improved the most was the movement animation, which you did, and it got really, really better. That and the English subtitles. Nothing against Swedish, but actually understanding what you are saying makes the videos much more entertaining.

Also, does jumping out of the water gives you any kind of bonus or is it just for dramatic purposes?

Keep up, the game is looking nice!

Re: GEISHA NOVIA - Ever wanted to be a merman geisha?

Posted: Fri Jun 22, 2012 5:44 am
by Skomakar'n
bbguimaraes wrote:To me, the thing that needed to be improved the most was the movement animation, which you did, and it got really, really better.
Thanks! I got some help with it. A guy had the great idea of drawing a curve/wave and then animating that from right to left while having the character's movements move along with it.
bbguimaraes wrote:That and the English subtitles. Nothing against Swedish, but actually understanding what you are saying makes the videos much more entertaining.
Of course!
bbguimaraes wrote:Also, does jumping out of the water gives you any kind of bonus or is it just for dramatic purposes?
You receive points for doing so, and if you land with your nose first (a fairly small margin for error, but if you just tilt as far down as you can, you will make it) you get twice as many. So don't miss out on the opportunities to surface!
bbguimaraes wrote:Keep up, the game is looking nice!
Thank you!

Re: GEISHA NOVIA - Ever wanted to be a merman geisha?

Posted: Fri Jun 22, 2012 4:15 pm
by Skomakar'n
Took the day of for Swedish midsummer today, and for having been obedient to my schedule so far. I need to write a new one for the remaining days. No video today.

Re: GEISHA NOVIA - Ever wanted to be a merman geisha?

Posted: Mon Jun 25, 2012 4:28 pm
by Skomakar'n
New video summarising days 15 through 18!

English subtitles have been added. Turn on annotations to see them.

Day fifteen was midsummer, so nothing happened there, but I just want to keep the numbering correct. Apparently Erik intended for the fat stone voice to be that of the tall ones and the other way around, so that was a mistake, but that shall be fixed. New features and fixes include the following:

* Terrible bugs have been fixed. No details are really necessary.
* Less terrible but at least to me annoying bugs have been fixed or at least worked on.
* There is now a bright, little border around Novia and there is more contrast to his colours. He needed to stand out a bit more from the rest.
* Music for the title screen!
* Voices for the rocks and clams, but see the note about these above.
* The game pops up a message if Game Center is not available on the device, either inherently or because of current firmware.
* Various other graphical enhancements or tweaks. More clearly pink sky. Fishes move more nicely. Stuff like that.

Erik is coming here tomorrow, so we will see if something interesting can be done with the time, although some of it has to go to filling out tax papers and handing those in, and hopefully retrieving some sort of certificate allowing us to set up a bank account in time for sales to begin.

Re: GEISHA NOVIA - Ever wanted to be a merman geisha?

Posted: Tue Jul 03, 2012 5:51 am
by Skomakar'n
New video for days #19 through #25!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ciETM4TYUUM&hd=1

The clip contains some rapidly flashing footage, if anyone is sensitive to that.
English subtitles have been added. Just turn annotations on to see them.


Erik is here now. This was supposed to be uploaded yesterday night (today is the 26th day), but YouTube or the clip was messed up and after two failed upload we decided just to go to sleep and try again this morning. Success, finally.

The only days where any work was really done were the last two; the three days or so before that we both attended a forum meetup and took that time off (but at least that spawned a little platforming engine for anyone to use, and a silly clip as the last installation of our little project Kozea Daily - the guest actor Carl was the guy who worked with me on the platforming engine).

The list of news is thus not the longest. Here are some of the new additions and changes:

* Messages popping up about things happening.
* Bugs fixed, such as the previous impossiblity to turn sound off properly.
* Small touches added, such as playing a vibration when the vibration setting is enabled, for some nice response.
* A power-up in the form of a star that makes Novia invincible for 8 seconds and allows him to turn the obstacles into falling food.

Watch the clip!

Also, we'll be leaving for our meeting at the bank in 15 minutes. Excitement!

Re: GEISHA NOVIA - Ever wanted to be a merman geisha?

Posted: Thu Jul 05, 2012 9:43 pm
by Skomakar'n
Video summary of days #26 through #28!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XvHK4wdRny8&hd=1

English subtitles have been added. Just turn annotations on to see them.

News include:

* The power-up has been cranked up to the crazy level. Watch.
* A girl has sung the intended lyrics for the title theme song. Editing will happen in a couple of days.

Also, we've been to the bank. The company now has an account, so getting the final formalities set up with Apple should be smooth now.