Here is a #ScreenshotSaturday of game progress for Beyond the Infinite Abyss. Here I am testing the explosions and physics from the grenades and fighting technique. This is in early alpha, game mechanics and visuals may change in the future versions. Hope you like it!
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Its been a while since the last update. Currently, I have added some new features, such as a weapon system, camera management system, and new character design updates. Here is a mini preview below.
This year I embarked on my first trip to Tokyo to check out the Tokyo Game Show, the largest gaming convention in Japan. I have been told by other developers that Tokyo Game Show is something I should see and they were right. I am going to give some highlights and what to expect to see if you are an indie developer going to Tokyo Game Show 2015.
When you walk off the plane the first thing you see!
If you go to Tokyo be sure to pack some nice running/walking shoes, you will be doing alot of walking around to go from train station to train station.
Shinjuku
To get the the show you will have to take the train from where you are (in my case Shinjuku) to Makuhari Station, it is about an hour ride (if you can find the right route to take). Once you are at the station, take roughly about a 30 min walk from the station too the Makuhari Messe (convention center). Once there you can pick your badge and check out the booths.
The first two days are the Business Days, here you can check out and meet with the people involved with the gaming industry. When I first got into the convention I thought it was very spacious and and very gracious with the walkways, you will understand why in the public days section.
On the convention floor, you can check out various major companies, such as Capcom, BandaiNamco, Playstation, Konami, you can even see major game streaming services such as Youtube and Twitch.
Also at the major company booths you get to see the latest games that will be out in the coming months, such as Street fighter V, an Attack on Titan Game, Dragon Quest Builder (a Minecraft-like game with Dragon Quest RPG elements), A new Final Fanasty Online game, and even saw Star Wars Battlefront and Last Guardian which I remember has been in development for years. There were also many different mobile games such as GranBlue Fantasy. You can also see any new updates/features to existing games. For example, you can see at the Konami Booth that they have announced that they will be having new skins available for their latest game in the Metal Gear Solid franchise – The Phantom Pain.
Indie Games
Also in another section of the convention is for the Indie Games, here indie developers can showcase their work and even let people play. There I got to play and meet the developers of Undivided, Slashy Hero, March of Industry, and Astral Breakers. After checking it out I will definitely try to get a booth for next year.
Merchandising
Also in the same area as the indie booths, you can find various types of merchandise based on your favorite game. Like Final Fantasy? Check. Like vinyl? Check. Well, you can it there.
Final Fantasy VII Vinyl Records
Cosplay
Also at the convention you can find plenty of girls doing cosplay. Many people were lining up to take pictures of your favorite gaming/anime characters.
Public Day
The third day of the convention is when they make it public to the people to go in and check out. I was overwhelmed by the sheer amount of people that arrived to the convention, it was literally wall to wall people walking the convention. If you are part of the gaming industry I would recommend doing anything you need to do at the convention during the business days.
Public Day, Look at the People!
Public Day
Akihabara
After the convention, I went to Akihabara. Akihabra is where they have a shopping district for video games, anime and manga. Here you find the latest games of today and games of yesteryear. My first stop was the classic gaming superstore Super Potato. Here you can find NES (Famicom), SNES (Super Famicom), Genesis (MegaDrive), Sega Saturn, Dreamcast, and other classic games that range from extremely cheap to extremely expensive (and rare). Also on the top floor they have a small arcade where you can play the classics such as Donkey Kong, Street Fighter, and many others. Also throughout Akihabara you can find multi-floor arcades, such as Sega and Taito, where you can play the latest arcade hits for around 100 yen a game (about $1 USD).
Super Potato!
Top floor Super Potato
Overall, I would say it was a great experience, got to meet some new developers and even reconnect with some old ones. I will definitely try to submit my next game for the Indie Booth section for next year.
Here’s a #ScreenShotSaturday for the latest progress of Beyond the Infinite Abyss. I am testing out the camera movement and GUI placement. You also get to see some of the characters that will be in the series and some idea of the theme.I will post more gameplay vids and mechanics features in a future post.
Testing deployment on Ouya Game Console
Over the past couple of weeks I have been tidying up and prepping for the deployment of Mystic Mayhem on various systems. The first device I have chosen to deploy is the Ouya game system, The game is currently under review and hopefully be ready before Thanksgiving. What is an Ouya? An Ouya is a micro-console that runs Android OS. I was one of the original backers when they where on Kickstarter and thought it was a great idea to make Android games/apps available in the living room. The device makes a great Android dev tool and made it very easy to test using a controller and a touch interface, which is good if you want to deploy to other Android devices. The Ouya edition of Mystic Mayhem will have the same levels, music, and gameplay as the Xbox version. It will also be available for the same price [ 99 cents]. Please keep checking this site because over the next couple weeks I will be submitting to Google Play, Kindle, iOS and others.
Hi Everyone! Its been a while since I last posted. Wrote a new app, currently out for Windows Store, soon to Windows phone.
GET IT NOW ON THE WINDOWS STORE
Food Item Tracker
Get F.I.T.! The Food Item Tracker will allow people to track all food you are consuming. This app will allow you to scan the Bar Code of items you consume and find out the nutrition information of the items you are eating. From the nutrition information we can give you the most common foods and ingredients you are eating in an easy to understand charts and graphs. We can also recommend food based on the frequency of items you are consuming.
Game Name Changes
I announced in earlier posts about the next game Quantum Fortress, a 3D choose your own adventure game on queue once F.I.T. is out on the Windows Store. I decided to rename the game to Beyond the Infinite.
Game Updates
Mystic Mayhem: Maximum Altitude Free Edition Check it out!
Good news everyone! We are now offering Mystic Mayhem: Maximum Altitude for Free on the Windows Phone marketplace. The game now features difficulty settings (Go to Options -> Difficulty), the difficulty determines the speed of the game.
Also in the development queue is an Android version of the game.
Dev Queue
I am also working on the next android game at the same time, currently titles “Quantum Fortress” a mobile space shooter.
Quantum Fortress – In Development
Over the past couple weeks, I have been fixing and adding new features to Mystic Mayhem. It is currently in peer review on the XBLIG App hub, the patch will hopefully be deployed by next week.
Patch 1.3 has the following updates/features:
Adventure Mode
Survival Mode
One of the new features of Survival Mode is an unlockable character system (see above pic). You will now be able to play other characters, such as: Princess Parsely and Cloud Car(10000 Pts), Malwarp and Dragon(15000 Pts), and the King (20000 Pts). When you hit certain score, a popup will show telling you if you what character you unlocked and will be able to play after you finish/leave the game.
Xbox Live Indie Game Dev Update
I have currently sent Version 1.1 of the patch for Mystic Mayhem on the App Hub, this version adds the following updates:
– Slower Menu Selection Speed
– Updated Menu to Showcase the different modes of the game (show it is two games in one!)
– Fixed coin value value in Survival Mode
– Removed rumble on projectile shoot.
– Updated some graphics elements.
These updates will hopefully be out in the next couple of days.
Android Progress
Currently I have been learning MonoGame and trying to port Mystic Mayhem to Android devices. So far i have been making some progress, but found some snags. First, MonoGame currently does not support hardware instancing in their codebase [Develop3d Branch], this means I will have to do some workarounds to get the graphics to display properly on less powerful graphics cards.Second, I will have to find an alternative way to get the music to work, somehow the audio causes some faults which I had to comment my Audio Manager code in order for the port to work.
Next, I will have to tackle scaling, since Android devices can support various sizes, I will have to add a scaling manager to scale from the traditional Xbox 1280 x 720 to any size possible. Also during my first port test of my game I was getting some “run out of space” when trying to deploy to the emulator. After some quick searching I found out that even though the game is < 70MB, when debugging it almost doubles its size to add debug handlers when sending to Android device. In order to fix it you have to run the emulator for the first time from the command prompt to add a partition size when it starts up:
emulator -partition-size 512 -avd <Your Mono AVD Name here>
otherwse it defaults to a low disk size (194MB of free if I recall).
I will try to keep an update of the games progress porting Mystic Mayhem (which is out now on XBLIG!) to Android as much as I can.
Good news everyone! The patch for Mystic Mayhem is finally out, the patch covers the following:
– Slowed down menu speed
– Improved graphics/performance on Survival Mode
– Fixed flicker issue [culling] in 3D mode [Adventure Mode]
– Saves settings
Be sure to check it out in the marketplace for only 80MSP!
BitCore Studios LLC 