MechCorp v1.2.0 (More Content)

Remember when I talk about taking a break from MechCorp in my last post? Well I kind of lied. I change my mind a few days after the post. In my defense, I did have 2 weeks break prior to that post. Now remember when I talk about doing a major update with MechCorp in the last post? Well I'm here to make good of that talk. Behold, MechCorp 1.2.0, is now live on steam. Thanks for all the groundwork I've been laying down since the first release, this had taken a lot less time than I anticipated.

In this 'major' update, I have added a bunch of optional game modes. They are like the 'second wave' options in X-Com: enemies unknown, a set of rules and modifier that can be turned on to change the base game. Some of them change the game in a dramatic fashion. Just for a taste, here are some of them:

• Red Fog: Unit will suffer attack and defend penalty in proportional to damage sustained
• Long Voyage: Resupply between contracts has been disabled
• High Stake: Unit destroyed in a battle cannot be salvaged

Other new additions in this update include more crew perks but I'm not going to spoil them. You will just have to play the game to discover them. And of course there are fixes and small changes here and there based on the feedback I've been given. Finally, and probably not as important as the game itself, cloud saving is now being supported.

That is all for now. The next thing in the pipeline will be Grid Defense.

Updates and Coming soon

It has been a little more than 2 months since MechCorp is released.  The game wasn't a runaway success like I anticipated, which is annoying. And the 2 or 3 negative reviews that I've got is puzzling, to say the least. At least the rest of positive reviews still make sense to me, but I do expect there's more of them...

Joke aside, I'm happy about the way things have turned out. True, the sale is not what I would have called great but it could have been way worse. Besides, most people do seems to enjoy it. That's is good enough for me. Not going to lie, I braced myself for the worst case scenario before release. And trust me, the fear and anxiety that caused, you don't want to know.

The first month following the release of MechCorp has been very hectic. I spent day and night fixing bugs and making changes based on the feedback I've received. Not going to lie, releasing a game is extremely stressful, exhausting and exhilarating at the same time. But I'm very pleased to say that the game is now almost bug-free and a lot of better than its initial release.

I still have plans for MechCorp. A major update maybe, adding in more game mode. Something like the second wave option in X-Com. But for now. I need to take a break from the project, to clear my mind.

Which bring me to this, a prettified SpecDefense. I've been spending some very enjoyable time building various environment set for the levels. It's very therapeutic to see those simple models and color combination forms a pretty scene. Now that they are almost done, I've decided that I will get it on steam. I've even got the steam page ready at this point - https://store.steampowered.com/app/956210/. So go on and add it to your wish-list. It will be released later this month.

MechCorp has been released on Steam!

After months and months of work, a few years in fact, it has finally come to this. I'm so proud to announce that the little project that I've been working on is now available to the public.

It feels like finally releasing a child into the wild, after having it under your care after a long time. I can only hope it fair well in the harsh harsh world. As I'm waiting for what happen next, it's exciting and excruciating nerve wrecking at the same time. Knowing that it could fall flat on it's face. All those effort in vain. Finger crossed...

I know the work is not done. There's probably bug fixes and update that I need to work on. But it's huge weight off my shoulder. After so many rework and delay, to say that the thought of not being able to finish has never cross my mind would be a lie. But at least I won't ever have to worry about that again. 

Whatever happen now, I'm going to try get some down time, play some game. Gosh I so want a holiday.

If you are interested in funding my holiday - https://store.steampowered.com/app/838180/MechCorp/

Endless Grid Defense

I have receive a lot of feedback since Spec Defense was released, almost a year back. Well when I say feedback I mean I read the reviews. Basically they boil down to these two: the game is shit because it's hard as hell so I gave up on level 2. And boy I wish there's an endless mode because I want more of it. 

Well for group 1, I'm not going to apologize for the nature of the game. I suspect some people doesn't quite grasps the concept of mazing. Or they don't have the patient to play a game that require some planning. I can accept that. This game is not for everyone.

For group 2, boy do I appreciate you wanting to play more or the game. For that reason, I've released an update today, added endless mode to the game! Hooray! The mode is available for all levels, unlocked when the player beat the level once.

There also a bunch of other stuff that comes with the update. Like lots of balance tweak for the towers, UI tooltip that show player the tower function and stats, etc. And bug fix of course.

So that's it for now. Now I need get back to MechCorp.

Spec Defense Free!

We all know this is inevitable so here it's, free version of Spec Defense.

 

If you haven't read my previous post, Spec Defense is a little TD game that I've made very recently. It's available for both pc window and android. You can learn more about it in this post. I won't say it's great. But personally I think it's a solid tower defense game. I've had plenty of fun during my play-testing.

Anyway, the free version is pretty much the same game, only that it has got a paywall. The first 6 levels (from a total of 24) are available for free and the player are limited to 8 upgrades. There's no ads, no other in app purchase item except the pay wall alone. It's a demo with option to upgrade to full in a nut-shell. 

Go give it a try if you are reading this. And I hope you have fun playing the game.

I've got a new website!

And boy it's about damn time too. This blogger place-holder site that I've been using as my main website has been long overdue.

So yes I've been busy building a new and more professional looking site to show all my work. It has finally gone live! I'll have you know I've put an awful lot of work into it. Getting the domain setup correctly alone has shorten my life expectancy by a great deal. But ain't the result worth it. I'm loving it and you should definitely give it a look.

www.songgamedev.com

I guess the from now on this site will go back to what it used to be when it first started, a blog. And I certainly hope that I will post more stuff. Oh that's a blog on the new site too so I guess I'll be double posting for now. But I'll gradually phase this one out, probably... we'll see.

Annoucing Spec Defense!

* I have a few android keys for this game to give away. Please pm/email me if you are interested in playing the game. I would love to hear what you think about the game.*

The time has finally come. Ladies and gentleman I'm proud to present you my first solo commercial release. A little tower defense game with a very unimaginative name.

I've been working on this since the completion of TDTK4. The goal is to create a minimalistic but engaging 'classic' tower defense experience. One that allow various tower combination and open level design where the player can complete the level using any mean they see fit. The level design is where the most effort went. And I'm very pleased with how most of the level turn out, as I myself struggle to figure out the optimum way to beat each level during play testing.

As far as other aspect of the game goes, I've tried to keep it as simple as possible so that I wouldn't have to spend ages on this. This is after all just a side project while I get back to working on MechCorp again. I'll probably keep updating for bug-fixes, balance tweak and usability improvement. But depend on the reception I might even add more feature or content.

So this is what the game offer in it's current state. There are 12 towers in total. Each is useful in it's own way but you can only take 6 towers for each level. Completion of each level award stars which is used for upgrading existing tower or unlock new tower (You start with 3). The upgrades and tower unlocking are non-linear so you are free to choose whatever that fit your play style. Rinse and repeat until you beat all the levels (all 24 of them).

The upgrade screen of Grid Defense

Before you ask, yes, all this is based on TDTK4. A slightly modified one of course, to fit various design need. 

So It's currently available for window pc on itch.io and android device on Google play store for a low low price of $3. Check it out!

TowerDefense-ToolKit 4 is released!

Finally, it's now live on AssetStore!

And I can't tell you how exciting and pleased I'm with it. It's probably my best AssetStore work to date I recon. A culmination of the things I learned throughout the years. 

Speaking of years, TDTK is almost 6 years old. It was first released on July2011 (Imagine that!), so it's a month a way from it's 6th anniversary since release. Fitting time for a new version I guess. I like to take this opportunity to give thanks to all those who has supported the framework, either by purchasing and using it, or gave feed-back/ideas. It's those support that drive me this far. I hope the framework will continue to serve you well in the future as I continue to make improvement.

TDTK4 Preview

Not going to lie. I've been spending most of my time working on TDTK4. It's been a great fun and things are coming along really well. Which is why I really feel compelled to temporarily put other stuff on hold and focus on this.

It's almost 'done'. I'm just in the process of testing and getting things ready for AssetStore. So it won't be long before it's submitted to the AssetStore. There may be more addition to come but I think it's more than sufficient in it's current state for first release.  I can't wait to see what people think about it. Here's some sneak peak, taken straight from the demo scene.  :)

Since things has been finalized, I will briefly talk about the major difference between TDTK3 and TDTK4.

First up is the path system (obviously). The new system can support branching paths which I've talked about in this post. Then there a more comprehensive perk system, which support the modification of just about every stats available on a unit/ability/buff-effect, both in the form of modifier(+) or multiplier(x). Next, First-person-shooter mode is dropped, at least for the first release. And finally, the no so obvious change, a much better optimized code base. 

Of course, there are tons of little improvement here and there that are simply too many to be mention individually. I'll leave it for you to find out yourself.  :)

Next TDTK?

This may have been coming a long way and I've been asked about TDTK4 a lot. Since I've been casually working on it and made a reasonable amount of progress, I might as well make it official that TDTK4 is currently in development. Here's a glimpse of the new UI.

Of course, it's by no mean complete but as I'm looking at it now, it's going to be better than the previous version in almost every way. There are more options available to get the setting you need. It supports more features. The perk system are much more comprehensive than before. All this, with much less code. That means it's much easier for me to maintain and update it in the future. And also easier for user to mod.

That said, I'm leaving out FPS mode at the moment for a few reasons. First it's not really the main selling point of the framework. Second I don't think too many people are using it. Third and the most important reason, it's kind of tedious to support the touch input for FPS mode. I'll be honest, I'm not a big fan for virtual joystick on touch screen by any mean. When I first started working on FPS mode, it's fun and interesting to play with it using mouse and keyboard. The problem is it hasn't cross my mind that I'll have to add touch control support. So eventually when people are asking for it, it becomes kind of a pain for me. In short, FPS mode is dropped for now. I may add that in a later update but we'll see.

Either way, it's looking rather good for now. I've no idea when it will be ready. To clarify, I'm not working on it full time. Just using it as a way to keep myself from burned out working on MechCorp.

MechCorp has been Greenlit!

It has finally happened! The little game that I've been working on has been Greenlit! As cliche as it sound, I like to thanks those who has given their support to make this happen. You have my eternal gratitude!

Now the work begins to push it over the finish line. I can't wait!

Weekend project - a new path system

Once again I decided to spend the weekend working on something novel. And this week, it's a new path system that may or may not be the back bone of next major TDTK upgrade. I'm not sure where I get the idea from but wouldn't it be great if the creep can choose the shortest between multiple branching path. And following short video demonstrate the the concept in working.

It's still a very flexible system. There is not limit to how many branch a path can take. Branched out paths can rejoin, or not, or branch out to even more path. Either way, the creep will always look for the shortest way to get to one of the potential many end point at every branching point.

The best thing of course, in my opinion, is the code. For what it's, it's cleaner and easier to maintain than the old code in TDTK. That is the one thing I'm most please with.

However I should clarify that this doesn't mean I'll be actively working on TDTK. It's just something I'm casually working/experimenting on weekend atm. Until it's finally released, MechCorp still takes precedent over everything in my schedule.

MechCorp, Now on Steam Greenlight

Clicking this will take you to the steam page

This has been coming for a long time. But it's finally happen now. MechCorp is now live on Steam Greenlight. I've been dread this moment since it feels like throwing all my precious work into a pit of great unknown. At the same time, It's so exciting to see how it will unfold. I'm going to keep my finger cross and pray a lot.

Here's the complimentary media piece that comes with a major news release, in the form of a full gameplay video

The game is not complete yet of course. It's still missing content, specifically a main plot. And the gameplay balance is still need tweaking. But for the first time since the start of development I think I've got a rather solid core gameplay and mechanic. So much so that I'm confident that I'm not going to make any more major change. That's why I think it's time to put it on greenlight.

That said, there are still a lot of work left to be done. I'll probably still need to spend quite a few months on it. But it would be nice if it can be green-lit and given a place on Steam before the actual game is done. It would also be very nice to see what are the general response to it.

Anyway, enough rambling. The whole point of this post is to ask for your support. So if you are still reading. Please go vote for it. Here's the link again:

A million thanks in advance!

MechCorp Battle Gameplay Video

Finally, I'm back at work after a rather long break. It's why there hasn't been any post for the past one month.

Before the break, I talked about posting a gameplay video. Seeing the game is almost ready to be shown, I took the time this week to record a full battle and here it's. I hope you enjoy it. Feel free to let me know what you think about it.

MechCorp Update (20th January 2017)

I've said I'm going to do a gameplay video in my last post. Well I'm afraid that is not going to happen. I've decided to delay things a bit until its more ready rather than rush it. Consider that I'm going to take some time off starting new week, I'm not sure when is that going to happen. But you never know, there's a chance I'll just do one out of the blue.

While there are no video, I do have some screen shots of the battle scene with the new environment. Enjoy!

MechCorp Update (11th January 2017)

Happy new year!

It's time for another development update for MechCorp. I'm now at the stage of getting ready for Steam Greenlight. So what I've done since the last update is a lot of polishing now most of the core component is now in place. Thing like UI and presentation has been given a lot of attention. The AI has also gone through a big overhaul with AI unit now using abilities. Most visual and sound effect has been put in as well. It almost feels like it's ready for release, except that there are still a lot more work needed to be done. Game balance is still off the wack, performance optimization are needed, more content need to be added, etc.

One surprise addition is that I've decided to make use of the low-poly scenery asset I've made over the last few posts to build the environment for the battle scene. I know it's not changing how the game play in anyway but visually this has given a game a big boost. It's making a huge difference in my opinion. Surprising the low-poly (and stylized) asset do goes really well with the existing setting. These are some of the settings I've for now. Keep in mind that it's still a work in progress.

Not going to lie, I feel pretty good about the project at the moment. I can almost see the light at the end of the tunnel now. I can't wait to get it done and get it release. That said, I plan to do a game-play video showcasing the game in very near future. Probably next week or the week after.

Simple Rock Formation

Didn't manage to get much done this weekend to be honest. I've very good reasons for that. First I got to deal with some sh**. That took way too long. Then some of the stuff I've been attempting didn't turn out quite as well as I hope. Guess they will never see the light of day, until I improve them of course. What I've been left with, are a set of very minecraft-ish square rocks. I decided to play with them anyway to see how much I can do with them, with other stuff I've done in the past few week naturally. This is what I've end up with, an autumn version of the pine forest, and a volcano/lava-cavern thing?

Autumn Pine Forest

Volcanic Rock Formation

It's surprising that how much you can do with what is essentially a few slightly textured cubes. I especially like the rock formations in the autumn scene. And the autumn color theme looks really nice. Probably better than the originals. Shame I don't have any more time to layout the scene better. I think the placement of the rock is too random as it's now. But it will have to do for now.

So that's it for this week then. I'll carry carry on where I've stopped next weekend... or probably not? I'm contemplating about taking a few days off. We'll see.

Water!!

It's that time of the week again. Without delay, my creation of this week are:

Island

Shallow Water

The theme of the week is of course, water, as the title of this post suggested. It''s quite obvious why that is the case. Not much to say about the scenes really except that I'm quite happy with the way they turn out. I have my doubt about doing anything that involve water when I started making this kind of scene. Glad all those time spent looking for idea and researching pays off.

Anyway, with this weekly posting schedule, I'm starting to worry at the day when the my production-rate/learning-speed/creativiy-juice can't keep up with my next idea, if I haven't run out of idea. Beside, I could really use the time to really play some game. In fact, I'm desperately in need of that. Well, we'll see how it goes when the next weekend comes.

Bloom!!

Another weekend, and I've been exploring more about what I can do with these low-poly modeling scene creating thingy. I'm really really enjoying doing this. So much so that I'm start to look forward to weekend to work, not for the usual respite.

Anyway the highlight in this week, bloom! Specifically, the 'bloom' image effect. Well, I've never pay too much attention to image effect in the past. Partly because I don't really need them in all my past work, partly because I never put too much emphasis fancy graphics. But I thought I try to play with them a bit, in an attempt to make the my new crystal glow. And this is what I've got:

without glow

with glow (expand the image to really see the difference)

Satisfied with what I've got, I went on and test it on everything I've got. Now I'm convinced that almost everything can be made better with a little bloom effect. For instance:

definitely looks better than before in my opinion.

Anyway, apart from the crystal scene above (yes I made those crystals), I've also made this:

Honestly I'm not entirely sure what I was going for with this one. Something with sharp pointy rocks, in a alien environment? Hasn't turn out as well as I like but I still think it's a good try. Maybe I'll need to do more study about making a decent rock formation.

I'm not sure what I'm going for next. I like to try something that involve water but I don't really have any idea how to do that. Either way, that's it for this week. Looking forward for next.

More Low-Poly Scenes

It has been a blast making the low-poly scene I posted last week. And I've throw myself at it again this weekend. These are what I have for show:

Pine Forest

Desert

Canyon

Jungle

The first scene is very much a remake of what I have last week, using the improved, remake asset. The rest are new obviously new. I've spent a great deal of time working out how to do the rock and cliff. The result speak for themselves! Or so I think. 

Anyway, it's been a tremendous fun working on this. I can barely contain myself with excitement looking at how things turn out. Can't wait for next weekend to see what else I can come up.