[WIP] Creeping Me Out!

[Mixel]

Thanks guys! I really wanted to put out a promo video but a) it doesn’t really have much in the way of new content, and now with Easter and family commitments it’ll be a couple of days before I can.. (but I wanted to get it out there so I can carry on the proper CMOhn work, tying levels together and making new tiles!)

Actually maybe I could make it part of a stream on Monday.. “trying to edit together a promo video” what’s funny is the lengths I’ve gone to trying to get a smooth capture using cameras, but it just doesn’t work as my passthrough monitor on my A1200 is a TN panel so the camera can only see a tiny section of the screen in correct colours at once.. I’ve discovered I can capture from the screen at 100hz (2x pal) and have a suuuuper silky video, but then, because 50fps video isn’t 100% smooth on 60hz displays anyway it screws it up. I can’t win. It makes a lot more sense to record under emulation, basically, potentially while running the game in NTSC.. Which is a weird slightly fast sensation, but works!

[zzbylu]

Small gameplay: [ Show youtube player ]

[acidbottle]

Well i fired it up and its looking so much nicer (if that possible) than on the original demo. Controls are much more fluid for sure and the whole game feels smoother.

Pretty sure you said you were doing all the music to, which is outstanding, sounds amazing

My critic, real minor ones, no quit to dos on the menu screen but can in-game thankfully. Perhaps a few more checkpoints in the sewer level, I died a few times over and over and heading back to the ladder was a grind! Only say this as its the starter area, so just to get players some momentum then can space out the checkpoints as game goes further on, just in my opinion of course!

On the whole this shaping up real great mixel! Will be able to test on an 060 a bit later, tried this under amikit/amiberry.

[Mixel]

Thanks Sabreman you’re so fast! That takes the pressure off me making a video slightly, haha!

Acidbottle, excellent! So happy. Also glad you like the music so far, as I feel like I’m winging the music creation even more than the programming part. (Though I’m definitely improving) - Hoffman’s recent “Amiga output should be set to mono” posts really helped me, as I’m sitting between two huge speakers, so had like 100% stereo separation and it made everything sound way worse than it actually is until I sorted that. I (somewhat arbitrarily) gave myself a 50KB music budget too, so I have to be smart with sample choices.

Gameplay reports like that are really valuable to me too! I’ll add another respawn point.. It’s so easy to me now because I know the enemy behaviour inside out.. I did watch another YouTuber play demo 1i and they kept dying back to the ladder too, so yup, agreed, for a first proper level it doesn’t need to be full Ghouls n Ghosts craziness.

I’ve planned a difficult mode that unspawns all the extra lives and health, leaving a dotted line around where they would be, for people who want it way more challenging, I’m also contemplating 5, 3 and 1 health being selectable from the main menu for masochists.

Quit to desktop from the main menu is an excellent idea and I’ll have that in 1.1b (likely in a couple of days) .. I’m going to keep notes now so I remember to maintain changes across builds. (And not break things copying them back and forth, haha) - I completely forgot you can’t check for keypresses while a full screen panel is displayed!

[nikosidis]

Mixel: Tried the game on A1200/030. It runs real nice, very smooth. Great controls and I love the gfx. The game itself got some nice elements. I like the combination of dialogue and game play. The music is not bad but is out of tune in some parts. I would suggest you get someone that really know Amiga audio to polish it. I would also suggest you get some beta-testers to help you out with the gameplay.

[Mixel]

TY for feedback.. Glad it’s working well on your A1200! No music is necessarily finished. (there are a few pieces in the demo that are definitely not going to be in the final game.. looking at you map music..) Are there any bits in particular you find egregiously out of tune because there’s potentially a chance I did it on purpose? I’ve had multiple offers to help with music so I will likely have others go over it eventually, but not before I have a stab at everything. (Making the music is one of the most fun parts, and part that I have a lot to learn in)

There will need to be a lot of testing, for sure, I’ll run into a lot of bugs without people trying to break things.

[nikosidis]

Originally Posted by Mixel

TY for feedback.. Glad it’s working well on your A1200! No music is necessarily finished. (there are a few pieces in the demo that are definitely not going to be in the final game.. looking at you map music..) Are there any bits in particular you find egregiously out of tune because there’s potentially a chance I did it on purpose? I’ve had multiple offers to help with music so I will likely have others go over it eventually, but not before I have a stab at everything. (Making the music is one of the most fun parts, and part that I have a lot to learn in)

There will need to be a lot of testing, for sure, I’ll run into a lot of bugs without people trying to break things.

You can learn a lot from WASP regarding Protracker limitations.

[ Show youtube player ]

There are notes in most of the music in the game that are not in tune.

The way I see it you are a fantastic gfx artist. It is possible to do it all but I would use someone else for the music.

[Mixel]

Thanks and I will watch those.. but in regard to someone else doing the music in general, absolutely not. I can, and will compose the score. Possibly calling on support later, but certainly not without a good stab at it all first. Most of the fun stages to score I haven’t started on yet, but music is as an important storytelling tool as graphics. Composing stuff isn’t my issue, it’s dumping it from my brain into mod format, but I’m getting better at that. (some of these characters and locations have had self spawning “soundtracks” that play in my head as I’ve drawn them for >10 years, hehe.)

There are people who disagree with the notion of it having good graphics too.. Bear with me while I get things up to speed.

[nikosidis]

Originally Posted by Mixel

Thanks and I will watch those.. but in regard to someone else doing the music in general, absolutely not. I can, and will compose the score. Possibly calling on support later, but certainly not without a good stab at it all first. Most of the fun stages to score I haven’t started on yet, but music is as an important storytelling tool as graphics. Composing stuff isn’t my issue, it’s dumping it from my brain into mod format, but I’m getting better at that. (some of these characters and locations have had self spawning “soundtracks” that play in my head as I’ve drawn them for >10 years, hehe.)

There are people who disagree with the notion of it having good graphics too.. Bear with me while I get things up to speed.

Sure my friend. Keep on going You are doing a fantastic job. It is mostly about the fun anyway. Do what you love.

[Mixel]

Originally Posted by nikosidis

Sure my friend. Keep on going You are doing a fantastic job. It is mostly about the fun anyway. Do what you love.

Thanks so much It's all really useful feedback and I had a really good convo with Tsak that's helped me understand some audio stuff that'll help a ton.

---
Did a lot of stuff on stream today.. I've had feedback from a few people and in a bunch of cases it was a great reminder to fix up some of the things i made earliest in the game, or tweak unfinished things.. Here's the short list of changes from today..

• Tiny slimes now only hurt you if they jump/fall on you.. if you stomp them it inflicts no player damage. (they've alternated between hurting and not hurting for a while, so now they do a bit of both, i think it feels right..)
• Player flashes when hit and a longer animation + impact sound.
• Chests now animate opening (becomes an actor to animate and then disappear) and catapult coins.
• You can now hold duck for 2+ seconds and pan the camera down to avoid leaps of faith.
• Odd map behaviour lessoned. (a minor rejig of the map is forthcoming.. When I designed it, "print text to panel" didn't exist, now it would fit certain parts of the info text much better, making navigating more streamlined.)
• Added an extra player respawn point to sewer1
• Added 2 extra player respawn points to sewer2, to lessen punishment for exploration in by far the biggest stage of the demo.
• Added tiny (1 health) powerups
• Added medium (5 health) powerups

- You can see 1.2 is mostly a logic update. 1.3 will be more of an A/V one, at this rate.

Thanks Tsak and Acidbottle for most of the little suggestions. 1.2 should be ready to upload Tuesday at some point.

[ Show youtube player ] - the ducking camera in action

[ Show youtube player ] - the treasure chests.. (they work a bit better than this now, lol)

[Tigerskunk]

Love all the creative ideas flowing into this game.

Great effort.

[acidbottle]

Ooh I like the idea of panning the camera there, neat feature!

Am glad you have adjusted some elements, it is most often these tiny fixes and features that elevate a game from great to superb. Feedback is so crucial as you say, after a while you get so used to testing and trying your own creation you tend to find things perhaps too easy.

[Mixel]

TY both! Almost every time I watch someone else play it I see something that needs fixing because they interact with it in a different way to how I do.

1.2 is out now at https://mixelslab.itch.io/creeping-me-out-hex-night as well as the things listed above I’ve made one boss die a bit more interestingly, added some blocks to make ladders work better (so people don’t fall off them at the top. Various environmental hints and map fixes. A couple of QoL new platforms to hint at something outside of view.. And a ton of other tiny things I forget.. bug enemies had a few fixes.

[nikosidis]

Originally Posted by Mixel

TY both! Almost every time I watch someone else play it I see something that needs fixing because they interact with it in a different way to how I do.

1.2 is out now at https://mixelslab.itch.io/creeping-me-out-hex-night as well as the things listed above I’ve made one boss die a bit more interestingly, added some blocks to make ladders work better (so people don’t fall off them at the top. Various environmental hints and map fixes. A couple of QoL new platforms to hint at something outside of view.. And a ton of other tiny things I forget.. bug enemies had a few fixes.

Thanks Mixel. Will try it out soon

[ransom1122]

Originally Posted by Mixel

TY both! Almost every time I watch someone else play it I see something that needs fixing because they interact with it in a different way to how I do.

1.2 is out now at https://mixelslab.itch.io/creeping-me-out-hex-night as well as the things listed above I’ve made one boss die a bit more interestingly, added some blocks to make ladders work better (so people don’t fall off them at the top. Various environmental hints and map fixes. A couple of QoL new platforms to hint at something outside of view.. And a ton of other tiny things I forget.. bug enemies had a few fixes.

Is it just me or is this link not working?

[Predseda]

No, it works.

[ransom1122]

Originally Posted by Predseda

No, it works.

It's' working now, maybe there was some small downtime previously.

[Gzegzolka]

Thanks for new demo, what a great game You are making

[Mixel]

Thankyou all..

I've noticed lately that itch does seem to go down quite a lot.. Which is a shame considering I'm using it to avoid using my web host which.. also goes down quite a lot..

Annywayyy!!! Despite that, here's a short video showing some of the changes since the builds of last year..
[ Show youtube player ] (I may have overdone it with the transistions, haha)

Version 1.3 is available at the itch.. https://mixelslab.itch.io - if itch is working.. Most notably the graphical changes to the city levels.

• Updated copper parallax in city levels to remove annoying pointy clouds and make the buildings blend in better.
• New city level background tiles
• Most music is more in tune now (WIP)
• Save points now toggle off when another is used
• Skulls shrunk
• Death improvements
• Tiny logic tweaks
• Fixed a wall you could walk through and get stuck
• Added suicide key in case ^ happens again!

And probably some other fixes I forgot!

[Tsak]

Omg, amazing work once again Mixel! I really love the new fixed city backgrounds!