Indies in Due Time: Dream-Build-Play 2012 Episode 3
June 23, 2012 9 Comments
Kairi and Brian here. No Dalek today. No Nate, Hurley, or Alan either. Don’t worry, the Dalek isn’t really set to kill. Doesn’t mean it can’t kill, just that it will only do so if it wants to impress me. However, I do have Mike Wall, editor at Armless Octopus, as a guest. I’m guessing Dave will pop in as well. To the trailers!
Flutterby
Dave: Hey, this was my pick!
Kairi: Yea, sorry, we forgot it last time.
Dave: Well, I’m just going to throw this out here and then leave things to Mike. Let him get shot at by weird giant salt-and-pepper shakers for once.
Kairi: It’s a Dalek!
Dave: It has some nice hand drawn visuals with lots of layers, but overall seems like a slow-moving side-scrolling shmup. Some of the levels appear to have environmental objects you need to avoid, on top of enemies as well.
Mike: Yeah, I really love the art style in this game. Hopefully it’s a competent shooter, but it’s kind of hard to tell from just the few seconds in the trailer. I’m on board with any game that lets me play as a disembodied cat-winged creature puking fireballs.
Brian: Was that an Armless Octopus I just saw as an enemy?
Dave: Huh, maybe it was. Mike, did you cut them the check?
Mike: Yep.
Dave: Then it was. Okay, I’m out of here.
Brian: Go capitalism.
Kairi: As someone not in love with shooters and who has had bad luck with beautifully drawn cutesy-poo games (see Plugemon and Lumi), I’m borderline terrified of this game.
Brian: Graphics are pretty decent looking, but as a game it doesn’t look special.
Alan: I…don’t get it. Some rejected Pokemon belch their way through Princess Mononoke? And why does the trailer stop dead just as it seems to be about to do something? If this was just a work in progress vid, fair enough, but it’s titled as a trailer. It doesn’t even show the title or ETA or anything. Orange flying Pikachu is unimpressed.
Mike: Wait, he’s back?
Kairi: No, he just knows when to show up long enough to get plugged. Speaking of which, Brian, did his check clear?
Brian: It did.
Kairi: Go to TheIndieOcean.com
Mike: Bastard.
Homework
Brian: In some of the shots, it looks really good for a 3D environment on XBLIG. On others, it looks low resolution.
Kairi: I’m guessing it’s very early on in development. Outside of the stuff with the bees, you can’t get a feel for the game’s objectives. This felt more like a tech demo.
Mike: Everybody always complains when Nintendo regurgitates the same Zelda adventure every 2-3 years, but the trailer for Homework looks like it could be taking the boy-hero adventure in a new direction. I like the idea of defending the bees from the evil wasps and the trailer shows off some combat, a ranged weapon or tool, and some puzzle solving. It’s obviously on a much smaller scales than Link’s grandiose journeys, but Homework looks like it could be a nice change-up.
Brian: The jumping looks awkward.
Alan: Holy buggering shit, I can’t even see the trailer thanks to the blinding migraine brought on by the music! Pushing a busker down your basement stairs into a pile of punctured bagpipes does not count as a soundtrack. Well, it’s at least fairly pretty. Looks like a straight 3D platformer. Unusual for XBLIG, and maybe perfectly competent, but 1996 was a long time ago.
Kairi: Hey now, you got your plug.
Alan: Oh thank Christ. It’s 3AM, I’m going to bed. Fucking Yanks and your time zones.
Mike: That guy has a funny accent.
Axiom Verge
Brian: We’ve done this one. Kairi called it the best XBLIG trailer ever.
Mike: This game looks fucking bananas. Can I say fuck?
Brian: This is Indie Gamer Chick. You can say it until the word has lost all meaning.
Mike: Really? Fuck Fuckety Fuck Fuck Fuck!
Brian: Feel better?
Mike: Actually, yea, kind of.
Brian: We’re a bad influence over here.
Mike: Anyway, the trailer immediately conjures up memories of Metroid, but appears to have mashed that creepy atmosphere with an extra dose of H.R. Geiger’s biomechanical monsters and ramped up the blood and gore. There’s no way the game can possibly live up to this incredible trailer, but if it somehow does, hospitals around the world are going to be dealing with a rapid increase in cases of exploding heads since humans lack the cranial capacity to deal with this level of awesome. Look at Kairi, she’s stun locked! Wait, this is Indie Gamer Chick. She’s.. FUCKING.. stun locked!
Brian: Wow, she really is. Hey, heads don’t really explode, do they?
Mike: With trailers like that, they just might.
Brian: I think I’ll call 911.
Wyv and Keep: The Temple of the Lost Idol
Kairi: I’ll say this Mike, you can pick ’em. This game looks really good.
Mike: Anyone who has been asphyxiating waiting for The Behemoth to release Battleblock Theater should check out the trailer for Wyv and Keep. This cooperative 2D platform shows a remarkable level of polish and looks to incorporate much of the team-base platforming that makes Battleblock a blast to play.
Brian: I don’t see Battleblock in this, besides the co-op stuff. I do love how the two characters each have their own distinct personality.
Kairi: Great looking puzzles, co-op play, even if I’m stuck playing with, um, (points finger at Brian). Still, this is my new “most hyped summer XBLIG release.”
Mike: In other words, the game that you’re most likely to be disappointed in and spend all day writing about how much you hate it?
Kairi: Hey, I’m not like that.
Mike: ..
Kairi: Okay, fine, I am. But getting me hyped should count for something!
Mike: So, is that it?
Kairi: Yep, four trailers an episode for Dream-Build-Play.
Mike: Geez, this is easy. I can’t believe people read this shit.
Kairi: Tell me about it.
To be continued.
Indie Gamer Chick 
Flutterby looks aesthetically good but from the trailer I can already tell that collision is way off, making me wonder if anything else is poorly made in it. Wyv & Keep and Axiom Verge look like fun though, I love their art styles and game play mechanics
Man, you guys really like my trailer! Not being able to be objective at all about my own stuff, though, my bet for the DBP prize will be Wyv and Keep . . . I think Microsoft really likes puzzle platformers, especially with unique mechanics, and this one certainly fits that bill.
Where did the Homework guys get that music from? It sounds like a 1960s CIA experiment to weaponize experimental jazz into a new form of torture.
Wyv & Keep looks fun, but it also seems very similar to Treasure Treasure: FFEE in its mechanics. Hmm.
Flutterby – There was a game there all I bother with was the amazing music.
Homework- Oddly I’m now looking forward to seeing this as it seems rare for a game to do the whole 3D environment stuff right
I guess none of you played Sky KId on NES? That’s what Flutterby looks like except visually it’s a lot more pleasing, The collision looks okay, they might just be checking the rectangles of the sprites if they intersect, but it looks like it works. The music and lack of sound effects is really disappointing though, if it had that it would be in the top 20 finalists.
Hiya, I’m one of the developers of Flutterby.
The gameplay trailer was incredibly rushed since we didn’t respect our own deadline for the competition enough.
The game is still a work in progress and does not contain all the planned features.
We have included sound effects into the game, we simply chose not to include them in the video.
The end part of the trailer is the first boss, but we didn’t have any footage of the fight and we ran out of time to record more.
I’d really like to find out what part of the collision you think seems wrong so I can fix it.
Thanks for all the comments!
It look’s like your using rectangle collision which is fine and dandy but your assets are so dynamically drawn that a rectangle collision seems pretty weird on them. You should try messing around with different kinds of collisions like per pixel or quadtree to see what works best for your game and still manages to run it at a good fps. This is just my humble opinion though, it’s your game to do what you like with I’m just trying to make suggestions for it to be the best it can be 🙂
We are using per pixel collision for the collision with the “objects” (the roots etc.).
The collision between missiles and enemies as well as enemies and players are using rectangles though.