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Messages - nessx007
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Devlogs & Projects / Re: Super Plexis - Classic SNES Puzzle Action Rebirthed
« on: January 18, 2017, 05:50:01 am »
This is the final beta patch before the official launch of Super Plexis and boy is it jam packed with new stuff to test! The focus of this beta is to give one final check on all the systems and features and iron out any issues before release. Feel free to provide feedback/suggestions as usual but keep in mind we wont be making any major changes until after release in the form of future content updates. Thanks to everyone for their patience and especially those who have with us from the beginning! 

Now on to what’s new in the version:

-  The shop has been implemented and features a first wave of items including block skins, characters, character skins, portraits, and more ( see the section below for more detailed info on the shop)

- “Lumina” is the new block currency that you will earn during gameplay and is used as a currency in the shop to unlock items.

- The AI in V.S. AI has been completely revamped to think and act more deliberately during gameplay. Depending on the
difficulty, the AI will make advanced matches, follow up on chain combos, and use abilities offensively. This adds a notable difficulty boost compared to the previous, more random AI.

- Reconfigured the title screen to remove the “Battle” and “Classic” buttons and replace them with a new “Singleplayer” button that contains the Endless and VS AI modes

- A tutorial has been added to the title screen

- An info button and quick access to your Profile has also been added the title screen.

- Player accounts have been reset so we can test the feel of progression. Some characters are now locked behind the shop, but as a beta tester you will receive a nice sum of Lumina to spend at the start.

- Level up rewards have been retooled, now offering flat amounts of currency with each level, and every 5 levels rewarding a special bonus unlock.

- Music in-battle now cuts out upon winning/losing and a new end-game theme plays on the stats screen.

- Endless mode now has non-character-specific combo sound effects.

- In-app purchases are functional but disabled for the beta. You can still purchase items with in-game currency earned in battles.

- Some portraits have been removed and/or updated with a fresh coat of paint

- Health blocks are 50% less likely to spawn

Introducing the New Shop Menu!

The biggest addition by far in this version is the shop and currency systems that are now in place. Players will start at Level 1 with only Aria and Cleff unlocked, and must earn currency to spend to unlock the other characters in the shop. Once you’ve unlocked a character, you’ll be able to purchase skins for that character. The prices of each item varies, with portraits being the cheapest and character skins being the most expensive (besides the Ad-Blocker).

Known Issues:

Gameplay/UI

- A previous issue with deadblocks not breaking is presumed fixed but keep an eye out during gameplay and let us know if you spot any consistently strange behavior.

- AI difficulty will be rebalanced as we go since it is a recent addition 

Visuals

- On iPad, the aspect ratio may appear slightly stretched.

- Some rank emblems are using repeated/recolored sprites 

- Typo in the “Lumina Gift” pop-up

Future Content Roadmap (from soonest to furthest updates):

- Addition of “Challenges” to the Singleplayer 

- Rank Emblem promotion and demotion animations will be added to the end game screen

- Retooling of board damage (possibly as ticks of increasing chunked damage instead of a constant rate) 

- New characters and abilites

- New achievements, levels, music, shop items, and more!

Thanks again for helping us get Super Plexis to where it is today, and we’re super excited to finally go live on the App Store and continue to grow the community! We’re very grateful for all the support so far and hope you’ll continue on this journey with the team!

See you online!

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Devlogs & Projects / Re: Super Plexis - Classic SNES Puzzle Action Rebirthed
« on: January 14, 2017, 06:09:21 am »
    Whew, been a while since ive had a chance to revisit but here we are! The holiday after-glow and life craziness is beginning to fade so that means focus on work. I also realized I never posted the previous patch notes here so check those out below. Currently, we're tweaking our very smart and very scary A.I. to replace the "fake" A.I. we were using before. After that, we'll be pushing out the new beta with all sorts of stuff, most notably a currency system and shop! On to the old patch notes (current version on Testflight):

    New build is finally online! This one really shakes things up in the gameplay, with a focus on strategy over speed.

    What’s New:

    Block swap animation is slightly faster.

    Block hang-time (before falling) slightly increased

    Added an options button for use during battle, allows a player to Forfeit

    Combos have been completely reworked to favor “Chain Combos” instead of fast matches of 3 (more info below)*

    The Deadblock formula has been re-balanced around Chain Combos, no longer send in sizes less than 3 blocks across (e.g. no more single block deadblocks)

    Deadblocks now only clear one row at a time when touched with a match-3. To clear 2 rows, touch the dead block with a match of 4, and so on.

    Character stats have been rebalanced in light of the new gameplay adjustments.

    Ranked Emblems have been added to a special section in the Gallery

    Ads have been implemented (to appear occasionally at the end of matches) but will be disabled in the beta builds.[/li]


*The New Combo System:

The first wave of beta testing helped us realize the old combo system, where simply making fast matches of any type increased your combo, heavily favored speed over strategy. We wanted to be sure players who planned out their matches in advance were rewarded for their effort.

“Chain Combos” occur when matches cause blocks to fall into other matches (or when deadblocks crumble and fall into matches). These Chains will occur by chance in some cases, but a skillful player will be able to set up their own cascading Chain Combos to send massive dead block attacks. This is where strategy, reflexes, and staying a step ahead of your falling blocks distinguishes skilled players from the beginners. Fast matching still plays a part, you just have to make fast matches of 4 or more in order to count towards your combo. This new system will mean shorter game times and less stagnation in un-even skill match-ups. We also think it’s a lot more satisfying and fun to play!

Known Issues:

Gameplay/UI

Playing as a guest (not signed in to Gamecenter) will prevent the health bar in Endless mode from rendering, as well as causing an instant loss in VS AI battles if the app is backgrounded. The root cause is known and will be fixed in the next update!
Visuals

On iPad, the game’s aspect ratio may appear slightly stretched.

Some portraits are still using placeholder art.

Some rank emblems are using repeated/recolored sprites.

Some rank emblems appear too dark and will be brightened slightly.

Future Content Roadmap (from soonest to furthest updates):

An in-app tutorial to teach new players

Updated Title Screen with info, “How to Play”, and Shop buttons.

A shop where players can use their “blocks cleared" as a currency to purchase unlockables.

Addition of “Challenges” to the Single Player menu

Rank Emblem promotion and demotion animations will be added to the end game screen.

New characters and abilities

New portraits, achievements, levels, and music

We hope you guys enjoy the game in it’s current state and look forward to your feedback to help improve it!  Follow/Contact us on twitter/instagram/tumblr @medleystudio to get additional updates and stay in the loop when we’ll be online the game!

Thanks guys and see you online!

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Devlogs & Projects / Re: Super Plexis - Classic SNES Puzzle Action Rebirthed
« on: October 18, 2016, 08:39:55 am »
Update #1 - Beta Patch Notes

Here’s a list of currently known issues that will be addressed in future updates:

Gameplay/UI:
- Game balance in general is still in it’s early stages. The frequency of health blocks, rate of damage, character stats, and abilities will be adjusted in future updates to reach more comfortable, fair, and satisfying match durations.
- Matchmaking (Ranked and Unranked) will occasionally time-out, requiring that the player  re-enter matchmaking.
- Matchmaking status doesn’t always work as intended but we identified the issue and already have a fix in the works.
- Difficulty selection in VS AI currently has no actual effect (will be fixed next update)
- In the Gallery menu, the “Enemies” are temporary and are related to classic mode which is unplayable in this version.
- The music and SFX volumes are not properly balanced (until we fix it, you can go to the options menu and adjust the music volume lower than SFX for a better overall mix)
- Invite a friend has been removed due to iOS 10's removal of the game center app and with it game center friends. A newly implemented system for friend invites is in the works.
- iPhone 7s framerate is currently locked at 30 fps. Will be increased to 60 fps next update.

Visuals:
- The app icon is using old art assests.
- On iPad, the game’s aspect ratio may appear slightly stretched.
- Character skins are being tested with temporary recolored sprites.
- Block skins are also being tested with recolors (expect many more in future!)
- The character “Vulmir” is still in a rough-draft phase and will be receiving a fresh coat of paint in the next update.
- Some portraits are using placeholder art.
- Some rank emblems are using repeated/recolored sprites.
- Some rank emblems appear too dark and will be brightened slightly.

Future Content Roadmap (from soonest to furthest updates):

- a big networking update that should noticeably improve connections over cellular data.
- An in-app tutorial to teach new players
- Chain-combos will be given more weight than fast successive combos when calculating how many deadblocks are sent (This is to reward strategic and calculated players and provide alternative play-styles). Chain-combos will also have their own distinct sound effect.
- A shop where players can use their “blocks cleared" as a currency to purchase unlockables.
- Rank Emblems will be added to the Gallery
- Rank Emblem promotion and demotion animations will be added to the end game screen.
- A “Forfeit" option to end battles early (currently the only way to quit is to lose/win the match)
- New characters and abilities
- New portraits, achievements, levels, and music
- A glimpse at the “Classic Mode” single-player experience
- Additional modes in the “Battle” menu

We hope you guys enjoy the game in it’s current state and look forward to your feedback to help improve it! We’ll be setting some specific times for a “matchmaking happy hour” of sorts that will hopefully get as many people online at the same time so there’s a good diversity of players in the ranked and unranked ques. This would likely be on weekends but we’re open to suggestions as well! Follow us on twitter/instagram @medleystudio so you know when to hop on with everyone else.

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Devlogs & Projects / Super Plexis - Classic SNES Puzzle Action Rebirthed
« on: October 18, 2016, 08:33:58 am »


Hey guys, nice to back on the forums! We're finally ready to start our Super Plexis devlog with the reveal of our multiplayer beta. There's still much work to be done, which I plan to document in this thread here on out, but multiplayer is a major component of the final game so we wanted to get it in as many people's hands as possible, here's a quick trailer:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bi-uPhfYXFk

Unfortunately, the beta is iOS only (for now) but we'll be shooting for other platforms once the time comes. If anyone's played Tetris Attack/Panel de Pon, you'll be right at home with the game, aside from some of the new features that we hope makes it a bit more accessible to the average player.

We just need an email address to send the Testflight invite if you'd like to join us in testing:

https://www.signupanywhere.com/signup/PZxFAXiS

I'll be sticking to text/image updates here, but we also try to do weekly vlogs on our channel if you'd like to follow that instead (or both! I won't stop you!)

Thanks for checking us out and we hope to see you online!

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Pixel Art / Re: Animated Pogo Man
« on: August 31, 2016, 07:04:29 am »
Just wanted to drop in and say, I feel your pain! And godspeed on finishing the job. I've been in similar work situations and yeah it's quite an uncomfortable situation to be in for the reasons you listed. I can attest to the fact that you will get faster though as you do more work. I was new to animation when I started my first animation-heavy project and I spent way too long on my first ones. I still probably spend too much time (as someone who is overly self-critical) but it's a lot less than when I started, and I've learned shortcuts like using video/image references when I'm lacking motivation myself. At the end of the day, hired gigs are just that, a job, so there will be those pieces you won't ever be satisfied with personally, but as long as the client is happy, that's a wrap! Then you move on fresh to something else.

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Pixel Art / Re: An "animation problem"
« on: August 26, 2016, 08:13:02 am »
And aside from the mixed resolutions, the big thing here is your animation is happening at one speed, each new position of the legs/arm/sword covers the same distance as the last. For a more natural motion, remember that the sword swing is actually the shortest part of the motion, it goes by in a blur, so you want more frames before and after the swing. The easiest way to learn this "easing" motion is to study other animations frame-by-frame. You'll start to see what I mean!

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Pixel Art / Re: [WIP] Run/Jump Animations
« on: August 15, 2016, 07:52:18 am »
The run looks pretty good to me! But yeah the jump might need more attention, my first gut feeling is the motion feels broken in two? The drag behind of the back leg lasts a bit too long and is probably why it feels a bit jerky. I guess try keeping the legs more in sync with just a slight offset? Might help smooth out the motion.

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Pixel Art / Re: 4 Frames or Should there be more?
« on: August 02, 2016, 06:26:11 am »
The front and back are working pretty well, especially with the shading on the limbs as they move forward and back. But yeah that East one needs some more attention, at first glance I thought it was supposed to be him walking at a diagonal (down-right).

You're showing a bit too much depth (the front of his body) for it to be a side view. His shoulder should be more or less lined up directly under his head (maybe slightly back if you want a more realistic hunch), and legs should be more or less perfectly lined up as well (the frame when his legs meet straight, you should only see one leg). I'd start there first, hope that helps!


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Pixel Art / Re: Smoke animation
« on: July 14, 2016, 11:25:48 am »
Without any visual reference for your own work, I guess I can only suggest looking at other pixel art games with explosions/smoke until you find something that you'd like to use as inspiration.

I know you won't be using the animation you have now, but it would help if you did post it so we could at least see what size you're working with in relation to the character and other details like that.

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Pixel Art / Re: [C+C] Title Screen Landscape (dithering help!)
« on: July 11, 2016, 02:43:48 am »
Good point yeah, it's not exactly a realistic perspective which might be where some of my trouble lies. I might end up revisiting it a bit later in the future but at the moment I'm already swamped with new stuff to finish! I do appreciate the advice though (and yeah you got me haha, I do use a bit of copy-pasting when I'm first roughing out a composition. I'd agree that it'd benefit from a bit more detail work to hide that fact)

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