2 and 4 we've had on our mind (2 is already an improvement over the previous builds! still has work to do. I believe sane defaults would be enough though.)
And 3, I definitely want in. If only because I enjoy playing platformers with controllers so much. The only "problem" is that controllers are so wildly different from one another -chances are, most customer complaints we would have gotten would have been about that! It's definitely slated for an upcoming build.
As for 1, that's a non-trivial feature do to how levels work, but it's also definitely something we want as the game expands. As it stands now, with two separate worlds, it's not too hard to finish each in one go, yet saving would be nice, especially as more complex quests get added and potentially spawn multiple worlds.
Ah well, I'm still working out my marketing skills - a field which I hate with a passion, but there's two of us and, well, someone has to do it.
Basically — environments to explore, set to an original soundtrack. That's really the selling point. The actual gameplay, so far, is mostly finding items, bringing them to characters, in exchange for other items, so that you can find your way to the exit!
Since the Christmas update, there are two separate worlds with different 'quests' - the latter being a snow/winter/Santa-themed world.
We definitely plan to add other gameplay mechanics, but we think the "charm" of the game is already there. We're happy with how Early Access is working, and totally understand if people don't like that niche and/or want to wait until there is more content / gameplay arcs.
To shed some light on the "non-linear" qualifier I used in the submission, allow me to refer you to the Ludum Dare Postmortem for Lestac: http://amos.me/blog/2013/lestac-the-making-of/ — which explains some of it.
As a side note, to anyone on HN who is interested in following the development of Lestac right from the devs' mouths, let me know, I can totally give out a few http://devsofa.cc keys for the Lestac channel.
> The actual gameplay, so far, is mostly finding items, bringing them to characters, in exchange for other items, so that you can find your way to the exit!
Finding items that you can collect would be a useful feature for some people.
Finding items that you can collect, and use to modify your "home" or similar would be cool too.
As mentioned, Shift-Down will do. (Also, while holding an item, Shift will use if the item is usable, throw otherwise. Usable items can be put down with Shift-Down as well).
These controls are actually explained in the LD levels (door on the right in the very first screen of the game), which you're encouraged to play first!
Shift+Down is how you pick up items. It's a little finicky though. I think it could stand to be more forgiving on where you're standing to pick them up.
Hey folks! Even though HN is more hacker-oriented, I still thought I'd give it a shot.
Factoids:
- It's the first commercial game fully made in ooc
- It's sold only on itch.io (which recently made HN frontpage)
- It was originally a Ludum Dare submission
- We just released a Christmas update!
- It's lame because the game is not about killing stuff!
I have no idea how this post will do, but I'll happily take your questions here. Thanks for your attention and happy holidays :)
Well, it's interesting that ooc returned to its roots, because when I first started working on it, it was for a small simulation game project at university.
I'll try to be as unbiased as can be, though.
Here are the reasons I liked writing it in ooc:
- I find it hard to write bad ooc. The language is smart,
but not too smart, so you can write code that's concise
yet not too confusing.
- Moving up from C, having a single tool manage the build
of your whole project is really cool. I recently added
cross-compilation support, so I produce the Windows, Mac,
Linux 32-bit & 64-bit builds from the same machine.
I have a simple Makefile for tasks like packaging so
releasing a new build is a 'make deploy' away!
- Recent versions of rock have gotten relatively good at
error checking (there's still plenty of room for
improvement), but it's often a lot more helpful than
well, most compilers I've seen. (Clang isn't bad, but
it's C, so it can only help you on a low-signal level).
- Most of the libs I wanted to use (SDL2, SDL2_mixer,
OpenGL 3.x) already had bindings, and for the others
(stb_image, etc.), well, I wrote'em. It's usually a
matter of neatly organizing C functions into an
object-oriented-ish interface.
I'm not trying to sell the language here so I'll stop, but mostly - for this project, after 5 years spent working on and off on the language (and peripheral projects), it got out of the way. I could just write what I thought and it worked. From what I gather, it's a rare satisfaction in the software craftsmanship realm :)
As for the downsides, well, there are things I know to work around, language features I know I'd better avoid, and the occasional compiler blips. But for a project of that scope, I got away with "using my toy language" relatively scot-free!
I still remember the very harsh comments when I first presented ooc to HN a few years back. Forunately I was in a high at that point so I didn't care. Had I listened to them, I would never have gotten where I am now. So: stay positive, everyone!
From a user's point a view — itch.io is everything I need, and then more.
- Upload your game & customize your game page in a few clicks, without artifical walls: check
- Quickly generate download links for press/friends and monitor their download count: check
- Manage sales / price / updates from the web interface: check (instead of having to e-mail people a-la Humble widget)
- Check out analytics on page views / buys / etc. - check
Since the default page look wasn't enough for me, I simply used the widget on my game's website, and it works perfectly well.
I'm a happy camper so far :) With the revamped 'buyer profile' update that's coming, it'll be even better. Plus, leafo is always listening to his userbase!
Exactly. And if you've been paying attention since the start of the game, instead of treating it like a codeacademy or similar programming challenge type, you've already picked up on a few clues that.. the government (and its minions, including EEM) don't really hold you in high esteem.
And 3, I definitely want in. If only because I enjoy playing platformers with controllers so much. The only "problem" is that controllers are so wildly different from one another -chances are, most customer complaints we would have gotten would have been about that! It's definitely slated for an upcoming build.
As for 1, that's a non-trivial feature do to how levels work, but it's also definitely something we want as the game expands. As it stands now, with two separate worlds, it's not too hard to finish each in one go, yet saving would be nice, especially as more complex quests get added and potentially spawn multiple worlds.