itch.io

Great game. You should make a mobile version!

Thank you for the kind words ☺️

I uploaded a new build based on a newer version of the game engine. It should have a better support for gamepads. However the problem you're describing seems to be related to (very) low framerate. I hope this new version helps, but I'm not sure how to fix that if it doesn't.

Thanks for checking the game though, tell me how it goes with the new version! 😉

Disclaimer: I consider myself being on the far left spectrum of politics. I also live in Europe, and it doesn't mean exactly the same thing than in the US.

I see a lot of contradictions in this thread. Some of you suggest that conservative views are in minority, and feel pressured, even though the US just elected Trump. What you may experience is just public discourse. No one prevent you from expressing your views, but why would anyone expect to not face counter points when they become vocal about their opinion?

I keep seeing the sentence "pushing their agenda" which is really puzzling. I don't think most of gamedev, leftists or not, start making a game to push an hypothetical agenda. Gamedev is hard enough like that, why would they try to achieve anything in this direction, for what purpose? No, what happens instead, is that gamedevs may want to express a message or a particular view point on our current societies. But that's quite personal, the same way a book author would write a story dealing with racism, or poverty.

To demonstrate that, let's take my case for example. In the future, I would like to build more games that are less violent, don't rely on imperialist mechanics (i.e. colonisation, expansion, war, etc), or don't use basic capitalism as a core loop. Why do I want to do that? To push an agenda? What agenda exactly? No, I just want to create more games aligned with my political views, that's all. And when you see the ocean of shooters, 4x games, and what not where you kill everything, I don't think my own effort will change anything at this level.

If by "pushing their agenda" you just mean the evolution and mutation of societies to a more progressive mindset, then it's just a natural shift, something that happens all the time.

As for games, they are not supposed to "be" anything. A game that makes you sad is still a game. A game that makes you think is still a game. A game does not have to be fun. Most games are designed to be, though. And I don't agree with the idea that games must be apolitical at all cost. Why games should be void of politics? Moreover, being neutral is just a way to support the default politics, and as for now, the default state of politics is not left wing.

Thank you! 😊

Very nice little game. I did not see the see snake though, I need to be better at it. 😅

My best score: 4880.

Very good writing 👌

Thank you :)

This game looks interesting.

However, the page displays "All platforms(sources)" as a file to download. Maybe it would be good to clarify what are these files. Are they indeed the sources of the game (so do we need to build the game ourselves), is it a pdf, a binary, etc?

Tons on progress has been made since the last time:

- A lot of work on the menus to select tracks, to show score boards

- Victory screen for the single player mode

- Cleanup of the powerup code

And last but not least, Hasty Melons have now a local multiplayer mode. It has still some rough edges, but everything is in place right now and just some polishing is neded.

Take a look at this short devlog video to see how it runs:

The page says "This asset pack is currently unavailable".

I like the style though, it's cute :)

Hasty Melons has been greenlit! Thanks for everyone who voted.

I'm still working on the game and recently started to take care of the progression system (a.k.a maps unlocking).
Here are an older video showing other things as well:

I post more regular stuff on twitter, so follow @minitrope!

+1 for having a linux build

@Agecaf: Thank you, I fixed the page :)

I pushed a new build that should fix audio issues on Windows. Still no sure about the gamepads though, especially on Linux. So I'm still looking for feedback.

Footsteps is an audio game created for the Audiogame Jam 2016.
In this game you play as a sword fighter who can only count of their hearing ability.
Find your opponent and try to hit them before they do. One hit is all it takes to die.

The Game has 2 modes: Player vs CPU and Player vs Player (local multiplayer).

Important: I could not test the linux build with my gamepad since it was not detected (but is working fine in dev mode).
Also someone reported that the menu did not play any sounds. Please, tell me if you encounter any of these problems, so I can fix them!

https://minitrope.itch.io/footsteps

Good Morning everyone!

Let's start this week with the latest things I added to Hasty Melons:

• As requested by Steam Greenlight voters, I added more "melon gore"
• Added a new block, a trampoline, opening the way to more complex and fun tracks
• Started to work on cogs blocks

Here is a quick video to show all that:

By the way, the game still need your vote on greenlight!

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/widget/728961848

Hey everyone, I finally made a trailer and put the game on steam greenlight, any vote would be greatly appreciated :)

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/widget/728961848

Ohai! Long time no see.

I had 2 months away from the game but recently started working on it again. I try to focus my efforts on getting visuals and items up to something I can show in a trailer very soon.

First, a little diorama to show all the cool things I worked on:

https://sketchfab.com/models/04982738f0c949698ae60840cbc23cc1/embed

I worked on a few traps:

- A stomping gauntlet

- A pendulum blade

- A opening hatch (not shown)

https://sketchfab.com/models/2de7362ca0e448e69561e415a2c3c5ea/embed

https://sketchfab.com/models/8d65e08374054bc2b427432fd30a2a53/embed

I also finally UV mapped the wooden bridges and added a skybox.

I got myself a nice drawing tablet 2 weeks ago and had a lot of fun with Krita. This allowed me to hand paint critical parts, like the knife blade and the gauntlet.

My goal right now, as I said earlier, is to make a trailer so I can push the game on greenlight. I hope you like what you see, you can follow me on twitter (@minitrope) or on cartrdge.com (https://cartrdge.com/minitrope) if you want to see more daily progress.

Ahoy everybody!

This past weeks I've worked on producing more content (i.e more tracks) with differents levels of difficulty.
Here are some pictures/gifs:

I modelized a few more blocks to make nice bridges

A new track I call "The ruins". An easy one.

That's all for now but I work hard to produce compelling tracks and features. Next is: more tracks and traps. Stay tuned!

Guten Tag everybody!

It's been almost 2 weeks since I posted an update. But I was not procrastinating, no no no. Actually I had a problem with my internet connection at home so I had no other choice to go forward with the game if I did not want to get bored :)
I have tons of new stuff. First off, I worked a lot on the power ups:

The Arrow: it's does not kill you but it stays for a few seconds and is part of your body collision. It can be a really pain in the ass when you have to take narrow path or avoid corners.

The Wings: it allows you to infinite jump for a few seconds giving you a real big advantage. This powerup is one of my favorite and has been suggested by a person who played the game. I found the idea really good, especially since I wanted to find something that could help you avoid falling over :)

The Wolf Trap: well, it's a wolftrap, so if you roll on itm you will be crushed to death.

The "Everyone is a giant watermelon": this powerup makes everyone a big fatty and juicy watermelon. Those affected are slowed down and can't jump anymore until the spell wears off.

The Ghost: turns you into a ghost melon so you can go through knifes, wolf traps and other melons. However since you're a ghost you can't destroy crates anymore thus preventing you from having a power up during the spell.

I also improved a lot of other things:

• The AI can use the majority of the power ups in relevant situations
• Melons have now an outline so you can distinguish them. Each one has it's own color.
• The lock has its own sprite now (with your associated color)
• I added a circle glow to indicate the power up you have to reach next
• The camera is not completely centered on the player but tries to show a bit where they're supposed to go
• A big problem during play test has been players not knowing in which direction to go, hence the new added arrow planks
• I fixed the jump. Before you could infinitely jump around but now you have to be on the ground
• I added numerous sounds effect to give more "juice" to the game

I really had fun while working on all of that. Thanks for reading :)

Hey Kir Losev,

I find the mashup of the 2 mechanics really interesting. I would advice to take a look at Game Maker's Toolkit video on puzzles. It explains how iterating a lot on specific mechanics can help having « the game design itself ».

Anyway, I'm looking forward to see more stuff in this devlog :)

Very interesting read. Looking forward to see more follow ups on this topic :)

I think the obvious value of such work would be generated enemies that don't look the same.

Oh and now that I think about that, it reminds me of Jade Cocoon. Jade cocoon was an RPG game were you could capture creatures and fight with them (pokemons you said?). The interesting part was, you could merge creatures into one to join their abilities into a new offspring. But the abilities were not the only thing inherited. Indeed, creature shared morphological characteristics of their parents. Maybe you should take a look at the game ;)

Hello folks!

This last week I spent time applying Kronbits' texture on my map blocks and I have to say the result is quite pleasing. Look at this:

So shoutout to Kronbits for his gorgeous textures. As you can see in the last pic, I also replaced the checkpoints by flags.
I also put a few crates on the track to deliver powerups and implemented a basic sliced/death animation for the watermelons. The game is getting there.

Next tuesday I will show my game to players so I can gather early feedback. The event is called Talk & Play. If you happen to be in Berlin, feel free to pass by to get the opportunity to play the game and other cool ones as well :)

And to conclude this post, here is a 1+ min long gameplay footage: https://a.pomf.cat/cvgdan.mp4
Enjoy :)

Hello everyone,

As you probably know, itch.io has recently implemented the reverse sale feature. It allows you to raise the price of a game momentarily. Anna Anthropy was the first that I know of to bring the topic on this forum. I find the idea interesting and would like to propose something: let's make it a regular thing.

I would like to see a week during the year, to become a yearly event when indie devs hold a reverse sale. I would be interested to see the people's reaction. I think it would be both a good marketing event and an opportunity (for those who can afford it) to show their support to indie game developers.

I personally think starting such week on the international worker's day (1st of May in many countries) would be perfect and would make a point.

I'm curious about what you folks think about this idea :)

It's update time! These past days I worked on the power ups.

The first one is the knife:

YES, this is a GIANT KNIFE. With it you shall DRINK THE TASTY BLOOD OF YOUR WATERMELONS ENEMIES. Once you get this power up, a lock icon will appear so you can choose a near-by target. Once activated a giant knife will spawn and if you're lucky enough it will slice the melon in 2.

The second power up is the shockwave:

It can be a really powerful attack if you use it correctly. In the gif above, you can see me using it on 3 running AI. They fall down the path and will respawn soon afterward at the last checkpoint.
The power up are earned via various crates available on the track. Here is a screen of it in Blender:

Breaking them will randomly give you a power up. The icon in the top right will show you wich one (for now it's just a square of color).

I also wanted to fix the dead camera angles. For that I came up with a see-through effect. I had to reiterate on it a few times before getting something good enough and useful. Here you can see the result:

Now I need to refine the powerups, add their icons, make the AI use them and modelize the checkpoints. I'm getting close to a playable version of the game. There are still many things to work on though. Thanks for reading and I hope you enjoyed it :)

(For those who don't know, BGE stands for Blender Game Engine. Yes, Blender has a game engine!)

Hey SolarLune! The short answer: Blender is the tool I know the most when it comes to game creation.

Long answer: For my last game I wanted something in 3D so I had to know how to model stuff on my own. Thus I started to learn how to use Blender. And then I heard about the BGE so I gave it a try.
While the BGE is definitely not the best engine out there, it's the most straight forward tool I could use since I knew a bit of Blender already. It's also really pleasant to not have to switch between tools: everything is in one place (or almost). Moreover I knew python already so I could jump straight into making more complex stuff if needed. And finally, it's free software and it's a big plus for me.

For those out there who would like to start making simple 3D games, I would really recommend them to give Blender a go. And if you have concerns about python, well, I'm doing some AI stuff in my game and it still run at 60 fps so it's all good for now :)

Ohai!

I did not update for a long time due to severe procrastination. But here I am and the last days I did some serious work on the AI of my melons.
Here is a gif of an autonomous watermelon running in a simple circuit:

This is taken directly from the editor. The numbers displayed refer to the distance until the next checkpoint as I used the sample algorithm for path finding. You can see them changing when the melon reaches a checkpoint (the yellow cubes).

I'm pretty satisfied with the result since the AI is better than me at this game. So much that I will need to artificially lower its maximum speed to draw a better learning curve for the player. Here is a gif where you can see me running against the AI (I'm the one taking shortcuts):

At full speed, I expect the AI to be really tough and the player will need to give everything and use shortcuts to beat it :)
Now that the editor is "good enough" to help me design tracks, I will focus on the main gameplay by implementing laps, power ups, etc.

Last but not least, I'm on twitter (@minitrope), if you feel like following me, that would be much appreciated (I almost exclusively tweet about games).

Thanks for reading :)

EDIT: Hasty Melons has been greenlit! Jump to the last post.

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/widget/728961848

Hallo everyone!

Last week, I published my first game ever and as I plan to publish a game per month, here is what I am working on for february. The game is called "Hasty Melons" and will be a racing games with rolling melons!

The game is inspired by an old game in Gmod. It also takes inspiration from Micro Maniacs, a game that I personnaly love.

For now I have a good prototype of a rolling melon and quickly I figured I needed a level editor. Thus I'm focusing on that for now. Here is a sneak peak at block editing:

The editor is quite raw but will allow me to experiment a bit faster and iterate on the gameplay.

In the end, I hope the editor will help people create their own tracks :)

It is nice to see people using Blender to make games. Myself I use the integrated blender game engine and while it's far from being the best one, I enjoy having everything in one tool.

Even if I don't know/use libgdx I hope your project will get more visibility :)

The Vine Runners is my first game.

It's a runner game that quickly build up into fast paced action.

You control a growing vine on which your character run.
Take care of avoiding bombs, catch clocks to freeze the timer and stars to make you invicible for a few seconds. The longer you run, the fastest you get, but hitting bombs will slow you down.

You can find it here: https://minitrope.itch.io/the-vine-runners

Please, give it a try, any feedback is welcome!

Oh and don't hesitate to post your best score in the comments! The lowest times are the best.

It's been a few weeks since the last update.

The game is now, I think, feature complete. There are basic menus and nice sounds as well as a jumpy and cool music :)

You can play it via the dedicated itch.io page. Unfortunately, OSX release will have to wait since I need to find out how to sign the app.

Please leave a comment on the page with your best score! (Lower is better.)

Since I plan to publish a game per month, I will slowly focus my attention to another game. However I still plan to add more things to the game. I hope you'll enjoy it :)

The art-style is really cute. I also like the fact that it's a rather different game than the common shoot-n-destroy we see so often.

Keep up the good work! :)

I really like the look of it, this is a good balance between 3d and 2d. I also love the silly behaviour of the monster shown in your video. I hope to see more in the future!

Also kudos for the diversified crowd, seeing non-white characters in refreshing :)

Hey! It's update time.

The last days I put together the runner and the star to implement the invincible power up. Now when you take a star, 3 small stars appear around you and you glow. While being in this state you can throw yourself into bombs and not be slowed down. This allow you to take more risks and access power ups that may be otherwise out of reach.

I also added a more beautiful and animated background and some light effects. Here is a gif to show up all of that (sorry for the quality, I still need to learn how to produce quality gifs): https://a.pomf.cat/zclazi.webm

All the most fundamental features have been implemented except for the menu screen. So it's safe to say that the 1st version of this game will be released soon \o/.

Hi everyone! A short update to show you the character I made a.k.a "the runner":

It's the first time I do animation and I'm quite happy with the result so far. It was a pain to get it right since I'm not an animator, but for a first I'm a bit proud of myself. You can see a better version here: https://gfycat.com/WillingEmptyIchthyosaurs

I also modelized the star:

It will be the invicibility power up and will replace the blue boxes you can see in the previous gifs.

I'm getting close :)

Yes please!

Gifs are huge and quite a pain to load. HTML5 videos allow to post longer or/and better quality content.

The Vine Runners is a game of speed and reflexes.

You control a growing vine on wich your character run.
Take care of avoiding bombs, catch clocks to freeze the timer and stars to make you invicible for a few seconds.

The longer you run, the fastest you get, but hitting bombs will slow you down. Lowest time scores are the best :)

For now the core gameplay has been implemented. Some previews (on gfycat to reduce the bandwidth pain):

• A bit of speed: https://gfycat.com/RecklessSentimentalIriomotecat
• Oops it exploded: https://gfycat.com/TheseGaseousBaldeagle
• Finish line and score: https://gfycat.com/SourWebbedKoalabear

There is still work to be done but I'm getting there:

• Modelize and animate the main character (the purple square is just a place holder)
• Modelize the star and implement the invicibility mechanism
• Add menus and sounds

I also plan to add a local multiplayer mode where 4 players can run at the same time on the vine :)
It is my very first game and I learnt a lot so far. Stay tuned for more progress.

Hello there!

I am Minitrope, a wannabe indie dev. I'm lurking the itch.io community for some time now and decided to give 2016 a go and try to make games :)