itch.io

The way this game was *meant* to work is like this:

You pick a randomly generated character from among the 6 options.

You attempt to fight the boss - in Phase 1 it's a larva given the name: Resh'Lar, She Who Molts the First Shell

Say you die in Phase 1, you go back and pick a new character, and this time, before the boss hatches, you have to fight your previous character's ghost! It has the same weapon and stats as when it died! And when you defeat it, you gain levels equal to the level it was when it died! This means better stats and maybe more health!

You die against the boss again, and now BOTH ghosts have to be defeated to move on...

Now, say you beat the first phase, the boss will crawl away and cocoon itself... and when it hatches it has changed forms to Reth'kira, the Tooth which Cuts the Veil

Any time you die during this phase, your ghost will appear AFTER the first phase and before this phase. Yes, it's harder, BUT defeating your predecessors' ghosts also imbue you with more power!

...and finally, phase 3, the boss becomes the Goddess Ruun-skei’ra, the End of Time Incarnate!

I haven't decided if I'm going to try to fix this game after the jam is over or not... I'm so frustrated with it.

BUT you should 1000% go check out the soundtrack that was made for the game! Laz the Composer did some great work and you shouldn't let my horrible game prevent you from at least checking it out: https://lazarusrichardson.bandcamp.com/album/echoes-of-the-infinite-recursor

💗🦋

yeah I know I ran out of time and 1/2 the game is completely broken... 😭

This is great!!

I love the pixel art.. especially that background!

We used these - and several other fishfolk sprites - for our Game Jam Game:

https://axolstudio.itch.io/fish-n-chips

Used for our Game Jam game:
https://axolstudio.itch.io/fish-n-chips

FYI if you import this as a Sprite Sheet into Aseprite, you should set the cell width to 96px, not 64.
🐟

Thanks!

This *seems* to be the same issue ulgrude had before... On the browser, tilemaps seem to be despawning and causing issues...
This does NOT happen in the windows build.
I may have to take down the browser demo until I can figure this out... 
It is NOT happening on either of our test systems, one is Windows using Google Chrome, the other is a Chromebook using Google Chrome...

More research is needed...

Thanks! Just to be clear, do you mean: 

after playing for 15 minutes you will sometimes get a crash

or 

I've only been playing for 15 minutes and I will sometimes get a crash

?

So... right before launching v1.0.0 we broke something in the math that made the game super-easy by accident...

Were you playing the in-browser demo or the Windows version?

The new build should be better balanced (although level 1 is not meant to be TOO hard)

Not sure about the crash, though... let me know which version you were on.

Thanks!

We figured out the cause of this crash and it will be fixed in the next release (which we hope to have our in a few days!)

Thank you for your very verbose comments!

Yes, development is coming to a close (finally!) The goal was to have 8 levels in the game, and level 8 is being worked on now.

When it's all said and done the development of this game took over 2 years - it was started on 02/20/2020 and we hope to have the Full non-Early Access version released probably Late April or May.

Of course, we'll come back and make fixes and tweaks based on feedback after that, but we probably won't add more content (unless the game suddenly explodes in popularity and people want more!)

We will add your comments to our list and we'll see if we want to try to implement or them or what we can do with them.

Hi!

We have already been making lots of changes to corruption.
The initial version of the mechanic that is out now turned out to be close, but not exactly what we wanted from the mechanic.

Changes are coming in a future release.

You will not be able to disable it entirely, but some of the changes should help with some of your frustrations.

1: Corruption will spread at a rate relative to the difficulty of the level. So in the Grasslands it will spread very slowly and take a lot of time to build up.

2: Some attacks will be able to 'burn away' and/or repel corruption. Chests and (lit) bonfires will also repel corruption.

3: Some enemies will have effects that spread more corruption, or interact with it in different ways.

Also, the corruption mechanic will play a larger part in the overall story of the game.

Also, also, the idea that the Corruption on the ground is so dangerous that you should never touch it might be a bit overkill. Corruption damage starts out very very small and then builds up the longer you are touching it - but it will take awhile to become super perilous. And, it will reset back to 'small' damage the moment you step out of it. 

The idea behind the mechanic is to present more choices to the player - do I risk taking a few hits of damage to stand in corruption if it means I can kill more enemies or do I move to get away to somewhere clear all the time? Do I run through a small patch of corruption take a few hits to go collect XP or a Chest? what about a large patch? Do I go find potions enough to heal up and then come back here to collect those things?

While we would agree that in the version you are playing now, the mechanic is a bit rough, we have been working to make it better.

When you run Itch version 39, what number is in the bottom-right of the Title screen? (Itch has it's own version numbering, so I'd like to see what version does work for you)

At some point we did change the way our save files worked, which may be why you have 2 folders. If you rename those folders and try the new version, does it still crash? If so, there might be something wrong with the old save data that is not loading properly... we tried to make sure that every version was compatible with the one before it, but if you hadn't played in a while, there might have been something in a build you skipped that was changed? Not sure...

IF the new update does launch with the renamed save folders, then we have 2 options:

1: If you don't care that much about progression, and don't mind starting your save file over, we don't have to do anything, you can delete the old save files.

2: If you want to see if we can save your old data, then let me know which folder was re-created by the working version, and then email the old version of those files to me so I can pick them apart. This might take some time to figure out where the problem is, but you should be able to recover you saved data once we figure out what went wrong - and it may help someone else in the future.

Totally up to you!

If the save files DON'T fix the issue then I am really stumped... 

Sorry to hear about your issue. I don't have access to a Steam Deck to test, but on Windows, downloading the latest Itch build (40) and running it, and using the Itch client both work for me... and as far as I can remember, nothing really changed between the last 2 versions that would cause what you're seeing.

Can you try uninstalling and re-downloading the latest version in case the download somehow got corrupted?

Can you try the Demo version - which is built using the same code as the main version - and see if that works?

Does the Steam Deck have any kind of crash reporting or anything that might say what's happening?

If you want, you can respond via email: tim@axolstudio.com 

Thank you. We dropped the ball on this update with several avoidable bugs and errors and are very sorry. We have been working almost non-stop since release to try and get everything fixed and hope to have a new build out ASAP (today!) which fixes the crashes and improves the performance...

I like the look of it, but I can't play it - the mouse location is not in sync with my actual mouse, so if I move too far right or down my cursor is off the game but the game's cursor still thinks I'm on the game (if that makes sense?)
Basically, I can't click on any part of the screen further right or down than the midpoint :(

My 15-year-old did the music! :)

I've added the bug to the list.

The soulstones needed to buy skills is kind of high but we will be adding more ways to earn them soon - like chests and challenges.

Hopefully that will alleviate some of that exhaustion.

Soo... I think I'm done with this!

I've finished up the Itch page, made some final tweaks to the game, and uploaded a Windows build if anyone wants.

https://axolstudio.itch.io/spinilization

I could keep working on this - there are a handful of tweaks and minor changes I could probably make right now to make things a little better overall. I could work on Age II... but I think I like where it is for now, and I can always come back later and make this a full game in the future.

I just feel like I've gotten 'enough' out of this game for now. Learned a lot of things that I want to apply to future projects, and had fun with it. But I really feel the need to get back to finishing up my Big Project: Bring It On! before everyone completely forgets about it - and I'm anxious to get back to working on it (which is better than dreading working on it which is where I was at the end of last year!)

I've decided to go the 'refine Age I' route.

I made some major changes the last week or so - removing some Elements completely (trees and boulders just give more resources when killed, don't create logs and rocks, etc.), and made a lot of tweaks to the costs of things.

I've also recruited the most cliché JRPG villain to play the part of antagonist: GOD HIMSELF.

He requires you to generate faith by offering a portion of your Food resource every spin, and does not like it if you fail to meet his quota. What a jerk!

My goal now is to do some more clean-up maybe make the UI a little nicer, and possibly add some more colors/textures... and then work on some sound effects, a Title/Menu screen, and see about implementing some music.

Want to give it a play and see how it's coming along (it might have some bugs/crashes in it still): 

https://axolstudio.itch.io/spinilization?secret=eUxkA6XMKzVUqOLYFdzUmy9xId0

I'm happy to get any feedback at all!

Inwards and Widdershinwards!?

I've added my log!

Now you can check to see what actually happened between spins!

Doing a little more cleanup and refining things, too... 

Upwards and Inwards!

I am kind of at a crossroads with the game,

I feel like I have all the logic and the mechanics for Age I working and figured out pretty nicely.

I am working on a log that you can view between spins to review what happened.

The dilemma I'm in right now is: do I continue working forward? Add Age II? Come up with all the technologies, and new elements, and balancing etc? Or do I go back and focus on refining and improving what I have now? 

I'm still not happy with the overall look of the game - esp the UI - and I had always intended the icons to be placeholders... but on the one hand everything is 'serviceable' and 'good enough'... 

I'm just trying to come up with how to deal with future tech and mechanics and I'm seeing that maybe I don't have time left in the Jam to do all ~4-5 Ages that I had been thinking at the start... and I could put a 'Congrats! You finished this Demo!" at the end of Age I message and spend the next month refining things.

Or maybe I try to do Age II and have that message at the end of Age II...

One reason I kind of want to stick with refining Age I is that I'm struggling with some ideas going forward.

Such as:

Currently, you can buy new elements and they add to your Inventory - but at some point some of the Age I Elements are going to be obsolete... like... once we get to the point where there are Knights and Castles or Cars, etc, the Stone Axe and the Spear, and the Sling should not be around anymore...

How do I get rid of those older Elements? Do I have a technology that just removes them all once you learn it? Do I auto-upgrade them all?

In Luck Be A Landlord (one of my inspirations), you are adding a new Element every spin, and then there are ways to occasionally get a currency that you can spend to delete any item in your collection. Do I implement something like that? I'm just seeing that early on you want to buy lots of Spears to protect your people, but then in Age II when the wild animals become less dangerous (but now you have to deal with Bandits), and you have 10 Spears, but you learn Swords (or whatever)... I don't think I want to just delete all 10 Spears immediately... but I don't think the player wants them all still in their Inventory as they start adding Swords... and I also don't want to instantly upgrade all the Spears into Swords... and I'm seeing this problem being an issue going forward for lots of Techs/Elements... 

Anyway, if anyone wants to chime in with some thoughts and/or suggestions, I'd love to hear them!

I might just try to push through some ideas on these Techs and at least work out what should be in Age II before deciding the next step.

I implemented haxe-ui (which I have not used before) in order to get my shop screens to work nicely!

Very happy with how they turned out, and way, way less easier than trying to code my own scrollbar and clip-screen logic...

Onwards and Onwards!

I couldn't sleep so I created a new BitmapFont for the game and implemented it.

I'm very happy with the font itself... but I'm not happy with anything else.

I am very bad at UI. I don't know how to space things out or add the 'right' amount of whitespace, or how to place things so they aren't crowded, etc...

I feel like everything is really badly laid out... I don't know... 

I guess I'll just keep working on balancing the game for now... 

Still chugging along!

I have added all the code for every Element and Technology used in Age I.

I changed some of the core HaxeFlixel classes to be able to include special icons inside Bitmap Texts so I can show my icons in the text like "Generates 1 [[food icon]] on Death".

I added Tooltips which work even if you mouse over an icon inside of a Bitmap Text object!

...and I've tweaked some balancing. Almost to the point where I can totally play through Age I to see if it works!

Once that's tested, I think I will start looking into the actual aesthetics of the game - probably choose another font and adjust ui a bit to look better (more whitespace, etc).

Still enjoying how this is going!

Turns out, the Meatpocalypse was due to an array not being cleared between spins!

Things are looking a bit more balanced now... working on adding the technologies you upgrade next!

Wow, trying to balance this thing is already turning into a headache...

I couldn't get the 'child' stuff to balance - the idea was that whenever 2 Humans were touching, they would add a Child icon - which takes 3 spins to become a Human.

After only a couple of spins, there would be so many Child icons in the collection that they pretty much drowned out any other icons from showing up.

I tried some things ,but nothing worked so I just took that interaction out - planning to just let the player spend resources to add Child icons later on.

Now, I'm trying to balance the animals. First, I just had  few 'predators' that would wound Humans (2 wounds = death) and have a small chance to multiply.

After a handful of spins, all the Humans would be dead and there would be tons and tons of wolves - even though I had their 'multiply chance' at only 10%/spin

So I added some Prey animals (deer, hare) and now I have the game spawn 1 animal at random each spin (with some weights to favor prey)

Then I also added 2 spears to the starting collection - when a spear is touching a human, it kills all animals it's touching that round. Each animal creates some number of Meat icons when killed based on which animal from 1-8.
Humans touching Meat on subsequent spins will destroy the icon and generate Food currency...

Now, spin ~5 times and there is SO MUCH MEAT - the humans are creating so much by killing animals that they can't eat it all!!

Maybe I should have predators kill prey animals and/or eat meat that is left lying around... but I was not expecting to have things so hard to control!

Well, back to the grindstone... 🍖

Things are working out pretty nicely, so-far.... my logic to spin and then calculate the results is all working great!

I need to make it show what is actually happening (how many icons are created/killed/etc)

...and I need to figure out some balance on the population control... after 3 spins I have a population of a few hundred! Oops! 

Some Progress!!

Just using icons from https://game-icons.net/ for now. My kid will be redrawing them in a cool style later.

It was a wild weekend!

I got to hang out at Washington University, St Louis for most of it working on a game with my kid and a few random people I had never met before!

The game we made can be played here: https://axolstudio.itch.io/the-root-of-the-problem

You can see us present and talk about the game here: (We show up at about 10m) https://www.twitch.tv/videos/1729483133

It had been awhile since I've been able to do an on-site jam. It was pretty great, but very exhausting!

Anyway, this week I'm turning my attention back to THIS Game jam.

I think I've settled on a game idea, and I've done a tiny bit of setting up some of the data I need to start prototyping.

The game idea is sort of a combination of 2 games. I have been playing a BUNCH of Luck be a Landlord, and then I recently saw a video of a game that was a simple civilization-y puzzle game (which I can't remember the name of), where you swap tiles around a board to keep your population alive and progress through the ages.

I'm going to try to combine these 2 games into a single entity where you have a "slot machine" with Icons representing people, and resources, and different civilization-themed things, and you earn different currencies by spinning which randomizes the Icons, and then you spend those currencies to unlock new icons, or technologies, and try to collect Science to progress from the Stone Age to the Space Age.

I have a bit more planning and back-end stuff to setup before I'll have anything to show you guys, but I will let you know when I do!

I've just done some basic groundwork.

Created a new repository with a blank project in it, filled in some basics, and started a psuedo-Design Doc to start fleshing out ideas.

We have the start of an idea that I might want to pursue - but I don't think it fits with any of the themes!! :P We are discussing it to try and see if anything else stands out as a fun alternative, but so far we've only succeeded in talking us more and more into this idea!

MTG Commander night tonight, so I won't get much more done, and then the GGJ kicks off tomorrow night so I'll be doing something else smaller over the weekend. I'll post again when I have more to show!

The repo is currently private  but I will make it  public when the game is done.

Thanks! <3 
I'm looking forward to seeing everything people make in these 2 months!

Hi!

I'm Tim, the founder of Axol Studio, LLC

I'll be working with my kid on... something... We're not looking for a group - I think we have all the bases covered!

We have worked on a bunch of game jam games together over the years... such as this one, this one, and this one!

I'm very excited for this jam and I can't wait to start working on whatever it is we're going to make!

So each of the levels has a mid-Boss that shows up at the 10 minute mark and then a major boss that shows up at the 20 minute mark.

Defeating the second boss should drop a map that ends the level and unlocks the next level.

If that didn't happen, that's a bug that I have not seen. Maybe has something to do with leveling up with the exact same time is picking up the map and it overrid something but I'll have to look at that. Sorry about that.

As far as progression and unlocking characters, every level has a hidden character available to find in it. It has a chance to spawn as you move around the map, but it's not guaranteed every time you play. Your luck stat increases the chance of it. Spawning as well as increases the chance of things like crits and more experienced dropping from enemies and so on.

I do plan to eventually add an in-depth guide/ dictionary in the game to explain a lot of these nuances.

Unlockable character should have an outline like the elites and the bosses do. And after you defeat one they drop a crystal that unlocks that character when you pick it up.

Also each character has five talents that you spend the soulstones you earn at the end of the level to upgrade. Each character has a mastery skill which is unlocked by upgrading all five of their skills to make level. Some of the characters mastery unlocks a new character. Others add a new weapon to the pool or something.

So in general the gameplay loop is sort of designed to be:

Pick a character.

Play a level.

Try to find the hidden unlockable character by exploring more and more of the map and not just stay in one spot.

Defeat both bosses in that level to finish the level.

Spend soulstones on upgrades to eventually master the character.

Repeat in harder levels/ new characters/ the same level.

Currently besides the Knight, there are five other characters in the game. Mastering the characters to unlock some of them is meant to take some time/effort.

Thank you for your feedback and I'm sorry about the bug.

Hopefully that bug is so rare that you don't happen to get it again. Like I said I had not heard of it and not seen it myself but I will look into it.

I have a lot of changes planned for the presentation and some of the inner workings of the game. I just need more time to refine some things before I get the next release out.

Thank you for the feedback!
This game is still a work-in-progress. One of the things that has been implemented (but not yet released) is a complete overhaul in AI pathfinding - enemies get "stuck" inside walls almost never, and they will try to work their way around obstacles to reach you instead of just getting stuck in corners.
Trying to find a good balance of difficulty is tough - each of the ~6 characters in the game play totally differently, but the intent was to always make the Knight character be the 'introductory' character and have him be easier (especially for new players) in the early-game to let people get used to the game and everything - but, he doesn't scale up as strongly so that he ends up being underpowered in the later levels, giving players an opportunity to break out the other characters who might be more powerful or at least have specific strengths for specific challenges... (well that's the INTENT anyway... whether it ends up feeling like that in the end is the hope).
The next update is being worked on. It's turning out to be a lot bigger in scope than previous updates but I will add the other issues to the list to check out.
I hope that you can keep enjoying the game as I keep adding to it and refining things - and can experiment more with different characters/levels/builds.
Thanks again for playing - please tell your friends to check it out, if you want :)

Sorry I don't really offer Steam Keys...