An Adventure Apes Christmas

It's been a mega-hectic month, but here is a little something for the holidays. Merry Christmas everyone! See you in 2010, it's going to be great!

Adventure Apes Page 4

...and the story continues!

Adventure Apes Return!

It's probably been a couple of months since I last posted any artwork here. Level one of the game is complete and got some good responses through the month of October, much more than I ever thought imaginable! Level two for the full version is well in development, and now, FINALLY, I've gotten back to doing artwork for my storybook. This is page three of what will be a 27 page illustrated poem that outlines Mitch's first adventure.
Time to get back in the swing of things!

Giving Thanks

I know, I know, "Another post with no pictures...what's going on?!"

Well, it's a week before Thanksgiving here in Canada, but so far, the month has been very kind to the Adventure Apes, and I thought I should write down a few words of thanks. The first big break was the interview at Vancouver Animation. One question in the interview asked what I found most difficult, and I said that by far the business side was the hardest to break in to. Starting out as no one, it's tough to gain any recognition or attention from your peers and contemporaries. I believe the exposure from that interview will help pave the way for the Apes. For that, I am thankful!

Then today I received further good news! Completely out of the blue, the game was featured on two sites:

PixelProspector - This is a review site that goes through and picks out all kinds of interesting games on a regular basis. Imagine my surprise to get an email saying that the Adventure Apes game is featured and reviewed!

GameJolt - I had uploaded the game to this site recently to see what kind of feedback I'd get, but never expected that the folks running the show would feature the game on the front page of their site!

These two sites combined have already helped thrust this game into the spotlight more than I could have ever accomplished on my own, and for that, I am thankful!

So, no images in this post, but there is a veritable cornucopia of good news. I wonder if the full moon this weekend had anything to do with these good fortunes? No matter what the cause though, I am thankful.

Vancouver Animation Interview

I've been looking forward to this for a while now, and it is finally here! It was super cool getting to do this interview, and it was even cooler of everyone at Vancouver Animation to put me out in the spotlight like they did. If you get a chance, make sure you check it out. It makes for an awfully interesting read if I do say so myself!

Read the full interview here!

Ode to the Adventure Apes

A while back, I posted a bunch of images for the bad guys involved in this project. Originally, the plan was to include them in an illustrated storybook describing Mitch's experiences as he explored the Mayan temple. I have decided to change things up somewhat..the story was coming out really flat and not interesting to read at all, and I just couldn't see how it'd have anyone eager to turn the page to see what happens next, let alone a kid! So, the story will now be told in the form of an epic poem as seen through Mitch's eyes...and yes, it will be illustrated! I will post the drawings once I get 'em done, but here are a few random verses in the meantime:

"The old temple ran North, East, West and South,
I'm in its bowels, yet entered its mouth.
Perhaps you may need some time to digest,
but believe what's been said, heroes know best!"

"Rooms carved from limestone the Mayans did build,
though not long after, with water they filled.
The rooms were small and the passageways tight,
this is a place where nobody should fight."

"Towers of flame and black smoke belched in plumes,
I wished there's a way that this would end soon!
But onward I went, to get the bad guy,
and dreamt of the day where I'd see blue sky."

Wordy post eh? I'll make it up with some pretty pictures soon, I promise!!

Adventure Apes Update and Screenshots!

So, this whole 'making a video game' thing is pretty time consuming. I've been posting updates on a regular basis over at the yoyogames forums, and the people there have really helped turn this game into something presentable! It seems like every time I think the game is done, a new suggestion is made, or I think of ways to tweak things here and there. One idea that I think I'll go with for the full 3-level game is to have a track selector option rather than songs getting played according to the room and level. That way the player will be able to choose which song gets played. That means coming up with a ton of songs, but it should be pretty cool when it's all said and done!

Level 1 has undergone a ton of improvements this past week as far as gameplay goes. As usual, I'll be going through to make sure nothing else needs fixing, but it is getting so good! Here are some updated screenshots, taken at their original resolution, however the game scales everything up 200% so that it is a little easier to play:)

 

  

 

  

  

  

Download the game and instructions from here!

Or get it all here!

Or you can even try playing it in your internet browser here!

 

Adventure Apes Shirt Designs!

I've been trying out a couple ideas for shirts lately, and here are some quick mock-ups of them. The surfer one of course is familiar (see previous post), the bananas logo is Adventure Apes' logo, and then I thought I'd try out something a little different with the stylized monkey skull. It turned out pretty cool, so I'm thinking more may be in the works!

Surfin' in Style

Mitch definitely makes the most out of his recreational time! It's the same image as the previous post, but I went with a somewhat limited palette, and kept the original black outlines. Feels good to be back to drawing after slaving it out with the game programming for most of the summer!

Adventure Apes Line Art

I threw this together as an idea for a wallpaper or shirt design. I'd like to do something full-colour, but thought this turned out kind of fun and interesting! It was originally a brush-pen sketch that was colourized in Photoshop, hope you like it!

Adventure Apes: Play online!

So I've put the game up on a site called yoyogames, and they made it able to play the game through their site if you don't want to download the file. I'm not sure if it will work on a Mac this way, so if anyone with a Mac tries it out, be sure to let me know!!

Adventure Apes ...
Added: 13 August 2009
By: ScaryPotato

Adventure Apes, ready for launch!

Another round of fine-tuning is done, and things are shaping up really nicely! Level one as of today is error free, and requires next to no touch-ups, apart from the odd thing that irritates me from a coding point of view. Below is a rundown of the level, from start to finish..no glitz, no glamour, all glory!! The latest version of the game is, as always, available at scarypotato.com or adventureapes.com or even at greatgamesexperiment.com (it's a super cool site with plenty of indie and commercial games)!

Some major tweaks...

I had realized a major problem in the game that needed addressing, and here is the result! In the previous version, it was difficult to lose all your lives, so chances are that no one noticed that the game wouldn't know what to do if you DID die off! The problem has been fixed by making the game a little tougher, as well as adding a little mini-game type idea where you float around a room as Mitch's angel and have to collect three hearts if you want to restart the game. Pointless fun, but fun nonetheless!

Be sure to get the latest copy of the game here or here!

3500hrs R&D, 437lbs Bananas Eaten, 1 Hardcore Monkey

After a couple weeks of working night and day, level one is complete!! I'll be doing through and looking for bugs to fix, but as it stands right now, you can go through and find everything, shoot everything, beat the boss etc etc.
The demo here is a teaser for all the weapons in the whole game (two of them are found in level one; Blue Raygun and the Sawgun) Be warned though, if you don't watch your ammo, when you get to the boss you will be in real trouble. He is one seriously tough hombre!! Oh, and you will find the link to download the game file at www.adventureapes.com, and www.scarypotato.com!

Numero Dos

Nose to the grindstone!

Storybook First Page!!!

All right! So now that all the characters from the game have been drawn, I've been spending the last little while writing up a story going through Mitch's adventure. This would be the first page of said adventure. Tweaks will more than likely be made down the road, but I'm pretty happy with it so far:)

The Final Two Character Illustrations...

...although technically the Golden Egg isn't a character, it got thrown in because it's Horatio's main means of attack! I think now it's time to hunker down and put together the front end of the book (illustrations of the adventure Mitch went on, along with a couple more maps)!

Final Boss: Horatio Hawk!

So, I'm working a bit backwards with this in that you won't actually battle Horatio until you blast his Golden Egg to smithereens (that'll be the first illustration, this is the second). It does seem like a better way to introduce him to the world though since you actually see his character on this page, the other will just be his Golden Egg vehicle.

A little background on Horatio....

*Was in the same orphanage as Mitch and Otis, but was always an outsider.
*He always took things from other kids in the orphanage just to see them cry!
*Adopted by the enigmatic Mr.E, who is incredibly rich and has raised Horatio to use whatever means necessary to eventually own everything in the world.
*Loves watching old WWF matches when he's not bent on world domination.

The Mighty Squidephant

Found in the darkest depths of the underwater portion of the Mayan Mystery, the Squidephant waits patiently for its next tasty meal. This guy is going to be the 2nd Level boss in the game, which will include lots of swimming, bombing, and lasers. Look out!

Attack Mode Activate!

It might be useful to know just how you're going to get your butt beat by each of the bosses, so I've decided to include a page detailing the specific attacks for each of them.

Reference book compilation

As promised, I re-did the colouring on several pages to bring it up to speed with the more recent posts and figured that probably the easiest way to look at them would be to put them into one file, so here it is! It's something like 4.5mb, so it isn't small, but it will be nice and clear when you look at it as each page will show up as 640x640 on your screen. Hope you like it!

***EDIT*** Even though the file uploaded was over 4mb and 1280px wide, the one you can view is only a fraction of that size, 193kb so I apologize for that. It looks like there are limits to the dimensions an image can be when uploading? If you are curious to see all 18 completed pages clearly, you can find the file on my website!

Boss One: The Skull Demon!!

One serious piece of business, the Skull Demon is relentless in his attack on Mitch. It'll take quick wits and lots of ammo to finish him off.

I find the pose pretty stiff, so I might redo it, but my intention was to try and show all the things in the book in different poses than what you find in the instruction booklet and all these drawings are more to be used as diagrams of the enemies instead of action poses. Hm, maybe it'll stay. What do you think?

Last Two Creatures

Here are the final creatures that you'll find in the game. It looks like I'll have to retouch my earlier stuff as the rust has gradually been shaken off my colouring skill...look out bosses, you're next!

Two more pages..

Two more pages down! Still a lot to do, but there are only two more pages of creatures left. Then it's on to the bosses which should be fun!

Wallpapers etc!

Here is a mix of different styles and looks for a bunch of free wallpapers for my Adventure Apes, as well as the base logos used in the background. Most of them are 100% done, I believe the Stickytongue and the Reflection are the only ones never finished completely though. I just recently bought a brush pen and love using it, so am thinking that the next batch will be done with line art using that, then digital colouring, much like the story illustrations.

New Illustrations

Here are a couple of new pages for the book. By my figuring, there should be four more pages of creatures that you will see in the video game, a couple more maps, and of course the bosses for each level. I hope to have a bunch of jungle scenery to show what Mitch went through just to get to the mysterious temple in the first place, not to mention a drawing of the temple itself! Lots to do yet it seems:)

Info abounds!

These are a few pages from a reference manual that gives the reader/player a rundown of the surroundings and creatures inside the Mayan temple, along with maps and hints to make finding things a little easier. Of course if you use the book to finish the game you are a CHEATER, but I won't judge you.

*cough cough*cheater*cough*