It's a steal of a deal!

The Adventure Apes has just been put up on IndieGameStand! It's a pay-what-you-want type sale (of course, bonuses are made available if you pay above the average), but it's only up for four days!

One of the really cool things about this deal is that 10% of all sales goes towards supporting a charity, and I chose Doctors Without Borders. So, even if you don't like the game, but like chipping in to help do a little good in the world, pick up a copy would you? :)

New Screenshots!

It's taken a little while, but there has been quite a bit of stuff done on the game. Weapons have been added (wavebeam, ice cannon, missiles and bombs), upgrades to each weapon too! Since it is a super-casual game, I wanted each experience to be new, so all background elements are randomly generated, as well as the spawning locations for the enemies and asteroids.

The next thing I'm going to tackle is the variety of enemies. There are currently only two coded, but am thinking of adding several more (and redoing the current ones) to give more variety. The plan is to have different species and variants of species spwan based on the difficulty level you choose.


Here are a couple screenshots to tide you over while I work away on the game...first one is a WIP, nearly done though. The second image shows a new HUD and a plethora of asteroids begging to be blasted!

Closing Out 2012

It was a pretty big year this time around! With the Mayan Mystery finally completed, I was fortunate enough to have it hosted on some websites, as well as have it part of a recent Indie Royale bundle, and (will also be) part of IndieGameStand and their excellent promotions! The game has also been entered in the 2013 Indie Game Festival. It might be a bit of a long shot to win anything, but you never know unless you try, right?

Of all the things I learned while creating the Mayan Mystery (and the list is very long!), probably the most important thing is to not shoot for the stars on your very first attempt. I wanted to go all out with the Mayan Mystery, and while being ambitious is fine, setting goals really high when you're just starting out can be murder! What I'm planning on doing in the next game, is to tone it back a little bit. There are many reasons for this, but the biggest is that I really want to keep making games, and starting a project that is too much above one's skills will generally end in disaster.

So, what's next?

If you've followed the blog, you'll see that in the beginning, the focus was on an illustrated story more than a video game. The story was intended to be a series that follows Mitch and Otis as they try and track down Horatio Hawk before he can steal any more priceless or magical items. I'm not going back to the storybook, but I am going to follow the same overall concept. That means that there will be a continuation to the Mayan Mystery...and am currently working on a little game that takes place during the Mayan Mystery.
If you recall, Mitch and Otis were called into Dr.A's study with urgent news, but Otis hit his head and was forced to recover, while Mitch went off on the Mayan Mystery. Otis' recovery didn't take too terribly long (mostly due to the fact that his brain is tiny, and head trauma doesn't affect him like it does the rest of us), and was soon sent on a mission of his own!

For this particular game, I've decided to change things up and use hand drawn graphics instead of the retro-pixelated graphics in the Mayan Mystery. I love drawing, and if I can incorporate more of it into my games, that's what I'll do:) Anyhow, here is a recent screenshot of the upcoming game...




I'm thinking of redoing the HUD to something a little easier to understand, as it is rather cryptic right now...

Instruction Booklet Doodles!

I thought that a new instruction booklet was in order. There previously was one with super detailed drawings of each item and bad guy, but it didn't quite jive with the overall theme of the current iteration of the video game. This time around, I went for large, colourful and cartoony drawings with a nice simple presentation that I hope will prove easy on the eyes :) The majority of the images are what you see below, and the instruction booklet even includes little maps of each level to help players out a little. If you want to see how the finished product turned out, feel free to download a copy here!

A Riddle...What is Smokey, Hot, and Jewel Encrusted?

Level five of the Mayan Mystery, that's what! And you won't find it in the demo version of the game. This is just a quick little teaser video to pique your interest...

Mayan Mystery Trailer Released!

With the demo version getting closer and closer to being complete, I thought it'd be a good idea to put together a little trailer to show the levels and bosses found in the game. So, without further delay, here it is:




As always, the most up-to-date version of the game is waiting for you at the Adventure Apes website, just click the link below for your copy!
Direct Download Here

Adventure Apes: Jetpack Justice Mockup

This is an ultra-early sneak peek at what's next for the Adventure Apes, once the Mayan Mystery is done! Everything is still in the concept stage, but it's planned to be a fast-paced sidescrolling game set in space (picking up where the Mayan Mystery leaves off)

Stay tuned for more!

Updates

After thinking things through about the style of the game, a comment made a LONG time ago when I was just starting the project was what I needed to make up my mind. Someone said that they wished the drawings were more representative of what you saw in the game(regarding the illustrations in the instruction booklet). It may haven taken three years, but I agree with them now! So, rather than trying for ultra-detailed images, something more on the cartoony side will be done for the planned cutscenes and instructions....not to mention the main start screen. Not only does it more closely fit the style of graphics in the game, but it is a lot more representative of the game itself, instead of the old start screens with Mitch and Otis mugshots on either side of a banana logo. This new one was done with a Pentel brush pen, then scanned and coloured. It's fun to do, and I think it gives a more natural feel than using the pen weight type options in photoshop.

That isn't the only thing that I've been tinkering away with all this time though. The game itself has gone through some really cool updates, lots of blocks and items have had their graphics updated, and I've even gone and tightened the controls to (hopefully!) prevent the player from getting stuck against any of the blocks. An updated demo of the game will be up on the Adventure Apes site soon! At this point, it's a matter of finding things and fixing/fine tuning them so that everything runs smoothly. Here's some screenshots in the meantime:

Onward and upward!

Happy Valentine's Day!

As mentioned way back at the beginning of the month, I was bustin' my butt to try and get a demo version of the Mayan Mystery ready for everyone to try out by the 14th. Well, after many trials and tribulations with this project, it is finally ready to play!

Yeah sure, it's a beta version, so it's not 100% perfect. What it IS though, is four of the six levels in the game, complete with tons of enemies and freakish bosses!

You can get yourself a copy of the game on the Adventure Apes website, but if you're feeling lazy, you can download it directly here. When it's extracted, the file should be about 5mb.

Okay, so now you know where to get the game, but you are probably curious what it looks like! It has been completely redesigned from the original PC version (this is essentially the version the was originally to me made into DSiWare), and is full of twists and turns...I made a little compilations to show the levels in the demo file, and here it is!



Feedback is always welcome, so if you have any suggestions or comments, make yourself known!:)

Progress Updates...

LOTS of items have been crossed off the list since Christmas, and it's a really good feeling to see how things are starting to take shape!

The biggest piece of the puzzle (that being the video game itself) has all the levels in place, and the enemies and bosses are all there waiting, except the dreaded final boss. There is still a lot of fine-tuning to do with the game, so I've not updated the downloadable file, but am confident that something resembling a playtest version will be made available on the website before Valentine's Day, so keep your eyes peeled for that. Several functions won't be available in the playtest version, such as the "T for Tips" system, but it won't by any means make the game unbeatable, just more difficult. I am also planning on adding some cutscenes and things of that nature to help tell the Adventure Apes story, rather than plunging the player straight into the action without knowing which way is up. Anyhow, the game is very, VERY close!

Another big update (and what I've been spending the last week and a half on) is the Adventure Apes website. The current one looks really cool with the big logo taking the top 75% of the page, but it is almost completely lacking in functionality. All the good stuff is crammed down at the bottom, and really doesn't display anything other than a few lines of text at any one time. The web hosting company I'm using provides free templates, so I looked through them, but decided in the end to try and come up with something that fits what I want exactly. The only trick is that I've got to take bits and pieces of code and patch them together...time consuming when you don't know anything about html !:P It is coming along though. My concept is to have something that is really clear and easy to navigate, and clean in a visual sense. Just to make it unique and more personal looking, I'm making all the images/buttons etc etc. It's a frustrating undertaking, but in the end, I thik it will really tie everything related to the Adventure Apes together, having a common scheme (being somewhat cartoony looking). Here are a couple screen captures of what I've got so far, enjoy!

Blurry Pixmas! (Or, Merry Christmas!)

Seeing as how it's Christmas morning, I thought I'd play the role of Santa and sneak a little gift under the tree for everyone...a blurred-out overview of the entire Adventure Apes game!
Now, you're probably scratching your head and asking yourself, "Why the heck can't he give us a nice clear, crisp HD version of the map?!", and I'll tell you why. It goes a little something like this...

Way back when I was a little kid, home computers didn't exist, and the internet wasn't even a word anyone would recognize. My brother and I would go to video stores and rent cartidges for our NES, and what we rented was largely based on two things; playing the games at a friend's house, or seeing the game in Nintendo Power. Nintendo Power was great, because you'd get reviews of current games, as well as the occasional preview of unreleased games. To me, that was the most exciting part, because there would be a couple blurbs about what the game was going to be about, and if you were really lucky, there would be some pictures taken of the game itself! Those pictures would often be TINY and BLURRY, but it didn't matter, because my imagination would fill in the rest...and to this day, I think it was because those pictures were so blurry and cryptic that anticipation for the next game would be so high.
So, in the spirit of Christmas, and the spirit of the blurry photograph, I present to you the full-blown world map for the Adventure Apes. Ho ho ho!

Adventure Apes + Game Porting= Happy Day!

If you've been wondering recently why there hasn't been too much in terms of updates for the game related stuff recently, the answer is quite simple...I was recently approached to port the game over to a handheld system! For a complete newcomer to the whole game making biz, it came as a complete shock, as well as a dream come true to have my little monkey crew made available to large base of people, and if a little money comes in as a result, all the better :)
Everything is in the very, VERY beginning stages at this point, and I'm sure as the project progresses, changes will be made to many aspects of the game in order to make it a top notch product. Perhaps the greatest advantage with an undertaking like this is that I won't be working alone on it. Reduced individual workload and greater brainstorming capacity will be very much welcome!
I look at this as a once in a lifetime opportunity, where if it gets done right, could lead the way to bigger and better things for the Adventure Apes, happy day indeed!!

And now for something completely uninteresting....

I put this together mainly as a result of a game design expo that I had the privilege of attending recently. One of the guest speakers (Matt McLean from Obsidian) was truly exceptional, and the comment that most stuck out in my mind from his speech was that "you can never show the control scheme for a game too much. Even if it's in the instruction booklet, chances are it won't be seen."
And just like that, a little piece of my heart sank. I had spent a few months worth of evenings putting together the art and layout for a true retro style instruction booklet to help reinforce the old-school vibe off my current game! His point is completely valid...I never really read those things as a kid for the instructions, it was the art I was after, and even now, I may take a quick glance through them, but never really pay much attention to the controls. So, my solution is to replace the current pause screen with this diagram, and hopefully avoid leaving the player frustrated or wondering what button does what exactly.

New Game Images!

I posted some pics not too long ago as level two was in the middle stages of being done. The level is more or less complete, but will need some tweaking here and there before it's up to snuff. While the code is plugged away on, I offer you these new in-game images:

The gamefile is available for downloading from the Adventure Apes' site. The site itself is looking kind cluttered and dated, so I'm hoping to have a new looking site sometime in the near future as well. Right now, I've just kind of been throwing stuff in there as I update the game instead of keeping is tidy and organized. So be on the look out for that too!

Level Two Boss Revealed: The Squidephant!!

Don't let the goofy name throw you off, this guy is one bad mutha! Part squid, part elephant, and part...spiky-shelled sea-thing, Squidephant is an ornery beast, and Mitch is intruding on his territory!
I was a little hesitant posting this since people can see how to beat the boss, but he looks so darned  cool that I couldn't resist. Enjoy :)

Mayan Mystery Gameplay Update

Here's  a little peek into the Mayan underworld, courtesy of the Adventure Apes! The game has undergone quite a few improvements lately, and level two is getting very close to being complete...probably one or two months away from being ready :) This little video doesn't shed too much light onto the game so much as it shows the general atmosphere you can expect...lush, dark, and danger lurking around every corner!!

Mayan Mystery: Level 2 Madness!

It occurred to me a while ago that people found level 1 of the Mayan Mystery a bit tricky to navigate because the graphics were the same throughout. Even with the occasional 'helpful' message from Otis and/or Dr. A, I think that it probably frustrated more than a  few people until they got their bearings with the temple layout as a whole. With that said, I've been putting together level 2, and am hoping that the experience will be much better for the player. There are three main sections of the level, each with its own distinct look and music. These screenshots are very early stages of the level of course, just to give a sense of the graphic style for each section. Development is coming along nicely, but it is a little slow, simply because level 2 is set to be hugely gigantic!

Bubbles, plankton and crabs, oh my!

Who knew monkeys could swim so well?? This is a secret image to the still-under-wraps level 2 of the Adventure Apes' Mayan Mystery video game... It will be treacherous navigating the huge submerged hallways without breathing, but if any one monkey can pull the mission off, it'd be Mitch!

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: 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