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)
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:
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!:)
Whew! Well, that was kind of hectic, but things seem straightened out form this end now. After uploading all the contents to the hosting site, it quickly became apparent that almost NO images would load. Stupid me for trying to get things done before heading to work this morning. So if anyone went to the website between about 7am and 7pm PST today, I apologize for the weird patchwork of working and non-working images/links/content! It turns out that the majority of the "/" symbols in my directory call-ups were actually "\", so nothing was being called up. Embarassing.
Anyways, that is all sorted out, and now everything should be working smoothly (if you're using Firefox). If you are using Explorer and notice any funky glitches, PLEASE let me know! Better yet, if you happen to know html and know how to optimize what I've slapped together, I'd be forever grateful for any help!! :)
So, without any further ado, I present to you, the brand spanking new Adventure Apes website!
If you check it out, be sure to let me know what you think. I'll be adding/updating/improving things on a regular basis, so any feedback would be awesome. Thanks!
Take a look at this...it is the Level 5 boss of the Mayan Mystery in hot pursuit of Mitch! Magmatoro is 50% magma, 50% toro, and 100% raging inferno! In other words, he's one bad dude.
There are a bunch more screenshots at the Adventure Apes' facebook page, so make sure you check it out. Like it, if you dare :) Everything is just getting started up, and more content will be coming soon, quite possibly some new videos of the game in action....keep your eyes peeled!
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!
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!
