What's changed
First things first, I am no longer working on Aggro by myself. I have had some assistance in the background from Gnappy [Marc Hughley], but nothing he has done has been implemented quite yet. Gnappy is now my sort of co-developer. He is working on prototype graphics and plays a HUGE role in playtesting and balance by playing a paper version with his friends at the hobby shop. Look forward to more stuff from Gnappy. He is now officially part of the Aggro development team. You should be seeing his work fairly soon. On to the changes. Well a ton of stuff has changed for the multiplayer implementation. There is now a login system, a host game, join game, and various other things added. The graphics have been souped up a bit (they are still very basic). The creation screen was remade and the playing field was changed up a bit. I've also incorporated a delay system that pauses to let you see what is going on in game. And there is a new "instruction" message in the middle of the screen that tells you what is going on at all times. There were a few balance tweaks implemented. The cards are all starting to feel extremely balanced and these first 5 cards probably won't get changed much power level wise in the future. Which means the next batch of cards will be coming fairly soon. Don't want to spend too much time covering this. For a full list of changes go to the forums and check out the latest build thread.
How to play
I've also done a little demonstration video on how to play aggro for those of you who don't know how yet. Share this with your friends.
What's coming
So now that there is multiplayer I can start getting a little more serious with things. Our first goal is to get those card graphics replaced with some of our own. I will try to incorporate a simple chat system. The main thing though is that I am redesigning the main gameplay code to make it more flexible for when we add future cards. It will be much more efficient and be much easier to modify for updates. Not sure what else is to come, but I'm starting to look closely at particle effects for when abilities get used so abilities will fly across the screen and hit their target. I'm also starting to look into sound systems so maybe I'll start implementing some sound effects soon. Stay tuned folks. Oh and before I go, here is a special treat from Gnappy... this is the current prototype version of the archer card to get you a decent feel to what the cards will be like (ignore the card frame color for now):
4 comments:
The biggest thing I can say for now is to make sure to keep in mine the idea of timelessness. Crisp graphics, more subtle texturing, especially behind text, will look a-lot better than the opposite. I know you're prototyping, so don't think I've written off the style.
Take a look at user interfaces you really enjoy, and experiment. You coin yourself as an innovator, don't limit yourself to mechanics. I like what you have so far, but I feel like you're going to fall victim to the same things that have plagued the worlds of other card games, mainly caused by the art style and over-the-top fantasy aspects. If you can make something that can pull from multiple crowds, including the ones that find most fantasy art tacky (I did say /most/, not all, and I do include myself in that number), then you will have succeeded on yet another front.
As New Mombasa's Superintendent A.I. would say, "Keep it clean."
Anywho, I'm working on a basic soundscape, looking into a few styles I could maybe have it slide between to keep in interesting, and I've got a few notes compiled for sound effects. If Gnappy wants any more input on his graphics, I'm always willing to lend an ear.
Gnappy, I have more than just that message I sent you, but Facebook's servers seem to hate me for the time being. Anywho, expect a few more from me. Blah... You should add me on Skype.
You may want to give credit to Ranum for the photo.
Don't worry, we plan on it. I'm going to officially approach him through email when we get more serious into it and have more of a finished product. Right now it is still very prototype-ish and I don't want to get anyone fully involved unless I can prove that this will pull through. Thanks for keeping us in check though. ;)