Dotly Studios

A Canadian game studio focused on open game development, fun, and building a community.

[dotlystudios]

Astro Cows Released!

Hey there internet!

We here at Dotly are very proud to bring you our first mobile title, Astro Cows.

Here is the cow in question, relaxing on the farm. Looks like it’s ready to explore the cosmos... Can’t you tell that he’s a dreamer?

Astro Cows is a simple game. You can hop into outer space, powered only by dreams. You can even pass by all the planets in our solar system (thats right, NASA.)   It is a space exploration game without any unfulfilled promises.

You can share your scores with friends using Facebook, and even compete to see who can get higher. It’s an udder-full of fun.

It is also the start of a new chapter. We have a few games in the backlog that are going to be seeing release in the coming months. Moving forward, we hope to scale up a small amount with each game. More importantly, our goal is for our games to get better before they get bigger. More announcements to come over the next few weeks.

Further, in a week or so the first episodes of our game dev tutorial series will be appearing on Dan’s youtube page. He is going to be sharing knowledge that went into making each of our games, to try to give back to the gamedev community that has been so supportive of us.

This is the start of something big. We hope you come along for the ride.

You can download astro cows on iOs or Android by following the links below:

ios:

https://itunes.apple.com/app/id1149591732

android:

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.dotlystudios.astrocows

for media, follow this link:

http://dotlystudios.com/astrocows-press

[dotlystudios]

The Importance of Feel in Player Control

Dan here.

Through all the games we have made together here at Dotly, and all the games I made prior to Dotly, there is one thing that has continually been of growing importance. The player controller. Too many times I have seen games that had an amazing central idea, but were ruined by non-solid player control.

Why is this so often overlooked by amateur game devs? Your character is your conduit into the world: It is you, existent in the game world that the developer has created.

When I first started making games, I was definitely guilty of not putting enough emphasis on the player controller. I would make something that was merely serviceable, because I was more excited to get to the central gameplay ideas. Spending time tweaking player movement values and perfecting the way the player moves seemed like misuses of the little time I had.

Now, when I make a game, solid player movement is the FIRST thing I do. Before I add content, the player needs to feel good. When a player sits down in a chair to try your game, the first thing they do is move around and get a feel for the controls. If the controls don’t feel right to them, the experience is immediately tainted.

I first started thinking about this when I played Jak and Daxter: The Precursor Legacy as a young boy. In the PSM review, the reviewer said that it had the “Super Mario 64″ effect, where just running around felt really good. You didn’t need a goal, or a destination to have fun in those games. All you needed was your player, and a controller, and you could run around and have a blast.

One note, however: It is important to make the player control in a way that feels right for your game. Take into consideration the standards that have been created by the games that precede you, but do not tie yourself to them. This is something that we have learned while developing Aphelion.

In Aphelion (releasing this month!) I spent a long time getting the player movement to feel just right.

At first, I had basic arrow key controls, and you could hold shift to move faster. This is essentially the industry standard for moving a player. Yet I quickly found that introducing this other button seemed unnecessary: since Aphelion only has 4 movement axis, it was much more fun if you could sprint by pressing the arrow key really fast. So, you now hold the direction key down to move at a certain pace, and if you want to move faster, you can press the key and you will move at that speed. This immediately made the movement more dynamic, and with only four main inputs (the four cardinal directions) we have created an entire game with a very dynamic movement system.

Mashing the arrow keys may not make sense for all games, but it made sense for ours. So do what feels right. And for goodness sake, spend time on your player controller.

For all things Dotly, follow us on twitter!

Cheers.

[dotlystudios]

Welcome to Dotly

Welcome to our page! This is where we will be posting all of our game development things, such as game prototypes, full game releases, and Unity Tools. 

Right now, we are a two-man team working from a small shed in our backyard:

It is very cozy.

Our first release, a musical strategy game, Aphelion, is coming in the next few weeks. We have some awesome tracks by an electronic duo called amorphous which we will share with you over the coming weeks. However, release is only the end of a long road, and we hope to share this journey with you!

Over the next few weeks, we will be doing live streams of development of our game, as well as streaming gameplay. Then, we will invite some of you to join us in testing the game and giving feedback, building up to the full release before the end of the month!

We will be performing the streams on twitch. The first episode will be on Wednesday, June 3rd.

http://www.twitch.tv/dotlystudios

For more updates, follow us on twitter:

http://www.twitter.com/dotlystudios

Stay tuned.

- Dan