ekun

zzzzz

[hopoo]

DevBlog #1 - Our Next Project

We’ve been working on a new game for about 6 months, and we’ve been shooting ideas back and forth on how the best way to announce it is. When’s the best timing? At what point in development? Announcing a game is a delicate process.

But… we really want to share with people what we’ve been working so hard on, and we really can’t keep our lips sealed much longer, so we’re just gonna throw it out there with a devblog. So here it is: DevBlog #1 for Risk of Rain 2.

Fullscreen

As a preface, I reaaaaally want to stress this: the game is still very VERY early in development.

None of the systems, artstyles, assets, or game design choices will necessarily translate to the final game. We’re learning as we go along - I hope that you guys find it as interesting to read as we do to develop.

Risk of Rain 2 is our first fully 3D project! We think that 3D allows for much deeper design spaces and more possibilities for cool gameplay. Feelings of scale and atmosphere are also much stronger. We are really happy with the core of Risk of Rain - and we’re finding it plays even better in 3D. It just won’t crash anymore.

There’s a bunch of other things I want to talk about, but I’m anxious and nervous about writing this so they’re all escaping my mind. So uh, yeah. There you go. We’ll be spending the next few devblogs talking about all the awesome systems we have in place (unified character system, item proc chains, etc) with future ones talking about our progress through development. I promise that we’re doing all these things because we think it’ll make the coolest game. And to all our fans - thanks for sticking with us. We hope you’re all as excited as we are.

- Hopoo Games Team

[ekundev]

can’t way to play this!

[ekundev]

some random thoughts

It’s hard to believe that we’ve been working on Vagante for more than three years. I remember when we first started development estimating that the game’s development would take a year, two years at most. Thinking back to that now can be a little demotivating. Why haven’t we finished our game yet? How much more time will it take? 

I’d been feeling particularly unproductive lately. I found myself dreading even opening up my code editor, or looking at the latest bug reports. I had to force myself to do even the smallest amount of work, and I hated doing it. My lack of productivity even seemed contagious and our team slowed down development. I recognized the symptoms of burnout.

I decided to take a vacation. A real vacation, not a staycation where I could still access my work computer, or where I had other obligations to attend to. I wanted to get away from everything, for as long as I possibly could.

So here I am in Japan. It’s been two weeks since I’ve done any game programming or planning. And honestly, I think this is the best thing I could’ve done in regards to development. I find myself remembering the excitement I used to have working on Vagante. I still have one more week here, but I’m already itching to get back to work.

[vagantegame]

Version 35a

Keep reading

[vagantegame]

Version 34 Released

New/Balance

Removed mana from the game

Learning a spell now gives you a certain number of charges of that spell.

Resting inbetween levels recharges your spell charges to maximum

New Player UI

Player Menu now has visible tabs to indicate which page you’re on.

New unlockable BGM

New context-sensitive tooltips

After a short delay, pages in the Player Menu will show a tooltip.

Shops now show an interaction tooltip.

Using a shop now uses the dedicated interact/exit level button.

Minor optimizations to framerate

Multishot damage increased from 50% -> 66%

Bugfixes

Godcursing an item with a cursed major attribute now properly negates it

Fixed magic missile sometimes going backwards

Fixed man-eating plants eating already-dead things

Fixed multishot arrows duplicating bomb arrows

Fixed axe item offsets

Removed ability to use ranged attack during intro

[coomichoo-deactivated20211206]

Knight vs Worm.

Fan art of the game Vagante

[ekundev]

love this

[sloweh]

Hello. I have opened for commissions.

In the style above I will make you an animation contained in a 64x64 pixel space.

I’ll animate just about any character doing any action.

It’s perfectly fine if a weapon or accessory is too big for the space given.

Let’s keep it safe for work.

My rate is $20 for 8 frames. If you would like an animation, find me at [email protected] or tumblr

[ekundev]

[vagantegame]

Vagante v28a Released!  Patch Notes

[vagantegame]

Vagante v27a Released

New/Balance

All items now have a smaller, in-level version sprite

Some cursed Items now have alternate, cursed, effects

Items are now identified after Game Over

New chest/mimic sprites (work in progress, placeholders)

Mimics now drop Items instead of lots of gold

Many item sprites redone

Can now pick up bombs after throwing them

Knight’s block ability now has its own regenerating hp pool

Bugfixes

Fixed bomb projectiles sometimes hitting units more than once

Fixed boomerangs not equipping properly after picking them up

Fixed fading dead body sometimes showing improperly in multiplayer after a level transition

Fixed several units sprite positions not aligning correctly to their hitbox when frozen

Fixed certain arrows sometimes tunneling through terrain

Fixed teleporting while sitting causing a softlock

[ekundev]

hello world

yo~

[ekundev]

8)

[vagantegame]

Alpha Version 11 Released

Although the focus of this release was mostly on polishing previous content and fixing bugs, this update also introduces new mechanics and content to Vagante.

Bugfixes

We’re super thankful to those active in the Vagante community who’ve taken the time to help us improve the game. The feedback we’ve received since the last update has been invaluable, and we hope we can continue to count on you guys as we develop the game.

Shrines

Shrines are our answer to the problem of becoming over-encumbered while playing Vagante. Feel like offloading some extra gear? Consider sacrificing it to a god for a chance at better equipment. There are five different shrines currently in the game, and we have plans for many more.

Shrines are still a very young addition to the game, so your feedback will become instrumental in determining how they evolve throughout our development.

New Game+

One of the issues with the last patch was the lack of content after the Catacombs. It became obvious that simply looping later levels through the Catacombs wasn’t a fun end-game for players to reach. As an early solution, we’ve turned the post-Catacombs content into New Game+. We’re not sure whether we’ll be including a similar system in the final version of the game; but for now, expect a challenging end-game as we’ve rehashed the earlier areas.

Want to read more? Check out the full changelog after the break.

Read More

[ekundev]

check it out now, the funk soul brother

[ekundev]

Ludum Dare Postmortem

Ludum Dare finally released their results today after a full month of judging. My game, Bullet Beat, did better than I expected, getting 25th place overall(!). In the spirit of trying to write more, I thought I'd write a short postmortem of my development.

As a rhythm game fan, I've always wanted to make a game in the genre. When Ludum Dare rolled around with it's open-ended theme, Entire Game on One Screen, I took it as an opportunity to experiment with music. There's something deeply satisfying about executing a game mechanic to the beat of a song, a feeling I wanted to capture.

I didn't have much time, so to keep the scope of my game small I first distilled a rhythm game down to its most basic element: the beat. From there, I came up with the vague notion of synchronizing said beat with a bullet hell game. Just combine two game concepts to create a new one; simple, right? I wasn't sure if the idea had merit, but I liked the concept so I started coding anyways. One short prototype later, I found myself with the core mechanic for my game: killing music-synchronized enemies with the power of the beat. I spent the rest of my time composing something simple and polishing the game.

In retrospect, I can't say I really succeeded in making a rhythm game, sadly. Bullet Beat plays more like a bullet hell game than anything else. While it's fun, I think I oversimplified the beat-matching aspect by relegating it to a single key. If I ever come back to this concept, I'll probably improve the engine to support more interesting and complex compositions. 

Still, I'm pretty happy with my results. I feel like I'm getting better at game jams and game development in general. It's been a good, productive year.

[vagantegame]

It’s incredible to believe the three of us have been working on Vagante for over a year now. We’ve come so far, and it’s all thanks to everyone who played our game and supported us. We wouldn’t have come this far without you.

As we move away from an open public alpha, there are a...

[ekundev]

Bullet Beat

[ekundev]

Eugene Paik and Kyle Tenan from Nuke Nine Talk Vagante

We did this interview last month, but I realized we didn't really share it with anyone. It's kinda long, and I'm pretty terrible at speaking, but you might be interested if you want to know more about Vagante's background.

[vagantegame]

It’s been a while since our last update, but we’ve been busy! Here’s a small peek at a couple of things we’ve been working on:

Item System Additions

Arrows and Loot

New Team Member: Mark

Mark’s been helping us part-time behind the scenes with level design for a while now,...