Kemono Games

Kemono Games Devlog. Working on ProtoCorgi an Horizontal Shmup where you control a Corgi on his journey through Space. .

[kemonogames]

Happy Holidays from Kemono Games!

As Bonus, here is a recap from the evolution of ProtoCorgi through last year.

[kemonogames]

Hello,

First we have some news about the name of the game, we changed it from Space Corgi to ProtoCorgi. So this is the last time we use the tag “Space Corgi” in our posts.

Second here is a video preview of the demo which we are working on. This is a big level for testing all mechanics together and stress test the engine, we’re busy putting the final touches for a better experience. Stay tuned this week for the release of this demo.

Español:

Hola a todos los nuevos seguidores de habla hispana.

Desde ahora vamos a escribir las publicaciones más importantes del blog de desarrollo en español, además de inglés.

En primer lugar, tenemos noticias con el nombre del juego, lo cambiamos de Space Corgi a ProtoCorgi. Así que esta es la última vez que usamos la etiqueta “Space Corgi” en nuestras publicaciones.

En Segundo lugar, acá hay una previsualizacion de la demo que estamos trabajando. Este es un nivel grande para probar todas las mecánicas juntas y  que tanto aguanta la engine, estamos ocupados afinando los últimos detalles para una mejor experiencia. Estén atentos esta semana para la publicación de esta demo.

En tercer lugar, gracias a los chicos de EtcFreeToPlay por entrevistarnos y saludos a toda la gente nueva que ha llegado. Espero que disfruten lo que hacemos, que nos sigan y compartan en las distintas redes sociales, estamos en Tumblr , Twitter, Youtube, Facebook. Estaremos atentos a sus comentarios.

[kemonogames]

Hello!

Are you ready to listen to the game’s music?, Here is the Space Corgi’s first level preview from the composer Francisco “Foco” Cerda, we aim for an unique theme and mood for each stage.

What do you think?

[kemonogames]

An Eye boss known as Guardian Eye, the boss from fourth level. This boss is a big eye followed with smaller eyes, but for alpha stage we used only the big eye phase. At first we designed the bosses for one health bar, but because the player ship could dish too much damage with bombs and stop time, one shooting the bosses. We decided to implement bosses with many health bars, one per a set of patterns and you couldn’t damage the boss between health bars. With this change the player could skip only one or two patterns. We could nerf the player “power levels”, but we don’t like this  approach.

Another important point from bosses is they are timed, when the timer ends, they run. This is to prevent boss milking and prize the players who kills the boss faster.

[kemonogames]

Snail Turrets from the first level, they sleep in walls and when the player is near, they woke up and crawl around shooting at player direction.

They come in groups, with smaller Snails and a bigger one known as Snail Master.

Same as fish ship behavior, if the Master is dead, the smaller Snails stop their actions and run.

[kemonogames]

Here are some enemies from the first level, a school of Fish Ships led by a mighty Fish Ship Master. There is more info about these enemies in this devlog post.

[kemonogames]

There are many ideas for enemies. Those enemies are designed to be exploited with Stop Time and react to player actions.

As example the parasitised moai has two parts: body and infected head by a parasite eye. This enemy will become a spinning death trap if only the body is destroyed, so the player should try aiming for its eye instead.

Another enemy is the fish ship: Those come in two variations, Fish Ship and Fish Ship Master.

They come in groups with many fish ships and one master, if the player kill the master ship first, all the smaller ones run. This doesn’t sound gamechanger, but if you take in account how the fruit drop works, where the last enemy killed from a group drop a fruit, then is relevant to kill the smaller ships first and the master last, because if one smaller run, the fruit dropped is lost. Now there are consequences of maintain the master ship alive, because this ship is the one who shoot bullets from the group.

These examples are presented in the Alpha, but there are many enemies with reactive behaviors through the game.

[kemonogames]

Hello!

We chose the ice themed level for the alpha since it’s the most visually intricate design in the game. That’s because of the reflection on every iced surface.

Now, if you are following the devlog, there’s a short showcase on the use of reflection maps.

How does this reflection map work?

As you can see in the video, each channel of the image has information for the reflection.

Red and Green represents direction while Blue represents intensity, all this information is used as input for a shader.

Then we created a tileset using sections from an image and input the shader with a reflection map.

[kemonogames]

Hello!

Here are more Previews from Art Direction Update.

What do you think about the update?

[kemonogames]

Hello!

We choose option A for the art direction.

So here is the updated Corgi sprite!   

What do you think about the update?

[kemonogames]

Hello!

After our last poll results, We are leaning between A and C.

Which mockup between those two do you like better?

Like for A

Reblog for C

[kemonogames]

Hello!

We're making a BIG change in the art direction for the game. So were playing with some style variations.

Which mockup do you like better? We are leaning towards A.

[kemonogames]

Hello!

Here is a Timelapse from the rest of Score Systems explained in:

http://www.kemonogames.com/post/156555452706/hello-in-this-post-were-gonna-talk-about-the

Aside from the eyesore color effect of the Jackpot and score spam we saw some problems in this first iteration.

The fruits were dropped each three defeated enemies, but that saturated more the player interface and produced a spam of fruits as you can see at the end of the video, so now each group of enemies defeated drop a fruit.

Another problem is the necessity to hit the fruits with the player bound. We aim to fix that by making the bark another tool to collect fruits.

[kemonogames]

Hello!

Here is a Timelapse from the first implementation of the Fruit Score System explained in:

http://www.kemonogames.com/post/156555452706/hello-in-this-post-were-gonna-talk-about-the

[kemonogames]

Hello!

In this post we’re gonna talk about the score mechanics.

Our first idea was a system based in objectives. For example, if the player fires 1000 bullets, the next enemy killed will drop a Fruit related to that objective. This system was discarded before implementation because is too difficult to keep track of so many objectives while dodging bullets.

This was a replaced by three score systems:

Fruit Scoring System: Fruits are the base for multiply scores, each fruit has a unique base score and could be collected by touch or barking  them.

Fruits can be spawned by:

Killing all enemies in a group.

Killing a big enemy.

Barking at hidden objects will spawn a Fruit after some hits.

Jackpot Scoring System: After collecting 5 fruits the Jackpot minigame will become active for a few seconds. In this mode each enemy drops a Coin. The bonus will stack if the player collects another 5 fruits in the duration and each stack increases all points scored.

Combo Scoring System: All score is multiplied by the combo value. The combo is increased by each collected fruit.

[kemonogames]

The corgi can shoot a precise bullet known as “S.Bark”. This special bullet is not upgrade dependant and is always available when the player Taps the shoot button. S.Bark's main use is to gather fruits, reveal some secrets and avoid "anti-bullet-spam hazards" in some stages.

[kemonogames]

Hello!

We’re working on the collectibles for the game, Power ups, Fruits, Coins, etc.

Here is a timelapse showing the development of the power ups. 

More details of these in:

http://www.kemonogames.com/post/155555472136/hello-in-this-post-were-gonna-talk-about-the