Wednesday, October 7, 2015
Sunday, February 8, 2015
Wooplex Development Update. MassDiGi Grand Prize Winner 2015.
We are back from our winter break now and we have something cool to share with you!
Yesterday we attended MassDiGi Game Challenge. People there were awesome and a lot of interesting games were pitched. I really enjoyed being a part of it.
Despite the fact that our team was not in a full squad because Ostap is in Ukraine we managed to get our first two rewards!
 |
| Wooplex being awarded for the Grand Prize. |
Wooplex won the Grand Prize and became Winner of the Indie Beta/Near Release Category.
We are really happy :D We appreciate the amount of efforts put into organization of the event and we would like to say special thanks to our mentors!
- Tom Lin - Demiurge Studios
- Jamie Gotch - Subatomic Studios
- Craig Alexander - WB Games/Turbine
- Rob Gallerani - Vicarious Visions
- Athena Peters - WB Games/Turbine
- Tom Lin - Demiurge Studios
- Jamie Gotch - Subatomic Studios
- Craig Alexander - WB Games/Turbine
- Rob Gallerani - Vicarious Visions
- Athena Peters - WB Games/Turbine
Meetings with mentors were held during the first day of the event. They provided us with unbelievable feedback and tons of helpful advices, we really appreciate it! We took into account all of the information heard, made some last-night-game-modifications, and managed to successfully pitch the game on the second(main) day of the event.
Here is the gameplay video from the pitch presentation. It got a lot of positive reviews from judges and audience and we would like to share it with you. Wooplex Gameplay Video!
 |
| Screenshot from the gameplay video. |
Another great thing is that winner pack includes a demo space on the PAX East 2015. That should be an awesome event and you'll be able to find our team there (hopefully in full squad now :D).
 |
| Grand Prize Winner and Category Award(Indie Beta/Near Release) |
Tuesday, December 23, 2014
Wooplex Development Update. Story time.
Weekly Summary.
Listening to people's feedback on the game is very important. Because of this, right not we are putting a lot of efforts working on improving game controls. Previous week we decided to create 3 different types of control and the next week we are going to test how people like it. I hope it can change the overall experience of the game in a good way.
Story time.
We think it is time to reveal a little story that is hidden behind Wooplex. This game is influenced a lot by the 34 year old Ukrainian cartoon called "Kapitoshka".
Kapitoshka is a drop of autumn rain, everywhere he goes, flowers, grass and leaves start blooming. Meanwhile, young wolf thinks that every wolf should be angry and crafty, but he is not. While wolf is trying to fix this, Kapitoshka is making his best to make him kinder.
The idea of how the world can become brighter and nicer by a drop of rain reflected on the game. Even though, we do not try to make Wooplex game copy of the cartoon, if you look closer at our game you can find something similar.
Visually Wooplex reminds Kapitoshka. They both have similar shape and drops flying around. When wooplex is traveling everything he touches restores color and becomes alive again. World in Wooplex is going to be full of different flowers. By touching spoiled flowers Wooplex will fix them too.
Wooplex also inherited some of the abilities that Kapitoshka has. One of those is turning disappearing and appearing in different positions. That reminded us of some kind of teleportation. Wooplex can use his drops that are flying around and do something similar! Check it!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9G5gSJuOjpQ
Listening to people's feedback on the game is very important. Because of this, right not we are putting a lot of efforts working on improving game controls. Previous week we decided to create 3 different types of control and the next week we are going to test how people like it. I hope it can change the overall experience of the game in a good way.
 |
| New mechanics to be revealed in this post! |
Story time.
We think it is time to reveal a little story that is hidden behind Wooplex. This game is influenced a lot by the 34 year old Ukrainian cartoon called "Kapitoshka".
Kapitoshka and young wolf
The idea of how the world can become brighter and nicer by a drop of rain reflected on the game. Even though, we do not try to make Wooplex game copy of the cartoon, if you look closer at our game you can find something similar.
Visually Wooplex reminds Kapitoshka. They both have similar shape and drops flying around. When wooplex is traveling everything he touches restores color and becomes alive again. World in Wooplex is going to be full of different flowers. By touching spoiled flowers Wooplex will fix them too.
Wooplex also inherited some of the abilities that Kapitoshka has. One of those is turning disappearing and appearing in different positions. That reminded us of some kind of teleportation. Wooplex can use his drops that are flying around and do something similar! Check it!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9G5gSJuOjpQ
Saturday, December 13, 2014
Wooplex Development Update. What not to do on game showcases.
Previous week we worked a lot on the game. Deadline did its job pretty well. On Thursday we had a chance to show Wooplex to people from WPI on a little indie games showcase.
Testing new joystick visuals
We learned a lot from that event and we would like to share some of the mistakes we made.
1. We created a "nice" demo that had 20 levels.
The difficulty of the levels is growing just like the level design teaches you to do. We cover all the mechanics gradually, showing them one by one not to confuse people. So you may ask what is wrong here?
Some of the things that people like the most start late in the game (on the level 15 or so). That means nothing but the bridge of 15 levels between the player who takes the device and enjoys those mechanics. The atmosphere of such events is always a mess. People are walking from table to table and they cannot play the game for more than 5 minutes for a lot of reasons. Sometimes there may not even be a place where to sit and they will play it standing. It is very disappointing to see people going away without even seeing something that you were doing and polishing for so long.
Yes. Level "Who am I?" that is on youtube and looks so easy is actually not. The amount of time to complete it for a newcomer is unbelievably huge. People do not get the controls of the game when they just take the device and that is the problem.
One of the reasons why that happened is because we decided not to stick with regular joystick. We think that it just ruins the atmosphere and it is not necessary. We've failed to make it intuitive to control, also we haven't made a tutorial.They were tapping it, swiping it, turning the phone around, only a few managed to control it.
Controls are simple. There is invisible floating joystick pretty similar to Limbo on the iPhones. That's it. Everything else is controlled by touching it directly.
We decided not to change the control system but to visualize it in the correct way. We hope it won't break the atmosphere :)
Check it out and please let us know in the comments what do you think about it. Thanks!
Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MGG_rh9Vm_Y
We learned a lot from that event and we would like to share some of the mistakes we made.
1. We created a "nice" demo that had 20 levels.
The difficulty of the levels is growing just like the level design teaches you to do. We cover all the mechanics gradually, showing them one by one not to confuse people. So you may ask what is wrong here?
Some of the things that people like the most start late in the game (on the level 15 or so). That means nothing but the bridge of 15 levels between the player who takes the device and enjoys those mechanics. The atmosphere of such events is always a mess. People are walking from table to table and they cannot play the game for more than 5 minutes for a lot of reasons. Sometimes there may not even be a place where to sit and they will play it standing. It is very disappointing to see people going away without even seeing something that you were doing and polishing for so long.
2. Attracting people to your table is important.
Take some air balloons and clown's costume and that will do the job! Just kidding, but still having just a game you would like to share is not enough. You should think how people walking by are going to see your phone laying on the table ready to play. Broadcasting what is going on the phone on bigger screen is a great idea. Having several devices to play the game is also a great idea.
3. Our first level was the most difficult level.Take some air balloons and clown's costume and that will do the job! Just kidding, but still having just a game you would like to share is not enough. You should think how people walking by are going to see your phone laying on the table ready to play. Broadcasting what is going on the phone on bigger screen is a great idea. Having several devices to play the game is also a great idea.
Yes. Level "Who am I?" that is on youtube and looks so easy is actually not. The amount of time to complete it for a newcomer is unbelievably huge. People do not get the controls of the game when they just take the device and that is the problem.
One of the reasons why that happened is because we decided not to stick with regular joystick. We think that it just ruins the atmosphere and it is not necessary. We've failed to make it intuitive to control, also we haven't made a tutorial.They were tapping it, swiping it, turning the phone around, only a few managed to control it.
Controls are simple. There is invisible floating joystick pretty similar to Limbo on the iPhones. That's it. Everything else is controlled by touching it directly.
We decided not to change the control system but to visualize it in the correct way. We hope it won't break the atmosphere :)
Check it out and please let us know in the comments what do you think about it. Thanks!
Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MGG_rh9Vm_Y
Saturday, December 6, 2014
Meet the team. Wooplex Development Update
I think it's better to start with really good news. Our demo entered playtesting phase!
Some people already played Wooplex and we have that very very valuable feedback. Thanks to everyone who helped us with it. We really appreciate it.
Next week (Thursday, December 11th) we are coming to the GDC Games Showfest 2014 at Worcester Polytechnic Institute. It is going to be our first public appearance. We were waiting for this moment for so long.
In previous update we already showed a very little of the gameplay. Now I think it's time to tell few words about us, people who are making this game.
There are 3 people making Wooplex.
I am writing code. To be more specific, writing shaders, adding particles and other effects which make the game more visually attractive. I am trying to make Wooplex mechanics more atmospheric.
Ostap is writing code too. He is responsible for the game mechanics. He makes everything that at first looks ugly but runs smoothly and beautifuly. If you see something jumping, flying, teleporting in game, - that's his job. For bugs in those things blame him :D
My father. He is drawing textures for Wooplex. He is not a professional artist but he really likes photography and painting. We showed him some basics in computer graphics, and now he is doing very well!
The idea for the game appeared to me when I was having a scholarship at the outsourcing company Interlogic in 2012. I was very interested in making shaders and somehow ran into making metaballs.
I would like to say special thanks to my friend Oleksandr Voietsa who helped me a lot during that time of scholarship. With Oleksandr we developed first ever "prototype" of Wooplex.
We all come from Lviv, Ukraine. We started developing this game together in July 2013.
All previous year (July 2013 - July 2014) we were making this game at home in the evenings after work. Wooplex was never funded by anyone. Staying completely indie we were not able to develop it full time. Right now things got a little more extreme. Fulbright gave me the opportunity to continue studying Game Development in the US. In August 2014 I moved to the US. I am very glad for that, of course, but it made 7 hours difference in time between Ostap and me. For the previous three months we successfully have been fighting with the time barrier. To write the code together one of us should always stay awake at night. Ostap is still working at International Clinic of Rehabilitation making games for disabled children, so usually he is staying awake at night :D.
Some people already played Wooplex and we have that very very valuable feedback. Thanks to everyone who helped us with it. We really appreciate it.
One more screen from the game :D
Next week (Thursday, December 11th) we are coming to the GDC Games Showfest 2014 at Worcester Polytechnic Institute. It is going to be our first public appearance. We were waiting for this moment for so long.
 |
| GDC Games Showfest 2014 |
There are 3 people making Wooplex.
 |
| Oles |
I am writing code. To be more specific, writing shaders, adding particles and other effects which make the game more visually attractive. I am trying to make Wooplex mechanics more atmospheric.
 |
| Ostap |
Ostap is writing code too. He is responsible for the game mechanics. He makes everything that at first looks ugly but runs smoothly and beautifuly. If you see something jumping, flying, teleporting in game, - that's his job. For bugs in those things blame him :D
 |
| Ihor |
My father. He is drawing textures for Wooplex. He is not a professional artist but he really likes photography and painting. We showed him some basics in computer graphics, and now he is doing very well!
The idea for the game appeared to me when I was having a scholarship at the outsourcing company Interlogic in 2012. I was very interested in making shaders and somehow ran into making metaballs.
I would like to say special thanks to my friend Oleksandr Voietsa who helped me a lot during that time of scholarship. With Oleksandr we developed first ever "prototype" of Wooplex.
We all come from Lviv, Ukraine. We started developing this game together in July 2013.
All previous year (July 2013 - July 2014) we were making this game at home in the evenings after work. Wooplex was never funded by anyone. Staying completely indie we were not able to develop it full time. Right now things got a little more extreme. Fulbright gave me the opportunity to continue studying Game Development in the US. In August 2014 I moved to the US. I am very glad for that, of course, but it made 7 hours difference in time between Ostap and me. For the previous three months we successfully have been fighting with the time barrier. To write the code together one of us should always stay awake at night. Ostap is still working at International Clinic of Rehabilitation making games for disabled children, so usually he is staying awake at night :D.
Sunday, November 30, 2014
Wooplex Development Update
We missed previous week development update. We are really sorry about that.
But still we have something cool to share with you!
We are one step closer to the first demo. It is right the time to show you something from it! :)
Remember that first level sketch? (hint : Who am I?)
Wooplex and his three minions are now alive!
Making the world around them better!
From sketches to levels. That's how it goes :)
Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WLOaNh4ridc
But still we have something cool to share with you!
We are one step closer to the first demo. It is right the time to show you something from it! :)
Remember that first level sketch? (hint : Who am I?)
Wooplex and his three minions are now alive!
Making the world around them better!
From sketches to levels. That's how it goes :)
Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WLOaNh4ridc
Saturday, November 22, 2014
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)