Not a Clone update: Prepping for Private Beta!

Happy Fourth of July weekend! This week, we’ve been gearing up to send out a private beta build next week. As many of you may know, beta testing is a simple quality assurance measure to make sure bugs are fixed, and the game’s economy is balanced well. Unfortunately, due to the rampant cloning (heh) and piracy in certain app stores, we’ll be keeping this build internal.

In the meantime, here are some development updates! As noted earlier, we are now focusing on polishes. Last Tuesday, Taro Omiya modified the behavior of two games, Phone Clicker and Angry Monkeys. Here’s what Phone Clicker looked like before the change:

Phone Clicker4

And here’s what it looks like after the change. Notice any difference?

newPhoneClicker

That’s right: we’ve replaced the number of taps made on Phone Clicker to a bunch of fingerprints. It’s a small, but noticeable way to create distinctions between microgames that are functionally similar to each other.

The changes made to Angry Monkeys, on the other hand, are more subtle. Here’s the before:

Angry Monkeys

And here’s the after. Notice some changes made to the physics:

newAngryMonkeys

We’ve set the monkeys and the slingshot to not collide with each other. Furthermore, when the monkey is flung into the air, its trajectory will not be in the mercy of the string behavior, but rather, the position you’ve let go of the slingshot. Overall, this should make the game more predictable and easier to play.

Last but not least: Astra Wijaya has update the upgrade graphics to look cleaner, as demonstrated in the game list screenshot below:

newUpgrades

As usual, we’ll be continuing our weekly Twitch live-stream next Tuesday, 3:00 PM EDT at twitch.tv/japtar10101. If you missed the last one, where we’ve made the changes described above, you can check it out in the Youtube video below. See you next time!

Not a Clone update: notifications

We’re rapidly approaching completion with Not a Clone! At this point, almost all of the major features are implemented, and we are making some small incremental changes in preparation for release. For example, the newest addition to our game is an animation for the notification icon that appears on the Shop button:

notification

Oddly enough, this effort came about due to a necessary bug fix that the notification number did not accurately reflect the number of microgames you could buy from the shop. Similarly, while we had the Lucky Coin feature for a while (a coin you can tap in-between games to get more in-game currency), we only recently implemented a method to unlock the feature. Astra Wijaya has been hard at work to put the sketching the last few necessary bits on unlocking the upgrade.

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Screen_Shot_2016-06-23_at_17.59.30_

We’ll be continuing our weekly Twitch live-stream next Tuesday, 3:00 PM EDT at twitch.tv/japtar10101. Our plan is to implement a few improvements for microgames that a few people had problems with. If you missed the last one, where we created a method to unlock the Lucky Coin, you can check it out in the Youtube video below.

Not a Clone Update: Tutorial

Apologize for the lack of update last week. Our regular poster here, Taro Omiya, was sick last weekend. But now he’s doing a lot better!

Our latest Not a Clone updates are general User Interface (UI) polishes, in preparation for the looming release. As those who played our free demo will recognize, we have a rather unusual loading screen that provides messages to the player. We’ve polished this to look more like a text message application it was intended to look like. Both our artist, Astra Wijaya, and writer, Robert Denner (a past collaborator on Letters From Secret Santa, and the person who came up with the text messaging idea), are hard at work putting finishing touches to this unique story-telling medium.

newLoadingScreen

Also debuted with the free demo are the music! The ever-so-talented composer, Spencer Bambrick, has put together some great music for this game, including the calming menu theme below. Check it out!

Finally, Taro Omiya has been putting together some extra polishes to the game over screen, including a short tutorial on how to navigate the shop menu.

tutorial2

We’ll be continuing our weekly Twitch live-stream next Tuesday, 3:00 PM EDT at twitch.tv/japtar10101. Our plan is to add new purchasable upgrades to the game! If you missed the last one, where we constructed the new text message loading screen, you can check it out in the Youtube video below.

Not a Clone Free Demo released!

After a ton of updates and teasing, we’re proud to announce that the demo version for Not a Clone is out right now! You can find our free demo (for Windows, Mac, and Linux) in these web portals below:

  1. Itch.io
  2. GameJolt
  3. Newgrounds
  4. SlideDB
  5. Kongregate

What is Not a Clone, you ask? Here’s the full game description:

What if you were given a backdoor pass to a site filled with the hottest mobile games currently climbing the charts? What if just by playing the games well enough, you were able to earn money to buy even more games? Would you jump at the chance or just let it pass?
Not A Clone is a frantic exercise in quick-thinking and even quicker responding. Featuring over two dozen original and parody mini-games, you must play through them one after another, chaining your successes into the highest score possible for possible fame and prizes. Beat your friends to the top of the leaderboards! Earn Zeni to purchase more games!

You have five seconds to get through each mini-game that is thrown at you by following the instructions that appear on the screen. The further you go, the harder it gets. How long will you last before your device runs out of power? Will you earn enough to unlock your next challenge? Will you know which games are being parodies and which games are not a clone?

We’re still hard at work putting together the final release for the game, but we’re confident in the game’s current state to present to you a good taste at what is coming up. Let us know what you think!

Not a Clone Update: Ridiculous Piñatas

While we had to skip the update last week due to some life-related reasons, we’re back with some new information about Not a Clone! First, the great news: we’ll be uploading a demo version of the game very soon. This will provide a sneak-peek at what’s in store for the full version. The full version of the game, meanwhile, still needs a few more polishes (mainly bug fixes) and an occasional feature or two.

For this week, we’ve successfully integrated Astra Wijaya’s artwork to Ridiculous Piñatas. Those who watched our stream might recall the large number of problems we had with this microgame, but rest assured it’s been fixed as proven by the clip below:

RidiculousPinatas2

Also new to a game is a new unlockable: the lucky coin. Every once-in-a-while, a coin will appear in the menu that transitions from one minigame to the other. Tapping on it provides more money to spend in the shop later.

Coin3

We will NOT be streaming next week, as we’ll be busy putting together finishing polishes to the demo build. Still, stay tuned!

Through Oneself v1.1.1 update!

Up until now, we’ve been silently updating our Ludum Dare 35 game, originally titled Hidden in Plain Sight, to Through Oneself. The title change was due to the discovery of an existing game that was also titled Hidden in Plain Sight. Along with the title change, though, we’ve made a couple of changes to address concerns that was reported to us. They are:

Brighter Graphics

BrighterGraphics

We’ve noticed that people found it difficult to recognize certain things in the game due to the dark graphics. So we’ve brightened it up significantly, making it a lot easier to find that one elusive block!

Easier Platforming

EasierPlatforming

Without a single question, the unfair platforming was the biggest complaint we’ve heard. We’ve listened, and made it much easier to see your own character when jumping from one platform to another. Additionally, the jump physics has been enhanced to allow a small margin of error, as well as make it clear where you jumped from, and where you’ve landed.

Visually Clear Tracks

BlocksHaveTracks

While the blocks always had limited movement, there hasn’t been an obvious visual that lets anyone know what was the range any single block could move. We’ve added a glowing fence around the block to make it clear the range of that block’s movement. This should, again, make it a lot easier to find that elusive block.

Slight Change in Level Design

UpdatedLevelDesign

We’ve also made a few changes to levels to create a more streamlined experience.

General Performance Improvements

All builds should now run a lot faster, thanks to better lighting optimization.

WebGL: Mouse-Locking

Mouse locking should now work on WebGL builds.

So check out the latest Through Oneself through any of the links below, and let us know what you think!

Not a Clone Update: Ridiculous Rockets

We have a short Not a Clone update this week. We finished integrating Astra Wijaya’s artwork for Ridiculous Rockets last Tuesday (May 10th, 3:00 PM EDT) in our weekly live-stream:

Ridiculous Rockets 1

As always, our stream’s highlight is available here: twitch.tv/japtar10101/v/65721074.

Next Tuesday’s 3:00 PM EDT stream (at twitch.tv/japtar10101) will cover the last microgame that needs art integration before release! The rest of the stream will focus on adding the last few left-over features in the game.