Not a Clone Update: New Demo, Future Plans!

Those keen-eyed followers of Not a Clone may have noticed that a new build has been released for both the iOS and Android full-releases, as well as the demo releases on various web portals. What’s new in these builds? Let’s start with the changes in the full release.

Due to many requests, Not a Clone now supports iOS 9. We confess that the only reason iOS 10 was the only supported OS on release of the game was due to the fact that we haven’t tested the game thoroughly on older devices. It would be really embarrassing for us to release a game that hardly runs on your device, so we took the cautious route. Fortunately, we have recently confirmed that the game runs smoothly on iPad 2 and iPhone 4S, so we marked the game to support iOS 9!

For Android, the animated start screen is back! That’s right, this goofy title animation can be experienced in its full glory:

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For both platforms, we updated the description of the Extra Life upgrade to have two possible entries. Here’s the original, which is still in the game:

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And here’s the new description:

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Why have two descriptions for a single upgrade? As it turns out, Not a Clone has some adoptive difficulty modifications: the first upgrade you earn from the tutorial actually changes depending on your score. For most people, they’ll earn the Extra Life upgrade for free; for better skilled people, however, their first upgrade will be Blinged-Out Case. For the latter crowd, Extra Life does make an appearance on the shop later…but not as a free upgrade. Thus, the original description wouldn’t work for these audience.

Incidentally, support the charity movement this weekend!

For the demo, we’ve basically updated the code base to match the release version of Not a Clone. Additionally, the Coming Soon dialog has now changed to Available Now, since the game is obviously released.


As mentioned in the Post-Mortem this week, we do have a ton of free updates planned for this game. For the first major update, which we estimate to be released during the holiday seasons, are more achievements. Some of them will reward prizes for achieving them, too! We’re also planning on adding more microgames, including a few that will be unlocked by default. There will be more upgrades, of course, and a few convenience options will be added in, such as low-power mode. So we hope you look forward to those new changes.

If you haven’t seen it already, here’s the past recording available on Twitch:

Watch live video from on www.twitch.tv

Short Not a Clone Update: 11th Hour Bugs

Hey, everyone. Have a short update today. At the start of last week, we’ve submitted the latest — and we hoped, last — beta builds to our Beta testers. We’re glad we did, because one of them reported a terrible bug: the game would crash the moment it started! It took us the entire week, but we’ve finally figured out the problem. It turns out the Google Play Games Service plugin for Unity game engine crashes if it tries to log its status.

Also, Apple’s build uploading system seems to be borked as of today. We’re still investigating on this matter:

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We’ll be sending out an update build to all the Beta testers (the thirteenth one, believe it or not) this week, and have a one-week long testing session again. Hopefully this time, we won’t encounter any issues!

Not a Clone Update: New Trailer & Release Estimate

Another week, another update, and this is probably the most exciting yet! First, we have a new trailer, edited by Astra Wijaya:

Notice something at the end? That’s right, we plan on releasing Not a Clone this month! We’re distributing the release candidate to our beta testers this week. Assuming they encounter no major bugs and the submission approval process goes well, we should be able to release this game by the middle of this month. This is quite an exciting time for all of us!

Robert Denner (writer), Astra Wijaya (artist), and Jason Harlow (artist) were hard at work finishing the last bits of the game. The art dump below were the last set of things needed to finish the game. Give it up for these three hard-working developers!

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Again, there are no changes to the demo build yet. We will be working on updating it, though!

Not a Clone Update: New Icon

What’s this? A new Not a Clone update! That’s right, we’re still alive and kicking! Much of our work this month has been about preparing admin-related tasks, but there are some new updates. For one, we have a new icon, drawn by the talented Jason Harlow:

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The loading screen has also been updated with new texts and icons. Here are just a few previews on the kind of story we’ll be having by release:

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And have we mentioned we now have achievements!? We do! Granted, they’re currently few and far between, but do not worry: we have much bigger plans with those, so stay tuned!

Incidentally, there are no changes to the demo build, yet. Much of the changes above do not appear in the demo build, so there hasn’t been a need. We’ll let you know when one is coming, however.

Not a Clone Update: What’s This? Another Demo Release?

Some of you may have noticed that a new version of Not a Clone Demo has been released. This is quite a rapid turnout compared to the last release, which came out a full month after the demo debuted. What’s going on?

In short, we’ve been syncing the code and assets for the demos with the recent private beta releases so that both will have the latest development changes in the game. This should help us respond more quickly to the comments on the demo and from the beta testers. Of course, since we’re now working on bugs and small enhancements, the changes between the different versions of the demo will be relatively minor.

In any case, we haven’t actually posted the changes made since the first release, so here’s an extensive list on what’s been done so far:

  1. Updated how the loading screen looks to appear more like a text message screen.
  2. Changed the bottom of game over screen to use less screen-estate.  High scores button is now placed in-between restart and home button.
  3. Added a new music for challenge mode.
  4. Added more sound effects, both for pop-up events and a couple of microgames.
  5. Updated credits to include our current beta testers.
  6. Reduced WebGL memory usage by packing sprites into less image files.  PC/Mac/Linux build remains unchanged.
  7. Updated Angry Monkeys’ physics.  The monkeys no longer collides with the slingshot or each other, and the shot-direction is based on the position you’ve let go of the slingshot, not the direction the sling moves.
  8. Background music now fades-in before a microgame starts.
  9. Reduced memory usage on all platforms by loading most sound effects and music on-the-fly.
  10. Clicking on the pause button no longer triggers a mouse-down event on a microgame.
  11. Made challenge mode a lot easier by dramatically increasing the amount of time available to the player.  The previous times assumed the game was played on a multi-touch-supporting touchscreen, but there is now a different time set for mouse.
  12. Fixed a few typos in the loading screen’s text messages.
  13. Doubled the animation speed of Light Tiles.
  14. How the first couple of microgames are selected is a lot less random.  If the player’s best score is below 15, they will always be served with a predetermined order of microgames.  If they score higher than or equal to 15, the first 10 microgames are those that either have low number of plays, or a low rate of winning.
  15. Fixing “Clone of:” label not being translated properly in Pig Latin (fun fact: the language’s purpose is to confirm our localization script works).
  16. The speed-up is calculated differently.  It’s a little easier in the beginning, but gets harder towards the end.

Let us know what you think of the changes!

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:

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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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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.

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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.

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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 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:

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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.

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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

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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

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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

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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

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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!