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Work in Progress / Etoile - Retro Arcade / Music Generator Mini game.

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Butter fingers
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Joined: 20th Mar 2006
Location: Mecca
Posted: 24th Nov 2008 12:37 Edited at: 17th Dec 2008 01:41
CONCEPT DEMO AVAILABLE (now with sound) ..BOTTOM OF THIS POST









****************WATCH A VIDEO*********************
****************WATCH A VIDEO*********************
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GiVvOZZrBQo
****************WATCH A VIDEO*********************
****************WATCH A VIDEO*********************

*******SORRY FOR THE CRAP AUDIO QUALITY***********

**************************DEMO DEMO DEMO**************************
**************************DEMO DEMO DEMO**************************
**************************DEMO DEMO DEMO**************************
Ok, so I've uploaded the concept demo, and I real appreciate
some feedback!

The controls are super simple. mose left to rotate left, mouse right to rotate right.

The idea is to hit the larger (animated) objects, hitting for example, the red warp things will charge your trail red and allow you to collects the floating red particles. You can be charged with more than one colour at once.
At the moment, loosing too much speed results in a 500 point penalty, a pause and a reset!
I'm just looking to see what people think of the concept.
Cheers.
download at:
http://rapidshare.com/files/174074492/etoile_concept_demo.rar.html

**************************DEMO DEMO DEMO**************************
**************************DEMO DEMO DEMO**************************
**************************DEMO DEMO DEMO**************************


Virtual Nomad
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Posted: 24th Nov 2008 16:23 Edited at: 24th Nov 2008 16:23
good stuff very unique, and the music generation aspect (tho i'm sure it's even better than the video portrayed) is a great bonus (for so many years now, the audio possibilities in games have been neglected).

one suggestion is when you collide with the yellow spinner objects that rotate the camera (~0:28 & ~0:34) i'd really like to see some transparency used there to give a motion blur effect. seems more appropriate than keeping everything opaque (unless it's already in there and the video just doesn't show it well).

also, the font used in the first screenshot is a little tough to deal with. had to mention that

otherwise, very refreshing to see something a bit out of the ordinairy like this.

thanks for sharing!

Virtual Nomad . California, USA
AMD Phenomâ„¢ X4 9750 Quad-Core @ 2.4 GHz . 8 GB PC2-6400 RAM
ATI Radeon HD 3650 @ 512 MB . Vista Home Premium
Butter fingers
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Posted: 24th Nov 2008 17:02 Edited at: 24th Nov 2008 23:17
Quote: "the music generation aspect (tho i'm sure it's even better than the video portrayed) is a great bonus (for so many years now, the audio possibilities in games have been neglected)."


Thanks, I'm gutted that I can't get a better quality recording, fraps is too slow on my desktop (decent soundcard) to record, it runs fine on this laptop, but the soundcard is awful and only seems to record one treble frequency, with a quality somewhere between "end of tunnel" and "tin can"

With regards to the rotation, some objects are (as you so deftly have noticed) not transparent yet. In the end, all the objects will be 3D, but at the moment the blue and red objects and the collectables are opaque, so yes, it is kinda sorted, but those few placemarkers still there ruin it at the moment.

Thanks for the positive though. I've put a fair amount of design into this. I wanted to make something simple and original. I'm a music producer before I was a programmer, and I wanted a way to combine music, and sonic manipulation with a game. I'll try and get a better quality recording soon, thanks again (I was beginning to worry no-one would comment!)

J

Deathead
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Posted: 24th Nov 2008 20:25
I don't know what to say, but to me it looks to cluttered. Also make the ship a bit more clean, like instead of using a real wireframe use your image editing program and make up a good outline of a ship.
But other than that it looks great.



Butter fingers
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Posted: 24th Nov 2008 21:19
Quote: "Also make the ship a bit more clean, like instead of using a real wireframe use your image editing program and make up a good outline of a ship"


Oh! Dude, that's not a ship! The blue wireframe is one of the obstacles in the level. if you watch the vid you'll notice that the blue thing morphs from the thing you see in the second screen into a cannon that shoots a line...(like in the first screen), As I said, it's retro...!

I know what you mean about the clutter. the screens (and test level) have all the elements so far. In the final game, each level will progressively add more elements.. so what you're seeing here is what a later level would look like.. initial levels would maybe only feature a few of the above elements.

Anyway, I'm regretting posting now, because Jpeg compression and Youtube don't really do the visual style credit. everything comes out a bit blurry!

Still thanks for the comment. Keep em coming...

Cyberdude
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Posted: 24th Nov 2008 21:54
Credit me and I'll score original music for your next video game.


Cyberdude
Cyberdude Productions
[href]www.cyberdudeproductions.com [/href]
Butter fingers
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Posted: 24th Nov 2008 23:08 Edited at: 24th Nov 2008 23:09
cyber dude.

The game is generative in the way it creates music, meaning that the individual elements of a track are linked to the various elements of the game. The music in the current version are simply bounced down from the mixer tracks.
I can't just use one of your tracks in my game, you would need to bounce it down as all the separate elements, and importantly "clean" the drum track (no delay, reverb or other time effects like stutter, or gating), the game would then use all this to create the music as you play.

I've been making electronic music for years, so I have a pretty hefty backlog of ambient and IDM tracks to use in the game, but id you send me some of your stuff I'll certainly consider it.

That's a nice setup BTW, what sort of tracks do you make?
Heres mine..


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Profit
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Posted: 25th Nov 2008 05:15 Edited at: 25th Nov 2008 05:20
Reading the description reminded me of this (but after watching your video, I don't think it's that similar...):
http://gmc.yoyogames.com/index.php?showtopic=395612

What happened to your other games?

Ripple - Rhythm Game
Butter fingers
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Posted: 25th Nov 2008 12:43 Edited at: 27th Nov 2008 10:44
Lol.
No I don't think it's anything like that!

Nothing happened to my other games, they're just big projects. This is small, tidy and finishable. Oh, and it's totally original, and doesn't involve any guns!
Of course, nobody ever really seems to post in the WIP threads, unless you're creating something massive, so it's totally disheartening, to get only a few comments when you've actually posted quite alot of material, and you start to wonder if you can actually be bothered with the community.

Bizar Guy
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Posted: 11th Dec 2008 16:32 Edited at: 12th Dec 2008 05:00
Looks interesting. I know how you feel with the WIP boards. They've definitely got less viewers than before. It's not so much that the ratio of posts has changes, there's just a lot less of them all around.

I've got to run now, but I come back to watch the vids and all later today.

Edit: I watched the vid, very interesting. I'm a big fan of the music generation idea, I'd love to play it. You should ask for a mention in the newsletter, this is pretty interesting.

Butter fingers
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Posted: 14th Dec 2008 23:44
alpha demo in first post.

Butter fingers
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Posted: 15th Dec 2008 17:31
bump?

Plystire
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Posted: 16th Dec 2008 23:25 Edited at: 16th Dec 2008 23:36
Downloading now.

I get to be the first to play it!!!

Will update post when I do.


[EDIT]

Just played it.

My best score was 703... not sure if that's great but it took a while to get a hang of the controls. That was the first time I have ever used my mouse to "steer" an agile, fast moving little particle as if it were an R/C car.

I'm not sure if it's just me, but I didn't hear any sound at all during the game... given the game's concept, this surprised me. Is there supposed to be sound when you play?

Other than that, it was kinda fun. Although, I bet it'd be even more fun with the sounds and being able to make music. That's what this game's all about, right?

Good luck on this! Lemme know when there's another demo out.


The one and only,


Butter fingers
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Posted: 17th Dec 2008 01:14 Edited at: 17th Dec 2008 01:59
LOL.
How weird. I'll check the code... thanks for downloading though!

New demo in first post. Sound checked and now working!

Plystire
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Posted: 17th Dec 2008 06:41 Edited at: 17th Dec 2008 06:54
You should really make your demo links clickable, it makes them more noticable when sifting through posts.


Will update post after I've downloaded and played.

[EDIT]
Bleh, this may take a while, I don't like rapidshare... especially for large files.

[EDIT2]

Okay just played it.

The sounds there now! YAY!!! I love the sounds made, it's very relaxing, actually. Good job with that.

I do wonder, though, what exactly constitutes a death. I realise that if you lose enough speed, you eventually stop and die... but there were times where I died and I was going practically top speed. One time I hit this pink thing and it accelerated me very fast but like... 0.2 seconds later it was like I had died.

Good job, keep at it! (Btw, you need to reply to me about Last Stand... I'd really like to know if you experienced any problems so I can fix them )



The one and only,


Butter fingers
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Posted: 17th Dec 2008 14:20
Quote: "I love the sounds made, it's very relaxing, actually. Good job with that."

Thanks, they're all mine!

Quote: "
what exactly constitutes a death."

When you hit the blue pod things they make a blue beam, which you can't hit!

Plystire
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Posted: 17th Dec 2008 22:26
Hmmmm, didn't notice any blue beams. I'll take a look again sometime today.


The one and only,


Virtual Nomad
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Posted: 18th Dec 2008 08:05 Edited at: 18th Dec 2008 08:06
just tried the demo and my eyes and ears are very impressed still gonna take some time to learn what does what but it was a lotta fun.

couple concerns:

1) the mousemove was very sensitive.

2) i had no score? no text showing for me see screenshot:



Virtual Nomad @ California, USA
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Jimpo
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Posted: 20th Dec 2008 19:45
I've played this a couple times, and I'm still completely confused about what is going on. I understand you have to hit the big colored objects and then collect the smaller ones of the same color. Other than that, no clue! Once I exploded and the game froze, sometimes I go really fast, every now and then the screen starts spinning, and I repeatedly get stuck in the giant red guys. It just seems so random and unexplained, try adding some text or more obvious visually cues as to what is going on!

Once you touch it up, this can easily be one of those games you lose track of time playing.

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