A Clumsy Adventure big update #2
for the normal lay out visit: Bit.ly
Introduction
Welcome, oh clumsy one!
We’re glad to announce some exciting news! The team, after a constant reflection and dedication of several work weeks, has been able to deliver a new build! Full of enhancements and new features; the most notable news is especially the new camera system and the new models created for this occasion along with new animations. The SFX team has been able to provide various enhancements to the sfx system. Finally, at last but not at least, the fighting system has finally been created!
You can play the game here:
Gamejolt.com
Please provide feedback via:
Docs.google.com
Game development
Synopsis of the gameZack is a marine, video games fan and actually a real clumsy guy. One day during a virtual military test, Zack accidentally destroys a supercomputer for VR training and his superior decides to discharge him. Someone however is watching his every move and kidnaps him, bringing him into a different reality where he meets a mysterious voice telling him that an evil alien race is about to invade Earth, brainwashing all people thanks to Zack’s “mind schemes” and frequencies that are able to bypass the normal schemes of human will. Knowing he is the only one who can save the day, Zack sets off for a journey across an absurd Earth to beat each general of the alien army to get the access to the alien world to beat his nemesis, the evil alien emperor, before it’s too late!
Game Music and Sound effectsThe composer (Dwight a.k.a. Chief) created several pieces for the Dark Level so that there were several options to choose from. At the end the team decided what the best audio was to represent the suspense and tension in it.
The task of the composer was to bring excitement and an atmosphere of mystery that can create a big empathy into the player for this level; the audio also needed to have retro sounds mixed with some modern tunes for this is basically what A Clumsy Adventure is about: to bring back the feel (this also includes audio) of the way we used to play videogames back in the day. Kamisachief is doing a great job creating and composing such tracks.
The sound effects are also provided by Kamisachief, he created and edited them in software like Propellerhead Reason, Adobe Audio and Cubase, using voice actors, free online sounds or from his own sound library. Actually new levels are coming up, so new audio has to be made and the composer is all over it. More epic and memorable sounds are coming your way so keep your ears open!
Want to hear some more examples or extra audio for A Clumsy Adventure? Go to the www.kamisachief.nl or Soundcloud.com
Art:Zack has been remodeled using ZBrush to improve some elements of his model, looking so much better now; with a view to make new animations in Maya, adding much more flexibility and less possibilities of crashes.
Zack has now a better facial animation rig, a necessary condition for better cutscenes; reworks have been done on various old animations, as many of our fans asked.
Many cutscenes have been created using Maya, but the need of creating an interactive cutscene to better involve the player in game’s mechanics moves us towards a wide rethinking of our needs and possibilities.
Various monsters (including The Shadow) have been improved to make them more impressive; another monster that will give you a hard time is the Big Crocodile created using ZBrush. Really stressful for you!
To please you, fans, a nice collection of 3D printed art from the game has been prepared. It will include heroes, monsters, some parts of levels etc... so be prepared to see these cool figures collection!
Programming:
EnemiesThis is a new addition to the game, fundamental for good gameplay.
We made several different enemies in the game. They will be a true challenge in terms of AI, granting the player a need to focus on strategies along with the power of their attacks in terms of damage.
All enemies have their own AI/behaviour, going from sophisticated moves to the classical getting “angry” or “calm” according to the player’s position.
Each enemy is located on a coherent terrain for them.
Some enemies have an impact on the environment, either in form of a puzzle or to get to a certain point.
CameraAfter a couple of sessions where we invited people to come over and test our devbuild. They said the the depth is really hard to see where you walk. This was something that concerns us because it’s a 2.5D game. After a couple of tests we came to a point where we had a good point of view, but the 2.5D concept falls a bit of the table. So now we made the camera dynamic. Whenever you need the 2.5D view for certain gameplay; the camera will change directly ingame.This is something we still need to test a little bit more.
MenuAdded a menu fully playable with keyboard, mouse and xbox controller.
CreditsAdded credits in the menu that shows the name of the very clumsy developers.
Object TriggersObject Triggers are objects in the game the player can interact with. Think about this stuff like coins and traps.
In the Dark Level we have tried to balance the coins’ quantity. We did it for multiple reasons: one of them is that otherwise it might end up causing problems with the upgrade-shop if not balanced correctly, allowing the player to buy too many upgrades or not being able to buy any because the coins are not correct; the second reason is because coins are a good way to fill a part of the level so it doesn’t feel empty.
Coins aren’t the only pickups now: rats drop ammo crates.
Something exclusive to the Dark Level are the Dark Voids, Dark Portals and they “Darkness”.Dark Voids are giant red tornado looking objects that will suck the player into the abyss, however their blue counterpart, the Dark Portals, help the player advance the level.
“The Darkness” is a giant shadow orb that looks like the stuff that surround some enemies in the Dark Level. It will chase the player to the arena.
There are also three kinds of traps in the actual build: a deadly spear able to cause Zack’s instant dead, when he steps on a platform; the second trap is box full of painful nails that hurt Zack, when he walks on them; the last trap we made is a giant head shooting arrows with a deadly impact on Zack.
Balancing Not yet started.
Fixes ZackComplete new animation script stops the bugs and strange movements of Zack.
Zack can only jump one time now and is calculated by a ground check.
Fightsystem calculation is improved now. Zack has a base attack and a base defence that will calculate the enemy’s attack and defence * a multiplier, so each attack delivers a different amount of damage according to each enemy.
RenderingImproved rendering with collision culling, mesh colliders deleted, less polys.
This increases the frame rate (first we had 8 fps, now 70 fps).
Marketing
Email:Robert@excamedia.nl (anything clumsy is appreciated)
Clumsy Mailinglist:Excamedia.nl< (top right is the subscription form)
Twitch:Twitch.tvStarting 2 months ago with a livestream on Saturday. We brought retro games, recent games which were hot at that time (think of Dark Souls 2, Killer Instinct and more recent Titanfall). We got a small steady group of viewers and followers and they are rising in numbers. We will continue this and mix it with news in the games-industry, games we personally played and development builds live from our office at Dutch Game Garden.
Instagram:Instagram.comWe post all our Twitch announcements on Instagram, cool gaming pics from the office, Maarten’s collection of old retro games and consoles and we’ve gained a lot of followers. We feel that the combination Twitch and Instagram is working really well for us in terms of visibility and making A Clumsy adventure visible amongst the gamers. Also with the right hastags we are really focusing on retro gamers.
FacebookActive as always, Maarten shares our instagram, twitter, twitch, and what not posts on Facebook on our special fanpages:Facebook.com
Facebook.comSo in the past months until now he posted a lot of material about A Clumsy adventure, artwork and screenshots and everything else related to Excamedia, the team, A Clumsy adventure.
TwitterTwitter.comMostly Maarten tweets a lot to interact with the followers and fellow indie developers out there. Every friday it’s #ClumsyFriday in which Maarten will ask a (retro)game related question or puts a screenshot from his huge collection of retrogames.
PinterestTony and Dwight are really killing it at Pinterest. As we try to show as much of the development process to the clumsy squad here are the links of the artists:Pinterest.comPinterest.com
SlideshareDo you want to see the conception of Zack? Slideshare.net
IndieDBAs we try to be really thorough in our marketing efforts we make sure that we use all the relevant channels for getting attention. We’re still testing the waters with IndieDB because there is a really neat statistics tool there.website: Indiedb.comstatistics: Indiedb.com
GamejoltBesides the obvious channels this one is really important. They have a chat room for general, developers, lets players and multiplayers. Chatting with these guys, some of them indie developer, some of them only want sub4sub or that you subscribe asap, is so important because you get instant feedback on whether they like your game / website or not. Also they provide insights on how to do it better, we even have a small following on Gamejolt for our game. Besides that they are genuinely interested in you and your game. So our marketing department hangs out a lot in this chat.
Not so Clumsy ForumWe can’t tell you too much about it right now! Sign up at our clumsy mailinglist and we’ll let you know, when you could be part of the inner super secret tea drinking noodle eating clumsy circle!
Company developmentSince Shahid Ahmad, Sony strategic manager, made a public apology on behalf of Playstation on Twitter, we’ve been noticed more by video game webjournals and game shows. Especially on Twitter people follow us more and look more closely on what we post. And I (Maarten) would like to add that we appreciate this kindness from Sony and the way it’s helping us from the very beginning until now. Sony loves Indies and we love Sony! On a sidenote Maarten also wants to thank Rami from Vlambeer for his recent efforts when he helped us out. Vlambeer is and remains the icon of Indies according to us!
Epicon, Animecon & KickstarterFor the kickstarter we had to wait for the availability in The Netherlands, but it’s finally here and we are busy in preparing to launch a Kickstarter as soon as possible! So KEEP YOUR EYES ON OUR PAGE(S)!!!
Epicon and Animecon are two important expos we will attend to show the public our upcoming epic challenging and funny action platformer “A Clumsy Adventure”. If you go to Animecon (13 - 15 June in The Hague) please come to the Games Room to try out what Dutch Indies have to offer and play our game live on Twitch!
For Epicon (5 and 6 July in Den Bosch, Brabanthallen) we will join the Dutch Game Garden at their Indigo booth to show A Clumsy Adventure to the public. What we are going to do during this event, beyond showing the game, remains a secret for now.
Future events we want to attend but not confirmed are:- Games Com Cologne, Germany- Tokyo Game Show Tokyo, Japan- First Look Utrecht, The Netherlands
Recently we got featured as a Developer Spotlight at Gamesauce website
Gamesauce.org
Maarten did various podcasts with Game Over Yeah and Gamecowboys.nl
Directory.libsyn.com
Youtube.com
Some awesome youtubers made a nice preview of our last build, check it out here:
Youtube.com
Youtube.com
Youtube.com
Youtube.com
Also Maarten visited events such as Indievelopment:
And Maarten visited Gamekings Studio to talk about First Look 2014 and meet gamers and developers: 
If you like the game and what we are doing, we also have a job opening for a 3d animator: Reddit.com
