Category: Progress

Updates on the progress of World 2 of The Fancy Pants Adventures.

Update, other stuff

Update

Nope… update’s not ready yet, sorry…

Basically, the deal with the update is, I’m both lazy and extremely picky about my games, I’m sure you all know that by now… So it should be no surprise that I keep finding new things that I want to fix in World 2. I think I have it locked down now, so there’s really not that much more to do… you guys should be glad, though. If it was merely a bunch of bug fixes, you wouldn’t really have much of a reason to replay it. The biggest addition is the 2 more transitional levels, added after Level 3 and Level 4. I’m trying to be creative with these two, since they’re so small, I figure more thought should go into them, right? Nothing mind-blowingly amazing or anything, of course, but new content is new content, right?

There’s a few additions to the backgrounds, in Level 5 and Level 4 mostly, that I’d say are worth checking out. And don’t forget the timer… oh, and what some people would probably consider the best additions, if you hold a button while at the title menu or dialogue, it’ll speed them up. Definitely a plus if you play the game more than once.

Hopefully around the time the update gets out, I’ll have some fancy standalone players for the game, too, I’ve gotten a few requests for those…

Forum

The new forum’s been great, too, so here’s a big thanks to everyone posting and being generally awesome in the forum, and to Fairly who’s taking care of most of the admin functions there. We’re getting 108.765 average posts per day, and 5.529 average topics per day, in 2 weeks. Sounds pretty good to me.

Ah, that reminds me, I still gotta add the Forum door to the banner… but first I have to finish this update, argh.

Check out the topic rofl lmao: currently covered in cats and captions, and I approve. I want to start linking to more topics in the future, but I really haven’t had time to lurk around in my own forum lately…

I’d like to do more topics like this in the future, and build up some sort of collection of tips and how-to’s for making Flash games…

And finally, games I’m currently playing, since it would be too long to post that here…

On a completely unrelated note

You know what I hate? Those hand driers with the sensor on the front with small text that says ‘sanitary touchless’ or something like that. I mean, not once have I not rubbed my hands all over the thing looking for a sensor or button before I actually notice the small sensor in front. And gamers / developers who think online gaming is a replacement for multiplayer gaming in person, I REALLY hate that…

Comments Update, other stuff

Screenshot

So here’s a new post for ya’ll to spam!

I kid, I kid, just thought I’d share a screen of the level I’ve been working on.

Yeah yeah, I still can’t draw, but I think this is looking pretty swell.

flash-playerscreensnapz002.jpg

So what do you guys think about the look? The dark browns are quite a bit different from anything from World 1, but there’s actually a reason you’re in a cave, falling… The levels in this game aren’t just a series of squiggly levels, they’re a series of, uh, squiggly levels, only now you’re traveling across them, with a destination! and a purpose! Woo! Something just happened, and now you’re falling into a cave… omigosh itsaplot!

Comments Screenshot

super quick progress report

Re-animated the ‘going in a door’ sprite, I figure if I’m going to make you guys look at it over and over it might as well look nice. I’ve also been drawing the infamous Level 5 (my favorite level in the game). I’ve been trying to shove little goofy things into all the levels, even more so than I did in the first World. There were a lot of little things that I threw in there as a nod to the old platformers (and some people actually called me out on some of those tribute bits as evidence that the game was a direct rip of old Sonic and Mario, like those two games play anything alike, right?).

But either way, I thought this was neat:

picture-6.jpg

Okay, okay, I admit it. That little bit of level plays out exactly like a cross between Mario and Sonic.

In the very least, the art is much better than in World 1…

Comments super quick progress report

Snailshell

Phew! Finally got that stupid snailshell to quit acting up. Yeah, it worked fine in the demo, but I completely recoded it, a few times…

It’s got a far larger part in World 2 than in the demo, so I had to completely change the physics to some custom code, instead of sharing code with Fancy Pants Man, like the baddies do.

SO… what’s up with the snailshell in World 2? Well, there’s an entire minigame within World 2 that revolves around the snailshell. I’m sure that makes World 2 the first Flash game to not only not be a minigame, but also contain an entire minigame that could probably stand on its own on the internet.

Kinda crazy, eh?

Comments Snailshell

‘Menu’

Here’s another quick progress report. I’m currently working on the ‘menu’ system for the game, which, once again, is just a series of rooms, no pointing and clicking in my game thank you very much.

So this time around, I have about twice as many main levels. Not only that, but the cameo levels are turning out so awesome (and some of them rather large) that I want them all selectable from the Level Select room. So World 2 will have a system of doors for a menu that isn’t as simple as the one screen rooms from World 1.

Setting up all the doors that will be unlockable made me worry about something, though. With the game being so much longer than the last one (though I’m sure you can still run straight through fairly quickly if you skip the bonus rooms…), will that be a problem for people who play the game on public computers that can’t save their progress? I’m making sure that the game will be fun even if you only drop in for a few minutes into a clean game with nothing unlocked, but I still want to have enough there that players want to spend more time with the game will have a sense of progression, completion, and even be rewarded for exploration. This is pretty much a problem inherent with Flash games, and probably part of the reason that they’re usually quick fix games.

I’d like to imagine that World 2 is accessible enough to give a player a quick gaming fix, yet has enough substance to reward any time investment (not saying it’s anywhere near as long as a commercial game, though)…

Any thoughts?

Comments ‘Menu’

Platforms

So here’s a quick bit of update, I want to start making quick progress update posts on here, since I wont be burying older, more important posts like on Newgrounds. So, last night I was finally able to get the new platform code working, so now the platforms (any ground that can be jumped through and landed on), can be curved surfaces too now. really doesn’t sound like much, I know, but its one of those features that should have been in the game all along, but sounded like far more trouble than it’s worth. Really, though, any feature is only as good as the levels that use it, so I guess we’ll see.

Next mini-update should be more interesting than this one, promise.Who else thinks that Fancy Pants Man needs to be in Smash Bros. Brawl? Someone email Nintendo for me.

Comments Platforms

Hair 2.0

For your enjoyment, a picture of Fancy Pants Man's hair blowing in the wind as he rides on a moving platform. Yes, his hair reacts to motion in game now even if he's not running, and yes, I am really that insane.

 

 

Comments Hair 2.0