Trees for the Forest…

Trees for the Forest…

Published on 09/10/2011 in World 3. 82 Comments

Sadly, I don’t have enough content for a full update, but I should be finished with the Forest soon. I’m liking this style of grass better, and I’ve been doing some coding work to get every level set up for mini trials, challenge levels, and all that (before that was just sort of hacked together for the Sneak Peek).

Any questions in particular? I might do another video soon going through a few of the other things in the Sneak Peek. Need to get consistent with those again…

Finally, World 3 Report 31!

Published on 09/05/2011 in World 3. 56 Comments

Mostly just going over everything that I’ve been posting, just to get the videos up to speed. Hopefully these will become a regular occurrence again, but you know me

And apparently there’s some storms headed my way :/

World 3 Differences

Published on 08/29/2011 in World 3. 63 Comments

[Update: Fixed head bumping and slash sounds. You guys need to have my back, I usually upload builds when I’m quite sleep deprived ]

Work on World 3 continues! Besides what I’ve been uploading to the Sneak Peek, I’ve been able to finish a lot of animations that were planned but not completed in time for FPA on consoles.

For the console, we had a very specific goal: to make a unique FPA game for home consoles that couldn’t have been done in Flash. Multiplayer was the biggest focus, along with a few new levels and game modes crated with 4 players in mind. Because of this focus, along with the fact that it’s far more difficult to get animations into the console engine than it is in Flash, there are going to be a few differences between the Flash World 3 and FPA for consoles. I can focus a lot more on animation and little details this time around, and even more importantly, I can do a lot more cheating since there will only be one player on the screen at at a time.

Can you tell?

(Sneak Peek updated again, can y’all check it out on fancypantsadventures.com to make sure it’s actually working right? I need some sleep…)

Snailshell Experimenting

Published on 08/26/2011 in World 3. 58 Comments

Check out the level I threw into the Sneak Peek Beta.

It’s just an unmarked door next to Stress Testing, but I’ll make an entry for it soon. Hopefully we can find the rest of the bugs soon so I can push it out to Mochi.

I’ve been experimenting with something like this for awhile, but I’ve been afraid to go too far with it since, well, Sonic has always been the pinballish platformer. I think FPA already gets compared too much to Sonic as it is, but what can I say, I’m sort of obsessed with pinball, so I’m leaving this one in your hands, dear fans: Do the pinball mechanics work well enough? Are they fun? Would you like to see a level like that where the goal is to defeat all the bats in a certain time limit, or should I stick to expanding the mechanics for some Fancier Golf? Is it just too much Sonic and not enough FPA?

I’ve been coding for way too long today, I almost tried to comment out the old text… Sheesh.

Another Beta

Published on 08/22/2011 in World 3. 102 Comments

Update: Hammer on this a bit, guys, I want to make sure it’s bug free enough to upload to fancypantsadventures.com.

Beta Clicky!

One more beta before I update the full Sneak Peek online. Sorry I’ve been so quiet over here, I’ve been working like crazy on World 3, and know everyone wants it to actually come out, so there’s a good deal of work left to do. Some things are turning out different, since it’s just me making the game instead of Over the Top and I, I might highlight some of those changes in a video soon.

This build should fix a good many bugs, if you don’t see ‘Behind the Curtain’ on top of the door in Squiggleville, you might need to clear your browser cache.

Check out the Underground Lake for some changes that I’ve been making to swimming, I was finally able to have a bit of fun and work on a few new little touches.

Looks like I broke a few things, whoops! Going to go through the bugs in a minute, but first, let me highlight a few changes:

– New ledge down animation to go better with the duck animation (after pressing down and usually seeing the head go down so quickly, my eyes expected quicker downwards movement when pressing down near a ledge)
– Swim flip!!!
– Bubbles!
– New splash effects!
– Splashes are now caused by either entering or exiting the water, instead of by the changing states. Much more natural.
– I changed the color of the water to go with the tub’s water, since I made the splashes for that, but I can’t get the backgrounds to look right, they actually are the same color as the foreground)
– Rolling swim state, can roll into water from the ground or from a jump, I believe baddies actually do the same thing when they’re stunned…
– Yet another handful of ground collision bug fixes
– Combat fixes for the shell
– Can climb up ink again (can’t remember why I keep breaking that then fixing it again, there’s probably a reason, oh well)
– Oh, right, a HUGE fix that I’m proud of is the zooming. I’ve been avoiding zooming because of how bad the backgrounds behaved before, but I think it’s finally looking good enough. In the Sneak Peek, the King and the Scientist will be zoomed in on, but it’s mostly for the cinematic parts of World 3 that aren’t in the Sneak Peek.
– Took out the ability to kill background scrolling. People just thought it was a bug, anyway. Will have to have more quality options for older computers.

Looks like I broke the cannons and combat effects, hmm. Should be fixed soon.

More Baddie Fun

Published on 07/22/2011 in The Fancy Pants Adventures and World 3. 347 Comments

Update!

So, I’ve gone and opened up Squiggleville for general use in the baddie beta, and also added a few new things. The Baddie Beta and everything else I’ve added has been moved into a ‘Behind the Curtain’ level, the newest there is a test level that I built while testing out the new collision. Hopefully you’ll be able to see what I’ve changed, and how it plays differently (as well as lots of Snailshell bugs, sorry!), as well as a few new platform tests which I find particularly neat (and took a long time to build!). If anyone’s interested in the actual changes and code behind the update, I can make a video on it later or something, though either way, we’re way past due for a video.

If anyone finds bugs in any level, please EMAIL me the replay, DON’T post it in the comments!

Sneak Peak Beta

Got some new additions to the baddie arena. This should be the last update before I put the arena into the greater Sneak Peek, and everyone will be able to play with the newest changes.

Added a few new baddies. I’m not sure if I’ll be taking any more baddie submissions, if something awesome comes my way, I’ll certainly throw it in, I’ll just have to be a bit more picky this time.

Lots of subtle little changes in the combat, so you might not feel anything in particular, but everything should feel a little more solid, and scores should go up a tad. Experimenting with a little health bar, and a bit of an auto lunge, and a few more accurate ways of auto aiming the combat.

Since I’ve said I’ll be adding something extra to the Sneak Peek, and I always say that I want everyone to know more about what goes on behind the scenes, I’m thinking of adding a few of the test levels that I use to try out new code and check for bugs. Should be a fun peek behind the curtain, maybe it’ll give everyone an insight on the parts of the game making process that don’t make it into the final release.

Oh right, something much bigger but very very boring, I’ve added some code to compress the replay arrays a tremendous amount. Once I unleash the new collision on to Squiggleville, I have a feeling that lots of replays will need to be sent so that I can squash all the new awesome bugs I created. A few fixes to the ledge hanging code, also boring, still a little buggy

As a tiny bonus, I’ll let everyone see the progress I’ve made with swimming. Lots of little things to make the water feel more alive, just a few new animations, you’ll see soon enough!

And again, so many thanks to everyone who submitted baddies to make combat debugging a little less horribly boring!

Time For Some Fun

Published on 06/21/2011 in The Fancy Pants Adventures and World 3. 470 Comments

Quick Update:
Just wanted to give everyone a quick update. I’ve been going between actually trying to finish World 3 and making things for the Sneak Peek lately, today I finally make some code that will compress those crazy long replay arrays, which I wanted to do before pushing out another version of the Sneak Peek. I changed a ton of the collision since, so I wanted to makes replays easier to pass around before uploading a build that I’ll probably need to debug some more.

I haven’t added any baddies to the beta since last upload, but I’ll probably throw a few more in before the big update. We’ll actually be at 40k Likes / Follows pretty soon (I seriously wasn’t expecting that to happen this soon, thank you everyone!), so the public Sneak Peek update is going to have 2 big additions to it. There’s a few things that I’ve been touching up on my side that I’ll point out, too, so it’s a pretty substantial update coming out.

I still don’t think I’ve taken enough advantage of the fact that I really can just upload stuff that I’m working on for everyone to see, so I’m going to try to show off some more behind the curtains things that will actually be playable, that should be pretty cool too.

tl;dr: I’ve gotten a good amount done on actually advancing World 3, so I’m going to be doing some more work on the Sneak Peek this week. Fun times for all!

Talk to everyone soon!

Update 6:
Lots of bug fixes, keep sending those bugged out arrays, guys, I can’t tell you how much they help!

I’m at the point where I have to start working on World 3 again, so once we all debug this version, I’ll get a baddie room up in the main Sneak Peek build. That means I won’t be able to spend as much time putting baddies in, so it might take me awhile. Mostly depends on how awesome it is and how much work it would be, so make sure you fool my fla guide!

Again, don’t put replays in the comments! Email them!

Thanks again to everyone, you’re beyond awesome

(might need to empty your cache)

4.5:
Fixes to the Parrot, a few more enemies, enemies all cycle once before going random, plus everything else:

4:
Here’s where it gets fun, for me at least. Now that I have enough baddie mass to really stress test the gameplay, I started going through and making actual tweaks to how FPM controls. Here’s the list of the latest changes, please leave feedback in the comments!

– FPM runs bit faster while holding pencil, feels less sluggish, but there’s still a contrast
– Much larger reach with the charged attacks, give you another reason to fully charge them
– Changed the deceleration, shouldn’t run into baddies as easily if you miss
– Can change directions while poking, or while doing the 3 hit combo
– Gave the attack hits on all baddies a red tint, better feedback.
– Separated stomped and hit clips, so stomping something doesn’t turn it red
– Some fixes to the Parrots, but I think they still don’t work quite right… Should work next (this) time

Now, I’m not making these changes specifically to make the game easier, but, the game should start feeling better and control more intuitively, so keep an eye on your high scores, they should be going up.

Let me know if there’s anything that still feels wrong, like if you get hurt when you think you shouldn’t, or don’t hit a baddie when you think you should. I need to add the replay system back in so you can just send me a replay when something ‘wrong’ happens.

If you guys can send me baddies that aren’t really animated, I can just give them springy type animation routines, should be able to tell what I mean if you play the beta long enough.

Baddie Beta

Original Post:

Sheesh, it sure has been quiet around here, hasn’t it? So then, what’s been going on? Well, I’ve been working on World 3 again (remember, FPA on console was made by an entire team, we didn’t just charge you for a Flash game!), but I’ve also been keeping an eye on the XBLA and PSN games. The main reason you guys haven’t really heard from me lately, PSN’s been down, and well, we can’t really plan for the future until we a firm grasp on how sales are going. PSN’s finally back up (and FPA’s on sale for 5 bucks!), but it’ll still be awhile until we know how we did.

I have been reading all of the reviews, though, and one thing that I think is really disappointing is, well, a lot of reviewers don’t seem to really like combat. So my plan was to tighten it up for the World 3 release. But that’s pretty boring, so here’s where you guys come in.

Make me stuff to beat up! I’m gonna be testing combat, and I’m tired of beating up spiders!

Yep! I’ll go ahead and add a baddie room to the Sneak Peek for hitting over 30k Likes plus Follows, and you guys can help keep me amused. I’ll start us out with some ninjas, and I’ll leave the rest up to everyone else!

Once that’s in there, I’d love your help debugging combat, comparing it with the console version, and letting me know what works, or what needs to be fixed still. I’ve been tweaking it a bit already, so we’ll see how much more work needs to be done.

Here’s how this is going to work:

Download this file (you might need to right click, save as). It should be Flash 8 now, anyone want to confirm it works? You can download a demo of Flash at adobe.com.

Actually, if you want to avoid the stupid Akamai downloader, just get the trial here (I swear, if Adobe has the option to do something easily or stupidly, they’ll choose stupidly every single time).

If you’re using CS5.5, though, please do a file, save as, and send me a CS5 fla, please!

Replace the spider’s individual clips with your own art, and rename all the ’spider’s to something unique.

Email it back.

Play the Sneak Peek online, beat up tons of random baddies!

Tell me how the combat feels.

A few guidelines:

Don’t send me other people’s art, without their permission. This includes Nintendo’s and SEGA’s, so don’t just send me sprites, or anything that breaks someone’s copyright (your own parody art is fine).

Nothing vulgar, and nothing boring!

I don’t claim to own anyone else’s art, it’s just all in good fun, and just for the demo. I won’t be using any art for financial gain (other than helping to spread the word about FPA on console), and I’m not planning on using anything in World 3.

I’ll let everyone know when the first round is up. I haven’t uploaded anything yet, though. I’m going to try to make a video about it tomorrow, if you’re not sure how to edit the fla, I should have something in there for ya.

TL,DR: Testing combat is boring, help me out!

Welcome Back Sale!

Published on 06/16/2011 in The Fancy Pants Adventures. 41 Comments

Just a quick heads up before I actually start posting again following the two months of post launch silence. If you’re still holding out, The Fancy Pants Adventures is on sale for 5 bucks on PSN as part of EA’s own Welcome Back program for Playstation Plus members (brotip: Sony’s giving out a free month of PSPlus as part of the original welcome back package). Sale ends on the 21st, so tell your friends!

Not a bad deal, eh?

(just to clarify, US Store only, I believe)

Checking in

Published on 05/09/2011 in The Fancy Pants Adventures. 217 Comments

Not too much to report, I’m afraid. So we’re launched on XBLA, but we won’t really know how everything is going until PSN is back online. What timing, eh?

Oh, and my 360 decided to start freezing up. Not red ringing, just freezing randomly. So that’s lovely…

But, on a lighter note, I’m pretty eager to get back to working on World 3, so I’ll probably make a wrap up video once PSN goes back online, then go back to the World 3 reports.

I’ll be adding a few more things to the Sneak Peek as progress is made on World 3. I have a few ideas to involve everyone online in some shenanigans, which I’ve been wanting to do for awhile, so we’ll see how that turns out.

Oh yeah, and we have forums! There’s some things that I’m more inclined to post about in the forums than on the site itself, so if you want a peek into more behind the scenes-y stuff (or just listening to me geek out about video games), that’s your best bet.

Pencil in Sneak Peek

Published on 04/23/2011 in The Fancy Pants Adventures. 186 Comments

Happy Easter!

Update: New build up, Snail should be working well enough, it might freeze up if you whack it around enough, I’ll take a look at that later.

Don’t worry about bugs just yet, I was trying to get the pencil in there soon as I could, and I’ve been kinda sick since launch (I think my body shut down once the game was finally out!), but, I’ll be going through it in the next few days.

Try playing the Sneak Peek at FancyPantsAdventures.com, if it still hasn’t updated yet, I gueeessssss you can play it here (but you might need to just clear your cache).

The combat is probably the most different thing between the console and Flash games, I’d like to hear what everyone things about the differences, which one feels better and all that.

Head’s still all stuffed up still, posts about the, well, game launching, coming later.

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Sidebar Posts:
Have I ever told you how much I love…
05/30/2010 | 12:53 AM

well u no i hav to bcuz if there isnt a new report i am going to break my computer

FYI brad i might lose it if you dont post again because i am the biggest FPA fan ever and i could prove it because i go a xbox with my own money just to play fancy pants as an owner. i also was the first person to download it because at 12 exactly i downloaded it