Mystik Belle is out on PS4 and Xbox One today!

Hello there,
Today is the day Mystik Belle comes to modern consoles with the help of the awesome WayForward! I am still waiting for any kind of review scores to roll in, but it can't possibly do much worse there than it did on Steam. In fact I don't think it's even possible to do worse.

Meanwhile, the game is still available on Steam, as well as DRM-free via itch.io, Gamejolt and Humble.

So, once again today I'm sitting at a crossroads, all hinging on how well the console version does. Hopefully I will know soon, so I can make plans accordingly. Best case scenario - I'll be able to finish LOI without having to worry about picking up more freelance gigs.

Mystik Belle is out via Humble Widget!
Hey guys - my newest game, Mystik Belle, is finally out via the Humble Widget. If you decide to purchase it at some point - it's probably the way to go, as you get the DRM-Free copy of the game, Steam code, and Desura code once it becomes available.

Mystik Belle to be released on Steam this Friday.

Hello guys and gals! Mystik Belle - an adventure-metroidvania hybrid game I've been making for the last 6 months comes out on Steam this Friday.

All Kickstarter and PayPal backers who backed Legend of Iya for $10+ will receive a free copy just as soon as Humble Store acknowledges my existence.

Since I am the only person doing all the development, marketing and PR - it would've been awesome if anyone who read this could at least tell friends about the existence of this game, be it word of mouth, twitter, or a blog post. Furthermore - if you have a youtube channel or a game review blog - let me know, and I'll provide you with an advanced copy of the game.

Here's hoping this one goes over better than Ultionus: )

Ultionus: A Tale of Petty Revenge out on OUYA. Featured in Play Like a BAWB.

So, I have finally figured out the OUYA-specific in-app purchase system and as a test implemented it in Ultionus.
If you own an OUYA and want something oldschool to play on it, or just want to play an oldschool game on a TV and not a computer monitor - give Ultionus a try!

Now back to streamlining Iya's movement.

Ultionus is up for pre-sale on Desura

The game has finally been approved by Desura and will be released on January 1st. Meanwhile it is up for pre-sale right over here.

 

Meanwhile I am still trying to figure out how to generate keys across platforms - so Desura buyers would get the game on Humble Store and vice versa. Anyone knows of an easy guide of how this is done?

Hey, did you guys know I made another game a long time ago?: )

Yes - my only other finished project is Maziac. It's a fairly terrible exploration platformer that might look a little like Spelunky, but was made years before Derek Yu's mega popular random generated game.
Well - it has now been added to the "Finished Projects" section along with Ultionus.
Maziac is completely free for Windows, assuming your machine can run something written in GameMaker 5 or earlier (it's all software graphics - no DirectX required!: )

Ultionus: A Soundtrack of Petty Revenge is up on bandcamp.

Hello again guys and gals!
The awesome Jake 'Virt' Kaufman has just released the full soundtrack of Ultionus on bandcamp.
Here it is:

Working with this guy was amazing - I hope you like the way the game sounds.

Cheers.
Andrew.

Ultionus is now available for purchase via Humble Store!

So yeah - that was quick!

Ultionus: A Tale of Petty Revenge is now available for purchase via the Humble Store. In fact - you can buy it right off of here!

Just scroll to the bottom of the page and BAM! Windows and Ubuntu builds are included with every purchase. I am still working on procuring a Mac in order to get a build for that.

Back to the grind: )

Ultionus A Tale of Petty Revenge

While LOI is being completed - I have something to ease your anticipation. A brand new, complete game in fact!
Ultionus is inspired by the arcade games released for 8 and 16-bit home computers in late 80s and early 90s. Particularly games like Halloween Harry, Phantis, Astro Marine Corps and Jill of the Jungle had a lot of influence on the game's overall look and design simplicity. Though the gameplay in different stages varies between three major styles - shmup, autoscrolling shooter, and jump-n-shoot arcade - all three styles are easy to pick up and play, though tough as hell nevertheless.

The game's release is currently being finalized on Desura and Humble Store, and will be available for $10. It is also up on Steam Greenlight (so please - go vote for it if it's something you'd like). The game will also be available for free to all LOI supporters who pledged $10 or more.

Initially only Windows and a Linux versions will be available, but a Mac port is highly possible if only I could get my hands on a Mac computer.

An Ouya port is also complete and is waiting for YoYo games to implement the IAPs.

The game features music by Jake "Virt" Kaufman and Luke "A_Rival" Esquivel.

LOI Kickstarter is in the final stretch...

There is less than 48 hours remaining on my LOI kickstarter campaign, and we're still not at our funding goal, so if you've been lurking here and actually would like this game make in your lifetime - please consider backing it.

Kickstarter is over this way: http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/523651724/legend-of-iya

Thank you for your support guys.

An update so soon?! Whaaaa?!

Hey guys yet again,
Yesterday I have launched LOI demo to the universal sound of booing and dodging some rotten tomatoes.
Some people have complained of the game being unplayably slow - well, I think I have found the solution. Give it another try here:
http://www.sendspace.com/file/bjvevu
or here:
http://www.mediafire.com/download/tr7ag41h2o146bl/Legend_of_Iya_DEMO_1.1.zip
or here:
https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/24279321/Legend%20of%20Iya%20DEMO%201.1.zip

Other things have been updated as well.

• Added an option to turn the controller support on and off from the options menu (possibly slowdown-related)
• Added Xbox360 D-Pad support.
• Remapped menu buttons to better reflect the Xbox360 proper button layout - A select, B cancel (this translates to keyboard input of X select, C cancel)
• Fixed a few kernel_obj errors caused by improper game reset.
• Added some wicked speedhack to allow the game to run on even the slowest of computers (well, slowest of MODERN computers, I should've said - I'm sure there is a 486DX66 you'd love to run this on: )
• Fixed a few collision and control issues, but no radical changes yet. (don't worry though, I'm listening, and will try to find compromises where I can).

Anyway! Gotta run.

Cheers guys!.

DEMO GET!

Hey guys!
Crazy stuff - I've made a LOI demo!

Go here and download it:

Mediafire
Sendspace
..or my personal dropbox

I warn you though, the demo is rough. It contains some art unfinished or placeholders, all-placeholder sound, missing effects and objects and code.

WINDOWS 8 WARNING!: DUE TO A CONFIRMED BUG IN W8 GAME MAKER GAMES HAVE ALL SORTS OF SOUND ISSUES - INCLUDING CRASHING. TO FIX THIS - DISABLE SOUND EFFECTS FROM THE OPTIONS MENU.

General notes:

• The game is written in GM8.1, so Windows8 people have to turn the sound effects all the way down in order not to anger the cruel gods of Microsoft. 
• You MUST unzip the entire game including the external files and folders.
• The demo can be controlled with either the cursor keys+ZXC, or the WASD+123, which can be switched in the options menu.
• The game also supports controllers - the button layouts for 360 controller and a sidewinder can be swapped in the options as well.
• There is an unfinished "8-bit" version of the game in the EXTRAS menu.
• Powerup items can be collected by standing over them and pressing up.
• Iya can climb ledges when you jump to them and hold up.
• Iya has two attack types - quick and strong. Tap attack button for quick, hold - for strong.
• While in the air Iya can either slam enemies down with down+attack, or kick them up higher with up+attack.
• Explore the area. There is one hidden powerup object and one health upgrade.
• Save rooms are activated by standing in the middle and pressing up.
• The sound and music are a placeholder. I have an awesome musician lined up for the project, but first I need some sweet, sweet Kickstarter money to pay him.
• Badgers WILL mess you up... as will the bear... as will the bosses.

Hopefully - have fun: )

Legend of Iya Kickstarter is LIVE!

Hey guys - some exciting shit! I was finally been able to put LOI up on Kickstarter!

Pretty-pretty please support the project HERE!

Not dead yet!

Nope - unlike what most of you probably think Legend of Iya is not dead. It IS in suspended animation for the time being, but work on it will resume in due time. I know my practice of neglecting this blog for nearly years at a time is ridiculous to say the least - but such is life. Unfortunately.
In the meantime - I've started another side-project, which will hopefully be easier to finish than the monstrous thing that is LOI - a remake of the old ZX Spectrum game Phantis. I will post info regarding it shortly. I hope: )

Out of nowhere - an update!

Well, it has sure been a while - during which time I have switched jobs and moved to an ass-end of nowhere, blowing all my savings in process. I wish life came with an undo button, but without it - I'm stuck here for a year, and I might as well make the best of it.

Oh - and then the flash cart with the latest version of LOI got destroyed, costing me several months of very sporadic work - sad and annoying, but fairly inconsequential.

On the plus side - I've since been working on LOI fairly consistently, probably for the first time in almost a year. The destruction of my recent progress has also finally pushed me to implement real-time backup of my project flash drive to Dropbox and then to a folder on my lappy.

I will post visual updates later - they are currently minor, and include additions all across the board - tileset fixes, new rooms, new decor objects, puzzle implementations (still sort of broken), new enemies/obstacles and new Phaeton creatures. I've also been writing the game's script, and it seems I'll actually have to do a bit of restructuring in the early portion of the game map - nothing major, hopefully.

HA! Rumors of my demise have been greatly exaggerated!

First and foremost, to the few people who still follow this page - the project is NOT dead, but is continued at a comatose pace due to my kid being almost 3 and requiring all the attention in the world that I can spare outside of working full-time, having a 4-hour (2-hr one way) daily commute, and also doing a bunch of on-the-side freelancing.
Also, this "little" slump in development has originally resulted from a fairly sizable misstep in the coding process. As I have previously written here - I was working on a custom world editor for the game. A flexible little thing that could be activated on the fly and could move objects, edit the tileset, and add all sorts of cool flags and functionality to the rooms. The sub-project started beautifully - the tile-editing engine, the old-format level importer, and partially the object editor all worked well enough, but when it came time to implement it into the game - all sorts of horrible ripple effects started happening. You see - the room transition in LOI is a delicate affair, as it is executed without any reliance on triggers or teleports, with room simply being switched from underneath Iya as she continues the same action she was doing all along. Slide out of one room, and you will come out sliding in the next room. Jump-kick while the rooms are transitioning - and the move will carry over at the exactly the same frame it left off. Needless to say this process is fairly timing-sensitive. Unfortunately - the new level loader refused to play nice with this system. Not only was the pause between room-loads too excessive, but it threw off the timing of the character and a bunch of other internal processes. I struggled with this purely code issue for about a month, but decided to abandon the new level editor altogether, as for it to work a large chunk of the game would have to be rewritten: (
Oh - and for those expecting to see some new art, here are some random things:


<<---WIP modular enemy - not a boss, regular enemy ala Castlevania's Golem and Knight-things.

Alright - I hope the coming of autumn spurs my creativity once more, and I will finally get to a place where I can show the game off to you as at least a demo: )

Cheers guys, and thank you for continuing to care. I will NOT abandon this thing, I promise!
Andrew.

It's been a while!

If in your most cynical hour you thought that LOI project has come to a standstill, you weren't far from the truth. It has been a tough few month trying to make headway in development, and to be honest I have been in a bit of despair about it. Most of my problems at this point stem from the inexcusable awfulness that is GameMaker's built in level editor, which I have bitched about on many previous occasions. Therefore, I have ended up building my own level editor, but with such a large tool having to be written from scratch I have encountered many issues. It works now, but still has many problems and lacks many of the features the final editor has to have. Several times during its development I almost quit, but every time I opened the default editor my resolve has returned. Hopefully once I iron out a couple more kinks in my program and start cranking out rooms things will get back on track.

Happy upcoming New Year, Comrades!

Dear reader,
This holyday season I was able to do fuck-all related to the Legend of Iya project. However - I did get hooked on a game that has become a digital equivalent of crack to me - Minecraft! I must soon shake this addiction, as I get nothing done because of it.
Oh - and I also did this:(the skin file can be downloaded here)

Minor update.

Since this Game Maker version of Legend of Iya was initially conceived as nothing more but a guideline to since discontinued DS version, its fundamental code basis was never particularly thought out. As a result, the features kept being added to an engine that had some serious flaws at its core. This week I finally went into the game's dark smelly basement to fix several annoying, and to be honest - noobish bugs that have been plaguing the game all along. Most of the fixes centered around the controls, which on certain machines (such as, once again - my netbook) had severe issues with key polling. Other fixed issues dealt with some basic animation handling and collision. Even though I'm pretty happy with the improvements, I'm sure this isn't the last time I have to screw around with LOI's shaky foundation.
Other progress:
* Added tile tint control to the background scrollers - now I can add even more color variation to the areas with the same tileset... I am physically restraining myself from adding some sort of a weather/day-night system to the game now.
* Finally added functional game saving and loading. Still need to make the feature more robust, but the basic file handling is there. At the moment the game saves its data in plain text with a file footprint of only 3k.
* Designed another enemy. Must animate him still.
* Close to be done with the second boss fight. Needs more animations and visual effects. Also - cleaner scripting.
* Worked more on the start area screen (which is a giant pixel painting)
* Started several new Iya animations - such as one for climbing onto knee-high steps, and one for hopping over small obstacles. The animation for looking up had to be temporarily disabled, as it messed up some of the attacks.
* Did more room texturing.
* Started another set-piece room near the beginning of the game.
...Gahh - too many holes to plug for one person: )

Defeated the Lag Monster!

Not much in terms of asset updates, however, over the last two days I have solved a large-ish issue with the game. You see - Game Maker is a slow, high-level script. Its math computations are laggy, and its asset management is rather inefficient. But hey! I'm not really complaining there. My biggest issue with it, however, its abysmal handling of tiles. Not only that the built-in tile editor is completely worthless, and doesn't allow to utilize even a fraction of GM's own tile manipulation abilities, but the output algorithm is incredibly inefficient. It appears it blits every tile in the room on each redraw - with larger tiles most people use - it's not really a problem, but since I had to use DS-compatible tilesets of 8x8 elements the game ran like crap on lower-end computers.
From the day I got my netbook I've been frustrated with the game's awful performance on it. Even on "high power" mode the game ran at barely 20 fps. I tried to solve the problem several times before, but could never pinpoint the fps sink, always suspecting my own code as the culprit. A couple days ago I have finally discovered the tile issue, and have quickly devised a solution.
A short script was added to the hud object. At the start of each room a global surface is created, views are turned off and the entire room's tilemap is blitted to that surface once. The tilemap is then deleted from memory, and replaced with an object that draws only the part of the surface currently visible on screen... BAM! - 30% speed-up!
I couldn't be happier: )

Oh - and other news - I have dug up issues 2 and 3 of the old LOI "comic" I drew when I was 11 years old... Not even sure I should make that travesty public, as it is a genie of infinite shame: )