Week 2 on prototyping

We want to thank all the testers who left us feedback after trying out the first prototype! We have been looking at ways to improve on the game and are progressively working on the movement mechanic to make it feel as good as possible.

(We are also working on some very exciting changes to the magic system compared to the one in last year’s GGC-version and we’re hoping to have that implemented in a few weeks)  

Sadly for this week we won’t be releasing the second iteration, we have to work out details and also build a new level, environmental objects needs to be designed etc. So please be patient with us as we try to proceed to the next stage.

For the next iteration we will add:

The ability to shoot a basic fireball

Destroyable objects for you to fire at

New level design

Refined movement and jump

Better blending between some animations

A drop shadow for Mokhtar (Player Character)

The first version is still available for download and you may still leave feedback on it, you can also mail us if you have any further feedback or just write it in the “Other” tab in the feedback formula.

You can also subscribe and receive information of changes or updates from us!

We have big plans for this project, and soon we shall have a fighting system that you’ll hopefully like!

(We have big plans for this project, and hope you will be able to try out the new fighting system for spellcasting soon.)
Once again we thank you for playing our game and hope for you to stay with us through this journey and hopefully you will learn as much as we do!

Visit the website at: Naarthegame.net
And the Facebook page: Facebook.com/NaarTheGame

Lets do this! Come and play!

Attention attention!

We are finally starting! You can now download the first prototype of the redevelopment of “Naar”. This first prototype will be testing the movement to see if we can bring out a smooth character control, the game can be played with either a gamepad or a keyboard & mouse so feel free to try them both.

The stage will be an obstacle course where your goals is to reach the top of the pillar and touch the shiny sphere, so you have to make your way to the top by jumping from platform to platform, it sounds easy enough but may seem difficult for some players. But try to be patient with us and give us feedback by answering the survey we have created for this.

To prepare you of what awaits, check these screenshots below of our current prototype:

Lets go basics! Climb that thing!

A little balancing of course!

Thats what we do! We reach for the sun!

And for further information visit our website: NaarTheGame.net, and our Facebook page: Facebook.com/NaarTheGame!

We appreciate all the feedback we can get and we hope you will stay with us to see how it goes!

Naar, Lets do it again!

Starting this year’s blog a lot later than I had planned, so let’s jump right into it without further delay.

 

After GGC we decided to spend our summer vacation far away from school activities, working and saving up money for our last year of Game design at campus gotland (Uppsala university). During the summer we attended at Intel buzz Workshop and presented our game there, mingled with a lot of new people and some which will be of use to us during this year and maybe even the future.

We decided that we would want to start over with Naar, and begin from scratch, starting off with character movements and working our way to casting spells and defeating enemies. We made a lot of research on similar games and looked at how they used their combat controls and camera movements, and we are going to try different methods to cast magic.

 

The previous demo will be available at our website but only playable with an Xbox-controller (or a similar gamepad). But a new version will also be available to test, and we will appreciate anyone who can help us by testing it and give us feedback on it. We will implement a keyboard layout so that it becomes more available for the majority to test. The new version will first start off with basic movements, so there won’t be any “action” but rather trying it out the character movement through an “obstacle course”.

Each time we iterate the prototype we will add it as new version of the game, and you will receive information about what has been added and adjusted, you can still comment on how you feel about different mechanics even though we moved on to the next step in the iteration.

The Naarative

In the GGC version of the game, we didn’t have the time to implement our narrative and that was a great loss according to us, we did not manage to deliver the right feeling to the game and often I had to explain the story, and if you as a developer need to explain a story, then you haven’t succeeded in delivering it from the start.

While we are testing out the mechanics for this version, we are working on how to implement a narrative for this game, the narrative is mostly written down but we are working on making cutscenes in the game to give the player a feeling of progression in the story.

Some new characters are also being worked on and we will start to animate for them as well. On our page you will be able to take a look at some concept art, and background information. We also have a developer blog that we are setting up and a webpage where each new version will be uploaded, Ill add a link to them as soon as we get it up and running.

Be sure to follow us and help us in the iterations, and hopefully this will become a fun experience for both parts. To keep track on where we are right now check out the facebook page: NaarTheGame.