12 posts tagged robots

Hey everyone! Burton here. It feels so good to be posting again. We’ve been hard at work on the game in our nights and weekends around some full-time and contract work. I’ve been blessed to be able to position myself where I don’t need to take any work for the next 3-4 months. This is going to allow me lots of time to focus on making Robots Love Ice Cream (RLIC) as incredible as all of you guys deserve.

I hereby promise and pledge to keep this tumblr posting ball rolling and I’ll post something a few times a week. There’ll be some cool screenshots. Sometimes it might be a video showing off something in particular that I’ve been working on. Sometimes it will be just some quick notes about what we’re up to or write-ups on aspects of the game we’re working through presently. I’ll try to keep it interesting, but I want to give everyone a great look into all of the effort that goes into make the game and all of our strides to make it something special. If there’s anything you guys have questions about or want to see, let me know!

On the code side:
Currently, I’m working on getting the gameplay well represented. I’ve got practically all of the gameplay mechanics created, but not juxtaposed against and with one another. I’ll be working on creating as many cool movement patterns mechanics as possible this week and then I’ll get together with our lead art guy and between the two of us we can come up with a really cool timeline of gameplay for the first level.

On the art side:
Art guys will be working to construct the first environment out in Unity. We’ve built this environment up and torn it back down again a few times. Through this process, we’ve been learning a bit about what we can handle in the game performance-wise, how we think the level will read in gameplay (this is super important for a fast-paced experience), and what steps we need to take in the order we need to take them.

I’ll leave you guys with two characters. The first fella’s name is Spinston. He captures a planet’s citizens and holds them for a king’s ransom in ice cream.

This guy’s name is Scrambles and he’s a stationary turret type robot. He hovers and fires from his bottom-mounted turrets to impede the hero’s defense of the planet.

Have a great one, :)

Hey friends, here’s a cross-post from our Kickstarter page that we originally shared on Thanksgiving Day. Just to give you a window on what we’ve been up to:

——-
Hello everybody,

Since today is Thanksgiving day here in the United States, we at Addo Games wanted to take the opportunity to reach out and say how thankful we are for your support. While we’re at it, we also have an update on Robots Love Ice Cream.

Even though most of our progress has been behind the scenes, we’ve been hard at work on both the game and the Kickstarter rewards. We’ll be sending out surveys for mailing addresses and T-shirt sizes this coming week to help us fulfill your rewards.

Physical rewards will be shipped soon, depending on the level at which you backed—right now we’ve got awesome vinyl stickers and postcards ready to go, posters at the printer, and T-shirts in vendor selection. Digital items like the soundtrack and wallpaper pack will be released when the game launches. If there’s a rewards item you liked that wasn’t in your pledge pack, we’ll also have a few things available for purchase online later this year.

Without your help, this endeavor wouldn’t be possible and we owe you our profound thanks. We’ve set a high bar for this game and we are looking forward to giving you a glimpse in the next month or so. Development has ramped up more slowly than we would have liked because of the usual indie developer challenges, but trust us, we’re as impatient as you are for the release of Robots Love Ice Cream, and we’re as determined as ever to make our game something truly memorable and special. As of right now, the plan is to get the game onto your iPads in April 2012.

In the spirit of the holiday, here are a few things we’re thankful for:

-The incredibly talented creative people who are contributing to our project
-Fresh ground/brewed coffee and our ancient-but-irreplaceable Starbucks coffee maker
-Online supplier coupon codes
-Skype
-Rooster cookies
-Tools like Smartsheet and Evernote that help us keep our heads on straight
-Sincere words of encouragement from friends and family
-The Unity community
-Internet radio (especially the game music channels)
-Fellini’s Pizza - site of creative/strategy summits
-Twitter
-The opportunity to pursue our dream and have all you amazing people volunteer to come along for the ride

Again, thank you for supporting and loving Robots Love Ice Cream!

I thought I’d put together a survey to see what people thought would be the best locations to showcase in Robots Love Ice Cream. You can vote for one you see or enter your own. I’d love to hear your thoughts. The Sweets planet idea came from Chris Rickwood, who just did the music for Orcs Must Die and the theme for Madden 12.

Full disclosure, I’m intentionally leaving planets we’ve already fully decided on doing off of this survey. I want those to be a surprise, :).

Update: I added some of the “Other” poll answers to the main poll (votes intact). Keep sharing this and get your friends voting! If you’re visiting for the first time and don’t like any of the options listed, you can write in using the “Other” option. Thanks!

We are planning on unveiling some of our already selected levels prior to the game’s release. We want to make sure we get them perfect before we share them with you guys!

Thank you!

Thanks to all of our backers, the Kickstarter project was successfully funded! We had so many friends and media people stepping up to help and spread the word about our project. In what should have been perhaps the most stressful day of the entire campaign, I have to admit I was having a lot of fun with the process and talking to new people about our game and watching our Twitter feeds light up with activity. I want to make sure and recognize the people who may not have given, but spent the evening talking us up and sharing the game with everyone they knew. It was awesome and I wanted to recognize those guys as their contribution, while not financial, was really pivotal in our success.

So, what now?

Over the past two months, we’ve been really consumed with trying to make that effort a success. Now, we can take a quick breath, and charge onwards with the task of making this game something very special. The Kickstarter process and the possibility that we might not make our funding goal actually helped us get some clarity on how we should approach the project and the work ahead of us.

I think the consensus among the team is that we’re going to work hard over the next month to nail the creative aspects of the game. Kickstarter had us working a bit too reactively trying to produce new things to show people to keep interest high. Now, we can pull back and make sure our creative aesthetic is going to be consistent and pushing the envelope far enough.

We’ve got some cool concepts drawn up for elements in our Feudal Japan themed environment. Once we’re happy with where those are at (we’re still working on scale of these assets in the game), I’ll make sure to share them with you all.

That’s about all I have for now. Thank you again for the support. The Kickstarter process was very intense at times, but you guys made it incredible!

-Burton

Hey guys,

I’ve put together a few new promotional shots that show off some of the fruits of our labors.

Ice Cream Truck (Hero)

This is still very much a work in progress, but I think it’s a great start. I’ve got the truck rigged and animated with suspension and chassis rocking that speeds up and slows down depending on the speed the player spins the planet at.

Koi Fish Robot

This little guy is one of the characters for the Japanese feudal level. Our current plan is to have him capture Citizens through his mouth from the inhabited buildings on the planet below.

In-Game Peek

And lastly, here’s a screen from the current build of the game. Not everything is represented in this shot and the buildings are definitely placeholders, but things are moving along and it’s starting to look a bit like a game, :)

Please feel free to share these with friends and game blogs. We definitely need your help meeting our funding goal for Kickstarter. The project ends in 12 days (July 31, 3a EST)!

Robots Love Ice Cream on Kickstarter

Thanks,

Burton

Hey friends, this post by Burton was originally published on AltDevBlogADay, which is a great community dedicated to promoting and supporting indie game developers. Enjoy!

I wanted to take this first posting on the blog to introduce myself, my company, and a little bit about where I’m coming from as a developer and indie startup. I know if I were seeing a new name or face for the first time, that I’d like to know a bit about who they are and where they’re coming from. Excuse any overlap from Becca’s post yesterday. Hopefully the different perspective will be a bit refreshing.

Where the adventure starts

Over the past two months,  my wife and I have ventured fully into independent game development. My last gig was developing the engine and building tools for the gameplay portion of a transmedia game for The Electric Company (Sesame Street), working with Primal Screen, a local digital media production company. As that development cycle started to wind down, I was able to start thinking about what the next steps in my career might be. Becca and I had been positioning ourselves to allow me time to work on a game of my own design. Still, you never really know what it’s going to be like working on your own project until you’re the captain and the ship is really yours to command. I couldn’t put myself in that position until the other project wrapped up. In hindsight, the transition was a bit jarring for me.

I had started planning what will be my first independent game, Robots Love Ice Cream, over the last several months of my work with Primal Screen. I remember sitting down with Becca at a local restaurant and describing and drawing out for her the visions of what this game will ultimately be. Surprisingly enough to me, she was sold before I finished my pitch. Over margaritas, we started considering the game experience through wireframes, considered how approachable it was, and defined a style. One of the things we’ve felt was paramount in our efforts is that people can instantly look at the game and distinguish it apart from a lot of other indie efforts. We think this will give us a better chance to make a splash when the game releases.

The Hero? Well, are you sure?

This is my first article on the site, but I think as I write more on my process and approach to game development, you’ll find that I don’t consider myself a particularly deep programmer. Maybe it’s because I got a programming degree from an art school. Perhaps it’s just the level at which I’ve always identified with games and even music. I’m notorious for falling in love with music that has some of the most appalling language. I just don’t hear the lyrics first. The melody and instrumentation is what sets my heart on fire and evokes the emotions in me. Game development and design is the same way for me. Tim Lindsey taught me level design in school. He did LD work for Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion and the Coolboarders series, among others. He taught that you can connect with the player through a minimal amount of information. He showed me how to develop a 3d environment with simple form and color, no textures, no fx. If you couldn’t connect with the emotional context of one area from another with just those two elements, then you might need to reevaluate the immediate environment altogether.

I use this sort of mentality with my programming. I, myself, have to enjoy the process. I have to connect with the form of things; how approachable it is; how easily I can convey a feeling or sentiment without crazy effects all over the place. I guess we’ll see at the end of this first installment how well I’m able to effectively communicate these feelings with the player.

The Hero’s Companions

I’d be remiss to give proper credit in this post to my wife, Becca. Without her, I’d likely not be in a position both emotionally and mentally to take on this project. She’s helped us to account for every last detail, keep our artists on track. She’s also been a stalwart promoter during our current Kickstarter promotion.

Apart from my wife we’re working with some great creative talent. Rob Shepps, who is serving as the Creative Director on the project, is helping us keep a consistent style in place as well as making sure our contract artists are getting the needed feedback to move their efforts forward. One of our other artists is Alan Tupper, who is incredibly good at taking all of our ideas and turning them into something concrete and impactful.

The party sets out for the adventure ahead

Thanks Mike Acton and company, for having me on the blog. I look forward to sharing some more “meat and potatoes” stuff with you guys in the coming weeks. Speaking of which, I’m going to be giving a peek into my game’s development at the end of the month at the Atlanta Unity Meetup. If you’re in the area, please stop by. Anyone else can find me on  Twitter anytime.

Around spending an incredible amount of time promoting both the Kickstarter project and the game in general, I’ve been working on developing out the gameplay logic for Robots Love Ice Cream. The quicker we’re able to do this, the sooner we’ll be able to begin balancing the experience.

In today’s update, I wanted to give you a little background now on how we’ve envisioned the basic gameplay will flow. These are our current ideas that we’re working towards implementing and testing. These approaches could change as we tweak the experience, continuing to make sure the game remains approachable and enjoyable.

Player’s Health = The Planet’s Citizens

In Robots Love Ice Cream, the player’s health in the game is determined by the number of citizens you as the player are tasked to protect. If a given level has 10 citizens, you must protected them in order to continue playing the game. Throughout the progress of a game level (each planet is a level), the robots will come down towards the planet and look for citizens to capture. If you can envision the classic UFO beam that takes things up to the ship, that’s close to what we have in mind. On each planet there will be an assortment of buildings that carry the personality and theme of that planet. Buildings with lights on have a citizen in them. If there’s no citizen in a given building, the lights will be off. We chose this concept as it allows the player to race around the planet as quickly as they want and still be able to understand how well they’re doing by the state of the level’s visuals. If the planet is pretty dark, with fewer buildings lit up, the player will feel that tension and understand that they’re closer to losing. The basic thing to understand is that you need to be looking out for suspicious robots (hint:most of them are suspicious!) hanging out above any buildings that still have their lights on.

Level flow

When a game level starts, the player will enter into the game level. To give the level a sense of robot presence and bring in some tension and purpose, we’ve been discussing how to show the player a planet already under attack from the robots. As the hero, you’ll arrive on the scene to deal with the problem. Once the player has arrived, the game will start and robots will begining to approach the planet and the buildings and citizens the player is tasked to protect. The robots will come in waves and it is the player’s responsibility to dispatch these waves as quickly as possible.

Various types of enemies will have different movement and behavior patterns. I’ve been messing around with various movement patterns akin to the ones in classic arcade shoot ‘em up games like Galaga and 1942. Sometimes enemies will pester the player and prevent them from defending the buildings, while others will be seeking to capture enemies. We’ve been looking at ways of using both color and form with the robots to identify at a glance what the intent of a robot is at a given point in time. The more we can give the player a quick understanding of the state of the game level, the more immersed they’ll be and the more they can continue enjoying the game.

At the end of the game level, after battling through waves of robots of various and successfully defending all or some of the planet’s citizens (more is bettter, ;) ), the player will have to face a robot boss. We’re still very active in discussions internally about how the boss encounters will work, so I don’t want to get into too many specifics yet. I can tell you that the designs we’ve come up with so far have been really neat and should offer a lot of personality and variety from level to level. The designs we’ve concepted thus far have been really promising and I can’t wait to show them to you when they’re ready. Once we get our first boss concept nailed down, I’ll make a point to post a Backer’s Only update about it and share it with you guys!

This covers a lot of the basic elements of gameplay. I will be posting another update in the coming weeks that covers more about what we’ve planned for how exactly the player will interact with the game. This will include talk about movement around the planet and the player’s “weaponized ice cream treat” selection while in the active “planet defense” portion of the game.

Promotions Update

Becca, myself, and the rest of our team have been hard at work promoting this game around the clock. We are hoping to have a lot of new interest coming in this week. We’ve got many emails, tweets, updates, and phone calls lined up for the coming week to continue to promote the game. We really need your help as well getting the word out and getting people excited and supporting the game project so that we can make it happen. We appreciate your pledges of confidence in us and all of your efforts to get the word out thus far. Your support and your belief in what we’re doing have made this incredible experience even more meaningful. We can’t wait to celebrate the successful funding of this project as something we achieved together.

Thanks,

Burton