The development of It Only Takes A Second is going fine at the moment. I'm currently working on Underwater levels in it.As some of you may know, Underwater will be levels 6-10 in the full game. Metal, which is 6-10 in the current alpha build, will be pushed to 11-15. This was mainly to address possible difficulty issues - the Metal levels are pretty hard, and I'm aiming for at least 20 levels. I want the game to be hard but not to a point it makes you want to break things.Anyway, as with the exclusive deadly spinners and disappearing blocks in Metal, Underwater will have its own exclusive item - shards. To complete a level in Underwater, you have to collect all five shards first. Since you're already being asked to complete levels AND remember the time, their positioning will, for the most part, be relatively straightforward. To remove another possibly annoying interaction, though, hitting the finish without all the shards in a level won't make you lose it. You'll simply pass through it.Here's a screenshot of Level 6, the first Underwater level, and currently the only one. I'll probably upload an updated build when I've completed all five of these levels and have started the Hell levels enough to show you - probably be a couple of days.So, yeah. There's an update for the day. See ya in another blog entry!~NAL
IOTAS 0.7 & Site down /
On Game Jolt, I recently released an alpha version of It Only Takes A Second, featuring ten levels. This can be found here.Also, since so many people apparently can't work out how to play it (despite clear instructions in the alpha), I made a video guide which should put the controls in plain English. That can be found here. It's recommended you watch it with annotations as I used them to pause the video when text descriptions of the current situation are shown. They're good for three reasons - I don't have to upload a longer video (with manual pauses), you don't have to buffer as much video, and if you're done reading what's being said before the pause is up, press "Play" and the rest of the pause time vanishes.On another note, my main website is down. This blog, of course, is up since it's hosted on Blogspot's servers, not 110mb.com's. I think this is 110mb's fault - registrations are down for maintenance. I certainly didn't break any of the site's T&Cs.Anyway, that was the "thought I'd letcha know" of the day. I will now be adding more levels to It Only Takes A Second. I'm tempted to put the metal levels AFTER the underwater levels, and make the underwater levels easier than metal. The fourth area (and probably final) is planned to be "Hell", in both the visual and difficulty aspects. At least Unknown Gamer will get his red levels, though :PToodle-pip!~NALUPDATE: 1:56pm GMTThe website is back up.
Return of YoYo Games /
Well, after YoYo Games took pretty much the entire of yesterday to have a little down time, I was glad to see it back up. But, oh look.
Innoquous 3 and Head Candy have lost their screenshots. Hopefully that's temporary, and they'll come back. Still, at least the games themselves appear to be intact.It appears to have affected many new releases too, including the recent, amazing game Purple.
Sigh.
Progress report /
Didn't get much done on It Only Takes A Second today. Relatives are round so I spent a lot of time in preparations, roast meal etc.
Sigh. :P
Anyway, by the end of Sunday 9th I hope to have another demo out. I'm aiming to have around 12-15 levels done by then.
Well, anyway, thought I'd post, since I've not done so yet. Oh, and one more thing - I'm addicted to The Shins - Sea Legs. Awesome song.
Ta-ra!
~NAL
One last one before I go to bed! /
Done a fair bit to It Only Takes A Second today. The game now has six complete levels, five in the set I call "Grassy" (no idea why), and the first of the "Metal" set. As a bonus, there's an incomplete, empty first level in the set known as "Underwater" too.
So, yeah. Hopefully tomorrow will be as productive as today! Nighty night!
~NAL
And another! /
I feel like kindness tonight! Like kindness tonight!No chicken.Anyway, here's a four level demo of It Only Takes A Second, with the gimmick now intact. Since it's there for all to see, I may as well explain it here:The axiom chosen is "A stopped clock is right twice a day" (or however it's worded).It's called It Only Takes A Second because you have to finish the level with one second left on the time limit.However, the time limit is broken/stopped. It will stick on one number of seconds for the entire level.When the actual time left hits the displayed "time left" (the time the broken clock is right), the time is displayed in green. You then have to count the seconds down while you finish the level so you can complete it at 00:01. It beeps at you every second to make it easier to count.I've made another couple of changes. The biggest is that, instead of the ball switching "z" value every time you change a plane, the planes themselves swap over, so the one you're on is always at the front. This should eliminate the "which plane am I on?" confusion.With that in mind, see if you can complete these four levels.Download (2.51MB)~NAL
Have an updated demo! /
It's on the house. ;)Get to the flashing white boxes to complete the demo (they don't actually do anything yet).Left/Right - RollUp - JumpHold up while hitting a wall to walljump.Blue areas make you switch planes.Download (2.23MB)
Correction: It'll Only Take A Week Or Two /
Work on It Only Takes A Second, conveniently shortenable to "IOTAS", is going pretty well. It's currently a 3D platforming game with working lighting (a first for me) and decent physics (another first, I'm on a roll!). It will be a game in which you get two planes, one behind the other, and can switch between them (a la one of my oldest 3D games, Elemence Z, a joint attempt between me and Ben Smith to revive my old Elemence series) to complete levels. Currently, the axiom I have in mind for the game hasn't been implemented in any way whatsoever, so I have no trouble in giving all two or so of you that read this blog a screenshot (which is a teensy bit outdated - it shows a third, central plane) and a li'l tech demo.
Download the Tech Demo (2.22MB)
Anyway, I'm enjoying making this game, so expect it to be an entry into the competition as planned.Well, that's all for today. It's 3:20am at the moment, and I have to be up early tomorrow/today. So... yeah. Wing dang doodle to you all.
~NAL
It Only Takes A Second /
It Only Takes A Second is the name of the game I'm currently making as an entry for the GameJolt Axioms Competition. From the name alone you can probably work out which of the ten preset axioms it uses.
I'm not going to detail out its premise yet since I don't want anyone pinching it, but I'm planning on 20-30 levels and some of the online features previously seen in Innoquous 3. It'll also be 3D, as I quite like that extra dimension. Over the coming days and weeks I'll begin to release more information.
Of course, while I make this, development of other games is temporarily halted. I don't consider this a bad thing though - look what happened to Innoquous 3 when I halted it to make Infidels!
Anyways, fairly short entry but that's all I had to say. See you in the future, suckers!
~NAL
The domain is... sorted? /
A quick blog entry, since it's 4:48am for me.
The domain appears to be fixed now. I had to change from Parahosting to 110mb to get it going correctly, but it seems to be alright now.
If you have any problems with the domain working, try nalgames.com and www.nalgames.com. If they still don't work, try clearing your history of all instances of the domain. Still not working? You can access the site at nalgames.110mb.com as an emergency measure.
If you do have to use the 110mb subdomain to access the website, please let me know. It should be working okay for most people though.
Good night/morning!
~NAL