The latest build is done!
The Ballad of Crater: the small town at the end of the world is the story of a small town and the adventures of you, the player, as you explore the post apocalyptic land.
This is a Pre-Alpha public build of a vertical slice. It's meant for testing and feedback before release as an Alpha demo.
This demo was made by 2 university students over what has been 7 months of development time with no funding.
THINGS THAT HAVE CHANGED:
- NEW HATS! Simply equip them using directional keys in the main menu!
- Multiplayer now has a red hud flash when the player takes damage
- New Bat and gun sounds in multiplayer
- Multiplayer has now had a reverb mix
- Fixed multiple glitches in the shop relating to spending too much gems or not being able to buy upgrades
- Hub world has now had a reverb mix
- New Bat and gun sounds
- Pause menu now works with keyboard controls
- Many small tweaks and changes to gameplay, controls, hud and ai according to player feedback
- Lava sounds have now had a reverb mix
- Zombies now have a reaction sound and particle when they take damage
- The player has a red flash on the gui when taking damage
- The dungeon has also had a reverb mix
- Tweaked some hud elements to eliminate a glitch where some speech bubbles had button prompts when they were not meant to
- Increased the speed of the day / night cycle
- Fixed another save game glitch
- Tweaked the amount of HP the side quest mini-boss has
- Tweaked the sound of the dragon raw
- Tweaked bridge sounds
- Tweaked side mission mini-boss sounds
- Some extra prop placements in emptier / under-polished areas
THINGS THAT ARE COMING SOON:
- Intro story cinematic!
- Due to unforeseen technical difficulties, the cinematic did not make it into this build, but its coming soon!
Download Link: The Ballad of Crater Alpha 1.04 DOWNLOAD
Wednesday, 15 July 2015
Tuesday, 14 July 2015
Final Alpha demo release progress
We're working hard on wrapping up the final build of the alpha demo for the Ballad of Crater.
We've taken feedback into account and adjusted / added things accordingly, as well as finished adding in the stuff we were still working on.
Almost everything is finished now, in fact, we are just finishing up the intro cinematic story cucscene and then we will upload the new demo! Therese no new areas or anything like that, its still just a vertical slice of what we hope to achieve with the full game, but we hope that its polished to a high standard thanks to the little feedback we did get.
Thanks so much for the input you guys gave us! Its helped loads to make the game better.
The next demo will hopefully be finished and uploaded today sometime, so keep your eyes peeled!
We've taken feedback into account and adjusted / added things accordingly, as well as finished adding in the stuff we were still working on.
Almost everything is finished now, in fact, we are just finishing up the intro cinematic story cucscene and then we will upload the new demo! Therese no new areas or anything like that, its still just a vertical slice of what we hope to achieve with the full game, but we hope that its polished to a high standard thanks to the little feedback we did get.
Thanks so much for the input you guys gave us! Its helped loads to make the game better.
The next demo will hopefully be finished and uploaded today sometime, so keep your eyes peeled!
Monday, 29 June 2015
Progress Report
Work on the next demo is going well.
We just finished capturing and editing the 4K stills for our intro cinematic and will start putting them together in a rough cut soon (hopefully still today)
Other than that, we have only 1 or 2 more things to fix / change in the game before the next demo, so I'm extremely optimistic that we can launch the next demo by the end of the week!
Some 4K stills for our intro cinematic:
We just finished capturing and editing the 4K stills for our intro cinematic and will start putting them together in a rough cut soon (hopefully still today)
Other than that, we have only 1 or 2 more things to fix / change in the game before the next demo, so I'm extremely optimistic that we can launch the next demo by the end of the week!
Some 4K stills for our intro cinematic:
Monday, 22 June 2015
The Ballad of Crater demo Pre-Alpha 1.03 (free download)
The upload is done!
I hope everyone can give this a try and I hope it works for everyone! It's a free download, so there's no reason not to give it a try!
Windows version: https://www.dropbox.com/s/qkt1kdj7y2tiqkh/Crater%20Alpha%20-%201.03.rar?dl=0
Mac version: https://www.dropbox.com/s/cn1g5k6g6ayiq3f/Crater%20Alpha%20-%201.03%20%28MAC%29.rar?dl=0
Linux version: https://www.dropbox.com/s/uhb34loxnv0z5e2/Crater%20Alpha%20-%201.03%20%28LINUX%29.rar?dl=0
This brings us 1 step closer to the release of the full demo! I hope you enjoy it and please, if anything comes to mind when playing it, we'd love to hear your feedback!
We hope to have the next demo out soon, featuring more changes according to player feedback and new additions, such as a story cutscene.
*Note: We are looking into an issue causing the Mac version not to boot. Feel free to try the current Mac version regardless and let us know how it goes for you.
Please send ANY feedback to this email adress with the subject line 'feedback': ecto1.gamedev@gmail.com
I hope everyone can give this a try and I hope it works for everyone! It's a free download, so there's no reason not to give it a try!
Windows version: https://www.dropbox.com/s/qkt1kdj7y2tiqkh/Crater%20Alpha%20-%201.03.rar?dl=0
Mac version: https://www.dropbox.com/s/cn1g5k6g6ayiq3f/Crater%20Alpha%20-%201.03%20%28MAC%29.rar?dl=0
Linux version: https://www.dropbox.com/s/uhb34loxnv0z5e2/Crater%20Alpha%20-%201.03%20%28LINUX%29.rar?dl=0
This brings us 1 step closer to the release of the full demo! I hope you enjoy it and please, if anything comes to mind when playing it, we'd love to hear your feedback!
We hope to have the next demo out soon, featuring more changes according to player feedback and new additions, such as a story cutscene.
*Note: We are looking into an issue causing the Mac version not to boot. Feel free to try the current Mac version regardless and let us know how it goes for you.
Please send ANY feedback to this email adress with the subject line 'feedback': ecto1.gamedev@gmail.com
New demo
I'm uploading a new build of the Pre-Alpha for The Ballad of Crater.
This time I'm uploading a build for Mac and Linux as well as for Windows. I hope it works for everyone, as I've personally only tested the Windows version.
We've fixed and changed a lot for this next build and we continue to work hard on the final build of the Pre-Alpha. We're still working hard at implementing recommended changes, as well as adding in a new story cutscene so that players can get an idea of whats going on.
Please give us any feedback so we can strive to make the game better before its final Pre-Alpha thats coming up soon.
Hope things are going well for everyone and I hope to post a link to the download as soon as its uploaded!
(Early concept for cutscene)
This time I'm uploading a build for Mac and Linux as well as for Windows. I hope it works for everyone, as I've personally only tested the Windows version.
We've fixed and changed a lot for this next build and we continue to work hard on the final build of the Pre-Alpha. We're still working hard at implementing recommended changes, as well as adding in a new story cutscene so that players can get an idea of whats going on.
Please give us any feedback so we can strive to make the game better before its final Pre-Alpha thats coming up soon.
Hope things are going well for everyone and I hope to post a link to the download as soon as its uploaded!
(Early concept for cutscene)
Monday, 15 June 2015
Ramblings
It's been quite the journey to do what we do.
This blog started off as a requirement for my Game Dev TAFE course where I needed to post some stuff weekly to earn a grade. Looking back at those early days, its easy to see just how much I've learned. I look forward to looking back 5 years from now and thinking how much I've learned from now.
My first independent game was made over a weekend, just to see if I had my head around putting up and charging money for a game with save files and menus and all the intricacies of publishing a game. Its only sale (that I know of) was to me so I could test if it all worked. It was a proud moment.
The second game was obviously On Call. We worked hard and tried to understand how developing for a closed platform could help with optimization. It was my first time coding AI and Missions/Objectives. On Call was made in only 3 weeks, and while I know its not amazing I'm still proud of all we achieved and learned while working on that. I just wish we had more than 3 weeks...
Now we're working on Ballad of Crater. This time, learning from On Call and our wish for more development time, we've spend around 6 months on this one so far and I cannot believe that we've come so far. At the same time I'm humbled by the support of the people who play our games and give feedback and get involved. Hopefully w can all work together to make this game something special ;)
Thank you all so much for everything
We'll keep working hard on Ballad of Crater to make it the best game we can!
Hope to have a new demo out soon for everyone to try and enjoy!
This blog started off as a requirement for my Game Dev TAFE course where I needed to post some stuff weekly to earn a grade. Looking back at those early days, its easy to see just how much I've learned. I look forward to looking back 5 years from now and thinking how much I've learned from now.
My first independent game was made over a weekend, just to see if I had my head around putting up and charging money for a game with save files and menus and all the intricacies of publishing a game. Its only sale (that I know of) was to me so I could test if it all worked. It was a proud moment.
The second game was obviously On Call. We worked hard and tried to understand how developing for a closed platform could help with optimization. It was my first time coding AI and Missions/Objectives. On Call was made in only 3 weeks, and while I know its not amazing I'm still proud of all we achieved and learned while working on that. I just wish we had more than 3 weeks...
Now we're working on Ballad of Crater. This time, learning from On Call and our wish for more development time, we've spend around 6 months on this one so far and I cannot believe that we've come so far. At the same time I'm humbled by the support of the people who play our games and give feedback and get involved. Hopefully w can all work together to make this game something special ;)
Thank you all so much for everything
We'll keep working hard on Ballad of Crater to make it the best game we can!
Hope to have a new demo out soon for everyone to try and enjoy!
Progress Report
We're getting close to our next demo release!
We've started contacting various groups and talking with them about getting some more exposure, as we are tiny, we need all the help we can get.
Things are going well with the demo. I've found a few massive bugs that resulted in the player spending far too much at the shop. Some upgrades were charging glitched amounts of gems, and I've fixed that now.
I've also added a button to delete the save game, so that players can start the demo again from scratch if they so chose.
There's also a dedicated button now to swap button prompts from Keyboard to 360pad.
We're currently working hard to create a short intro story cinematic so that players can get an idea of what the story is, as so far we've been more focused on gameplay and level design, its important now to get the story up and running.
Other than that, we're busy on smaller things, like making textures line up on the map and such.
We hope to have the next demo out soon, this time we are looking into building for Mac and Linux as well as an online web player demo, so more players can try it out.
We've started contacting various groups and talking with them about getting some more exposure, as we are tiny, we need all the help we can get.
Things are going well with the demo. I've found a few massive bugs that resulted in the player spending far too much at the shop. Some upgrades were charging glitched amounts of gems, and I've fixed that now.
I've also added a button to delete the save game, so that players can start the demo again from scratch if they so chose.
There's also a dedicated button now to swap button prompts from Keyboard to 360pad.
We're currently working hard to create a short intro story cinematic so that players can get an idea of what the story is, as so far we've been more focused on gameplay and level design, its important now to get the story up and running.
Other than that, we're busy on smaller things, like making textures line up on the map and such.
We hope to have the next demo out soon, this time we are looking into building for Mac and Linux as well as an online web player demo, so more players can try it out.
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