Super Adventure Pals + Game Jam Challenge!

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Super Adventure Pals

Well dear reader, since we last spoke things have been very much increasing in excitement here at Jay Armstrong Games. Super Adventure Pals has now ballooned out of all proportions and has become easily the most content-heavy game I have every had the joy of working on. We have now 60 levels, 4 boss fights, an integrated tutorial level, 3 towns with NPCs and RPG like tasks and talking. A stack load of enemies, traps upgrades and levelling up. We also have 20 medals, 3 cutscenes and a fully explorable world map.

Too much you say? Well yes… you are probably right! This game has a good couple hours of game play in it I would think (for a flash game that is unthinkable!). But we do it because we love you. There is still a lot of art work to be done which the good Julian (C0rupt3d) is currently blazing through.

We’ve developed a bit of a placeholder system, in which I will create a crappy outline and integrate into the game and code up and then he goes over it later and makes it beautiful. For example, we did a fully animated intro scene, and as  I’ve done one or two before I just planned it out with big ugly sketches and animated it. Julian then went over it later with his incredible artistic eye and brought the thing to life. For me, it is a wonderful process in which with a few strokes of the pen I am able to send the image off to Julian and what returns not only exceeds my expectations, but also my imagination.

Below is an example of the process:

Behold my crappy placeholder image from the introductory cutscene:

Super Adventure Pals - Intro Scene Placeholder

And check out what it looked liked a couple days later after Julian applied his magic to it:

Super Adventure Pals - Intro Scene

Game Jam – Personal challenge:

In other news, my girlfriend and I were talking the other day about my penchant for big projects that take 3-6 months to complete and what a strain that can be financially (especially when you move house – which we are doing for the second time in 2 months next week – dont ask.) and so she came up with a challenge for me: Can you create a game in 24 hours? A finished project in a day. Well this got my creative juices flowing and I rushed down to my office and cracked open my drawing pad, opened flash and 24 hours later-…. well I discovered that no. I cannot create a game in 24 hours! But, in 40 hours I can. So I am pleased to say that Ultimate Arena Extreme is currently on Flash Game License for developer review and feedback.

Its a lot like Smash Bros, but much simpler. You can punch or block and there are a number of levels and different game types – timed, survival or points (first to 10 kills). Its really quite fun and addictive, but probably needs more tweaking, so I’m going to wait and hear what people say about it over the weekend and then try and get it out there on the interwebs! Its my first real attempt at keeping things simple – and boy is that hard! Its so much easier to say ‘well i’ll just add this… and include that…’ trying to keep things concise is very difficult. You often hear that about short story writers – where every sentence counts and has to add to the overall story and experience. Where Super Adventure Pals and Zombinsanity are my novels, Ultimate Arena Extreme is my short story.

Ultimate Arena: Extreme

Zombinsanity:

I’m pleased to see so many people have had a chance to play the Zombinsanity demo. I’m keen to hear more feedback – so please drop me a comment on your thoughts.

I’m also particularly pleased that people have been trying the level editor. I’ve had a go at a few of the levels and 1 or 2 caught my eye. There was one which starts off with a cutscene saying ‘the city is infected, help us clear it out’. If that was yours let me know Also if anyone else has ones they’d like me to see do let me know.

I’m really keen to get the project done, but because I’ve had the process quite open to my site viewers my vision has become quite diluted and aside from gameplay, its quite tricky to picture what direction to take it. Would people be happy with just a list of levels? How much intereactivity do you want to see? Do you just want the damn thing done and its good enough already so get the hell on with it Jay? Let me know!