Some Big Excitement

Last night Nonulok and I sat down for a while working on some pretty sweet levels. We were having a blast both making them and play testing through them. A playable demo is in the works along with some communication to Steam is also very close. Taking a small guess I am hoping that the full submission happens this week end along with a finished demo.

The demo will be the full game as is but placed on a 5 minute timer and when finished bring up a "Thanks for Playing" screen then return you to the "Title Screen". 5 minutes with this game will (should) be enough time to experience some fun and help you decide if you think it is a good title to own or not. The going cost will be $3 and I, myself as a gamer, would pay and have paid more for this if I came across it and it were not my own.

To back up this statement. A little while back I purchased a game entitled "Snorms". It looked good, played a very short demo and fell in love. I bought it within 30 minutes of demo download and beating. Now I use this game as an example for several reasons.

1. Cost is $9, but is very well worth the cost.
2. Gameplay is slightly similar to the way some of Tik Tok Tank's levels play through.
3. The dev could and should get more for this but does not since he loves his project and wants to make it readily available to everyone, not just deep walleters but also wants to make future projects. And this is basically what we want to do also.

So, that's my little update and more updates will be following very close.

Thank You

Neuntoter

Major Tik Tok Tank Updates

Nonulok and I put Diablo 3 aside for the weekend and worked some crazy magic on Tik Tok Tank. Revam the enemy sprites and created 2 new bosses, added water, new tiles for Base and Dungeon entries, new UI, a few new enemies. Thats just too name a few. A demo is now in the works along with the fact we submitted to Desura to get the alpha out there to everyone.

More updates to follow.

Neuntoter

Major Tik Tok Tank Updates

So far there has not really been a user interface to the game. I had some text posted to the screen to give the info but it was not placed in any special or neatly displayed way. I have been working on a beta interface to at least use and get user feed back on. I have also updated a few of the enemies and now the game actually presents a bigger challenge than before while still retaining it's fun factor. After I am finished with these updates, a video will be shot, more up-to-date screen shots will be posted, and a game news update will happen. Thinking about how the alpha will be handled since that is very, very close.

Neuntoter

My Mission Statement and Some Updates

What Enguised Studios means to me:

To me we are a small studio hoping to make some kind of difference to those that like games but do not have a lot of game time and for those that love those short but sweet addictive games. To me personally, I love Skyrim  as any other game playing RPG fanatic is concerned but 100+ hours seems to me a little crazy to me. When I play the game it is to seriously just wander around a little bit and kill some stuff then I quit. Not really the way the game is meant to be played, so in the long run a lot of the later game cool stuff I may never actually see. Now after using that game as an example I loved 2 great games in particular, Lord of the Rings: War in the North and Warhammer 40K: Space Marine. Very well told stories, played for about 8-10 hours, got to experience almost all the game had to offer and could go back and play again to enjoy the story (like reading a book or watching a good movie) all over again. These are the games that I myself prefer because you can enjoy it all with very little dedication.

So what does this mean as far as my game making goals. Simple, not everyone enjoys the "Skyrim's" that are out there simply because of the crazy dedication that is required. So with an answer to that, I would love to make more of the short but sweet style games that almost everyone can enjoy whether you are in a rush and only have 10 minutes or 2 or more hours to burn, our games should fit well into your lifestyle.

Of course Tik Tok Tank, being our very first commercial release, will not really contain a story per se but it will contain a great gameplay style and a great spin off game that will open up a great story. So it will act as a good get our feet wet, introduce us to the great gaming communities and show a little of what we can do and what we are here to try to accomplish.

Speaking of which. A small Tik Tok Tank update. I am putting a small hold on the major coding parts so I can work on finishing up some levels and additional content so we can give some meat to the game and get it out there for alpha stage testing. As stated previously we are going to try to get it on Desura's Alphafunding program to help us out a little and so you the fans can enjoy it a little sooner and watch it grow as a game along with us the devs. If we can make Desura a reality then we may even do a 2 week special were the first week it will only be a dollar before it goes to it's $2 alpha price.

Nonulok and I both have some big and extended plans for this game and hope that you all will join us in the journey to make this a great game and who knows, maybe even a classic.

Thank you

Neuntoter

Next Weeks Plan

Well Nonulok and I are really trying to finish up a good number of things to get Tik Tok Tank into it's alpha phase. As far as I can tell alot of the major bugs have been weeded out and it's the small little ones that happen randomly are my main concerns. We are working on levels and enemies. I am also working on events. Such as when you drive into this area enemies will spawn, or an explosion will happen, kinda like a scripted event but with out the scripts. More like triggers.

Our main plan is to get enough content into the game that we can start selling it at a discounted price on Desura under the Alpha funding program and give content updates and of course bug fixes during this time.

Objectives:

Created Base levels: we are planning on having over 40 levels. Each stage has a pool of levels it will choose from. Eventually we plan to have at least 20 in each stage's pool. There are 4 stages, the 5th stage is always a boss level which we plan to have anywhere between 10 - 15 bosses, hence will be having 10 - 15 boss levels. We also plan on having at least 3 over worlds the game will choose between making the experience different every play through.

We also have sound FX planned as of right now the game is silent.

So during the alpha funding stage the game will be available with little content at a discounted price but will grow by a significant amount. Possible prices are $3 for final product and $2 for Alphafunding discount price. We will always support all of our titles after final release whether it's bug fixes, minor content updates etc....

Nothing as of yet is carved in stone but these have been the running numbers and plans for this title. We appreciate the following and interest everyone has shown and hope everyone shows their support by getting the discounted alpha release so we can continue to make Tik Tok Tank better and continue on making fun games that will keep you all entertained for hours in the future.

Enguised Studios

Neuntoter/Nonulok

Tik Tok Tank's AI

Just a small update on the AI situation with Tik Tok Tank.

Basically it is finished (not including boss AI which will all be scripted per boss) and running very smoothly. Enemies walk around patrolling until you come within eyesight or hit them with weapon fire. At that point they will engage in combat by shooting at you and hunting you down. They will also let out a shout that will get the attention of any other enemy within earshot distance.

This right now is working smoothly for about 120 enemies on screen and in world at the same time and running on a 1Ghz 2X core laptop. I believe that these numbers will most likely be the cap for levels since that is kinda high and already provides for some fun battles.

I will be working on scripted sequencing next. So triggers will set off explosions, unlocking doors, spawning enemies, stuff like that. Hopefully we will also have some more levels made soon so we can put the game under Desura's Alpha funding program and allow those that want to play early and receive free updates. It's been some really exciting times and the closer it comes to release the more excited we get.

On that note, have a fantastic weekend.

Neuntoter

Fun Updates

Well, it seems that are logo image and background image broke, so it goes, very weird......
Edit: Messed with the images and re-up'ed some of it. Should work now. -Nonulok

As far as the updates, alot of the core code is actually finished. Now we are creating the special events and triggers and some visual FX along with updating the node pathing to be more extensive and very invisible to the player. So with this comes updating the hell out of the level editor, which hasn't really been touched since before working on the main engine itself.

So far I did add some sweet changes to the editor to help streamline dev time better. And later tonight should be more updates to the interface and then adding all the "Coded" events to the editor.

Nonulok is working on some sweet boss sprites and screens. The sprite task this time around is not as intensive as last time (DooM 2D) since the amount of sprite animation is low. (most is coded) But the sprites themselves will be some crazy detail and bad ass.

Neuntoter

Some New Updates

Now this blog page is looking a little more like a game dev page thanks to Nonulok's fancy work. As stated in the previous post we now have a company page set up with Desura/ModDB/IndieDB. Which are all actually the same database but different front ends. This actually starts our ball rolling plan that we mapped out for releasing Tik Tok Tank through Desura before bringing it over to Steam.

As far as coding goes I did get some bugs and glitches fixed last night and made some headway on things that needed added. The development is still going smooth. AI is being touched in small pieces while I tackle other things such as world counters that will start events and things like that.

Currently we have a few enemies just for testing purposes for path detection testing and such. We will have more to come of course when Nonulok and I can dedicate some serious time into patterns for enemy attacks and movement to really vamp up the excitement.

Well, that's all for now

Neuntoter

Studio and Project Updates

Nonulok has been taking on a few cans of worms by making us a company logo, a Title Screen for DooM 2D Episode 1, and also working on our new format of Tilesheets. I have been converting the old DooM 2D engine to our new engine. With this has come a delay in release but trust me when I say this, it is well worth the time for both us as devs and you as the game players. The new engine has less limits and more features, will run on lesser specced machines and also now has intergrated dev tools for coming up with level design and creating new assets on a much easier scale. This works out for you as the gamer meaning The episodes will come at way better intervals once implemented. Both Nonulok and I are getting really excited about the new engine and it's promises. As a hold over I may release a few more levels using the old engine to keep interest and faith on this project and our up and coming studio.

I will also be working on a small project as I work on the new engine to show off some of the minor updates and to keep some fresh gameplay out there from us.

That is it for now and hope everyone had a safe and fun holiday and until next time.

Neuntoter