[Alpha] Bauble Play!

[Jenison]

EDIT - 10/26/2009 Conjure Development

Beta of the WINDOWS game is available here
You will need the XNA 3.1 Redist installed. The zip file does include the .CCGame file as well if you wish to install it that way after unzipping.

The Zune version will be coming next week. I plan on working on resizing the textures and making sure everything works on it this week. It wont be ZuneHD compatible but we'll see if I can somehow get my hands on a zunehd. Thank you all for being patient.



Remember this is a beta version. And only meant to be a demo!

There are still some open / known issues

1. The achievements menu is not functioning properly. It scrolls weird and doesnt display how it should
2. Not all the achievements are in the game yet. The more simple ones are.
3. The game does not save achievements. This is a bug and will be fixed next revision.
4. When the level ends, some sound effects are still queued to go off when the curtain closes.

The game works with a gamepad, but can be played with the WASD / Arrows and Enter key.

Looking forward to your feedback and have fun!


-----------------

Hey guys, thought I would share my project with all of you. Its still in alpha but wanted to show it off a bit.

Conjure Development

The basic premiss is a causal 'gem removal' style of gameplay. Its ment to be played here and there with beginners able to play for at least 4 min. Someone who is an expert should be able to play for as long as they like (almost). You control when the level is over, unless you screw up

The title is called Bauble Play. You are seeing a scene from a play, and you are interacting with it. The background is the setting how events will play out. Our first 'Play' is a pirate ship. The pirates are trying to steal gems for themselves. its your job to stop them by collecting as many as you can. The ultimate goal of this level is to sink the pirate ship.

Features
- Casual game play
- XBox Controller support
- Achievements
- Fun? going to try ...
- Free to the public when its released!


Features
- Casual game play
- Achievements
- Fun? going to try ...
- Free to the public when its released!

Here is some preliminary gameplay

YouTube - Bauble Play - Alpha Game Play

Some screen shots and concept art - Gallery - Bauble�Play

Bauble Play is something I've been working on in my spare time. I'm hoping to have it out soon...

** UPDATE **

Posted Achievements

[Jaistu]

Looks interesting

[Jorvette]

Pretty cool, When can we expect a working beta?

[Jenison]

Originally Posted by Jorvette

Pretty cool, When can we expect a working beta?

I am hoping real soon. I could use a few extra eyes on it and see how it runs on other zune models.

To go from alpha to beta, I need a few more things from my artist and to implement how you sink the ship. The idea right now is you collect bombs by disarming them. Once you get so many, that gives you an opportunity to shoot a bomb back. After N times, you sink the ship. Probably a few weeks as I only work on it in my off hours.

some of the artwork still needs updated. The gems need a little work and I think a little more contrast between the background and foreground to help them pop out more. Though YouTube does ruin it a bit.

[Ricardo Dawkins]

Good job. hope you can finish it.

[Gohtar]

looks cool, has real nice Little Big Planet look to it.

[Heyaaronn]

yeah, it looks pretty fun too.

if it comes out anything like the video it will be a pretty sweet game.

[Jenison]

Originally Posted by Gohtar

looks cool, has real nice Little Big Planet look to it.

HA! The feel for the game is that the set was hand built. Very rough and something your sister might have painted.

Thanks for the comments...I will finish this damn thing. Even if it kills me
I had to pay an artist to do all the art work as I cant draw stick figures.

[Bolt]

You could've also gone to the GFX Requests section, and it's free! Just FYI

[tech.freak243]

Originally Posted by Jenison

HA! The feel for the game is that the set was hand built. Very rough and something your sister might have painted.

Thanks for the comments...I will finish this damn thing. Even if it kills me
I had to pay an artist to do all the art work as I cant draw stick figures.

you cang even make a stick figure, the most easiest thing to draw in the universe? wow.

[Jaistu]

Originally Posted by tech.freak243

you cang even make a stick figure, the most easiest thing to draw in the universe? wow.

[Jenison]

Originally Posted by tech.freak243

you cang even make a stick figure, the most easiest thing to draw in the universe? wow.

My brain fails at imagery ... programmers dont draw!

on a serious note, I'm in the Grand Rapids, MI area. Noticed your speed test was close (100 miles) to lansing.

EDIT - on a side note I started coding the achievement system last night. There will be general overall achievements and specific to each level achievements

[BlackFox]

Nice, this is sounding like an awesome game. It looks real clean and good looking. Nice job.

EDIT: It says in your video that bauble play will be a free DEMO for zune and windows. So will the final version not be free?

[Jenison]

I've pretty much of the mind that the Zune version will be free. As its a smaller community and I think getting it to people (if they like it that is) will promote it themselves. I want to be known as someone who creates quality and fun games that people like.

Windows ... dont know. Probably 3 bucks? or donation model? I dunno...I'm not even close to that point so I cant really comment. The full version will cost some as I will have to hire artists. I'm thinking no less then 8 different "Plays". each with achievements and their own scenarios. Are my eyes bigger then my mouth...may be. But I'm gonna try.

But I a fan of the zune ... and I want to try to promote it. Having quality games on it will only help. I am, ULTRA exicted about the HD Zune. I really cant wait to get my hands on it and see what I can do with it.

The demo itself, when its all said and done will have cost about 600 bucks. Artists costs, asset costs from 3rd parties, misc things.

Update - made an update about achievements

[Jenison]

Updated the ui a little bit. left is score. right is the number of bombs you can send to the ship to sink it.

Still need to change the font and and do some other touch-ups. bomb textures also need to be reworked.

[Dilpickle1]

it looks pretty nice.

[Ricardo Dawkins]

Pretty good man....I need to +rep you. I'm forgetting to do this since nobody is bringing development to Zune.

[J2800]

"Free demo"? Don't think about selling the final, that's illegal.

[Jenison]

Originally Posted by J2800

"Free demo"? Don't think about selling the final, that's illegal.

zune isnt the only platform the final version will be offered on. I'm also considering putting a version on the web (silverlight / flash) and just have ads on the website as I want people to play the game and have some fun.

We are doing zune / windows as its very easy to develop for and we can get concepts out very quickly. Its very valuable to quickly try something out, and see if it works. Not just write it out on paper and say 'Yeah that will work'. What you see today is actually Bauble Plays 3rd iteration. The first version was very very simple (not even backgrounds or a way to have the container refill).

Current generation Zune also gives us a very unique way of looking at the game in terms of interaction with it. The input has to be simple. You dont know how many times at night I have wished the zune had just one more button. because of some of these limitations, it would have been very easy to say ... f'it I'm doing windows only. But as I said before, I really love the zune and I think it has potential. If it had an app store ... it would be a very good competitor to the ipod.

The final version of windows will probably be DirectX (not XNA). The way the engine is coded would allow me to switch from XNA to full DirectX with minimal impact on the code. The windows version and Zune version obviously run on different resolutions. That in of it self made me think of a more 'general' approach. Though there are pieces of code I'm not very proud of and just threw-it-in-there to get it working But the biggest part with any project...is getting it done.

EDIT - on that note, I hope to have a video of it running on a zune very soon. Obviously, I will need beta testers. Any help would be appreciated. I will pimp the zuneboards as much as I can

[Karu the ranger]

I can test to some extent of telling you what seems to work whats lagging and so on...