So here's the scenario: GyroVorbis and his team are making a 2D RPG for Dreamcast & PC: Elysian Shadows. I was reading their forums a few weeks ago and noticed a thread in which a little smack talk was taking place. Now, lots of people like to hate on JForce, it's the cool thing to do nowadays. But this is different, cuz these guys are doing 'making of' videos just like us. So we decided to call them out in the video above, challenging them to a bet: whose ever game gets a lower average review score must recite a speech written by the winner, while wearing a shirt which endorses the winner. Obviously this must be recorded and uploaded to youtube and made public so the world may laugh.
Unfortunately, Gyro declined the challenge (pussy). He did respond to us however, with two videos. Here's part 1, and here's part 2. Most of it is just overdrawn rambling and retorting our insults all seriously, so you should just skip to 4:04 in the 2nd video where it gets pretty epically funny. They used their game (which is using placeholder art right now) to make a whole level mocking us: "The JForce Gay Bar." ...I'm the final boss. There's a few inside jokes in there that you might only get if you watch our video documentaries. Gyro said this level will be in their game as an extra or unlockable... and boom goes the dynamite.
We'll post a video response when our game is finished and loved by all.
In this episode we mess around with frame count, talk about a new possible art direction, and compare our game to Blow Everything Up (we do that a lot actually, same goes for Crimsonland and Babo.
And Jonny keeps sayin he's gonna write blog posts discussing his programming journey on our site, but he's a slacker. I'm going to start forcing him to do so. Starting this week.
PS: About time Destructoid improved their header! read more
In other news, Jordan recently launched his new site: JordanBlakey.com. Check it out, he has some really sweet artwork on there. Yes, our artist is that good. read more
So Jordan just finished a spritesheet. Check it out, it looks freakin sweet. No really. IGF Visual Excellence Award here we come. But he can't run the game on his computer, so he needs a video to see his work in action. I decided to make it episode 8. And while I'm at it, might as well show off all the cool new abilities Jonny's added. Concept art discussion will continue next week!
In this episode I got Ty over checking out our latest version of the prototype, now with big shiny laser balls! We also discuss how rolling should work, as well as the dreaded 'open-mouth syndrome.' read more
This episode shows the remaining parts of that meeting you saw in episode 3. The main topic of discussion was briefing Jordan on how to do the sprites. The build you see us playing at the beginning, as mentioned, uses sprites ripped from Halo 3 using its screen capture feature. And actually that build has 4 player capability, but we only had 2 controllers. read more
Finally, actual game development. This episode shows some parts of our meeting we had a few weeks ago. This was the first meeting we've had with the whole team since spring break, and also the first meeting since we decided Jonny is going to be the main programmer. A few notes about the video:
Jonny has since realized that the reason our game is sluggish on 360 is because of Farseer, the physics engine we're using. He currently has the 360 version much more optimized, but there's still work to be done there. That's what he's focusing on this week.
And I realized later that the flipping sprite (I like to call it "the stroke") was actually my fault, despite what I said in the video. You see, characters will use two spritesheets, one for the top-half and one for the legs. But when I did my spritesheet I just kept the top-half on top of the leg spritesheet. I figured it wouldn't matter since mine was much more simple. But it did, cuz Jonny has the feet sheet flip when you change directions. Which is good.
Also, I think I might make it a running gag to number all of Ty's puns throughout the series. I'm sure there will be plenty more, so beware. Or maybe I should just edit them out, like they're profanity. Oh and by the way, have you seen Ty's pun video? It's pretty funny.
So we're makin a game. It's a 2d shooter with lots of crazy characters. Gonna be awesome. And you get to watch us make it. Visit our site to learn more about the revolution: http://jforcegames.com
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