LockedOn Channel Trailer!

The new LockedOn Channel Trailer is here!

I said in a previous post that I wanted to work on my video content. This is the first of a few new videos that will be released on my YouTube and Vimeo pages.

As you may have noticed, this channel trailer features the first real look at the redesigned Razer sprites, as well as the new 2.0 vector art in motion.

The Razer in question is called a Trunket — yes, the Razers now have species names. I'll be going into more detail about all the new Razer designs in the next update.

-- LockedOn.

The NEW LockedOn Compendium

I know it's taken a while for me to blog about this, but the new LockedOn Compendium has landed!

It's now much more accurate, vectorized, and includes more info than the last, (plus much cooler sound design).

On April Fools Day I released a small game called Girl House, a reboot of my old Pixel Chix rip-off game back when I was using the GoodGames account on Scratch. If you want to play it, you'll have to wait until next year, sorry.

I've been busy the past week working on the Generation Quest 2.0 beta... it's not quite done yet, I still have yet to finish those new Razer sprites. I'm going to try and make the battles a little more interesting. Until that's out, here's a sneak peek:

Yes, I can confirm that you will be able to transform into your mech suit in the multiple areas! This opens up three new weapons for you to use, so I'm also going to try to put pockets of randomly spawning enemies in various locations so that it's easier to practice!

I'm going to hold off on releasing a new update for a little while and make a few videos for the YouTube and Vimeo channels instead.

I think the time is right for a certain teaser trailer about a certain mystery game sequel...!

-- LockedOn.

Generation Quest 2.0: FULL REPORT!

This won't be in the final game! Things got a bit out of hand during the writing process.

Anyway, here's your first look at the new Maztar. As you can see if you look in the sprites section, the Evolver Razer hasn't been 2.0ed yet. Actually none of the Razers have, redesigning them has been the hardest part of this new version for me.

For a few moments, I was seriously considering redoing this whole game again. There's so many cool ideas I had. I covered my real time battle system experiment before. Speaking of, I'm going to release that on my test account, and see if anyone can do anything about that. That's one of the surprises I'm going to be unleashing on New Year's Eve. The other one's a surprise.

One of the things I thought about doing was a tactical turn-based battle system.

An early prototype.

 This system would replace every fight in Generation Quest. I wrote up a bunch of rules:

**************

GQ TACTICAL COMBAT:

12 squared board.
“Territory” is 6 squares on each side.

General Rules:
You take turns, alternating between you and the enemy. The person to go first is randomly selected.

Every turn, you can move a piece one space in any direction and decide how each piece is going to attack or defend.

You decide on how much health points and attack points the pieces have before you play, but the standard is 100 HP, 10 AP.

You have three pieces. Each piece has two different methods of attacking that relate to whatever weapon the piece carries and how it uses it.

The Redirector/Shield
The redirector carries a forcefield that can be set to redirect or defend against the enemy’s attack.
REDIRECT:
Reflects any enemy attack and sends it back at the enemy.
Pros: Turns the redirector, a defensive piece, into an attacking piece.
Cons: Using “redirect” makes the TR/S piece take 50% of damage from the enemy.
SHIELD:
Cancels out any enemy attack that hits it.
Pros: Deflects any enemy attack that round.
Cons: There is no way to attack with it.
Positioning: Direct. You have to be within the line of fire to give or take damage from the enemy.

The Soldier/Sniper
The TSS piece carries a gun that can fire mini lasers or one big laser.
SOLDIER:
An automatic weapon attack.
Pros: Fires a continuous line of fire.
Cons: If placed behind another one of your pieces, it will not reach the enemy. It is also not that strong of an attack.
SNIPER:
Snipes the enemy.
Pros: Can target any of the enemy’s pieces, from anywhere on the board. A powerful attack.
Cons: Limited. Can only be used every time an enemy piece is killed. Also, it will never deal a finishing blow, even if an enemy’s health is down and under normal circumstances an attack would kill it.
Positioning: Direct/Free. You have to be within the line of fire to give or take damage from the enemy, but if you are in “Sniper” mode you can be anywhere on the board to give damage.

The Slammer/Friend
This piece carries a spiked shield and a plug.
SLAMMER:
Runs straight into enemy territory and slams into an enemy piece, then quickly makes a retreat.
Pros: A direct attack that deals quite a bit of damage.
Cons: Vulnerable from behind during the attack. Can’t be behind another player piece when attack begins.
FRIEND:
The enemy you slammed into will now be controlled by you.
Pros: The enemy never will fire on their own piece. Depending on which piece you ran into, your attack could be very powerful.
Cons: Only lasts a turn. Can’t move any of your own pieces during the turn, so if they aren’t properly defended the enemy could wipe you out.

Endgame Condition:
When every enemy piece is gone, you win.
When that happens:

MINI-BOSS FIGHT(This would be a real-time combat scenario much like my battle system experiment mentioned earlier).

You get to fight the mini-boss using your weapons. Some bosses are weaker against certain attacks. All bosses can dodge. Some like the “Splitting Razer” and the “Evolving Razer” have special moves that break up the fight.
At the end, you get awesome treasure to spend in the shop!

**************

I planned all of this while sort of already knowing that it was way over my head to code. It still needs some polishing, but if someone wants to make a board game out of it, go right ahead. I have half a mind to do so myself. If I ever do, I'll be sure to put it in my Downloads page.

Another cool idea I had was to release little bits of a completely new version of the game, and then combine them all into one game. This way, I'd be releasing stuff but it'd be new stuff. Then again, if I did that, why not go all the way and come up with a new, better game? I would, but I have too much on my plate. Until I clean that plate, I'm going to stick to my scheduled releases.

Until next time!
-- LockedOn.

News 20/7/14

Well, my printer's broken and it can't print, only scan.

This is sort of a blessing in disguise because there were problems with pencil lines showing through in the inked versions of pages, so this means there'll be less of that.

Summer is the LockedOn Season of Never Releasing Anything, hopefully I can break free from that trope but it'll be difficult. I will say, however, that Pageturner 2's been plotted out pretty much all the way, so I know what happens next to these characters. The sequel will take May and Benedict to a darker place, still with the same sense of humor but darker altogether, and it's all tied together with a fun and unique crime solving mechanic. More details on THAT in my next update. All in all, while it's not a PERFECT end to the series, and it doesn't provide much closure, it'll still be a fun, twisted mystery adventure.

I wish I could say I've been working on GQ2.0, but I haven't. There's a lot to do there graphics-wise and every time I play it I wish there was time to really improve it.

I drew up a design for a Razer that included cool new movement and attack types, that would add excitement to the stand-and-blast battles, but unfortunately there's just no time to implement it. I had also planned new weapon types with different ranges, so it wasn't just lots of blasting.

On the bright side, there are more costume previews and the Razers are finally going to look cool.

Oh, and the menus and HUDs will now be vectorized.

Here's a quick rundown on progress, that's more accurate then what you'd find in a Games Update, but a bit messier.

TEW Comic Issue 2: script done, 2 pages out of 29.

GQ2.0: Gorbash sprite done and integrated into the game.

Pageturner 2: Menu screens set up, opening cutscene started (probably going to ditch what I made, though), some music composed.

TEWP4: I rewrote a lot of the script, mostly the ending. The script's still not done yet, though.

TEW Novel: I tried to run through a bunch of plot ideas, but there aren't many stories that I'd planned through perfectly.

I'm really hoping I'll get to finish all of this stuff in time!

-- LockedOn.

TEWP4 Teaser Trailer Now Online

My 70th blog post! It's the new TEWP4 Teaser Trailer! Watch below!

I know, I know, it's short. But the whole thing is only three minutes right now so I don't have much to show anyway. I'm excited to show this, it's the first animation from the episode I've shown other then the theme. Also, since it's my 70th post, I thought I'd show you a teaser for Pageturner. Remember that old screenshot I showed in a past Games Update? Well, the game looks a bit different now:

It's been vectorized! All the character sprites now scale up without losing any quality. Goodbye, bitmap-y pixels! All the HUDs have been vectorized as well.

And to top it off, I finished Generation Quest's new soundtrack. Now it's much better and less distracting. It'll soon be available on Bandcamp!

Well, that's all the latest news! Keep yours eyes on this site for more news in the future!

-- LockedOn.

Generation Quest Updates!

The feature everyone's always wanted, the respawn button, has arrived!

Respawn from any battle, even the final boss battle! All I need to do now is to make the battles more interesting. :/

New music! I finally replaced most of my older tracks, which were using GarageBand presets and had badly placed notes and things. I'm still working on the tracks, though, so consider the new music a beta. 

I also fixed a bug in the Razer Wastes building that had to do with locations not working.

I've decided that after Pageturner's first chapter I'll work on Generation Quest 2.0, since there's a lot of cool ideas I have for that. Instead of redoing everything from scratch I'll be building on the current game, adding new Flash sprites and redoing the HUDs.

Check out my Scratch page to play the game with the new updates!

-- LockedOn.

Generation Quest v1.8 Released!

Huzzah! :D

Play the demo by clicking this link, and then, if you want, you can download the full awesome game from mediafire, using the link in the Project Notes!! :D

The demo includes the first enemy fight, and you purchase a weapon, but you can't travel between zones or anything, so you really do need to play the FULL, AWESOME game! :D

-- LockedOn.

Generation Quest v1.7 - Update 1

Generation Quest 1.7 was and still is waay too big to upload, so this week I'll be resizing some images and graphics from it in the hope that it will get smaller. :)

Look for more about that in this week's update, Games Update 3.3! :D

In the meantime, check out these awesome images for GQv1.7!

-- LockedOn.