Private Testing

Okay, I have the demo.  And I'm keeping it all to myself!  Bwahahaha!  We're just giving it a play-through to make sure that it all looks and plays right.  After we're both satisfied that I didn't miss any of the art or cutscenes or level changes we're going to hand it out to a few friends to make sure that it works on more machines.  After that we'll make it public.

I've had a little time to work on the level editor, but don't expect it to be in the demo.

-Califer

Level Editor

A while back I mentioned that there was one last big screen that I needed to make for Siphon Spirit.  Well, I've gotten started on it.  It's a public level editor, so that users can create their own levels and share them with others.  I've basically just gotten started on it, but I can place all the orb types and have a detail bar that shows what it going to be placed and will have lots of other little details.

We actually already have a level editor.  It's very rough though.  It will just crash if you don't do things right.  You still need to know a lot of how to edit the level in the text file.  Plus it looks like crap since it's just the two of us using it.  I'm hoping that the new editor will be very user friendly and encourage people to make new levels.

-Califer

1 Week to Demo, and New Wallpaper Art

Get ready for a playable demo of Siphon Spirit, coming next week!

 

I finally finished scripting in audio for the 10 levels of the demo.
We are taking a week-long testing period for potential bugs before we put it on our site.

Follow us so that you will know as soon as it's available. On our blog, twitter, facebook, or any other social site we have listed in this blog's right margin ---->

Also, enjoy the new wallpaper. More sizes and dimensions have been uploaded at the game's page.

Cheers!
-Peter

Playstation Vita

In the future, I plan on either using Monogame or Unity to make games.  They both have their good points, and I'll really have to dig in to figure out which one I'm going to use.  Both of them, however, can export games to Playstation Mobile.  Well, Unity has announced that they are going to work on it.

So I got a Vita.  Didn't get any games when I bought the system since most of what I'm interested in is on the Playstation store.  I spent the first day getting used to the system and downloaded a bunch of demos and free to play games.  Day two I decided to go ahead and get Final Fantasy Tactics: War of the Lions.  But the store won't let me use my credit card.  We got a new zip code a few years back and it's been nothing but trouble.  My wife tells me that Walmart won't ship to us.  And the Playstation Store is adamant that my zip code doesn't exist in my state.  As such, they won't accept my credit card.  Talking to support was pointless as they just told me to but gift cards or use Paypal.  I'm not a fan of Paypal, and the last thing I want to do is go to a store to pick up a $20 gift card so I can buy a $9.99 game.

I ended up putting some money in my neglected Paypal account so that I could then put it into the Playstation Store so I could buy a darn game.  Of course, that takes 3-5 days, so I've just been playing Jetpack Joyride and watching Netflix.  

I'm sure most people don't have any trouble buying stuff on the Playstation Store.  I'm sure that many people (Peter included) don't mind going out and getting a gift card to buy games.  But as a consumer in my particular position, if I wasn't going to try to develop for it, I would just return it and get a 3DS instead.  Hopefully it will be worth it and I will actually make a decision on whether to use Monogame or Unity before the Vita is replaced with the next new thing.

-Califer

New Wallpaper and Audio Making Progress

While Siphon Spirit has a more limited color palette, I offer this as a separate piece to be enjoyed in anticipation of the game. It is a 1024x768 wallpaper, but I'll be sure to put up some more sizes on the website soon.

I have managed to make progress with the game's audio. It is merely a temporary track to put out with the demo until we hire someone to do it. I have put together a dozen or so sound effects and they are now incorporated into the build. I started scripting them tonight. Hoping to wrap it in the next 3 days. This, along with a bit of testing is all that remains before we make the demo available to everyone!

Utter Research

So I've gone through all my sources and, well, I learned a lot.  Stuff I've never known before.  I've known how to write hiragana and katakana for 15 years now and I picked up a lot of stuff I never knew.  For example; diphthongs, voiced and voiceless consonants, mora, nigori, sokuon.  And you know what?  I learned how to write perfectly fine without ever learning those things.

Most of the things I picked up in my research are words that linguists use.  This, in my opinion, is a problem.  When I was learning Japanese I was taught that the word 'desu' is a copula.  Since I was in high school I just glazed over the information.  When I started teaching, I suddenly wanted to know what it was.  A copula is a word used to link subject and predicate.  Yeah, that's not a whole ton more useful.  So what I'm planning on with Japanese Arena: Kana is to keep everything as simple as possible.  Avoid using words that could confuse the user and replace it with something easier to understand.  Heck, I had students that didn't know what a verb was.  I'm going to do my best to clarify all new words.

But on the other hand, I am trying to make the single thing that anyone should ever need to learn all there is to hiragana and katakana.  So after they've gone through and learned how to write everything, I'm going to add a few extra, optional lessons to cover advanced terminology.

New Look For Siphon Spirit

I decided Siphon Spirit needs a new art style so I'm scrapping the last 3 years of work for this look.
And instead of defeating demons, you just hug them. I think more people will like it, what do you think?!
April 1 2013 ;)