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[RELEASED] Not a Clone (Mobile Remake)

Discussion in 'Works In Progress - Archive' started by japtar10101, Apr 12, 2015.

  1. japtar10101

    japtar10101

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    A while ago, I posted on GameJolt a game called Not a Clone, a satire on the rampant clones taking over the mobile game market, and how it drowns out the original games. I'm proud to announce that we are remaking it for the mobile, where the criticism is much more applicable.

    Not a Clone is released!!! You can grab it on AppStore (iPhone and iPads) and Google Play (Androids) right now:



    What if you were given a backdoor pass to a site filled with the hottest mobile games currently climbing the charts? What if just by playing the games well enough, you were able to earn money to buy even more games? Would you jump at the chance or just let it pass?

    Not A Clone is a frantic exercise in quick-thinking and even quicker responding. Featuring over two dozen original and parody mini-games, you must play through them one after another, chaining your successes into the highest score possible for possible fame and prizes. Beat your friends to the top of the leaderboards! Earn Zeni to purchase more games!

    You have five seconds to get through each mini-game that is thrown at you by following the instructions that appear on the screen. The further you go, the harder it gets. How long will you last before your device runs out of power? Will you earn enough to unlock your next challenge? Will you know which games are being parodies and which games are not a clone?



    Check out our free demo on GameJolt, Itch.io, & SlideDB
    Our Blog

     
    Last edited: Oct 14, 2016
    RavenOfCode likes this.
  2. japtar10101

    japtar10101

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    A huge amount of time has been spent stripping out the previous menus, and implementing a new one to better reflect the new mockups. For example, to change the old start screen...



    ...to the new one Astra Wijaya made...



    ...GameObjects (this project is made in Unity) has to be moved around to make it easier to animate and script the UI.



    This is actually a lot of invisible work. As weird as it sounds, there's quite a lot that goes behind the scenes to update old stuff to look like something new.

    Still, things are progressing smoothly. In other places, a few minigames now support multi-touch, making them a bit easier.
     
  3. japtar10101

    japtar10101

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    Thanks to Astra, the title screen for Not a Clone now looks a lot better:



    In other news, we've been adding multi-touch for a few more minigames, and updating the rest of the menus to bring it closer to the mockups posted previously.
     
  4. Chemaxmax

    Chemaxmax

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    I tried it and it's cool. Now some minigames are a bit hard but they'll be easier (and funnier) when you release the mobile version :)
     
  5. japtar10101

    japtar10101

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    Thanks! Yeah, we're making a lot of improvements with the mobile version, so it's going to get a lot easier (or harder ;)) for the majority of the minigames. Speaking of which....

    [Cross-posted from our blog]

    We were stuck with Ludum Dare 32 last weekend (have you tried Star Driller Ultra or Unconventional Stick Swinging Simulator yet?), but we did make some major improvements to the user interface (UI) on Not a Clone. The instructions, success, fail, time’s up, and speed up labels has been greatly improved.



    Additionally, the Game Over screen has been revamped as well.



    There’s a bit more work left that can be seen in the screenshots and animations above, but we’re definitely making major progress.
     
  6. japtar10101

    japtar10101

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    Apologize for the lack of Not a Clone update. Ludum Dare‘s judging period has completely overwhelmed us, but now that it’s over, we can talk about what’s going on right now. On top of a trailer we posted earlier (see below)…



    We also have a clip of it working on a mobile device. The trailer below is played on an Android, but we’re developing the iPhone version of it at the same time:



    This is the trailer we submitted to the Boston Festival of Indie Games (FIG) and BitSummit, to make it clear the game is pretty far into development. Hopefully it gives the same impression to you as well.

    The next Ludum Dare isn’t until August, so we better get back to high gear, and bring this game to a finish!
     
  7. FuzzyQuills

    FuzzyQuills

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    I remember this thing! :) I still haven't had a chance to play it yet, will let you know when I get around to it. Once school lets up for me, that is. :D
     
  8. japtar10101

    japtar10101

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    Oh, awesome! Let us know how it goes!

    Here's out latest updates:

    [Cross posted from Omiya Games]

    Now that we have the menus finished and cleaned up to a glorious degree, we’re quickly shifting to the minigames in Not a Clone next. We have a few brainstorming sketches put together as you can see below, courtesy of the wonderfully talented Astra Wijaya:



    We’re also working on a few bug fixes to make the game more stable. If things works as planned, we should be able to put together a preview version for testing very soon!
     
  9. FuzzyQuills

    FuzzyQuills

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    For a second there, I thought that was in-game footage! :D
     
  10. japtar10101

    japtar10101

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    [Cross-posted from Omiya Games]

    What's this!? A new update on Not a Clone!? Yup, we finally have something new to show off since the brainstorming sketches nearly three weeks ago.

    First, the graphics in the clones formerly known as Not Angry Things and Not Angry Disks has been changed to Angry Monkeys and Angry Thieves respectively. Why? Well, you might recall the old minigames looked something like this:



    Now they look like this:



    And the renaming seemed appropriate.Thanks again to Astra Wijaya for the graphical improvements.

    On a different note, I believe I haven't introduced the rest of the team members working on this project. We're a four-men team, consisting of:

    • Myself, Taro Omiya, as the game designer and programmer (and the creator of the original game)
    • Astra Wijaya, naturally, as the artist
    • Chase Bethea as the sound designer
    • and lastly, Dylan Bramblett as programmer.

    I'm going to do my best to give some highlights to other features implemented in the game so that other team members can get their spotlight, too. First, Dylan put together a translation interface that reads in a spreadsheet like the one below:



    And turns it into texts that changes based on the player's language settings. Since we're early in development, there haven't been any translations outside of Pig Latin.Still, when we do finalize every texts in the game, we should be able to translate the game to other languages very quickly. Here's to hoping the next update will come quickly (without E3 bothering us).
     
  11. japtar10101

    japtar10101

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    [Reposted from Omiya Games]

    As mentioned on Twitter, last weekend, many of our teammates were responsible for putting together the River Jam game jam. We weren't able to post any updates on our project back then.

    During the same week, our team had an emergency discussion about the difficulty of navigating the Game Over screen. As you may recall, the old game over screen looked like this:



    Back then, we wanted to hammer the idea that the minigames they were playing were clones of other mobile games. From the feedback we received, though, it seems we made the menus too obtuse. As such, we've redesigned the menu to make it easier to get back into the game:



    What do you think?

    Incidentally, one major change we're working on in Not a Clone is adding difficulty levels. For example, if you just started the game, and played the Angry Monkeys minigame, this is how many fruits you need to hit:



    As you clear more minigames, the number of fruits will keep increasing:



    Until it fills up the whole screen:



    This effort is courtesy of Taro Omiya, who was compelled to address himself in third-person. While this feature is still a work-in-progress, it should be pretty clear how this improves on the original game.
     
  12. japtar10101

    japtar10101

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    [Reposted from Omiya Games]

    Continuing our updates on Not a Clone's progress, we've got a new mockup for a minigame:



    Art, again, is courtesy of Astra Wijaya.

    [hr]

    In regards to other updates, there's been a few small tweaks to the UI. For example, the loading screen now provides the definition of a clone:



    A lot of people who play-tested our game didn't know what a clone was, so we put the definition up on the loading screen to educate our players. Second, the game over screen now provides some fascinating (or depressing) facts about clone-related practices:



    Note that neither texts are final.
     
  13. japtar10101

    japtar10101

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    [Reposted from Omiya Games]

    This week's Dev Log update on Not a Clone isn't graphical, but rather, auditory. Specifically, this week's update is on the sound effects that plays within the game's menus. The video below demonstrates the changes made to the auditory experience of the game (background music* has yet to change, though).



    Full credit goes to Chase Bethea for putting together these sounds so quickly.

    One other fine-tuning worth mentioning: we've made Disco Hexagon and other similar minigames easier to play by making the controls and obstacle placement more obvious to the player:



    In comparison, here's a screenshot to the older, more cryptic game, which immediately had the walls converge into the middle at the start of the game:



    We hope this change provides a much more pleasant experience to the player.
     
  14. japtar10101

    japtar10101

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    [Cross-posted from Omiya Games]

    We return to our regular program of Not a Clone updates with two animations: Darumaman and Totemman minigames!



    These will take place of Fungusman and Slapperman from the old Not a Clone build. Thanks again to Astra Wijaya for the graphical improvements.

    A while ago, we mentioned we were adding difficulty levels to each minigame. Here are a few more changes that can occur on each minigame.

    The minigames 2 and 10 now increases the number of tiles the game starts with as the difficulty increases. It was a bit difficult for our programmer, Taro Omiya to put together, but we’ve managed to make all the puzzles the minigame generates to be solvable:



    Likewise, Colors! and Neons! got a similar treatment.



    We’ll provide more updates as we go along on how other minigames changes as the difficulty increases.
     
    Last edited: Jul 25, 2015
  15. japtar10101

    japtar10101

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    [Cross-posted from Omiya Games]

    Today we have not two, but three minigame graphics updates. All courtesy of Astra Wijaya.

    First, Super Polygon has been updated to look more fancy:



    Similarly, Disco Hexagon, which is now renamed to Power Hexagon, uses a power motif:



    Lastly, Dark Tiles is now Dark Tiles. Confused? We'll let the animation to the job:



    Unfortunately, we're a bit short on time to provide more updates. Hopefully we'll have more in store next week.
     
  16. japtar10101

    japtar10101

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    [Cross-posted from Omiya Games]

    Hello, everyone! This month, we’ll be in a bit of a hiatus because we will be volunteering on teaching kids how to make games throughout this summer. We should be back in normal schedule starting September.

    Fortunately, we do have some updates this week! The first is the usual Astra Wijaya graphic updates, this time on Flappy Fly into Flappy Comic:



    Much more cooler, however, is that we’re now creating new minigames as well! So far, we have two previews. Let’s see if you can guess how they play:


    Mystery minigame 1


    Mystery Minigame 2
     
  17. japtar10101

    japtar10101

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    [Cross-posted from Omiya Games]

    Howdy, all! We're back from an exhausting and frantic August with some awesome updates to graphics and minigames. Some major progress has been made!

    First, Astra Wijaya improved Flappy Bee into Flappy Sombrero:



    He also improve Into The Cup into...Into The Cup:



    Taro Omiya, meanwhile, put together a couple of new minigames! Let's see if you can figure out how to play the game:







     
  18. nxtboyIII

    nxtboyIII

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    I saw this on Touch Arcade. :p
     
  19. japtar10101

    japtar10101

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    Forgot to post this last week, so forgive me.

    [Cross-posted from Omiya Games]

    Hello, everyone. We don't have any graphical updates this week, but we are making some progress on developing Not a Clone. Namely on the feedback we've received during regular playtesting. Basically, we've listened to criticisms that our game, both in its current form and the original PC version, are difficult to get into due to the minigames' complexity. Additionally, a few pointed out that the satire behind the game wasn't very obvious or critical. Our team has been hard at work coming up with a design to resolve both issues, and we've finally resolved on our answer.

    We'll be making a (fictional) app store to unlock more minigames.

    Our plan is to start with a limited number of minigames which would be easier for beginners to play. Most of these will be original games. You'll earn currency depending on your score at the end of the game, allowing you to buy games from the app store. Except...most of them are clones!

    As of now, we're still in designing phases, so it'll seem like there's no progress being made for a while. Rest assured we're working as hard as possible!
     
  20. japtar10101

    japtar10101

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    [Cross-posted from Omiya Games]

    Due to the artist's brief vacation and the programmer currently sick, as well as a brief break to join the Local History Game Jam last weekend, progress on Not a Clone is a bit slow. Despite his sickness, though, our programmer went ahead and tried to put together some changes together. Excuse the terrible artwork and composition.

    First off the Game Over screen has been simplified to combine the quips, list of clones, and original minigames into a single results panel. Leaderboards still remains as a separate panel that can be revealed by swiping. We hope this reduces any confusions in the game. Also visible as a brief preview is a hint button to reveal more information on each minigame.



    The proposed shop to buy and unlock minigames is being implemented as well. Currently, it'll look like this:



    Hopefully with more development, we can go into more detail with this new menu.
     
  21. japtar10101

    japtar10101

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    [Cross-posted from Omiya Games]

    After a long brainstorming discussions, we're ready to get started on creating the menus for the minigame store, minigame list, and options. Many thanks to Astra Wijaya for putting these clean mock-ups together! To start with, the mockup below has two menus shown: the left menu is the minigame store listing the available options. Unlocking a minigame is as easy as tapping the buy button, which lists the price of the minigame. If one wants to know about more details on each entry, they can tap on the icon or name of the minigame to open the left, which provides the description of the game as well as how to play it:



    Also new is a menu devoted to listing all the minigames you've unlocked so far. By tapping on the info icon, not only will the description of the game be displayed, but also how to play the game, what the game is a clone of (if any), and even a button that lets the player practice the minigame safely.



    Lastly, the options menu. This mockup below is, admittedly, a bit incomplete as we're still discussing what features we have left to add in the game. Regardless, a few settings were important enough to make it to this mockup, including audio configuration, changing language, displaying the leaderboard and achievements, credits, and so forth.



    We should have more to show in the future as implement these mockups in the game.
     
  22. japtar10101

    japtar10101

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    [Cross-posted from Omiya Games]

    We’ve finally implemented the menu mock-ups posted two weeks ago into the game! Here’s the not-quite-final screenshots of each menu:



    The Top Charts menu allows one to unlock minigames via in-game currency.



    Games menu displays what’s been unlocked.



    Selecting a minigame in the Games menu and Top Charts brings up this dialog, the Details menu. New to this update is Practice Mode, a mode that lets you practice a specific minigame. There’s no scores or penalties recorded during Practice Mode, so it should provide a safe environment to learn and improve on approaching a tough minigame.

    Also, excuse the typo on the description and instructions on the game. It’s obviously a work-in-progress.



    Lastly, the list of options. Again, all the settings displayed above aren’t final.
     
  23. japtar10101

    japtar10101

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    [Cross-posted from Omiya Games]

    Many apologize for the super-late update. We’ve had a lot of events occur between updates, including a move to the new office!



    The New Office!

    But that doesn’t mean we didn’t make any progress. First is a new trailer that includes our updated menus:



    Naturally, the new Top Charts is the highlight for this trailer. Next up, the Game Over has a new two-page look to it. We’re still developing the screen, but here’s a brief preview:



    Score Screen



    Played Games List Screen

    Lastly, Astra Wijaya is at it again with a new concept art for a minigame. Can you guess which one?

     
    Last edited: Nov 14, 2015
  24. japtar10101

    japtar10101

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    [Cross-posted from Omiya Games]

    Last time, we hinted that Astra Wijaya had some new updates to show off. This week, we’ve got some GIFs to cover those updates!





    In other news, we were hard at work submitting to the MAGFest Indie Video Game Showcase these few weeks, so if it sounded like we disappeared again, it’s actually due to tight deadlines and upcoming holidays that’s been breaking up our update schedule. Still, we can say with confidence that since our commitment to simplify and lengthen the game, Not a Clone has been drastically improving. While playtesting from a few months ago resulted in a lot of confusion, our local demonstration this month at the Rensselaer Game Showcase and TVGS’ monthly Interactive Showcase were exceedingly positive. We still have a lot of work left to do, but we can assure with the latest feedback that the game will be much more fun than the original prototype!
     
  25. japtar10101

    japtar10101

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    [Cross-posted from Omiya Games]

    We're adding a new feature to Not a Clone this week! Courtesy of programmer, Taro Omiya, Challenge is a new mode that occurs every 10 apps. For one single app, the difficulty dramatically increases:



    The reward, as the animation above implies, is replenishing one life!



    But what if you already have all 4 lives? No worries! In fact, life up is just one of the rewards. The other, which occurs much more often if you have more lives, is increasing the score by a drastic amount (4!).



    Naturally, succeeding in this app leads to increasing your score dramatically.



    So what happens if you lose to challenge mode? Simple: you lose one life, just like the other apps, and lose the opportunity to take the challenge again for 10 more games. Of course, we'll be play-testing this feature extensively, so a lot of these details are subject to change.
     
  26. NyproTheGeek

    NyproTheGeek

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    Double U Oh Double U
     
  27. japtar10101

    japtar10101

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    Last weekend, we took a stab at creating an online multiplayer first-person shooter for the Ludum Dare game jam. If you haven’t seen it already, our new game, hack.source.net, is a fun 2-player experiment where each player can hack the controls of the other player, disabling up to two buttons.

    In the meantime, there’s only a few minor updates with Not a Clone: basically our entire team are enjoying their holidays. There is, however, one new feature in works. Called “inverted mode,” the instructions of a couple of minigames may randomly change to something opposite of the originally intended instruction. For example, in a Totemman minigame, the instructions will change from “Slap!” to “Die!” As one would expect, the intended solution to this minigame would be to figure out how to kill your poor character within the time limit. Obviously, there will be a lot of setup necessary for this new mode, such as keeping track of how many times the player won the minigame before allowing inverted mode, or providing a visual indicator for more experienced players. More updates will be coming in the near-future about this neat feature.

    Happy holidays to everyone!
     
  28. japtar10101

    japtar10101

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    [Cross-posted from Omiya Games]

    After a messy game jam and the relaxing holidays, we’re back and working hard to make Not a Clone the best mobile game about mobile games. There has been a lot of tweaks since the last update, so let’s list a couple. First and most notable is inverted objectives: in certain games, the objectives will occasionally change to something else, usually the opposite of the usual instructions. For example, here’s what normally happens to Flappy Sombrero when the sombrero hits a cactus:



    With inverted objectives, however, the instructions changes. Instead of flying between the cactus, the sombrero is supposed to fly into it. To make the difference more clearer, we’ve also inverted the colors of the objectives, making it easier to recognize when the objectives has changed.



    We’re still in the middle of working on this new mode, so stay tuned!

    Speaking of staying in tune, last update, we’ve mentioned that Challenge mode was being implemented, and that certain details may change. One significant change is that you no longer lose a life if you fail the Challenge. As a consequence of this, we’re planning on making Challenge games a lot harder.

    There’s also a few updates we’ve made to the opening of the game. First, the loading screen now shows different quips each time you open the game. Second, the number of icons that appears within the first few frames of opening the game now reflects the number of games you have unlocked. For example, the first time you play the game, you have 15 icons visible on the screen:



    Lastly, the start screen now has a rolling label below the start button. It changes every couple of seconds to display a new information:



    Lastly, we’re going to leave with a mystery concept art our artist put together. Can you guess what it could be?

     
  29. japtar10101

    japtar10101

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    [Cross-posted from Omiya Games]

    We have a pretty short update this week. We hinted last week that Astra Wijaya was working on updating the graphics for a mystery minigame. Turns out, it’s Canabiker!



    Not only did he get Canabiker done, Canabot is complete as well:



    We also mentioned in our last post that Inverse Mode was in mid-process. We just finished this week, and plan on finishing Challenge Mode next.
     
  30. japtar10101

    japtar10101

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    [Cross-posted from Omiya Games]

    That's right, we have a booth for MAGFest Indie Videogame Show (MIVS) at the National Harbor! This is an exciting milestone to us, and we definitely hope to see you there!

    For this week's Not a Clone update, we finally finished Challenge Mode we've been talking about last week:



    As detailed earlier, Challenge Mode is a mode that occurs after reaching a certain score. For one game, you'll have to play through its 3 difficulty levels back-to-back within 10 seconds. The reward for succeeding in this minigame is either a score increase of 4 points, or gaining back one life. Failing results in…nothing, actually. You just lose the opportunity get the score boost or life up. Consider it a freebie!

    Incidentally, Inverted Mode can stack on top of Challenge Mode, giving a small chance of making the challenge a lot easier:

     
  31. japtar10101

    japtar10101

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    [Cross-posted from Omiya Games]

    In preparation for MAGFest, wonderful artist Astra Wijaya put together some amazing stickers, pins and cards for our booth!



    We’ve also decided on a tentative release quarter for the game as well: spring this year! As with all estimates, this can change depending on unforeseen circumstances, but it does mean we’re rapidly approaching release. We hope you look forward to it!

    Here are some more close-ups on the MAGFest perks, by the way. Hope to see you there next week!





     
    Last edited: Feb 13, 2016
  32. japtar10101

    japtar10101

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    [Cross-posted from Omiya Games]

    Hello, everyone! We're back from MAGFest 2016!




    The reception has been incredible, and we want to thank everyone who visited and played our game. As it turns out, our survey revealed that everyone loved Not a Clone. Everyone answered they wanted to play it again, and the grand majority indicated they'd rate the game 5 out of 5 or 4 out of 5.






    Now that we're back from MAGFest, we're working hard to finish the game. The good news is that we only have a few months of work left before we release. In the meantime, though, our artist is working on fleshing out the graphics for our Cookie Clicker clone microgames. Check it out:



     
  33. japtar10101

    japtar10101

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    [Cross-posted from Omiya Games]

    Last week, we shown a sketch of a few clicker microgames. We just finished integrating them into the game, and they’ll take the place of Box Clicker, posted back in August last year. Many thanks to Astra Wijaya for putting the graphics together.



    So how does one play Flower Clicker or Phone Clicker. Simply tap the screen by exactly the number of times noted by the instructions. Be careful, though: if you tap too many times, you may lose your screen!



    In other news, Taro Omiya has been very busy writing up an academic article for Game on Games on the G|A|M|E Journal. The full details of the development process for Not a Clone may be coming soon!
     
  34. japtar10101

    japtar10101

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    [Cross-posted from Omiya Games]


    Apologize for the lack of updates for a few weeks. Many of us are recovering from the exhausting trip at the Game Developers Conference (GDC), so this week’s update is a small work-in-progress idea we’ve been bouncing around. Born from our writer, Robert Denner, the loading screen has been updated to look like a messenger application, where your friend introduces you to Not a Clone store. Here’s a rough sketch below:



    Obviously, we have a lot of work to do on improving this screen, but it does mean we now have a progressing story in our game. In other news, Taro Omiya has been working hard on integrating leaderboards into the game, while Astra Wijaya and Chase Bethea has been adding new assets into the game. We may start a Twitch stream soon in regards to our development process, now that we think of it…
     
  35. japtar10101

    japtar10101

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    [Cross-posted from Omiya Games]

    This week’s Not a Clone update is by Astra Wijaya, who put these beautiful spritesheets together for the next pair of microgames. We’ll be implementing these graphics live on Twitch at Tuesday, 3:00 PM EST, channel twitch.tv/japtar10101. So stay tuned!





    In the meantime, the leaderboard integration for iOS Taro Omiya was implementing is now complete. We’ll be working on Android next, though as noted earlier, will only be supported on Android version 4.0 or higher.
     
  36. japtar10101

    japtar10101

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    [Cross-posted from Omiya Games]

    As hinted in our last post, we've finally updated our old Gem Ninja microgame — which used placeholder assets — to Bomb Ninja and Bun Ninja. Some of you may note the latter was integrated into the game during a Twitch stream.





    Similar to the old game, Kittens and Spices will act as things-not-to-slice in each game:



     
  37. japtar10101

    japtar10101

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    [Cross-posted from Omiya Games]

    Last weekend, we participated in the Ludum Dare 35, and released a new PC/Mac/Linux game during the game jam! We will be busy handling Ludum Dare-related business for the next two weeks, but we do have a few updates on Not a Clone. As usual, Astra Wijaya put together a few sketches for the next set of microgames we'll be working on:





    What will these microgames be? Tune in next week to find out!

    In the meantime, here's a GIF of Pushing Buttons in its final form:

     
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  38. japtar10101

    japtar10101

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    [Cross-posted from Omiya Games]

    Our weekly live-stream continued last Tuesday (April 26th, 3:00 PM EDT) with a completion of Unlock, the handy puzzle micro-game about moving a key out of its keyhole. The end result? We've successfully integrated Astra Wijaya's artwork to a thrilling tale of thievery:



    For those interested, our stream's highlight is available here: twitch.tv/japtar10101/v/63164094. This still leaves one more sketch from last week's Not a Clone post, which will be the highlight of this Tuesday's 3:00 PM EDT stream (twitch.tv/japtar10101). That said, we still have more new sketches!



     
  39. japtar10101

    japtar10101

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    [Cross-posted from Omiya Games]

    After some technical difficulties with our weekly live-stream last Tuesday (May 3rd, 3:00 PM EDT), we’ve successfully integrated Astra Wijaya’s artwork to the comical animal caring simulator, Make Me Happy. Or is it a complimenting-a-classmate simulator? You decide!



    Such a romantic micro-game wouldn’t be complete without any heartbreaks! Fortunately, we deliver on that front, too:



    As always, our stream’s highlight is available here: twitch.tv/japtar10101/v/64383068. Next Tuesday’s 3:00 PM EDT stream (at twitch.tv/japtar10101) will cover one of the last two sketches we’ve posted so stay tuned!
     
  40. japtar10101

    japtar10101

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    [Cross-posted from Omiya Games]

    We have a short Not a Clone update this week. We finished integrating Astra Wijaya’s artwork for Ridiculous Rockets last Tuesday (May 10th, 3:00 PM EDT) in our weekly live-stream:



    As always, our stream’s highlight is available here: twitch.tv/japtar10101/v/65721074.

    Next Tuesday’s 3:00 PM EDT stream (at twitch.tv/japtar10101) will cover the last microgame that needs art integration before release! The rest of the stream will focus on adding the last few left-over features in the game.
     
  41. japtar10101

    japtar10101

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    [Cross-posted from Omiya Games]

    While we had to skip the update last week due to some life-related reasons, we're back with some new information about Not a Clone! First, the great news: we'll be uploading a demo version of the game very soon. This will provide a sneak-peek at what's in store for the full version. The full version of the game, meanwhile, still needs a few more polishes (mainly bug fixes) and an occasional feature or two.

    For this week, we've successfully integrated Astra Wijaya's artwork to Ridiculous Piñatas. Those who watched our stream might recall the large number of problems we had with this microgame, but rest assured it's been fixed as proven by the clip below:



    Also new to a game is a new unlockable: the lucky coin. Every once-in-a-while, a coin will appear in the menu that transitions from one minigame to the other. Tapping on it provides more money to spend in the shop later.



    We will NOT be streaming next week, as we'll be busy putting together finishing polishes to the demo build. Still, stay tuned!
     
  42. japtar10101

    japtar10101

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    [Cross-posted from Omiya Games]

    After a ton of updates and teasing, we’re proud to announce that the demo version for Not a Clone is out right now! You can find our free demo (for Windows, Mac, and Linux) in these web portals below:
    Note that a web version is in the works as well.



    What is Not a Clone, you ask? Here’s the full game description:
    What if you were given a backdoor pass to a site filled with the hottest mobile games currently climbing the charts? What if just by playing the games well enough, you were able to earn money to buy even more games? Would you jump at the chance or just let it pass?

    Not A Clone is a frantic exercise in quick-thinking and even quicker responding. Featuring over two dozen original and parody mini-games, you must play through them one after another, chaining your successes into the highest score possible for possible fame and prizes. Beat your friends to the top of the leaderboards! Earn Zeni to purchase more games!

    You have five seconds to get through each mini-game that is thrown at you by following the instructions that appear on the screen. The further you go, the harder it gets. How long will you last before your device runs out of power? Will you earn enough to unlock your next challenge? Will you know which games are being parodies and which games are not a clone?​
    We’re still hard at work putting together the final release for the game, but we’re confident in the game’s current state to present to you a good taste at what is coming up. Let us know what you think!
     
  43. japtar10101

    japtar10101

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    [Cross-posted from Omiya Games]

    Apologize for the lack of update last week. Our regular poster here, Taro Omiya, was sick last weekend. But now he's doing a lot better!

    Our latest Not a Clone updates are general User Interface (UI) polishes, in preparation for the looming release. As those who played our free demo will recognize, we have a rather unusual loading screen that provides messages to the player. We've polished this to look more like a text message application it was intended to look like. Both our artist, Astra Wijaya, and writer, Robert Denner (a past collaborator on Letters From Secret Santa, and the person who came up with the text messaging idea), are hard at work putting finishing touches to this unique story-telling medium.



    Also debuted with the free demo are the music! The ever-so-talented composer, Spencer Bambrick, has put together some great music for this game, including the calming menu theme below. Check it out!



    Finally, Taro Omiya has been putting together some extra polishes to the game over screen, including a short tutorial on how to navigate the shop menu.



    We'll be continuing our weekly Twitch live-stream next Tuesday, 3:00 PM EDT attwitch.tv/japtar10101. Our plan is to add new purchasable upgrades to the game! If you missed the last one, where we constructed the new text message loading screen, you can check it out in the Youtube video below.

     
  44. japtar10101

    japtar10101

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    [Cross-posted from Omiya Games]

    We're rapidly approaching completion with Not a Clone! At this point, almost all of the major features are implemented, and we are making some small incremental changes in preparation for release. For example, the newest addition to our game is an animation for the notification icon that appears on the Shop button:



    Oddly enough, this effort came about due to a necessary bug fix that the notification number did not accurately reflect the number of microgames you could buy from the shop. Similarly, while we had the Lucky Coin feature for a while (a coin you can tap in-between games to get more in-game currency), we only recently implemented a method to unlock the feature. Astra Wijaya has been hard at work to put the sketching the last few necessary bits on unlocking the upgrade.




    We'll be continuing our weekly Twitch live-stream next Tuesday, 3:00 PM EDT at twitch.tv/japtar10101. Our plan is to implement a few improvements for microgames that a few people had problems with. If you missed the last one, where we created a method to unlock the Lucky Coin, you can check it out in the Youtube video below.

     
  45. japtar10101

    japtar10101

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    [Cross-posted from Omiya Games]

    Happy Fourth of July weekend! This week, we've been gearing up to send out a private beta build next week. As many of you may know, beta testing is a simple quality assurance measure to make sure bugs are fixed, and the game's economy is balanced well. Unfortunately, due to the rampant cloning (heh) and piracy in certain app stores, we'll be keeping this build internal.

    In the meantime, here are some development updates! As noted earlier, we are now focusing on polishes. Last Tuesday, Taro Omiya modified the behavior of two games, Phone Clicker and Angry Monkeys. Here's what Phone Clicker looked like before the change:



    And here's what it looks like after the change. Notice any difference?



    That's right: we've replaced the number of taps made on Phone Clicker to a bunch of fingerprints. It's a small, but noticeable way to create distinctions between microgames that are functionally similar to each other.

    The changes made to Angry Monkeys, on the other hand, are more subtle. Here's the before:



    And here's the after. Notice some changes made to the physics:



    We've set the monkeys and the slingshot to not collide with each other. Furthermore, when the monkey is flung into the air, its trajectory will not be in the mercy of the string behavior, but rather, the position you've let go of the slingshot. Overall, this should make the game more predictable and easier to play.

    Last but not least: Astra Wijaya has update the upgrade graphics to look cleaner, as demonstrated in the game list screenshot below:



    As usual, we'll be continuing our weekly Twitch live-stream next Tuesday, 3:00 PM EDT attwitch.tv/japtar10101. If you missed the last one, where we've made the changes described above, you can check it out in the Youtube video below. See you next time!

     
  46. japtar10101

    japtar10101

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    [Cross-posted from Omiya Games]

    A quick update on Not a Clone: as many of you may have noticed, a few days ago, we've update the demo build to a new version 1.1. The changes are fairly small for the demo itself--the biggest change is how the loading screen appears--but it also synchronizes the build with where we're at with our current development. From here on out, we'll be updating the demo builds more often as we approach completion, so stay tuned!

    Our last two live streams focused on general polish. Last week, for example, we updated the price of every microgame, using Google Sheets as a reference:



    Last Tuesday, we showed the beginning of updating the randomizer that serves the sequence of microgames to the player:



    As usual, we'll be continuing our weekly Twitch live-stream next Tuesday, 3:00 PM EDT at twitch.tv/japtar10101.
     
  47. japtar10101

    japtar10101

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    [Cross-posted from Omiya Games]

    Some of you may have noticed that a new version of Not a Clone Demo has been released. This is quite a rapid turnout compared to the last release, which came out a full month after the demo debuted. What’s going on?

    In short, we’ve been syncing the code and assets for the demos with the recent private beta releases so that both will have the latest development changes in the game. This should help us respond more quickly to the comments on the demo and from the beta testers. Of course, since we’re now working on bugs and small enhancements, the changes between the different versions of the demo will be relatively minor.

    In any case, we haven’t actually posted the changes made since the first release, so here’s an extensive list on what’s been done so far:
    1. Updated how the loading screen looks to appear more like a text message screen.
    2. Changed the bottom of game over screen to use less screen-estate. High scores button is now placed in-between restart and home button.
    3. Added a new music for challenge mode.
    4. Added more sound effects, both for pop-up events and a couple of microgames.
    5. Updated credits to include our current beta testers.
    6. Reduced WebGL memory usage by packing sprites into less image files. PC/Mac/Linux build remains unchanged.
    7. Updated Angry Monkeys’ physics. The monkeys no longer collides with the slingshot or each other, and the shot-direction is based on the position you’ve let go of the slingshot, not the direction the sling moves.
    8. Background music now fades-in before a microgame starts.
    9. Reduced memory usage on all platforms by loading most sound effects and music on-the-fly.
    10. Clicking on the pause button no longer triggers a mouse-down event on a microgame.
    11. Made challenge mode a lot easier by dramatically increasing the amount of time available to the player. The previous times assumed the game was played on a multi-touch-supporting touchscreen, but there is now a different time set for mouse.
    12. Fixed a few typos in the loading screen’s text messages.
    13. Doubled the animation speed of Light Tiles.
    14. How the first couple of microgames are selected is a lot less random. If the player’s best score is below 15, they will always be served with a predetermined order of microgames. If they score higher than or equal to 15, the first 10 microgames are those that either have low number of plays, or a low rate of winning.
    15. Fixing "Clone of:" label not being translated properly in Pig Latin (fun fact: the language’s purpose is to confirm our localization script works).
    16. The speed-up is calculated differently. It’s a little easier in the beginning, but gets harder towards the end.
    Let us know what you think of the changes!
     
  48. japtar10101

    japtar10101

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    [Cross-posted from Omiya Games]

    We have a short update for Not a Clone this weekend. Since last weekend, we’ve started working on implementing suggestions and fixing bugs reported by beta testers. One of those is improving the tutorial. You may recall the old tutorial, which looked like this:




    A few testers had pointed out it was difficult to tell that they had to tap on a specific button when this finger appeared. Our new tutorial uses a spotlight effect to bring focus to specific buttons:



    Another tester pointed out they never knew they could tap on the Lucky Coin. As a response, we’ve added a tutorial for the rare coin as well.



    We’ll have more of these small-but-important fixes in the upcoming stream next Tuesday, but if you’d like to see how we implemented the features above, we have a Youtube video below:
     
  49. japtar10101

    japtar10101

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    [Cross-posted from Omiya Games]

    Apologize for the silent treatment these last two weeks. As some of you may have noticed, last week, we've updated the demo with the following changes:

    1. Adjusting how the first couple of microgames are selected.
    2. Updating sound effects for...
      1. 8
      2. Ridiculous Pinatas
      3. Bun Ninja
    3. Changing how the microgame's background music play. It will cut-off if you've succeeded or failed in the middle of it.
    4. Making Ridiculous Pinatas bounce less off the invisible walls
    5. Adding a cat on the loading screen.
    But let's get to the meat of things: when are we going to get a release date for Not a Clone? After all, we've been saying we're nearly done with major features in the game; it's got to be soon, right?

    In short, our answer is: "when it's done." We strive to provide the best experience we can to our players, and while the game is insanely close to completion, we still have a few more mundane and/or private housework to do. Future updates on this project will remain low-key until we have everything ready. As such, we do not have plans to live-stream the Not a Clone development next Tuesday.

    Thank you for your patience!
     
  50. japtar10101

    japtar10101

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    [Cross-posted from Omiya Games]

    Hello, everyone! Back again with a new update! A new demo version, version 1.4.0, was just released, with one new feature: quicker transitions. Once the player has shown adeptness with a microgame, the game will jump right to the objective (as depending on the microgame, it may change), shortening the transition from one microgame to another by about 30%. To get a better understanding of how that feels, this is how slow the transitions are for beginning players:



    And this is how fast the transition will be for more skilled players:



    As usual, here is the list of changes with the latest build:

    1. Shortening the transition from one microgame to another as demonstrated above.
    2. Updating Practice to always show the gesture the first 3 games, then skip to the objective for the rest of the games.
    3. Creating minor improvements to the graphics on the WebGL builds.
    4. Adjusting the condition on when the inverted instructions starts appear. They kick-in a little after the shorter transitions kick-in.
    5. Improving the music-to-sound-effect balancing on a couple of microgames.