We spent the last two weeks asking a bunch of questions. What is the game missing? Is there really ever going to be a cure for male pattern baldness? Was that sandwich that I just ate from the fridge mine? No matter! You’re not interested in our thoughts, you’re interested in our progress!
FILEBROWSER: We’ve fixed the bug that forgets the last folder you visited. Sorry about that!
LEVEL CREATION: WHHHHHHHAT? Yes. Everyone has started putting their fingers into the pie that is level design over here. We thought, why not you too? We added City 5, and kept the uncompiled version of the file in there for you to mess around with it. Perhaps you’ll discover something that we haven’t. If you’re afraid of level design, or programming, or the possibility to change the world, then you can just play the level. As is. Without making it more awesome. That’s cool too.
To promote the launch of level creation, we’re going to give away an extra copy of the game to the first five creators that post a video of their level.
We spent the last two weeks asking a bunch of questions. What is the game missing? Is there really ever going to be a cure for male pattern baldness? Was that sandwich that I just ate from the fridge mine? No matter! You’re not interested in our thoughts, you’re interested in our progress!
FILEBROWSER: We’ve fixed the bug that forgets the last folder you visited. Sorry about that!
LEVEL CREATION: WHHHHHHHAT? Yes. Everyone has started putting their fingers into the pie that is level design over here. We thought, why not you too? We added City 5, and kept the uncompiled version of the file in there for you to mess around with it. Perhaps you’ll discover something that we haven’t. If you’re afraid of level design, or programming, or the possibility to change the world, then you can just play the level. As is. Without making it more awesome. That’s cool too.
To promote the launch of level creation, we’re going to give away an extra copy of the game to the first five creators that post a video of their level.
July 3rd, 2013 -- Ugly Baby Update -- /es4H81Qj
Michael here! This update is filled with things that you guys have been asking for, so I hope you’re happy! (When I read that line to myself, the voice is a guilt-tripping grandmother. I really don’t mean it like that, though.)
FILEBROWSER: ID3 support. Song duration. Scrollbars. Mouse wheel support. CAN YOU CONTAIN YOURSELF?
NEW MENU: I’ve done a quick overhaul of the main menu. It’s still a long way from complete, but this should alleviate some of the resolution issues users were having with smaller resolutions. This will be evolving in look and feel over time, but it’s the start on my thoughts of how Azumi will interact with data before and after her jumps.
BUG FIXES: We’ve hopefully fixed some issues with Beatbox and PCG that was breaking level loading for some of you. Try the game out again and let us know if you’re back in the action. I also snuck a little optimization in there when Dave and Ichiro weren’t looking.
With this update, there are no immediate changes to gameplay or level creation. We’re planning on hunkering down for the next few weeks to try some different gameplay ideas that we’ve been cooking up. Many of them are inspired by the amazing conversation that’s been going on, so keep on talking to us!
As always, tell us what you love, what you hate, and what third question I should have finished this post with.
July 3rd, 2013 -- Ugly Baby Update -- /es4H81Qj
Michael here! This update is filled with things that you guys have been asking for, so I hope you’re happy! (When I read that line to myself, the voice is a guilt-tripping grandmother. I really don’t mean it like that, though.)
FILEBROWSER: ID3 support. Song duration. Scrollbars. Mouse wheel support. CAN YOU CONTAIN YOURSELF?
NEW MENU: I’ve done a quick overhaul of the main menu. It’s still a long way from complete, but this should alleviate some of the resolution issues users were having with smaller resolutions. This will be evolving in look and feel over time, but it’s the start on my thoughts of how Azumi will interact with data before and after her jumps.
BUG FIXES: We’ve hopefully fixed some issues with Beatbox and PCG that was breaking level loading for some of you. Try the game out again and let us know if you’re back in the action. I also snuck a little optimization in there when Dave and Ichiro weren’t looking.
With this update, there are no immediate changes to gameplay or level creation. We’re planning on hunkering down for the next few weeks to try some different gameplay ideas that we’ve been cooking up. Many of them are inspired by the amazing conversation that’s been going on, so keep on talking to us!
As always, tell us what you love, what you hate, and what third question I should have finished this post with.
June 10th, 2013 -- Live on twitch today and Ugly Baby Update -- What Year Is It?!
2 things:
1. At 2pm EST/ GMT-4 we will be on Twitch talking about the latest build and our new Twitch integration
2. New build! This is an interesting build! So interesting, we didn’t want to hold it from you any longer. There are a *lot* of ideas cooking in here. If you’ve been following along on the blog, we spent a couple weeks crunching. There were a bunch of ups and downs, mostly downs … because we’re falling... that’s a BASE jumping joke guys, we had a great time.
NEW LEVELS: Dave and Ichiro have been working on tying music and level design together (see levels 3-1 and 4), making sure levels change over time so as to allay boredom (see level 3), and have added tutorials (levels 1 and 2).
STORY: Azumi Pentak, 27, Boston Sky. Only daughter of Gertrude Pentak and Azumi Azahi. Punched her musical jury and went into Machine Intelligence. Blind by birth. Hacks her vision.
TWITCH.TV: HOLY MOLY! NEW FANGLED TECHNOLOGY THAT LETS YOU STREAM RIGHT FROM THE GAME! NO EXTRA SOFTWARE NEEDED! We even put a neat catchphrase on the setup screen for them: “Sign Up. Login. Broadcast.” We should probably charge them for that. Give it a whirl: sign up with them at http://twitch.tv/, and login in the game to give it a try.
As always, tell us what you love, what you hate, and leave some links of your Twitch streams!
LIVE: Crunch Week
Starting yesterday and for the next 4 days, we will be crunching on Ugly Baby. That means Amy, Dave, Ichiro, Jonathan, Michael and Rohit all working on the game all the time.
We will attempt to stream some of the action on Twitch. Come by and check out the madness that is Indie game development. (ignore the DRP related title below)
Are you hungry? Amy apparently wants you to be. What’s that, you say? Staying away from the carbs? Well, hopefully this update is just as delicious.
GRAPHICAL USER INTERFACE: Michael went all crazy with the UI! Brand spanking new graphics to tickle your eyes. He’s a perfectionist, so he says he’s not done yet. How do you think it’s coming along? What can you figure out from it? What doesn’t make sense?
GAMEPLAY: A new stunt has joined buzzes and grooves, because they were getting lonely. Meet the NEEDLE! Can you figure out how to do it? Gameplay has changed slightly, so listen closely. Get near anything to buzz an object. Orient the world to your stomach (bottom of the screen), to groove. If you hit things, you damage your sensor. If your sensor’s damaged, you can’t do stunts! As your sensor detects stuff, you build up a score multiplier, so keep doing stunts!
VISUALIZER: Dave’s research continues to pay off. Play level one with some fast/heavy music. Dubstep, Rock, Death Metal, EDM. That’s all I’m sayin’.
We’d like to personally call out, the progress bar feature in this recent update was due in part to a user suggesting it. I’m an awful person and can’t remember who did originally, so if it was you, thank you, keep ‘em coming!
As always, tell us what you love, what you hate, and where you think Michael’s running off to next week. He won’t tell us.
April 26th, 2013 Ugly Baby Update -- 011110100110000101110000011001000110111101110100
Michael here, with some more updatey goodness to share with all of you. Check it out:
GAMEPLAY: Stunts have slightly changed. Buzzes now happen whenever you get close enough to any object, exactly how “kisses” worked in AAAAA! Grooves are now only rewarded if you pass by something on your stomach. Rotate with your mouse buttons and orient yourself before you... disorient yourself.
INPUT: We’ve changed how rotation works and feels in the game. How’s it feel to you now?
LEVELS: Dave updated levels 2, 4, 5 and 6. He’s created a new algorithm that blends the patterns that are created based on the stress of the music. This means that similar sections of a song should look similar within the game. Check these levels out again, you’ll find they’re quite a new experience now.
ARTWORK: Jon’s been working hard on some illustrations of our main character. I’ve been working on mockups for the new UI. Check them out here:
Lastly, we think we have fixed the decompression issue a small percentage of users were having. Those who were affected previously, and could not seem to decompress any music, please let us know if this resolves your issue.
As always, tell us what you love, what you hate, and what other awesome indie games we should be playing this weekend.
April 3rd, 2013 Ugly Baby Update -- BROWSINGDIRTY
Howdy! PAX and GDC were fantastic and we loved the opportunity to meet with many of our beautiful fans. While the past two weeks were busy, we managed to whip up something for everyone. Dropping the deets:
* PERFORMANCE: We had a few users that needed to kick their resolution down, otherwise the game would stop generating the level at some point in the song. There have been a few important changes that should let you kick the game up a notch. If this previously affected you, please let us know how the game is playing now -- we now consistently hit 60FPS on Dave's AMD Turion II X2 M500/ATI Mobility Radeon HD 4570.
* FILE BROWSER: Michael got this amazing idea: let players browse their folders on their drives to get to their music, rather than force you to copy into a folder we specify. So, that’s in.
* VISUALS: We made some visualizer updates and tweaks for PAX, you now have those in the cities.
* ANALYSIS: Andy was able to make another improvement to BeatBox, our song analysis tech. This means songs that we’ve previously cached the analysis, the game will need to re-run it. This update helps us *much* more accurately detect beats for slower/less stressful music.
* FRIENDS: We've been including music from indie studios Fire Hose Games, 82 Apps, Part 12, Hybrid Mind, and more. What do you like, and who else do you want to hear?
As always, tell us what you love, what you hate, and your favorite way to eat potatoes.
March 20th, 2013 Ugly Baby Update -- OHNOILOSTMYSPACEBARAGAIN
We’ve been continuing to integrate your feedback into the game. Here's the latest:
GAMEPLAY: We’ve taken two of our levels, and put you in control via the Genetics Lab. When you unlock cities Five and Six, you’re able to control the level's DNA via three variables: FATNESS, SPREAD and SALT. Take some screenshots or videos of what your levels look like; we’re looking forward to what you guys come up with.
FEEDBACK: We’ve temporarily replaced the proximity sensor (the big circle on the screen) with some pretty awesome particle effects that show up when you get close to stuff. We also added some popups to show you when and where you’ve done some stunts. How does it look?
VISUALS: Michael just finished laying the groundwork for a new background visualizer. At its very basic level, it allows us to easily animate the background color of the world as you’re flying through it. It also will let us create some animated and awesome background imagery to further enhance your experience. If you have any ideas for visualizers, please feel free to share them.
ANALYSIS: There was a last minute improvement to BeatBox, our song analysis tech. This update helps us *much* more accurately detect beats for EDM and bass-heavy songs.
One last thing: we’re playing with the idea of letting you rotate yourself within the world. Press the mouse buttons to rotate left or right. How does it feel? Do you think that’d be a fun addition for gameplay? We’ve got a few ideas we’re going to keep under our collective hats right now. Did you notice that Dave was wearing a hat in our video? He always does that.. what’s he hiding under there?
As always, tell us what you love, what you hate, and what you’re doing this weekend. (We’ll be at PAX East!)
