It was always a hope to add animated cutscenes into the game. At one point I (developer Dave) had taken inspiration from Super Meat Boy and tried my hand at animating a scene using Synfig (an opensource Flash-like tool). That didn't work out well enough to go forward.
Karly MacDonald was asked to try her hand at a cutscene. She successfully created a test scene and I successfully integrated it into the engine, displaying it before Level 5 (factory boss fight). This scene never shipped with the Early Alpha tho, because I didn't want players to expect more of them until I knew for sure we could commit to them. While Karly did her job, the remaining scenes were canceled due to the looming unaffordable expense. You can see a video of it here:
https://youtu.be/D5AEZtKtJTQ
The cutscene worked, but the effort involved in just this little scene would have to be multiplied many times over to get a real story going.
COMIC BOOK
So... no cutscenes possible, but did we give up? No! Another approach was conjured up! What if we told the story in another fashion, instead of animated, we could have a series of pages and panels?
Ihor and I sat down over a series of meetings and discussed the feasibility of this plan. We decided we could do 10 pages over a course of two months, and thus we started on it. Ihor created an interested test page set to the pace of his own music:
Then Dave started storyboarding, which was far more difficult and agonizing than anticipated. It took a month of on/off sketching to get a semi-acceptable storyboard. Even then, we changed and tweaked the storyboard as we went and decided to add more pages to flesh out the story a bit more. Finally we ended up with a 15 page comic book that we have finished this week!
COLLECTING THE PAGES
As you move Patchman about the game world, you have the opportunity to find each page of the comic book, collect them, and complete the entire set.
PLOT TWISTS AND SHOCKERS
You may be thinking: "But don't I already know the whole story of Patchman? Didn't you write it out?" Yes, you know the gist of it, but not the details, and what's more important, you don't know the source of the whole plan behind the Drones and control of the Sheeple, the origin of Patchman, and more epic plot twists that we won't even hint at here.
As you collect the final pages, the story will tie together, bits and pieces of the game you may have thought were trivial take on relevance, and the full meaning behind the title of the game will make sense.
Furthermore, the comic is only what happened BEFORE the game takes place. So there are more surprises in store as you continue on through the game, including the ending(s).
NO WORDS CAN SAY
And yet through all this there are no words in the game beyond the title screen and some explanatory menu labels. These are all available for translation to Unicode languages. We did experiment with adding captions to the comics, and we'll leave those as an Easter egg that you can enable by entering a secret code. These can also be translated to other languages.
It has been extremely challenging to craft a game and story without using any words or sentences! We even worry if this will impact the game negatively, but it's one of the early artistic choices we made, and think it leaves room for contemplation and interpretation of the events. Also, after testing and receiving feedback for the comic, a fair share of people complained about the poorly written dialog, and a high majority agreed that the words weren't necessary as the pictures were enough to get the plot points across.
WHAT REMAINS
We still have a lot of work left to complete levels, bosses, integrate more art, endings, special effects, and sound. But we are getting so close to the end and release! "When exactly" is hard to predict as our lead/sole programmer Dave has limited time to work on this (not by choice). There are countless new features just waited to be shipped and played with...
Version Update: 0.40
We've pushed out a new update to the game today, and we are now at 0.40!
UPDATE 0.40a (Nov 6 2015):
- Quadrant Select Screen
- Checkpoints / Quick Respawns
- Difficulty Selection
- Updated Bear, Cub, Squirrel Art
- Level 1/5 Ending Changed
- One-Press Joystick Actions
- Game Mouse Cursor
- Level 2+3 Tweaks
- Waterfall Death
- Level Ratings (one point per difficulty)
- Dead Tree Animations
- Soil/Hoe Particle Effects
- Sheeple Brainwashing Effects
- Some more sounds
- Lots of small tweaks
Some major things still to come in the next update:
- Second Quadrant of (5) Levels
- Square Boss
- Cactus Plant
We had hoped to release the second quadrant with this update, but seeing as it's not quite ready (you can't kill the Square Boss yet) it is still worthwhile sharing all the new goodies in this release! Keep in mind that the first five levels will change, some will be moved, and some will/may be deprecated forever! So beat them while you can.
One major change is the ending of the first level. If you've already beaten this level, it is highly recommended you give it another go.
ːsteamhappyː
Windows Release Delayed
Windows Release Delayed
We regret to inform you that the Windows and OSX releases of Don't Be Patchman are not ready!
We had hoped/said that it would be available roughly a month after the initial Linux release. Now, we are not sure, and consider them delayed indefinitely, but at the same time, they could pop up at any moment! Often a daunting technical task like this turns out to be easier than expected, so who knows?
There are a number of reasons for this, so as the programmer (Dave) I will explain as best I can: the single biggest factor is that I have been short on time, and taken on a variety jobs to make ends meet, including stocking produce at a grocery store, washing dishes in a cafe, and building an engineering application for my father. Throw on top of that raising two children and you can see why time is tight. However, developing and completing this game remains my top creative priority, and I work on it every chance I get! The dilemma I face is: do I work on the game itself, or do I work on the supporting material, such as platform support, marketing, etc? I'm good at creating the game, not so much at the other areas. My current goal is to finish the second quadrant of the game before moving on to additional platform support. Otherwise my efforts are splintered, and it's best to focus on one chunk of tasks at a time.
Square Boss Preview:
Over the month of August+September not only did I work those three jobs but also updated the game's joystick code, added in new features like the level select screen, quadrant select screen, Steam achievements, alternate language support, keycards, level scores, new music licenses, bug fixes, and so on. I have to sacrifice a lot of things in life, like vacations, money, television, etc to make progress on this game. It might not look like it on the surface, but underneath it is very complex, with many interlocking parts that require focus and dedication to design and maintain. This game is my greatest creative passion in life - so it will be finished one way or the other! While the July goal of Early Access was met, technically, the final release looks like it could be delayed by months. We'll be providing Beta-level backers with keys in October as the estimated release for the beta has passed.
Fortunately, the game seems very stable: error reports are few and far between! We're in the middle of working on the next five levels and the Square Boss to top them off. Cutscenes are looking doubtful... they are just too expensive for our budget. They were a stretch goal for our crowdfunding that did not hit anyways. If we can procure enough funds through Steam via Early Access, then we can pay to have the cutscenes made. Even if we can do well in Final Release, we can retroactively add the cutscenes. Good news though, we have a new "Quadrant Select" screen that serves in telling a bit of the narrative, which you'll see in the next update.
Hang tight, Windows and OSX gamers, there are plenty of great games to play to tide you over, and Patchman will arrive on your desktop before you know it!
One last bit of news: Dave will be demoing "Don't Be Patchman" at the Retro Gaming Expo in Portland this weekend:
http://retrogamingexpo.com
Congratulations to the First Victory
We just want to give a quick shoutout to WriterOfAlicrow!
The first player - and ONLY player ...
to defeat...
the CIRCLE BOSS!!!
IN FACT:
The only player to beat the level BEFORE the Circle Boss.
What's that, wimps? Can't pass level four?
CAN'T EVEN GET TO LEVEL FOUR?
*shakes head in disappointment*
WELL CHEER UP, BECAUSE THIS GUY DID IT:
http://steamcommunity.com/profiles/76561198043364650
What lies within the circle boss?
What happens when the dome cracks?
What is revealed?
What could be inside that metal shell... and why?
Now that someone has finally beaten the Circle Boss,
we can move on to the Square Boss,
the next major villain to fight.
Other news to follow......
First Achievement and Joystick Improvements
Grab the first achievement while you can! It's a special limited-time one for you cool early adopters! All you have to do to get it is run the game and visit the main menu. We'll be unrolling a lot more achievements out in the near future, we've got a big batch of icons just waiting. Some will be very tricky to get! >)
Also included is much-improved joystick support. Please visit our joystick support thread if you have any troubles or want to learn more details:
http://steamcommunity.com/app/378410/discussions/1/530649887208671708/
Update: 0.35a
INCOMING PATCH: Level Select Screen
Shocked by the horrible level select screen that launched with the game?
Worry no more! Our new level screen is over one-thousand times better!
It still isn't finished, but it is light-years ahead of where we were before. We'll be adding more effects and graphical tweaks to the screen, plus achievement ratings on each level that unlock bonuses if you do well.
Also included in this patch are a number of glitch fixes and improvements.
PATCH #0.34a
Early Access Exclusive Linux Build for July
Welcome to our little Indie game!
The first build available will be Linux / SteamOS only. There will be no initial Windows or OSX support - but that will come in about a month. There seems to be a glitch with the store page, it says Minimum Windows System Requirements when it should not. We do have Windows builds made but they are not up-to-date so for the short-term we'd just like to focus on getting the Linux builds running smoothly.
The goal of this Early Access is to let people have a bit of fun playing the game before it is all polished up and finished. We've included five levels and one boss. Sounds small? Well, good luck beating the boss the first time around, if you can even get to it. ;)
There are three more bosses scheduled as well as Steam Achievements, Trading Cards, and Cloud Saves.
