I agree that an instructions option at the beginning would be good. I can also work on a better introductory window that will grab attention for the game.

Quote:
It would be nice if you could indicate which of the graphics are done and which of them are currently missing or worked on, so it's clear where we can comment on. Like it's fairly obvious that the "main menu" needs some polishing, but I suppose this isn't ready yet.
Some sprites (the fish for instance) have a noticeable artifacts around the border: try using an alpha layered PNG, vectorize the original image or use a mask layer for transparency. I like the "obvious" parallax for the style, but it would be nice if the ground and wave graphics would tile better horizontally.
Lowering the alpha for the fish nets to make them somewhat transparent could be nice (not sure, you'll have to test it out).

• All-in-all, most people react well to the graphics. Only negative comments I've seen so far has been on elements that I know will be fixed.

Music

Quote:
The music is really great for the setting of the game. They match really well. The addition of sound effects would be nice though. Just going from the music played during the game to the menu music is not all that great you need some sort of sound effect for when you die. And a different sound effect depending on wether you get caught by a net or a hook.

Quote:
Some sound effects perhaps, like the sound of air bubbles floating up?

• I believe we have a big load of sound effects being added shortly? Dunno if bubbles floating up is a part of this though.
• Haven't heard nothing but kind words about the compositions and effects so far. Be proud!

Controls

Quote:
Once I figured the controls I got stuck everywhere because of the collisions with the net. I felt frustrated, stuck where the second net is, and stopped playing after a couple of tries (which I guess is not what you want).

Quote:
It took me a frustratingly long time to figure out the controls (i.e. click to move up!). At first, I thought it was the arrow keys, then I thought maybe it was moving the mouse up/down. Then, I noticed that the fish moved when I pressed the mouse button down, but with that knowledge I could only get it to jump out of the water for some reason! I don't think the controls are intuitive at all.

Quote:
It's a very simple game, yet you could include some instructions. Like how you have to press the mouse button to float up or exit the credits screen. You could also allow alternate controls, like the arrow up key or space bar.

• We might want to consider doing something about the controls. I still feel like this game should simply be kept to the mouse alone, and that it should only include pressing one button, but I've been thinking that maybe we should change the effect of the clicking.
• Suggested change: How about if we make the fish just bounce up a bit when pressing the left mouse button, making the player a bit more engaged in the game, as he'll have to continuously press the left mouse button with precision in order to jump high at the right places, or slip in between a tight area.
• In any case, we definately need a quick introductionscreen that tells you simply and quickly what the controls at your disposal are. There's nothing worse than wondering if there might be any other controls you can use to your benefit, forcing you to press every button at the keyboard looking for it…

Difficulty

Quote:
It's a little too easy. For instance, you can just keep "crawling" on the ground and occasionally press the mouse button to finish the level.

Addictiveness

Quote:
Its not addicting at all. It amy get a little more addicting once you add a high score board, but only for people that a really competitive and try and be #1. I would recommend giving the player a new kind of fish for each level.

Quote:
Fairly low, you need to make the game play more interesting without making it too difficult to play for a casual gamer. You could make static objects that the player has to swim around but which will not attack him like coral or a sunken ship. Perhaps you can pick up items on your way for extra points. Maybe "live" enemies that move, making it more challenging to avoid them (sharks, harpoons, etc.).

• We already had features like this in mind right? I believe the small fish for the bigger one to catch was already a decided part of the concept, right?
• Having a highscore count and board would also definately aid in this issue, and I believe this is also an already planned addition, taken into account.

Awareness

Quote:
I read it but mostly because Im a curious person. It looked pretty boring. If you add a scrolling option and something happening in the back groud like a reef, bubbles, and to help get the point across to the reader fish getting caught in nets and on hooks. Just if you add bubbles put them on the sides of the screen where there isn't any text to read. Also put the fish getting caught above the text. If its behind the text it will be distracting. For the text box put it at the bottom of the screen with the backgroud a reef.

Quote:
No, I didn't bother to read the notes. To counter that, you may want to consider a splash screen with the text automatically scrolling by. The text shouldn't be as short as possible while still long enough to get the message across. Scrolling the will make the text looks less daunting as you will only see so many words at a time. If you have time, you may even consider an animation to communicate the message.
Maybe this has to do with unfinished graphics, but the font should be much bigger to allow people with less than perfect eyes to read it.

• He might be right about the font, but as for other changes, I think we should wait untill the game is more or less finished according to our original concept, as I think people will read more as long as it simply looks really good.

Length

• Not really a need for comments on this point untill the game is nearing completion, with all levels included.

Bugs and oddities

The bounding box issue is extremely annoying. You should just have a very thin box for the entrance of the net and leave the rest of it untouched (because I don't see how you can get caught in the net unless you go through the opening).

Quote:
Also, collision detection (e.g. for the net) could use some work!

Quote:
"Like when you swim just close to a fishing net, but get caught anyway."
Exactly that. The collision detection should be more forgiving: currently, it feels "unfair", which is annoying and frustrating for players.

• So, is it possible to make our collision detection more "forgiving"?
• Possible to make only the entrance of nets dangerous, letting the fish swim over the backside where there is no hole in, making it look like he's swimming on the side of the net.

Quote:
I kept the mouse button pressed and I was stuck at the top jumping…

• Sounds like a bug to me. Anyone else encountered this?

Miscellaneous

Quote:
Other than that, the game just needs some more speed and a bit more variation. Also, some sort of collectible point system would be nice and you could think about putting some above water and adding some seagull enemies.

• The speed, also as I've mentioned before, is something I think we should consider looking into, but it's not an important issue in my opinion. It comes more down to how the levels are made.
• We're already planning to add collectibles.
• Let's not think about seagulls or any other misc enemies untill the game is completely finished. Stick with the boats for now.

Quote:
It's unclear to me how the final score is determined.

• I presume this will be solved with a hichscore counter later, right? I guess we also need graphics for this.

Quote:
Add a "replay" button, so the player can restart the game without having to go to the main menu.

• This goes into my previous suggestion about letting the player continue from the level where he last died.

http://www.gamedev.net/community/forums/topic.asp?topic_id=474576

Edit:

I had some ideas on different modes:

Highscore mode:
YOu get to choose wherever you want to start, and you play for as long as you live, one life only.

Explorermode:
You play from the start, wand whenever you finish a level you'll get a password you can use to start directly from there next time / if you die, you go back to the latest beaten level.

Just got the e-mail with the other backgrounds, and they look stunning! I'm still a bit confused as to which artist is doing what exactly, so if you two could please list what you've done so far, and what you plan to do / are working with, that would be great.

Perhaps we need a "you lose" and "you win" cue?
- Up to the composers. Got time to spare?

How about more slates: Title, next stage
, you win, you lose, continue?, ect. Are we still going to put in a menu screen?
- I would at the very least like to see a nice openingscreen.

A game play issue that might need to be looked at: Right now when playing the fish can get caught if the enemy object (hooks or nets) touches any part of the fish, even if the fish is pretty much past the obstacle. Can this be tweaked? As it plays right now, it feels a little artificial.
- Yes, I've commented on this earlier, and I really hope we can tweak it a little bit. I hate going "what the? I didn't even touch that net!"
Another game play issue is not having an icon to show where your mouse is pointed. I think having something like this will help players control the fish better.
- Again, I agree. I think there should be a tiny simply thing, maybe like a bubble or something, or maybe a shrimp or some other kind of bait for the fish to chase after, hehe.

Any thoughts to having multiple lives? We can create fish icons or do the standard Fish X number of lives left approach. What about continues? There could be "power ups" of sorts where extra lives can be won, extra continues given or the player can have invulnerability for a short period. Much like the standard arcade coin-ops our of youth! I think all of these things can help make this game a better, more addictive playing experience.
- I'm not really for having multiple lives, here's what I think it should be like: Once you finish a level, you could continue on that level once you die. However, you loose your highscore. So those who just want to enjoy the game can quite easily play all the way through and see all the infoscreens without much hassle, while those chasing for a high highscore has to make it through without a single death.

Finally I think having a progress bar that shows how far the fish has to go through the level might be cool too. This way players know they are getting close to the finish line. In later, harder levels this can also help create tension because the player is having to work really hard to get through the level.
- Maaaaybe, but let's not get too complicated here. Could be just as easy to mention how many levels there are and how long they all last, saying it in some kind of manual or something in the opening screen.

Joseph, I'll get to your comments later (and hopefully with a better browser. This IE version is getting killed by Wikidot…).

Sure Ben! Just click the "Code" link to the right, play through the demo a couple of times (see if you can finish it) and give us any kind of feedback you can come up with.

For instance:
- Difficulty.
- Factor of enjoyment.
- Bugs (or weird deaths etc., like "huh? what killed me?)

There are still some visuals that have yet to be added, so commenting on that in perticular might be futile.

• I needed to download Flash so add link to: http://www.adobe.com/shockwave/download/download.cgi?P1_Prod_Version=ShockwaveFlash
• I found maneuvering difficult at first and you should have instructions. Directions to play the game need to be very specific and detailed.
• It could be fun to have some sort of food source that the tuna has to eat.
• Are you planning on having a high score section or is that not an option?
• It would also be neat to have a page for more information where there is a screen capture of the game that when folks mouse over the different game elements they will get a brief description, photo of the real thing, video maybe, statistics, etc…
• How about a page with description of gear that caught you
• The nets are too sensitive. Even the slightest touch (or not touching them at all) will "catch" you.
• Needs a running score display.
• Food for restoring energy.
• What about multiple lives?
• Can we have all gear interactions in the middle?
• More detail to the nets and the animals in them
• Switch fish at each level and identify the fish. That way the people will actually possibly learn which fish are endangered.
• Do the nets look like that in real life? I get caught in the net even if I feel I've avoided it (seems like the algorithm for figuring out whether I'm caught is a bit off).
• Fix the purse seine net to be cylindrical
• Add a recreational fishing boat?
• More bycatch in nets, not grey but full color
• Change the coloring of the bluefin to make it brighter and realistic, more blue and silver and less gray
• Make all of the graphics more realistic with depth and detail
• Is there anyway the link to the game could be downloaded for people to put on their myspace or facebook accounts?
• Change “Overfish Extreme” to “Ocean Survivor”
• Once I get past the second level, the game ends. Is there a third level? If the second is the end, there should be a congratulations screen.

It's Ben. Hows life in Chile?
Do you need people to do beta-testing? It sounds like a fun project, and I regret not knowing about it earlier.

Ben

Matthew is usually only able to work on this during the weekends, so I'd like to try and get all of the comments together mid-week. Ideally we can make some assignments and get everything done by Friday to send to Matthew to incorporate.

-Joseph

Perhaps we need a "you lose" and "you win" cue?

Visuals

How about more slates: Title, next stage, you win, you lose, continue?, ect. Are we still going to put in a menu screen?

Gameplay

A game play issue that might need to be looked at: Right now when playing the fish can get caught if the enemy object (hooks or nets) touches any part of the fish, even if the fish is pretty much past the obstacle. Can this be tweaked? As it plays right now, it feels a little artificial.

Another game play issue is not having an icon to show where your mouse is pointed. I think having something like this will help players control the fish better.

Any thoughts to having multiple lives? We can create fish icons or do the standard Fish X number of lives left approach. What about continues? There could be "power ups" of sorts where extra lives can be won, extra continues given or the player can have invulnerability for a short period. Much like the standard arcade coin-ops our of youth! I think all of these things can help make this game a better, more addictive playing experience.

Finally I think having a progress bar that shows how far the fish has to go through the level might be cool too. This way players know they are getting close to the finish line. In later, harder levels this can also help create tension because the player is having to work really hard to get through the level.

Overall, fantastic work!!

Music

• It's annoying when you hear the wonderful backgroundmusic while looking at the "you loose" screen, then you press "main menu", and it starts from the beginning again, same track.
• I'd love for some slightly smoother musicchanges. I mean, like when you press "start game". Make the music fade out a bit maybe then go into the in-game music?
• The transition from when you loose to when you go back to the menu works very nicely though.
• As for the quality of the music, I couldn't be happier. I don't know how to put the right words on what I feel when I'm hearing these tracks, but they just make me feel right, I can tell you that for sure!

Visuals

• The blue background looks astonishing, blending very nicely in with the lightbeam effects. Nice!
• What's up with the dirt-bottom and the waves? Why these obvious straight lines?
• The fish looks very good and has a nice animation. Only thing that bothers me are those obvious white lines around it.
• The design of the boats and their nets is great, but the appearance I have to admit looks just average. I would like to see a little bit more detail put into those if it's possible.
• Also see my comment about the "longlines" further down.
• I would love to see a small splash effect to go along with the sound when the fish jumps out and back into the water!

Gameplay

• The tiny fish for bonuspoints will be there at some point I hope? Also, without a highscore pointer at the top, there's little point in playing a game like this.
• I think the "longlines" should have more than one hook. It could vary of course, and shouldn't be made too hard.
• A thing that annoyed me about the nets is that you can still get caught by them even though you've swam past the opening. I guess you can still get caught in nets because you can get tangled in, but these nets don't have that kind of appearance, yet(?). I'm guessing it's easier to make the entire picture dangerous, so this might rather be something to improve visually.
• On the credits screen, the only artist credited is David. I believe Daniel has also done some significant work? (Sorry, but exactly what is beyond me).
• Maybe it's just me, but I feel like the game is going a bit too slow. Maybe consider putting the obstacles further away from eachother and adding to the speed instead?

That's it for now. Two freakishly huge thumbs up to everybody for work very well done so far!

I think this would be a good time to start inviting people to the website in order for them to test out the game and provide us with a great load of feedback via the forums or in e-mail to me (or to Matthew should he agree to place his e-mail in public).

I've made it impossible for non-team members to edit any of the pages of this site, and all the content of this site is also protected under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 License, however, some of you might want a more strict license?
Besides the license issues, I can't think of any other reasons why we shouldn't make the site and it's content official at his point, but maybe you can tell me otherwise?

I'm leaving for Santiago for two weeks on December 3rd, so it would be very nice if we could settle this before that time, so that I may get the thread posted and let the feedback flow while I'm away.

Hey. Again, I'd like to apologize for my absence these crucial last days, but it I simply drew the shortest straw; can't do anything about it besides doing my darndest to get some online time now and then.

So I'm wondering, do we have what we need now to patch together a playable game? Keep in mind, that we don't have to publish the game on other websites right away, we could always just start with putting it on OceanLegacy's website, where we could keep updating it untill it's completely done, at which point we could start putting it on several other big gamingsites to gain more attention.

To begin with, just to have something to show for, we just need one finished level of gameplay! It's that easy. As soon as we have that, the promotion for the game and furthermore the promotion for the campaign can begin. On OceanLegacy's site, the most important thing is to get the word out about a game having been made for the good cause, as there are no requirements to a game there, unlike the online games sites.

Oh, and Nathan and Catherine, please do your best to cooperate and comment on eachother's pieces, for it's very hard for the rest of us to comment properly on how to make it any better.

Good luck everyone, keep it up. We can get there!

"If it helps, I'll be happy to get you more and better pictures of the nets, hooks and gear."
- Don't ask, just do it ;)

Link -> http://www.yuntaa.com/FileManager/Download.aspx?ContentID=3F127E4590DCE621E040A8C003020501

I'll try not completely disappear, but don't count on me being able to pull many strings during this period. Will keep you updated.

I've been in correspondence with Matthew, who has told me that there will be 5 to 10 levels in the game, requiring approximately one minute of music each ("level music"). So, I still have some questions:

Do we know that there will be at least five levels? If so, I can hand over some music assignments to Nathan.

Does the music need to loop? (I assume the answer is yes, but I'd just thought I'd confirm that.)

Is there a way for me to post some samples on this site? I think for now I'll just email everyone an MP3 of what I have so far.

Not to complain, but composing is a lot of work, and I want to make sure that what I write gets used in the game. So the more perameters and specifics you can give me, the better.

Thanks.

Charlotte

The obsticals just simply collide with the player (as far as the code is concerned). They can "drift" around if we need them to.

Joseph:

We also decided that the final list of bad guys are the purse seine net boat at the top, the longliner with its hooks in the middle, and the bottom trawler on the ocean floor. There would also be ghost nets floating randomly.

Has it also been decided how all of these obstacles actually work in-game? Like, how will/have Matthew implemented them? In what way will the player be able to avoid these dangers.

I'm working on the level music. How long does the level music need to be? Please let me know! I'm assuming my composition may need a bit of tweaking once you hear it, so I'll try to get a draft to you (Joseph, Erlend, Matthew, Nathan). I can email it, although maybe it's better to post it on the forum. Any idea how I do that?

Once the level music has been established, then the rest of the compositions (end/start/game over music) can be created, based generally on what the level music sounds like.

Thanks!

Charlotte

1) know what type of animations are in the game

2) be able to tell what sounds will work and then sync them up with the visuals.

How close are we to a playable version of this game?

Thanks,

Nathan

I'd like for the graphics of the background, fish, and fishing boats to be as realistic as possible, for educational purposes. In terms of their movement, the only one that might be more complex would be the purse seine which encircles the fish. If that's complicated or would take more time, then just make it move in a single direction like the others.

We decided to stick with a single fish, which gets bigger over time making the game more difficult.

We also decided that the final list of bad guys are the purse seine net boat at the top, the longliner with its hooks in the middle, and the bottom trawler on the ocean floor. There would also be ghost nets floating randomly.

I think that's what we've agreed on, although we've never discussed this together at one time. Am I missing anything?

I'm hoping this will be simple and meet all of our goals for the game.

By the way, I spoke with our webmaster and he wants to promote your websites as part of the game. If thousands of people play the game, I think that would be good. This last weekend I was at a conference of 3500 environmental student leaders from across the US, and 175 groups wanted to help us get comments. I think a good game would reach thousands of students and probably catch overseas with all of the international students. I met one Chinese student from UVA. Can you imagine if this caught on in China!?

Anyway, talk to you soon.

-Joseph

Sorry for the late reply. I'll be dedicating a lot more of my time to this forum and project in general now in order to reach the new desired deadline, November 30th.

I whole-heartedly agree with this suggestion, and I'm ready to put aside all other side-projects and other small timespenders just to see this project to the end. I think we would all like to see this project finish as quickly as possible. After all, we can always get together to create a sequel, then probably with much less work and bumps in the road, especially from a programming point of view.

So what do you think? Shall we say November 30th, full focus, and get this done with for the sake of the good cause and it's willingly contributing participants?

• Animations - will we be using bitmap/frame based animations, or SWF animations?
  • Should we decide on a common format for all animations? ( SWF or jpg/png/gif)
• Should be decide on a common format for backgrounds? (jpg/png/gif)

Some other questions still stand, concerning all of us (I'm in the progress of creating some picture-suggestions):

• What would be an ideal background?
• What exactly should a fishingnet, a longline etc. look like and do in this game? All suggestions are welcome.

• Are we still considering additional fish species for the players to control? If so, which ones?

• What's the final list on 'bad guys'?

A: ?

860kb - http://www.weebly.com/uploads/5/1/1/7/51171/boatsbg.rar

I would be highly appreciated if everyone could try and imagine how they see these different reference images being used as in-game obstacles. Obviously, they can't just be put right in there, seeing as the game in only 2D, so most of these obstacles need to come with a different approach. So write a comment, make a sketch, anything helps! Also special type of challenges will be appreciated.

"In other news", I'll be away for a whole week starting this wednesday. I'm pretty sure I'll be more or less completely without internet access. Once I get back I'll start putting more work into getting the levels designed, hopefully with the help of your input on this matter.

I'd love to score one of the themes but I agree with Charlotte about needing to see some of the actual game first. I'll also need that for the SFX I'm going to design. I'm also sorry that I've been distant for the past week or so.

Thanks,

Nathan

As for the graphics situation as-is, I'm currently working on some simple sketches that I'm hoping will make for some new ideas and directions for how exactly this game will play out along with all the boats, nets and whatnots. I felt it was necessary to create a new board, where the artists (both audio and graphic) could collaborate. So anything related to art from now on, along with this topic, should be directed to the new board. See here for the new graphics requirements thread. (moving wasn't possible).

• Animations - will we be using bitmap/frame based animations, or SWF animations?
  • Should we decide on a common format for all animations? ( SWF or jpg/png/gif)
• Should be decide on a common format for backgrounds? (jpg/png/gif)

Some other questions still stand, concerning all of us (I'm in the progress of creating some picture-suggestions):

• What would be an ideal background?
• What exactly should a fishingnet, a longline etc. look like and do in this game? All suggestions are welcome.

The 24th of October I'll be going on a week long trip, returning 2nd of November. During this time, I strongly doubt I'll have much, if any internet access. Right now however I'm away from school due to a minor cold (yes, a cold is all it is, and I'm probably fine tomorrow, but my parents here as well as the doctors see it utterly imperative that I'm stuffed with meds and stay away from school this week…) so I'll be able to dedicate a lot of my time to this project before I take a leave of absence for a week.

This is also why I'd love to see a demo ready at least before the 24th, because then I could set up an announcement about the testing, and I'd have a lot of feedback to review once I return, to see if there's any perticular last-minute changes we should consider applying to the game before wrapping it all up nice and neat…

However, that music isn't quite as stressing as I'd like ours to be. There's not really a big issue of time in Donkey Kong, which allows the music to go along slowly and peacefully. I'd like to see a similar approach, just at a more rapid pace.

The level-music however

I know we already have some graphics created, but it seems they haven't been put into the game yet. So this question remains to be answered properly by Matthew and David.

Also, according to what Phyxx wrote in the music thread, we need:

• start screen music
• level music
• end level
• Game over music

Please let me know how long each track should be… Nathan, you and I can talk about what tracks you may want to do.

It would really help to have some visuals from the actual game. That way I can get a sense of its character.

So perhaps this should have been posted in the music thread, but it is kind of related to the impending deadline. The sooner you can give me feedback, the sooner I can get it done. Sorry, I've been kind of out of touch the last few days, but some other projects came up.

Also, is there a more current version of the game that we can view? I assume the one on the Code page is the same one available at an earlier point?

Thanks!

Charlotte

First of, kudos to everyone, especially Matthew, on the rapid progress!

Now, I have a few things to comment on, even though I know perfectly well that we're not in the last stages yet I figured we might as well get as many issues out in the open as early as possible:

Point of crash

If there's one thing I just hate about most flashgames, it's that the images' crashpoint/physical shape doesn't match the actual image, and especially the sharks in the demo act in this manner. I'd like this game to be as accurate as possible when it comes to this. Just get it as good as it gets, and when perfect is impossible, just make sure to always make the point of crash smaller than the picture, instead of bigger. I would much rather see my fish swim right past/through a small piece of dangerous looking fishingnet, instead of getting caught in something that isn't there…

Movement

I also feel a tad uncomfortable with the way the fish moves. I feel like it accelerates too slowly, and once it starts picking up speed, it goes almost too fast. I'd like to see the acceleration happen more quick and smooth, and the descent should be one constant speed, with possibly a small aceleration at the start.

Concept idea:

I was playing with the idea of having two modes:

Highscore mode:
You get to choose wherever you want to start (which level), and you play for as long as you live.

Explorer mode:
You play from the start, and whenever you finish a level, you'll get a password that you can use to start directly from there next time.

Big fantasy:
What if we made the game really, I mean really, hard at the end, and let the five first players who finishes it send the finish-password to Ocean Legacy, and receive a free T-shirt/cap or something?..
The password could be randomized, but follow a certain pattern, like a CD-key does, so that one guy who beats the game can't just give four of his mates the password for five free caps…
Concern: Is it possible to somehow (easily) hack the game in order to locate such a password?

Can we do it?

On the matter of the animated fish, if it isn't being done in vector then you could jsut use a hardedged brush to remove the white edge.

However, to answer your question, the water background is 272 pixels high (and however wide - the image just loops). The cloud background will need to be around 150 pixels high (and again just loops horizontally).

Keep them separate for now, we can always make them one image later if needed.