Magnetic By Nature | Steam Greenlight

Makkon

Hey guys, my friend is shipping her game and really wants it on steam! Let's help her out!

http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=236263227

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G116c9XB5fw

crazyfingers

Looks great, upvoted! Love the aesthetics, and the gameplay looks pretty darned good too. Simple but tight controls... Kick arse music to boot!

Bigjohn

Looks good. I'm pretty impressed. Voted for it.

Miss Wiggle

Thanks for the support, guys! It feels so good to get near the end of the dev process and see everything come together. It would be awesome to have it available on steam. I'm the art lead on the project and my team has been amazing to work with. Here's some more screenies to take a look at (and yes, we're still polishing things up to make it look even better).







http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=236263227

Bigjohn

I don't know if it makes sense to crit a game really. But you have this really neat 2D Art-Deco kind of style going on, but it doesn't come across too well in the screenshots. Like I can totally imagine the sunrays background from the main poster, also being in the background with the giant robot in that first pink screenshot.

Lamont

Will do when I get home. Looks nice!

Fomori

Love the style! Will vote when on my home machine.

ambershee

The art is awesome, but I feel the gameplay is lacking. There doesn't seem to be anything to the game other than pushing and pulling yourself towards magnets?

Miss Wiggle

You push and pull magnets, run and jump. Some magnets are dynamic (you can repel/attract them), while others are anchored (they effect you). It's a simple mechanic, but a strong one. More peripherally, you can use magnets to activate switches, and there are collectibles to gather.

It all comes down to good level design and how we use the mechanic. Just because a mechanic is simple doesn't mean the gameplay lacks. Dear Esther only lets you walk. Tetris only lets you rotate, move, and drop pieces from a pretty limited tile set. Mario is jumping with a hint of fireball tossing. I won't say my game is as tight or iconic as those games (not by a long shot), but many great games have been great not in spite of their simple mechanic, but because of it. It allows the design to become focused. We're still fairly new to the game dev scene (i've only been designing games since 2009) and we made a conscious choice to boil the mechanic down to its essence and cut the fluff. So far that has served us well. It's been tested by people from local studios (EA, Disney, Chair, Smartbomb, etc), and we've gotten a lot of really great feedback. It was enough for us to win the grand prize in a state-wide game design competition judged by industry professionals.

I don't want to seem too defensive in explaining myself--i love critique, I just feel the objection is an incomplete one. While our testing has gone very well, perhaps what is lacking isn't how solid our mechanic is, but how well that reads visually in still screenshots?

Anyway.... </pontification>

Bigjon: That is an excellent idea. Earlier versions of the game were more faithful to art deco than our current aesthetic (which I've started calling quazi deco, lol). I actually think that adding a rayburst in that particular zone would be easy enough and might add quite a lot. The robot you see in the screenshot is based directly off of art deco sculpture--bringing more deco influences is always a good thing. I'll definitely test out that suggestion.

ambershee

Don't worry - I'm not getting at you - I actually voted 'yes' before I saw the thread on Polycount. The game looks like a solid and polished experience. Focusing on a singular strong mechanic is certainly the approach I'd take. Personally though, I'm not sure there was enough in the trailer; the majority of it seemed to involve the player flinging themselves through (often trap laden) spaces. There were some hints of rigid bodies, with one being manipulated through a maze, and the player attracting a load to themselves for no apparently visible purpose.

I think from this kind of game, I'd expect new constructions, mechanics or challenges to subvert my expectations as the game progresses, but the trailer didn't suggest this would necessarily be the case. A game like N+ consists entirely of running, jumping and sliding down walls, but it does also offer increasingly varied challenges as you progress through the levels

Miss Wiggle

Good thoughts! Thanks for elaborating your perspective, that sort of feedback certainly does help. If anyone else has thoughts about their impressions of the trailer/screenshots/gameplay/whathaveyou, please do share. We've been working on this long enough that we're far too familiar with it and objective observations really help us to spot issues we have become blind to.

Makkon

You're still working on art assets, right? Is it too late to add some more of the radial sun rays motif to some of your backgrounds?

Habboi

Polycount contributed towards our greenlight so I'll repay the favour, here's another vote

low odor

:thumbup:

R5jobs

voted!

Miss Wiggle

Thanks guys!

Yes, the art assets are being "punched" (my word for making them shiny and awesome. Adding a rayburst is a very very simple thing. In fact, ima do it right now...*tests*...*makes a video cause why the hell not*...)

http://youtu.be/Kt81r2XyuB8

Bigjohn

Yeah, that looks good. It actually looks better than I thought. I hadn't noticed the parallax effect before. Adding another layer definitely pushes that more. I like the idea of it subtly pulsating.

I think it would be cool to extend that idea into the other backgrounds. Not sure about your time constraints, but it seems like not a big deal and it adds a lot. Shouldn't be too hard finding some art-deco element for each of the backgrounds.

Edit:
Did one just for fun. I see why you enjoy doing these. It's fun to do. I think it's a good way to add depth too.

Makkon

Yeah, that rayburst adds a ton to the composition. A lot more than I thought it would.

Makkon

I just found your musician. I'm stalking him SO HARD now.

People seem to underestimate how much music can add to a game. It can set the tone, pull you in, and tell a part of the story like no other part of the experience can.


I found only these two, can't wait to hear the full soundtrack.
https://soundcloud.com/lancemontgomery/magnetic-by-nature-bipolar-1
https://soundcloud.com/lancemontgomery/magnetic-by-nature-garden-romp

Miss Wiggle

Thanks! Lance has done some amazing work for us and is super nice. The music in our game has different layers that phase in and out, so every time you play the music should have a unique mix to it. I haven't worked too closely with sound, so I can't say much more about it, other than I'm super happy with the direction we've gone with our audio.

We're currently adding a lot of juice to the game; I'll update as soon as I get it captured. It's funny how experimental everything feels right up until the end.