Spark the electric jester - (DEMO v3 BETA)

[Sir Spacebar]



http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OjO2Zt7BD3c&feature=youtu.be

Sub 3:00, No powerups, semi-final destination

 

Also @Lake, is the music used here going to be placeholder? Or will it be part of the official soundtrack?

Edited September 7, 2014 by Sir Spacebar

[Reventador427SGTH]

@Sir Spacebar

Good speedrun, but you can still improve. Watch my speedrun challenges at TheReventadorChannel and you might find paths and patterns that you missed.

My best time, on the older demo, is 2:24.

Did you know that the gloves and the bat deal much more damage to bosses?

Take advantage of the zerospin of the bat to quickly build the rage bar, then fire a raged charge shot.

[LakeFeperd]

I've been working on some graphical updates on the first stage:

 

 

And i've started doing some work on some new and bigger enemies and one of those will be added to the first stage's "ACT 2". Yeah, the first stage has a second part to it that was not available on the demo.

 

@Sir Spacebar
Yes and no. It is part of the original soundtrack, but it's also a placeholder. 

@Serephim

Do I want spark to be a thing? Well, that question is quite irrelevant at this point. When i said i was making this game for you guys i didn't said i wanted to please everyone, you guys are, in fact, a very small but core target audience for me. The reason why ATS was so popular was that it was pretty good for the people here and that made it spread around other pages to finally arrive at popular sites such as kotaku. The same thing did not happen with Chrono Adventure.
 

Chrono adventure, while a nescessary step i had to make in order to work on spark, was not something people were looking forward to, not enought people where interested in it. To put some things into perspective, spark did not even reach 1/4 of the popularity chrono adventure got. That's just goes to show how bad spark is doing, nobody seems to want it and why should i spend months and mothns working on something people don't want? I already made that mistake with chrono adventure and i don't want to do it again.

For some context, the estimated number of downloads for ATS are 100.000 and for chrono adventure are 5.000.
But spark is a demo you say, and to that i say: BTS aftermath has just about the same number as chrono adventure.
Maybe i was just spoiled by ATS, and as the release thread for ATS shows, ATS is not really that good, yeah, i realised that the moment i called it done. But still, maybe i should just accept the lower numbers from now on. Who know what's ahead of me? And that's what i most fear.

[Jassbec]

Chrono Adventure was a fantastic game and definitely my favorite of your fangames. One of the reasons AtS and BtS managed to be so incredibly popular is because it had an amazing professional quality and quite ambitious soundtrack, they also followed traditional Sonic mechanics unlike Chrono Adventure, and they were also COMPLETE fangames. The soundtrack did help those games get "advertised" a lot more. What I think your games might've benefited from is more development time and testing. I know you like to be a one man studio, but maybe a couple of people that can help you out on art, programming, and design wouldn't be too bad of an idea, getting a small team could benefit you. (It's just a suggestion, you don't have to listen to a word of what crazy guy Jass has to say, lol.)

[Plom510]

To put some things into perspective, spark did not even reach 1/4 of the popularity chrono adventure got. That's just goes to show how bad spark is doing, nobody seems to want it and why should i spend months and mothns working on something people don't want? 

 

I don't believe numbers should really matter. Take my game for example. I've only had about 200 downloads on the Windows demo. So what if not so many people tried my game? At least the few that have played it would still like it. I don't even have a following either but that still doesn't stop me from canceling my game at any moment. A long time ago, I've made the mistake of thinking that my project should be popular before I finish it. That isn't really the case here. Now, I just want to make games for the love of creating them. I care about how fun my game will be rather than if I'll get like 100 downloads per day. If there are still very few people that play my game, that's fine by me.

 

What I'm trying to say is, that you shouldn't care about what the people want. You should focus on what YOU want to do and how you think you'll please you're audience. Making some refinements here and there do help in the long run as well as small additions that you think will make the game better. Of course, feedback is still necessary to figure out what you need to fix in the game as I do this practice.

 

I recommend taking some notes from Freedom Planet as it is a very fun experience and I believe that the game has that level of love and care put into it. It's also one of my inspirations for my own project. If you do end up canning this, that would be a real shame. I believe that Spark can be a thing and maybe, just maybe in the long run, it can be a really fun game.

 

I hope my advice helps you and anybody who reads this.

[Chaozrush21]

Lake,don't let the people not being interested in your project get you down.Your the same guy who created Sonic Before the Sequel,After the Sequel,and Chrono Adventure,the best Sonic fangames to many,many Sonic fans.This is the only fangame that trying something new.So what if people not interested?They'll just want to get to play your awesome fangame.Please make this happen.

 

Numbers doesn't matter most of the times anyway.Look at Earthbound for a example.That game floped in SELLINGS in NA,but guess what?Earthbound is consider one of the best games on the SNES for a damn good reason.Spark my do the same thing.

 

I believe that fun come first and popularity come last.Having people enjoy your game is a bigger achievement than have a lot of downloads.Spark has a lot of potential to top Sonic After and Before the Sequel and Chrono Adventure.You just got to give it your best and try to blow Sonic Team stuff out of the water.Screw all of the bad reviews.Screw all of the downloads.Screw all of the popularity.Don't let any thing make you feel down,well because in the end people will enjoy your masterpiece of a fangame.

 

Play Freedom Planet from time to time to see how you can make this a truly good game,so in a nushell fun come first and popularity.Also sorry if I have some terrible grammar and spelling mistakes

[LakeFeperd]

I probably should just stop whining about this and go back to work.
My biggest problem with this is that i feel like before SAGE i was working on spark and now i'm working on a different game that is not spark but uses all of the same assets. I was more than halfway done with it and it should have been finished by the end of the year but right now, i'm not sure if this will ever be finished.

I'm going back to stages i've designined at the end of last year and completly scrapping my work to make some new stuff for this "new game" that also happens to be known as spark. And as you guys should know, this is a terrible sign for most games, expecially sonic fan games. Most sonic fan games never get past the first stage just because the autor is never happy with it and in the end are never completed, now i feel like i'm on the same path. Maybe i just made a mistake to work on this behind closed doors for so long and not realising early that my time is limited (by that i mean one day life will kick in)

But anyway, i think it's about time to end this and keep working on the game, who knows, maybe it will work...
So, see ya, until the next demo comes out, which shouldn't be a long time from now.

Edited September 9, 2014 by LakeFeperd

[Reventador427SGTH]

I saw your post on Retro regarding ideas for changing Spark's head design.

To be honest, keep it like it was before, because the new hair design makes him too Sonic'ish and you want your game to be indie.

Don't mind people complaining about Spark's design. It's completely fine. Exxagerated details may actually ruin an Original The Character. The "trial product gear" becomes Spark's trademark.

I saw your post on Retro regarding ideas for changing Spark's head design.

To be honest, keep it like it was before, because the new hair design makes him too Sonic'ish and you want your game to be indie.

Don't mind people complaining about Spark's design. It's completely fine. Exxagerated details may actually ruin an Original The Character. The "trial product gear" becomes Spark's trademark.

Ignore what I wrote, I only realized the redesign ideas were made by W.A.C

[Fancy pants]

great game

[Vexel]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jxsTmGeSWBM&list=UUzovWp1OybfAfDCEcX1-MWQ
 
 
So here is my "Time Attack" on Flower Moutain using the cheats, what do you think guys ? I will do the same without the cheats soon !
 
So Lake, don't know if someone noticed this thing about a power up: the gravity glove. So when you press 2 times the jump button it will active the gravity, yes nothing amazing here but if you press the dash button when you are in the air you will dash but the arrow is still visible and you're not in the air.

 

What I suggest:

You need to remove the arrow when you press the dash button when you are in the air. I hope you have understood because I don't have a good english ^^".

 

 

 

EDIT/UPDATE:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zeSSFSX9Q9s

 

Without cheats !

What do you think guys ?

Edited September 28, 2014 by Azaon

[LakeFeperd]

Demo v3 now released
 

 

Download it here

 

Remember, this is a beta build made for testing only, but it’s not open to the public.

Changes:

• First stage’s layout has been completly redesigned.
• A new stage: Flower mountain canyon is now playable after the first stage.
• Tons of bugfixes and more.
• EDIT: i forgot, but the wall jump has been "fixed" after all this time.

So, if you played it, tell me what you think. I really need to check if this is ok before moving on with the game.

Edited September 29, 2014 by LakeFeperd

[BlueParadox]

gonna try this out now

[Rawr]

I'll try and give this a spin later tonight man and post my thoughts after work .

[LakeFeperd]

Just to keep you guys informed, after some testing, i noticed the checkpoint system wasn't working right sometimes. If you start to feel a little bit frustrated with the game, stop playing it until i release a new build that fixes it. Sorry. =P

Another one should be coming soon after i finish up some other stuff i've to work on atm.

[Rawr]

Cool then I'll wait for the next build then . I've had a hell of a day at work so I wasn't going to be able to get to trying this one out tonight anyway. I'm really excited to (finally) play it though, I've been meaning to for a while but I've been insanely busy I haven't had a chance yet to check out a lot of projects going on here. I'll be rectifying that shortly and Spark is at the top of my list to play since I looooooooooooooove seeing non Sonic games around here !

[Serephim]

Liked

-----------------

 

+ Increasing the amount of enemies was the best move for this game, and I think it's a trend you should keep up. This kind of game can't carry itself off platforming alone, it would get very boring very fast (which is why I didn't like the sewer stage). 

 

+ I'm guessing its just because you increased the amount of enemies, but the game is more challenging now. The broken checkpoints had alot to do with this, but it's making me think you should remove most checkpoints if they aren't act or miniboss markers. Adds to the combat emphasis, and puts more value into keeping yourself alive with good spacing. 

 

+ Because combat has a greater presence in this build, it made the items feel even sweeter than before. The difference between normal spark and powerup spark is now very apparent, and it feels awesome.

 

 

Concerns 

------------------------

 

- Same issue with the powerups -- you still have not yet achieved a decent balance when it comes to obtaining powerups and maintaining them. I'm starting to believe it isn't a very good idea to have obtaining all the items like Sonic monitor boxes. I would recommend treating some of them like that, but the other half in a more Kirby-esque fashion, where you can defeat enemies and obtain their weapons. 

 

- It is still WAAAAYYY too easy to lose an equipped weapon. Half the time I lose them and obtain them back faster than i can realize i ever lost them, and the other half of the time, they bounce once and fall off the screen, also faster than i can react. If it's technically too difficult to make them bounce correctly, maybe you could try a different approach? (I'm guessing you got this concept from Kirby, but in Kirby games, it's way easier to re-obtain your weapons, and there is almost never a room in a Kirby game without an easy way to obtain a different one. In spark, by comparison, items are almost rare, they're very easy to miss and lose.)

 

 

- Also, still, nothing is more annoying than overwriting powerups. It's a pretty outdated problem, and this game would really benefit from some sort of flexible system to circumvent it. Super Mario World is a good example. Losing your cape because you touched a fire flower was no longer an issue because you can just swap them out after the fact if you didn't want to switch, and keep them both. Kirby Superstar was another. Since the game has some areas that require certain powers, it lets you store your current power as a partner character, essentially letting you keep 2 and switch back if you want to use a specific one.

 

 

Neutral suggestions

--------------------------------

 

* Some more responsive input feedback may improve the feel of combat even more. What I mean is, Spark's basic combo seems to have alot of delay between hits, so it feels unresponsive at times. It's fine to have some drawback to using it, but you should maybe pile those frames into cooldown and not the cancel themselves.

 

 

* The Electric Bat could really use a 3rd finishing combo swing, something that feels powerful. Since spark's basic combo is kind of slow with a strong 3rd hit, there's a bit of a void there when you use the bat and there isn't one at all.

 

* Charge time on the chargeshot should be a bit faster, it would feel so much better if it was. Especially the weak chargeshot. With the inclusion of dash, and spark having alot of abilities, the chargeshot feels a bit outclassed by pretty much everything else. Which isn't a bad thing, because it's a long-range, safe attack. But since it's used as a double jump, having the weak one be more responsive would really be good.

------------------------------------------------------------

 

 

Overall, the game feels noticeably much more engaging than before. You still need to address how you're handling powerups. They're all really neat and fun to use, but it feels like an integral part of Spark that you're approaching like a side-feature or gimmick. 

Edited October 4, 2014 by Serephim

[Vexel]

I noticed that the pause menu doesn't work correctly. I mean, when you press the pause button the menu appears but the doesn't stop: the timer, Spark,.... You can control the game when you are in the pause menu.

[facundo gomez]

el juego esta increible, no puedo dejar de probarlo.y bueno si nadie habla español asi nadie me entiende

Moderation edit: Adding translation.

The game is incredible, I can't stop playing it.

[GSF]

Yo te entiendo. |3

Añadí la traducción a tu mensaje.

I understand you.

I added a translation for your message.

[LakeFeperd]

Just to let you guys know, the NCFC demo has been already released: http://nintendocfc.com/booth.html?id=37

Unfortunately i've 0 time at the moment to work on Spark and the demo might be a little bit unpolished. But here's a few things you can do:

 

 - You can how store a power by pressing A (goes into a shield if using sword, that needs to be changed).

 - Sewer stage has now been somewhat reworked.

 - Scarf's top speed is now spark's maximun speed.

 - Every power execpt sword, bat and board can now do a 3th slash.

 

>Sword Changes

 - Up + Attack now allows spark to release an upwards kick.

 - Down + Attack will create two blue balls near spark .

 - The balls can be influenced by the sword's slashes.

 

And there should be a lot more that I don't remember or are just very minor to note.
In about a month i should be able to get a more polished version out with a new trailer with some new stuff.

[Vexel]

Hello Lake, I test the NCFC demo and I want to report this bug: if you die you can revive if the bar above the health is full you revive after you die but the Game Over title card stay on the screen, don't know if you understand me.

[Black Ace]

Hello Lake, I test the NCFC demo and I want to report this bug: if you die you can revive if the bar above the health is full you revive after you die but the Game Over title card stay on the screen, don't know if you understand me.

You meen liek dis? 

http://imgur.com/mmj6DIq

eue

Edited November 10, 2014 by Black Ace

[LakeFeperd]

Yeah, the player also becomes invencible after it happens, I decided to leave this glitch in and focus on fixing others due to a severe lack of time. =P
I also said that i was going to update the demo doring the event, and i didn't due to the same problem. I'm currently on the process of developing another game which probably won't be released around here but i should be back to work next month.

Edited November 11, 2014 by LakeFeperd

[Vexel]

You meen liek dis? 

http://imgur.com/mmj6DIq

eue

That's it

And Lake, this glitch is randomly, sometimes it doesn't appear. So keep on your projetcs,so I look forward to more.

 

PS: I like Network Bridge level !

[LakeFeperd]

http://sparktej.tumblr.com/post/102702517938/almost-back

 

Btw, there's a new demo on the last page for those who have missed it

 

And here's some stuff.

 

I've been really busy with some college projects and i just didn't have any time to go back to spark. But i'm somewhat back, i guess.

Edited November 15, 2014 by LakeFeperd