Ka-ZAP, Ka-ZAP! Kra-KOOM! We earlier released a preview of our lightning-themed weapon, the Lightning Bit. Now it’s a usable in-game weapon following a few builds of adjustments to the effect and tweaks for the sprite. Lyra picks it up after an electrical encounter with our maverick take on Nightmare Moon.

For the first of our content updates, here’s some shots of our Intro stage for various sections. Although they don’t have backgrounds, you’ll see a theme throughout these, which sets the tone of a construction/industrial setting. These are only some initial tiles, but they add a pleasant touch to work with as we build on the initial lessons that we teach here.

MegaMare X Dev Update – May. 2016

The last day of May brings a late update, but with more to come! Over the next few days, we’ve got some follow-up posts for various improvements you have been hearing about from our alpha builds. There’s also some artwork to show off as part of them that we’re excited to share.

This month we’ve had not just our 100th alpha build, but our 101st in quick succession. In addition to some fixes to the bosses, one of our weapons is now complete, and we have platforms that fit many of the designs we’ve been working on in the stages. Enemies will get some changes over the month of June, since there are many spots we need to fill throughout.

Lastly and most excitingly, these two alphas bring us the ability to write our cutscenes and script the events that unfold throughout the game. We’re thankful to have a new writer make a review of our dialogue and are now putting our first draft of writing into the game.

Our follow-up posts will be coming soon, so check back over the next round few days!

MegaMare X Dev Update – Apr. 2016

April brings another update and a return to convention season. Another internal alpha is in our hands, and we have been working on new changes since. This one is our 99th, meaning the next marks our 100th alpha! We’re not sure what to do in celebration, but it certainly means something special.

Following our regular alpha playtesting and review, we’ve made some steady progress as a team towards improving our level design. As mentioned in our prior update, we are seeking to make fun and challenging stages. So, over the past few weeks, we’ve been exploring different things we can do in them. Part of this has been trying techniques for using the camera and effective enemy placements, but we’ve also gone into further explore our icy and water terrains. Mostly, these have been focused around specific *encounters* with enemies, which involve a specific combination of mechanics and enemies in a small area. Lately we’ve added some scripted platforms to these encounters, and will have those included in our upcoming build.

Meanwhile, we got feedback on that 99th alpha from a lucky playtester, who provided comments regarding difficulty, secrets, and visual cues. It’s always pleasant to get some hands-on playtesting where we can actually sit down and see what we miss. As expert players and the creators we have a skewed perception and always know what’s coming. In terms of challenge, we want it to be tough but fair, and accessible to a wide range of players and ages.

Over the next few months, the conventions are coming, but we aren’t making any official appearances. However, if you keep an eye out and catch the updates, you still might catch a chance to play. We’ll be sure to post where we’re headed and what to look for.

TL;DR: Almost at the 100th alpha mark, making fun challenges through stage encounters, and we aim to have the game interesting for experienced and new players alike.

Dev Update - Mar. 2016

It’s about time for another developer update, which brings quite a few good changes. Most of these have arrived nicely packaged in our latest internal alpha, which we have begun play-testing this week. Bosses are still works-in-progress which are getting ever better, with Nightmare Moon seeming to be the closest of the bunch to satisfactory behaviour after some recent attack updates. Our weapons still have some kinks to work out, but now we have the full list of them with new fixes that bring ammo depletion, refills, and overall improvements.

Speaking of refills, we now have those in-game as power-ups alongside pick-up upgrades, which are roughly placed (pick-ups being found items as opposed to capsules). These appear now in some updated versions of our stages, one of which features an initial set of tiles that really brings it to life.

The near future will bring a return to our artistic pipeline alongside some thorough design work to really make some quality areas within our stages. Creating the fun factor is sometimes challenging, but we have a few things to build off of. Our boss progress also means a solid need for the full move set of sprites for Nightmare Moon.

Finally, we have an ongoing call for new people to contribute, should you have the will and wherewithal! If you have either interest for designing levels or contributing to the artwork side of things, if you love MegaMare, MLP, MMX games, or just want to help out, do send us a note!

TOO LONG, DINNA REED; DIS GAME IS GOIN WELL AND DA BOYZ IS GON’ MAKE IT BETTA

Lots of love for Nightmare Moon

Looks like folks really are liking our Nightmare Moon concept. She’s next on the list to get fully sprited into the game, so we’re looking forward to showing off that in a future update! Stay tuned, we’ll have another Development Update coming soon and some more artwork in the pipeline.

Your queen who powers the night. Prepare for a blackout!

This newer version of Nightmare Moon is a thematic evolution of some of our older concepts, also revised stylistically to appear better in-game with her prototype.

Sprite by Noia, concept by ChickenWhite.

Some in-game shots of new things.

Seen the Chryssy battle? Well not only does Lyra shoot the burst, but also some bouncy, exploding acid orbs on her charge shot.

Raining hearts down upon Lyra. Still an early work-in-progress.

Dev Update - Dec. 2015

It’s been a while - it’s time for an update of progress, failures, but also potential.

Earlier this year at BABSCon, our boss-rush style demo was playable for the 3-days there only (although you can watch it). Chrysalis was the highlight of the demo, as she was really polished into an enjoyable, challenging fight. The rest of the bosses weren’t nearly as finished, but now we have 4 more bosses that are halfway there and are just waiting to take the spotlight. And what are those bosses without weapons to go with them? There happens to be 3 already in, with another just about ready.

So Lyra’s got some pew-pew and some meanies to fight - but, (oh, we know) those still don’t make a game. Behind the mechanical fun is the story tying it together. MegaMare X has a whole a light-hearted jaunt written-up that’s just missing one thing: actually being in the game.

The alpha mentioned in the previous Oct update has goals to achieve all the above. But also ensures that we have everything in place to glue it all together.

Looking back, we had a series of small failures in our earlier parts of development. Problems we didn’t even realize we had. There would be so much writing, conceptualizing, and not actually working in-game with things that they’d get lost in the shuffle or even just some of the simple things wouldn’t be done. We just now have the capability to properly place items, and fully scriptable cutscenes are soon to come.

It’s nice to say that we’ve finally turned that around and that we feel that we’re on the right track. Unfortunately, our past failures have meant backtracking that has taken time and effort away from the artistic pipeline we once had. But that’s a challenge for another day soon. And that’s a day when this alpha is ready to drive us the rest of the way through into shaping the game we’ve always envisioned.

Spooky Month Development Update

As per providing more regular updates, here’s one for the end-state of September into the first part of October. This really goes hand-in-hand with progress since early August, but we’ll get to that shortly.

The team is working towards an internal alpha with specific goals. This alpha covers the major game features through its core mechanics and progression parts of the gameplay. Lately, we’ve gotten the initial stages for the intro and what we call the ‘primary’ stages (the ones you choose which in order to play).

These stages done are only in the initial phase of development, and the work to be done afterwards is nothing to laugh at. Iteration on the stages is needed to find ways to really make them fun, to flow well, and make art assets. There are also a few more pieces of the game already done, but not yet a part of the stages. Some examples are: integrating the bosses into the stages, placing upgrades, unlocking the weapons rather than just having them, and implementing a proper save/load mechanism to continue play.

Unfortunately the team has shrunk and we’re only slowly pushing forward on this front of game design and development. These stages have been in progress since early August and working towards similar goals set, but with multiple major personal events arising, it’s been tough to keep working to a regular cadence. But despite these factors, we’re still going to make the best game we can and are more on track than ever.