Mr. Triangle's Adventure

Make games! Discuss those games here.

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RMZ
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Post by RMZ »

<a href="http://s19.photobucket.com/user/RedMave ... w.png.html" target="_blank"><img src="http://i19.photobucket.com/albums/b175/ ... e8pl7w.png" border="0" alt="MTA New Fungi Town photo TriangleMA0001_zpsyye8pl7w.png"></a>

I've been trying to update some of the really bad art that I can't justify saying "it's part of the art style" since the point of the simplistic style was to make a game that anybody felt they could draw the art for and not feel overwhelemed. Since... let's face it, Vikings of Midgard is well above anyone's beginning skill level. So I'm trying to update the art to both appeal to the mindset of "hey I can do this" while not looking like crap. I've went and made the mushrooms in Fungi Town look a bit like actual mushrooms versus white blocks with flat weird shapes on top.

Maybe I will try Surfasaurus at $1.99 and just try to cram a bit more in to set it apart from the free version more. I don't feel comfortable raising the price of MTA since it is released.

I also didn't publish the new verbiage yet. I'm honestly waiting to see if anything negative happens without it because I think... saying anywhere that there is a free version might mean somebody says to heck with spending money, I'll play it here for free. I have it listed in the store, like I said.
Last edited by RMZ on Fri Feb 03, 2017 1:59 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Pepsi Ranger
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Post by Pepsi Ranger »

The Wobbler wrote:On pricing: I listed C. Kane at $2 and while it's nowhere near as big a game as Triangle's Adventure, I thought that was fair. Most people who would later buy it added it to their wishlist and then waited until a $1 sale to buy. Whatever you charge, with a few exceptions people on Steam do not seem to buy games unless they're on sale, even if the game's already super cheap.
Yep, this is very true, and unless it's from one of you guys, I tend to follow the same pattern. If it's $5 or less, and if I really want it, I may just spring for it regardless of sale, as it's not really a big investment. I also tend to buy games at regular price if I know they won't ever go on sale (like Factorio or RimWorld, which the latter I haven't bought yet, but will at some point, sale or not--well, not, clearly). But generally, if it's not on sale, I don't buy. I also generally wait for the sale to price them below $20 if they're a pricier game before I buy.
RedMaverickZero wrote:Maybe I will try Surfasaurus at $1.99 and just try to cram a bit more in to set it apart from the free version more. I don't feel comfortable raising the price of MTA since it is released.
I get that feeling completely. The same happens in the ebook market. I've got most of my books available for free at Smashwords, but at Amazon, I have to charge a minimum of $.99 for each one, per the rules of Amazon. So far, it seems that Amazon price matches, since most of my books are also free at Barnes & Noble and Apple--Amazon's primary competitors in ebooks--and my "sales" tend to come back at zero, but I hate this, as Amazon still lists them at $.99. As you can imagine, I don't get much attention this way. (Well, there are other problems with my marketing practices, including lackluster cover design, that contribute to this lack of attention, but the price differences still bug me.)

What I've done with a couple of those books, including Cannonball City, is keep it free for a long time, then attach its worthy price once I think it's been free long enough. For Cannonball City, I managed to get at least one $5 sale out of it because I had set the sequel, Superheroes Anonymous, to free after it had spent seven months as a $5 book. I figured if people wanted the sequel free, they could have it. But if they wanted to see how the series began, they'd have to pay for it. I wish I had thought to do this back when I released it, at the height of its exposure. Live and learn.

My point to this story is that prices can change. That's why we submit to the digital market as indies. We take control of our pricing and distribution options and decide how we market our products. I'm not saying that you should attach a price to Mr. Triangle's Adventure, especially if you want people to take a chance on it without risk. But, it's been out for so long on the digital market that you could raise the price across the board to justify its price on Steam and not upset anyone other than those who didn't pick it up during the two years it was available for free. The way I see it, the procrastinators had their chance to get their free copies. It's not your fault if they waited so long that now they have to pay for it to play it.

We should always research how others who were successful ahead of us did things to become successful. When we spend years of our lives working on a project we care about, we can certainly give it away for free or dirt cheap if we want, but there's nothing wrong with asking for compensation from those who wish to enjoy the fruits of our labor, if we can admit that we deserve it. If we do ask for compensation, we should consider what our product is worth. And if we don't get the attention we'd like from that price, then we can adjust. If anyone feels slighted by our business practices, then that's their problem, not ours. They're not the ones who have to put our food on our tables, or make the decisions on how to accomplish that goal. Their job is to decide if they want to be our customers and future fans.

Anyway, I wouldn't worry about upsetting people with your price choices. Charge what's fair. Know what's fair. As Wobbler said, they won't buy it until it goes on sale anyway. :p
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RMZ
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Post by RMZ »

I spent entirely too long, or maybe long enough working on the worst looking area of the game I think, the pirate ship. It's bothered me for a while but I never felt like going backwards to make it better. It now looks significantly like a ship!

<a href="http://s19.photobucket.com/user/RedMave ... q.png.html" target="_blank"><img src="http://i19.photobucket.com/albums/b175/ ... ffpjrq.png" border="0" alt="MTA Carraken Old photo TriangleMA0002_zps0pffpjrq.png"></a>

<a href="http://s19.photobucket.com/user/RedMave ... v.png.html" target="_blank"><img src="http://i19.photobucket.com/albums/b175/ ... 2sefwv.png" border="0" alt="MTA Carraken New photo TriangleMA0003_zpswx2sefwv.png"></a>

For those that never got to this part of the game (it's after continent 1) you fight the Carraken on the edge of the pirate ship but I couldn't figure out the best way to do the ship's front at the time. I don't know why yesterday was any better, but I did and I think it looks good. I also added some raining animations. I think I was turned off from animated backdrops a while back cause there was lag, but that could be like 5+ years ago I tried that. It looks great and I'm very pleased with this now.
Last edited by RMZ on Sat Feb 04, 2017 6:47 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Post by TMC »

Yes, much better!
RedMaverickZero wrote:I think I was turned off from animated backdrops a while back cause there was lag, but that could be like 5+ years ago I tried that.
Oh yes, the "Ticks per backdrop frame" setting is a bit broken; it displays wrong in the formation editor. I've been meaning to fix that. I only noticed recently.

Not to continue an exhausting debate on game prices, but there isn't anything wrong with increasing the price as/after you improve on the game; it's common these days. But obviously you should then say the price will increase, to encourage people to purchase it immediately.
I also didn't publish the new verbiage yet. I'm honestly waiting to see if anything negative happens without it because I think... saying anywhere that there is a free version might mean somebody says to heck with spending money, I'll play it here for free. I have it listed in the store, like I said.
I meant that you didn't change it to say that the game is still being worked on.
Last edited by TMC on Sun Feb 05, 2017 12:03 am, edited 1 time in total.
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RMZ
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Post by RMZ »

<a href="http://s19.photobucket.com/user/RedMave ... 8.png.html" target="_blank"><img src="http://i19.photobucket.com/albums/b175/ ... o1pin8.png" border="0" alt="MTA Farm Revised 2 photo TriangleMA0002_zpsbro1pin8.png"></a>
No clue what the hell I was thinking doing these before. The farm backdrop used to just be a bunch of swiggle lines but now it actually seems like a wall of wheat.

<a href="http://s19.photobucket.com/user/RedMave ... u.png.html" target="_blank"><img src="http://i19.photobucket.com/albums/b175/ ... uxearu.png" border="0" alt=" photo TriangleMA0001_zpsrtuxearu.png"></a>
The barn was redrawn from scratch to look a little more unique.

For those that remember playing for Heart back in 2014, everybody complained about the farm and I didn't want to revisit this area. At all. It took forever (there's a pattern going on with the changes). There used to be 3 fenced in areas before getting to the barn which would cause between 3-5 random fights. Now it's pretty quick going from the maze to the barn and boss fight. It feels a lot more balanced. There's also some neat sound effects added in around the area.
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Post by RMZ »

<a href="http://s19.photobucket.com/user/RedMave ... 8.png.html" target="_blank"><img src="http://i19.photobucket.com/albums/b175/ ... 6uk008.png" border="0" alt=" photo TriangleMA0003_zpsye6uk008.png"></a>

<a href="http://s19.photobucket.com/user/RedMave ... r.png.html" target="_blank"><img src="http://i19.photobucket.com/albums/b175/ ... tbcbfr.png" border="0" alt="MTA Temple of Mystery After photo TriangleMA0004_zpss1tbcbfr.png"></a>

These might be the most dramatically different yet. I think this was my last "got to fix" thing on the list, so everything else is just extra. Aside from what's been shared, tons of backdrops have been updated and details have been added to em' across the board.
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Post by Pepsi Ranger »

RedMaverickZero wrote:For those that remember playing for Heart back in 2014, everybody complained about the farm and I didn't want to revisit this area. At all. It took forever (there's a pattern going on with the changes). There used to be 3 fenced in areas before getting to the barn which would cause between 3-5 random fights. Now it's pretty quick going from the maze to the barn and boss fight. It feels a lot more balanced. There's also some neat sound effects added in around the area.
Yay, changes!

I'm glad you're bringing the early parts of the game up to the quality of the later parts. Players like consistency throughout their whole experience. All in all, this is looking really good. Looking forward to the additional updates that are coming.
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RMZ
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Post by RMZ »

Thanks Pepsi. Hoping to release it this weekend actually.

Here's another before and after... I don't have save data where this part of the game is so excuse the lack of the Dinosaur King here.

<img src="http://redtrianglegames.com/img/triangle_mm2.png"></a>

<a href="http://s19.photobucket.com/user/RedMave ... n.png.html" target="_blank"><img src="http://i19.photobucket.com/albums/b175/ ... i0s6hn.png" border="0" alt="MTA DK v MM photo MTA_DK_CraterFight_zps3di0s6hn.png"></a>

Brainstormed with the IRC dudes last night and developed an idea that I think works. I'm going to add some little stuff in the ocean to help the scale of it feel better but overall I think this is a better looking piece.
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Post by RMZ »

For anybody interested, all of the new changes, no new content, are updated on Steam. This includes some map changes (Farm is a LOT faster now) and various backdrops and maptile changes.
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Post by RMZ »

Not sure if this is the right place for this or not.

I'm having an issue with the Firestick controls for Amazon. Apparently one of my buttons isn't being mapped to it. Fortunately, this button is only used on the world map for calling a vehicle or doing a speed boost in a boat. If we can't figure out how to map the button to the Firestick, can somebody maybe offer a suggestion for how to use the button through the others?
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Post by Bob the Hamster »

Which button is it?

Is this a button on the Remote or on the controller?

Unfortunately I don't have a Firestick, so I have only be able to get other people to test, I have never been able to test directly myself.
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Post by RMZ »

The person didn't say. But from the way they described it...
I pressed every button on the firestick and none of them were able to activate the ability to use the van. When i go into the controls menu it looks like this

D-Pad: movement
(A): OK
(B): Menu/Cancel
: Special

there is no option given on the firestick controller to allow you to use the special ability.
I assume it's the firestick remote, and not a gamepad. I've personally played some games on it, like Sonic the Hedgehog which only uses one button basically and it's fine. Is there a way to map the buttons to other parts of that controller?
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Post by Bob the Hamster »

Yeah, that is the remote.

Can you show me a screenshot of your Button Options menu?

Image

Also, does the FIrestick allow you to sideload apk files, or are you strictly limited to loading games from the Amazon App store?

I have this apk http://hamsterrepublic.com/tmp/inputtes ... signed.apk which has every button mapped to something different like this:

Image

So it could be helpful for figuring out how button mapping works for the Firestick controller.
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Post by Bob the Hamster »

Oh, yeah, also I just remembered that I can manually override some other button mappings in the AndroidAppsettings.cfg file when I build the apk

Code: Select all

# Mappings of hardware keys. The keys are&#58;
# &#40;XXX is sent when user touches the screen and app is not using mouse or multitouch&#41;
# &#40;SEARCH is also Dpad centre&#41;
#              XXX   SEARCH Vol Up   Vol Down MENU  BACK   CAMERA"
RedefinedKeys="SPACE RETURN NO_REMAP NO_REMAP ESCAPE ESCAPE"
I should probably make a copy of the inputtest apk that has every possible thing mapped to a unique button and then submit it to the app store as an input testing tool for ohrrpgce developers
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Post by RMZ »

<a href="http://s19.photobucket.com/user/RedMave ... l.png.html" target="_blank"><img src="http://i19.photobucket.com/albums/b175/ ... 2ex1jl.png" border="0" alt=" photo Capture_MTA_zps9l2ex1jl.png"></a>

This is what I got.

I think the Firestick runs just off the Amazon Appstore and that's it. The couple games I played, used the center button as Enter and then I forget what the other buttons were. It was cumbersome, but I think an RPG would be a lot more relaxed on it. Lots of finger stretching to hit where you needed.

Would it be worth making another gamepad buttons area when this is sorted out since it'd kinda suck to make my X button hypothetically be the L1 button for Gamepads and then if I needed L1 on a gamepad it'd be stuck being a button it doesn't need to be? Either way, thanks for looking into this.
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