Axe Cop

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TMC
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Post by TMC »

Yes! I'll be taking a souvenir! Oh, you haven't posted the finished design here yet? Was what you emailed me finished? Looks good. I actually like that it's just two colours, kind of less glaring/kitsch.
Seems kind of odd that you only put out stuff once a year for Christmas but I guess it's the most stand-out occasion of the year
Last edited by TMC on Thu Nov 29, 2018 1:46 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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RMZ
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Post by RMZ »

<img src="https://www.redtrianglegames.com/img/de ... nished.png">

It's tough to justify taking a break from production for souvenirs. Coming off Thanksgiving, I always tend to want to do something special. The holidays just kind of make me feel like giving.
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Post by RMZ »

It's been a while. Should post an update.

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

Soda Piggy and I made this commercial to celebrate another year of Axe Cop going viral on the internet. Shows a lot of what the new mission is like. I sent the demo out to the usual group of testers. If anybody has 1.5 to 2 hours of time and is interested, I can send you the demo for playtesting. I just need all feedback by this coming Sunday since I want to get the game to the co-creator of Axe Cop by Tuesday night.

Not sure if TMC posted online or not about it, but he finished the mapping for the joysticks which means the game now plays perfectly on game pads. I picked up this amazing SNES styled controller, actually got one and had it mailed to Soda too because it's that good, and it's nice to be able to play the game on it flawlessly.
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RMZ
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Post by RMZ »

<img src="https://www.redtrianglegames.com/img/de ... lbunky.png">

I'm trying to make an effort to get something substantial done everyday to try and pick up the pace. Last mission took me 7 months, which really feels unacceptable. Hoping to get this one done in 3-4. Usually with new missions I start out making all of the artwork then just do minor art as I go for animations, etc. Past week I got about 8 spritesets done. I actually drew this gorilla twice, first time was very bad. Took me better part of a day to get it how I like, but in the end I really am proud of it.
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RMZ
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Post by RMZ »

<img src="https://www.redtrianglegames.com/img/de ... abocks.gif">

Been having an insanely productive last week or so getting this new area prepped for full production. I just have one more tileset to do and I think I can start building the map itself.

The main gameplay mechanic for this mission is an alternate version of one from the 3rd mission, the lab. That one had a lot of sight detection. In the context of the story, there are these frogs which belong to the Frog Queen who are on alert for Axe Cop. When and if they find Axe Cop, they alert a powerful tentacle monster, the Robozorkabocks who is embedded in the big monster you're inside of and it redirects you away from your objective. Last night in particular I got the system perfect with slices, and Soda Piggy did a killer job with the tentacle animations.

A big advantage I have to starting this mission, is back in November I hired Feenicks to do some wall tiles and some gross animations for them. It's been amazing having those ready to go for production and has easily saved me a week of time.

Overall this mission is going to have a pretty big Metroid vibe to it and I think that in particular will be fun. I feel like Super Metroid was the first game I really loved as a kid so channeling some of that will be great.
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RMZ
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Post by RMZ »

<img src="https://www.redtrianglegames.com/img/de ... tsozon.png">

Been having a really productive March. So much of the mission is built and in place, it really kind of boils down to map design now which is an awesome place to be.

The story for this mission is something I am excited about. It uses characters and plot beats from the most amount of the comics than any other mission into one cohesive story. I'm trying to channel a big Metroid vibe for this stage, so one of the characters will act like the big statue of Kraid in Super Metroid. The monkey and the girl are both from the Axe Cop Gets Married story (Volume 5), while that monster is from the Evil Evil Evil Planet Tinko story in Volume 1. The entire mission takes place inside of the template of another from when Bat Warthog Man's friends are stolen inside of the stomach of the King of All Bad Guys (Volume 3). The big tentacle monster in the last post was from Volume 6.
Last edited by RMZ on Thu Mar 21, 2019 12:02 pm, edited 1 time in total.
TMC
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Post by TMC »

Yes! I'm a big Super Metroid fan, and that influences certain comes through in these great graphics! Also nice to hear this is moving much faster. Is this the first work Feenicks has contributed to the game?

I didn't realise you pick and match pieces of the comics to that degree. It certainly has the advantage of letting you craft new scenarios for the fans.
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RMZ
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Post by RMZ »

TMC wrote:Yes! I'm a big Super Metroid fan, and that influences certain comes through in these great graphics! Also nice to hear this is moving much faster. Is this the first work Feenicks has contributed to the game?

I didn't realise you pick and match pieces of the comics to that degree. It certainly has the advantage of letting you craft new scenarios for the fans.
He's done a lot for the game ever since Mission 3. At the time, Kaiju was Soda's priority and I had weeks worth of attack graphics. Feenicks was brought on board to alleviate some of Soda's workload and over time he's done more. He drew the angled cars for London's Westminster Bridge, but this is the first area where so much of the tile-work is him.

Fighting the big yellow guy (Evilfatsozon) is the halfway point of the mission, I'm about 2/3 ready for that. The month of March has flown by and I feel more accomplished in the content than before. I'm going to be pretty far ahead of Soda Piggy again and he and I both agree that's a really good thing.

Next month we're dedicating a good chunk of time to the next minigame, which James Paige is going to help with, regarding adapting Star Dartle (he's called it Axe Dartle). It's a really great time to be in production!
TMC
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Post by TMC »

Ah; I'd thought you were pretty much soley responsible for the tiles -- if I have this right you drew everything up to this mission except those cars?

Nice to see something become of Star Dartle, though it sounds like Axe Dartle is a completely sepaate game which will reuse the code.
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RMZ
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Post by RMZ »

TMC wrote:Ah; I'd thought you were pretty much soley responsible for the tiles -- if I have this right you drew everything up to this mission except those cars?

Nice to see something become of Star Dartle, though it sounds like Axe Dartle is a completely sepaate game which will reuse the code.
I did do everything tile-based leading up to the angled cars. They were giving me a ton of trouble and it seemed like Feenicks was knocking them out easier than I could.

Axe Dartle will use the bones of Star Dartle. James has already been tinkering away at it. Player character will be 30x30 so we can get some good detail of both Axe Cop and his dinosaur better. I think fans will go nuts at the idea of a minigame where you can play as the dinosaur!

<img src="https://www.redtrianglegames.com/img/de ... tle001.gif">
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RMZ
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Post by RMZ »

<img src="https://www.redtrianglegames.com/img/de ... tle002.gif">
<img src="https://www.redtrianglegames.com/img/de ... scheme.png">

April was a pretty full month too. I think James will be done with Axe Dartle by end of the month or sooner just based on seeing his progressions. It's all looking and feeling really great.

Did a lot of art prep for two areas. One of which is end of this mission and then the other is the one in the scene shown above. It's the big bad guy scheming scene where all of the villains vaguely hint to the player what's going on. These types of scenes are always fun because they tease what and who is to show up later. These are all of the bad guys to appear from Mission 5 to the end of the game in the main narrative. Hoping to finish this scene this week so I can resume production on the actual mission itself.
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Post by RMZ »

<img src="https://www.redtrianglegames.com/img/de ... licker.gif">

Can't believe I haven't updated since May. Earlier this month the new demo came out. Took a bit longer for everybody, but we got it done. Soda and I already wrapped up the next area, which is a revisit of a previous area with new content. It acts as the in-between content that also furthers the plot before the next mission.

We're going to PAX South next year with the game, so in an effort to get as much done as I can before mid-December through January for the prep on that, I'm working out of order.

Continuing the revisit content. There's going to be a secret basement floor to the lab later on and so I'm working on that currently. I'm getting pretty close to ready to program the content in it. I implemented this really dynamic light flicker for the area. It's actually randomized. At the end of every flicker it randomly choose 0-7, and based on those values determines how many ticks to wait for the next flicker.
TMC
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Post by TMC »

Oh! A new demo, that's a surprise! This means Axe Dartle is done, right? And I think I actually missed your previous update in this thread. (The forum sometimes marks threads as read if I was browsing the forum while someone posted?)

So... just how many missions will the full game be? Have you planned it all out yet?

I wonder whether that flicker will be annoying; you could make it a really small momentary dimming and it would still be quite obvious. Flickering lights are certainly appropriate, anyway.

And nice to hear you're going back to PAX [South] again. I guess that means the stress of putting together a demo wa't enough to scare you off!
Last edited by TMC on Tue Oct 01, 2019 12:53 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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RMZ
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Post by RMZ »

Been a busy few months of Axe Cop. I'm kind of enjoying a slower couple of weeks after PAX to recharge my batteries. Instead of starting production on the 6th mission, we did the 7th one as it was shorter and could be done before PAX and the plan actually succeeded. Soda has maybe half a month of catch up on art assets to finish, but the core coding is done.

This batch of content was kind of it's own unique set of small content plus the mission itself. We went back to the Snow Planet (that was post Mission 5 stuff) and the back to the Lab (that's post mission 6, which is set up for 7).

<img src="https://www.redtrianglegames.com/img/de ... evisit.png">

<img src="https://www.redtrianglegames.com/img/de ... castle.png">

The Water Castle is very Zelda inspired and even uses an updated version of my Surfasaurus picture puzzle script. I have it now where it checks a percentage of the whole puzzle which honestly should have been in that game. There's a lot of good content for this batch of production, including a scene at a restaurant.

PAX South itself was great and nutty at the same time. Here's some stuff from the event. Always good to actually hang out with Soda Piggy in person.

Video we made showing off some booth activity and some opinions of people playing:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ESX7aSDlnrU

Interview I did:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0MbmSjyUetI

Article written up by someone from the show:
https://www.hardcoregamer.com/2020/01/2 ... ia/365836/

<img src="https://www.redtrianglegames.com/img/rtg_paxsouth.png">
<img src="https://www.redtrianglegames.com/img/rtg_paxsouth2.png">

Oh also, we firmly picked a release date we think we can actually hit... Thanksgiving 2020! We already have a Steam page
https://store.steampowered.com/app/1193300/Axe_Cop/ and the demo from the convention is there. I might see about posting that demo here in the near future since it is considered to be public now, for those that don't use Steam.
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Spoonweaver
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Post by Spoonweaver »

Very Cool!
Love the Matching Jackets!
Looks like you had a fair amount of interest at the booth!
Hope everything goes great with the game overall!!!
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