{"author_name":"AngerFork","cat":"LD #35","comments":[],"epoch":1462597920,"likes":1,"metadata":{"p_key":"5563","p_author":"AngerFork","p_authorkey":"91156","p_urlkey":"41013","p_title":"Scooter Magrew: Updates and a perfect test environment!","p_cat":"LD #35","p_event":"LD35","p_time":"1462597920","p_likes":"1","p_comments":"0","p_status":"UPD5","us_key":"91156","us_name":"AngerFork","us_username":"angerfork","event_start":"1460678400","event_key":"33","event_name":"LD35"},"text":"

Many of you have taken the time to try out and give feedback on my first ever Ludum Dare entry, the mostly-for-kids game Scooter Magrew<\/a>. For those that have…big thanks! Your feedback has been extremely helpful to me as I have been advancing onward to make this a full-fledged mobile game, rather than 5 levels of short gameplay made over a weekend. Here’s a quick update on the current status of Scooter, as well as a little story about lucky user testing.<\/p>\n

Here’s a shot of the game as it stands now:
\n \"ScooterNewShot\"<\/a><\/p>\n

One of the first things I went to working on were the graphical glitches. One of the first things people who played the game commented on was the “hard-to-see” tile difference with certain characters & colors, especially Portia. In response, the purple is now far, far darker…and most other characters have received slight color adjustments too. In addition, that bug where everyone turned red immediately after shapeshifting…GONE!<\/p>\n

Another thing people commented on was the lack of things to do. In the LD Jam version, there is currently only the character collection and color coordination mechanics, which really is not a ton of things for people to do. I have gone ahead and added a small new setup with 2 items and one obstacle per character. The idea is each character can get one item per level for extra points, which you can see up top. The other idea I’m playing with is an item\/obstacle system where there are minor obstacles for each character to take care of, but only if they have the right item to do so. For instance, one character can take care of locks when they find the key in each level. Oh, and there are 3-4 new characters as well.<\/p>\n

All in all, the game feels more complete…but you don’t just have to take my word for it.<\/p>\n

With that segue…the other day, a friend asked me to help out with her daughter’s school cultures night. We all had things to set up, but she wanted me to bring up some of the gamedev geek culture items for part of the US culture area. So I brought in an iPad with Minecraft, a set of cards from a card game I’m making…and the latest copy of Scooter Magrew, just to see what real kindergartners thought of it. The response was actually quite good, with kids fully understanding and playing the game, and one kid even telling me he loved it. Tis an awesome feeling to hear such things about something I made from someone like that!<\/p>\n

So…woot! Things are on the right path, largely thanks to the awesome people playing it here…hoping to get more out for the game this month, but we’ll see. Either way, my work with Scooter will continue until I have something I’m far happier to release to the world as a whole<\/p>","time":"May 7th, 2016 12:12 am","title":"Scooter Magrew: Updates and a perfect test environment!"}