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We've launched the Kickstarter for our platform adventure game Intrepid Izzy today!
Intrepid Izzy is a combination of many things: multiple genres (platformer, adventure, beat 'em up), retro and modern graphics, well-known and never-before-seen gameplay elements... And as such promises to be a game unlike any other on the Dreamcast!
Dreamcast-specific features:
640x480, 60 fps
Widescreen option
Fully configurable controls
Supports standard controller and Arcade Stick
Supports PAL, NTSC, VGA displays
VMU support
We've worked hard on this for many months, and of course we hope we can count on your support.
Question: Couldn't the Dreamcast version include a Windows port of the game's engine, to be also playable on PCs?
The DC version's assets are in lower resolution, so this shouldn't hurt sales of the PC Steam version for people who prefer to play the game at higher resolutions. And the DC version should also be playable on the PC through emulation, but playing the DC version natively on the PC would be nice.
Ph'nglui mglw'nafh mankrip Hell's end wgah'nagl fhtagn.
==-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-== Dev blog / Twitter / YouTube
mankrip wrote:Question: Couldn't the Dreamcast version include a Windows port of the game's engine, to be also playable on PCs?
The DC version's assets are in lower resolution, so this shouldn't hurt sales of the PC Steam version for people who prefer to play the game at higher resolutions. And the DC version should also be playable on the PC through emulation, but playing the DC version natively on the PC would be nice.
It's technically possible, that's for sure. Thanks for the suggestion!
1.) Some of the 60fps footage that I uploaded myself seemed to have frame rate drops when played on YouTube, so it could also be a problem with YouTube's transcoding. I do know of one instance where the Dreamcast fails to maintain 60fps, though, which is during fade ins/outs. But I have some ideas about how to fix that.
2.) I have already sent a PC demo to a youtuber. I hope he'll make something nice with it. I don't think the PC demo is quite ready for distribution to the general audience yet, though.
Roel wrote:Did someone ask for a video of the Dreamcast build?
I can't imagine this game being not released. It really deserves to be completed.
Some ideas:
Release a level editor with the game, so people can build their own levels. Maybe save the levels in a VMU file format, so people can copy them over to the VMU and play on the DC.
Maybe put the release of the DC version of the game's engine as a stretch goal on Kickstarter, licensed exclusively for pledges above a certain value.
Ph'nglui mglw'nafh mankrip Hell's end wgah'nagl fhtagn.
==-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-== Dev blog / Twitter / YouTube
I think we already have some very nice rewards to offer, and there is plenty of reason to back the project. The key to success is to get more people to know about it. I'm afraid the addition of extra rewards will likely do very little to that effect.
I think we already have some very nice rewards to offer, and there is plenty of reason to back the project. The key to success is to get more people to know about it. I'm afraid the addition of extra rewards will likely do very little to that effect.
Did you purchase any Facebook ads? You can set the price that you want to pay for the ads, which determines the amount of time your ads are placed on the site.
I had to end my Kickstarter for a Humongous Entertainment inspired children's adventure game early because my brother-in-law died in a car accident while the Kickstarter was running, but the Facebook ads did help generate support for the campaign, even though it was for a niche product.
MetaFox: Thanks for the advice, but I have very little faith in online advertising. Yours is the first positive story I've ever heard about it. Also, facebook keeps telling me to advertise in order to reach "more people in South Holland" or similar irrelevant demographics. It doesn't inspire confidence in their targeting algorithms at all.
lerabot: Thanks! Tech talk: I chose to treat the VRAM as an array rather than a heap. This means that each texture must occupy the same number of bytes, and as such they all have have the same dimensions (256x256). That is somewhat limiting, but it makes VRAM management relatively simple and fast. Each texture contains as many sprites as it can fit, but not all textures fit in VRAM at once. But they do all fit in system RAM, in compressed form. So when a certain sprite is needed that isn't in VRAM yet, the corresponding texture is decompressed to the least recently used entry in the VRAM texture array, and Bob's your uncle!
