Posting my development progress (and latest gameplay video) on HeavyVertical here:
https://itch.io/t/140381/heavy-vertical#post-268913
Cheers!
Santi
Hi,
I’m working on a game for the jam, hopefully I can show you something at the end of this week.
Currently I’m working alone on this project, and I don’t really have marketing knowledge, so I thought a publisher would be a great help. Whatever the outcome of the jam will be, I would try to publish my game. Finally the question: is it possible to have a publisher before or after the jam ends?
Edit: Oh, and your game’s looking good, Santi!
Best,
Zsolt
@Zsolt,
Thank you for the kind words.
I am working alone on my projects too, typically on my spare time. I don’t have any experience about getting help from publishers or the procedures involved. When I launched my first-ever game last year, I only launched a small Facebook ad campaign, running for about two weeks where it got most of the installs for an affordable cost.
If you happen to get more information about publishers I would love to know too :)
I’m excited to see your jam game development progress!
Cheers,
Santi
Sharing you a bit of progress here:
@Rob,
I know the best time for me to generate builds - between 3AM - 5AM. I guess my timeout issues are from slow connectivity somewhere :(
Cheers,
Santi
Having to have an internet connection to build is becoming increasingly inconvenient and outdated. It somewhat made sense when Corona was $450 a year and it was to prevent people hacking it to get a free ride, and you didn’t have far more powerful engines like Unity3D available for free and with offline builds.
When I entered the Kenney Jam, there was a questionnaire that asked which engine you were planning to use - Corona must have been 50th in the list, somewhere between QBasic and C64 Assembler. It just wasn’t in the conversation and things like this aren’t helping!
I love Corona for what it is. Yes, there are always limitations and there are many great and powerful tools out there (I for one is eyeing at learning C# and Unity3D) but for the type of 2D Projects I make I am very much at home with Corona.
The only issue I’m having now (recently) is the failed builds with error #5 which I think must have something to do with poor connectivity from where I am. Yes, it would be very cool if we can make builds offline.
@Santi I’ll let you know if I’ll have some experience contacting publishers :) I like your development log!
Have you tried LiveBuild? It’s a great feature, so that you don’t have to build every time you change something.
@nick_sherman Personally I don’t have problems with Corona. The build is fast (I live in Hungary, so maybe I build when nobody else does), and most of the time I don’t even have to build again thanks to LiveBuild.
I tried Game Maker, Unity, Cocos 2dx, Defold before, and for my current game, Corona proved to be the best engine for me. Maybe other engines have better marketing and more tutorials.
I agree that Corona is a great engine, although I personally find despite five years experience with Corona and just six months with Unity, I can actually iterate a lot faster in the latter already.
The marketing is where they have failed, hence why they were so far down the list in the Kenney jam, below the likes of Love2D. Type in ‘lua game development’ into google and Corona doesn’t feature until page 2. Even worse, ‘2D game engine’ ranks on page 3. Defold has been out for 5 minutes and has a number 1 ranking.
They don’t really seem to be taking any steps to address this, I mean these forums are hardly alive with activity - it’s the same three or four posters responding to most questions. 
I agree LiveBuild is a great feature but has stopped working for me, my project is 150MB+ and it just doesn’t seem to like that.
Keep in mind that everyone has access to offline builds now. The simulator is no doubt more convenient, but if you’re having long build times, it may be time to investigate using native builds even though you’re not using any native features.
For now, this is only available for Mac users but we are working on getting Android builds working in Android Studio on Windows.
Rob
@Rob What do you think about my question regarding finding a publisher? Is it okay according to the jam rules?
I’m pretty sure you’re free to do with your entry what you want. So finding a publisher should be fine.
Rob
Here’s my itch.io page: https://btmgames.itch.io/wota
There’s an apk to download on the page. Currently I don’t have a video to show, maybe tomorrow.
Enjoy!
Edit: Now I uploaded a few anim gifs.
Hey @gergely.zolt89,
Glad to know you’ve made great progress! I’ll checkout and download your APK.
Meanwhile, I have made some progress too on HeavyVertical, so I posted Buil 9-12-2017 here:
https://santiagoluib3.itch.io/heavy-vertical/devlog/9795/build-9-12-2017-how-planet-blue-looks-like
Youtube:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mZXSeCRzGEw&t=75s
Cheers!
Santi
Hey Santi,
I like the look of the second planet. Do you plan to use some other forces, like wind? Or some underwater missions?
It seems to me that your game’s world aims to be realistic. So in this case what are those blue crystals and the floating fuel/energy? Maybe it won’t need explanation, just occurred to me.
Thanks!
You have read my mind 
Yes, winds will definitely be a force element in the game in later levels. Imagine lining up with the landing pad or passing through narrow tight passages while working to counter wind forces (basically, gravity set on the x axis ) . I have considered underwater missions too, but working on the underwater assets is a ton of work, and I’m doing this solo, so that may come later on .
Floating green energy orbs are “refueling stops”. The main challenge in the game is efficiency - delivering/landing your cargo at their designated landing spots before you run out of fuel or blow the engine with overheating. Some missions are long so even with full tank you can’t make the distance without a topping up. Those green orbs (and coolers) are positioned in such a way that if you don’t use power efficiently, you can’t reach your destination. As you gain familiarity you’ll learn that some tricks (like using gravity, or using a “swing” or sling effect - the tugging of cargo and ship, or short bursts) can actually save fuel.
Blue crystals are in-game’s currency used to buy upgrades like engine power, stronger armor etc. As you progress for example, some cargo are just too heavy for the default ship, so an engine upgrade helps, and so on. So if the player is lazy to collect the crystals but needed to upgrade, he may buy crystal packs with real IAP, or replay the levels to collect the crystals.
Graphically though, at this point I am not very happy with how I presented these power-ups as floating objects. Perhaps they’re too large? Or do they look out of place considering the realistic scenery? I’m not sure yet. But they’re there for functionality and testing the framework. Whether that’s permanent or temporary I still have to review it :)
The windy levels sounds fun :) I understand that it’s hard for you to create all the assets too. This is why I bought a graphics package. Have you thought about that?
I see. The concept seems to be good.
I don’t think they’re too large. Maybe there could be some kind of drone holding the energy orbs. That could be an explanation. Maybe the blue crystals should blend in the environment a bit more. Why are there floating crystals on every planet? But these questions are not that important I guess
@Rob Did you have a chance to look at my itch.io page? Here’s the link again: https://btmgames.itch.io/wota
I’m in with my RPG. Finally assembled all parts into playable demo.
In this game you need to manage a couple of heroes to unite shattered lands. You have a few heroes in your castle and portal to different locations (currently only one portal xD). Your heroes go through portal and fight different monsters - until portal energy is over. In your journey you will found some equipment (to power up your heroes), materials (to craft equipment) and portal crystals (to power up portal or open another one)
There are still a lot to do - hope I will finish my game by the end of the month