Extinction Island - Demo out Now!

edited in Projects
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Hi everyone!

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Grab the demo here! (2021)
https://davidnight.itch.io/extinction-island

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DEVLOG START: (2020))

Busy working on a Run and Gun platformer with dinosaurs.. cause well dinosaurs, come on!

Devlog #01:
I've just uploaded my first dev-log. Feel free to check it out. :)


I'll update some progression here as development continues.

Discord:

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I have a discord channel if you're interested in following the project more closely. :) - https://discord.gg/be47h594aQ

Comments

  • It looks cool :)

    Controls do look pretty tight, though can't say without actually trying it myself. Placeholders look like placeholders and that's great, other bits look pretty.

    I have some input on some of the things if you'd like to hear. Lemme know.
    Thanked by 1iamdavidnight
  • edited
    Thanks for the feedback @Tuism - You're welcome to join the discord channel to drop your feedback. => https://discord.gg/be47h594aQ

    Or if you want, you can also drop it here.
  • You should never go spelunking without a helmut... (Cave run scene update)
    Thanked by 1Elyaradine
  • So for a game that features the word dinosaur, the game has very little to do with dinosaurs so far? Spikes and buzzsaws are cool and all but I think if you're trying to build up something with the devlog, perhaps try to get to the titular thing sooner :)

    Other than that, the game looks and moves like a Braid + Meatboy lovechild and that's not bad.
  • Haha yeah that has been a regular comment so far. Currently focusing on getting the platforming tight cause if that sucks it all falls apart.

    The next dev-log I do will be a combat update with the dinosaurs :) Raptors, Combis, Meganeura and a T-Rex.
  • Updated the pixel art. Now everything is the same size and has more of a prehistoric feel to it.

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  • The styling and colour palette does seem more consistent, foreground with outline and background without seems to work here. Colours feel more upbeat, like Sonic-y, if that's what you're going for :)
    Thanked by 1iamdavidnight
  • That's looking good!

    One thing I'd pay some attention to is using values/colour to distinguish between foreground (or interactive) elements and those that aren't. You've already got some nice atmospheric perspective/fog in there, but if a tree is in the foreground and you can't interact with it then imo for gameplay clarity it should not have the same visual treatment as things that you can interact with, especially if it's action-packed.

    The video with the boulders has nice tense moments!
    Thanked by 2Tuism iamdavidnight
  • Thanks for the feedback! Yeah that seems to be the general response so far. Will look through some videos on color and take another crack at it. :)
  • Here's an update to the visuals. Think I'm getting closer.

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  • Another attempt at the forest design :)
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    Thanked by 1konman
  • It seems to be veering away from pixelart (not a complaint, just an observation as I don't know what you intend but I really liked the earlier pixel art). Also the licence plate is mirrored?
  • edited
    Yeah I'm moving away from pixel towards an "Ori and the will of the wisps" design.
    - For me it's quicker to get a large amount of assets out.
    - Haha yeah just noticed that. (The image was flipped)
    Thanked by 1watman
  • Please save that pixel dinosaur for some sort of (other) dinosaur game!
  • @watman will keep it in the art book for the game for def!

    - Further update to the forest scene with an update to the player character.
    image
    Thanked by 1watman
  • Art book? I'm talking about a point-and-click adventure or a versus fighting game.
    Thanked by 1iamdavidnight
  • @watman ahh I get you. Not sure if I'll do a game like that. Maybe a fighting game. But point and click is not my thing unfortuately.

    Velociraptor update:
    image
    Thanked by 1watman
  • About a weeks worth of effort. Created a short scene to demo the feel of the game. :)
    Thanked by 3watman Jurgen mattbenic
  • Just checked it out, it looks very fun to play. The movements look very fluid for the running and gun! PS. The first raptor in silhouette scared the living daylights out of me twice.
    Thanked by 1iamdavidnight
  • Thanks @LittleBear! Glad to see the foreshadowing worked. :)
  • Finished off the cave scene :)

  • edited
    Worked a bit more on the forest too.

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    Thanked by 1roguecode
  • edited
    Closing in on finishing the demo! Here's a short clip for the start of the game. :)

    Thanked by 1konman
  • edited
    New mini devlog! Final scene now complete. :)

  • My first boss battle! :)
    Thanked by 2Ratel watman
  • edited
    The boss fight looks good, great work so far. Is the vid choppy just in the recording or is it in game as well?
    Thanked by 1iamdavidnight
  • Any demo? I wouldn't mind giving this a proper play test.
    Thanked by 1iamdavidnight
  • Love that boss fight. Getting super Dinoriders vibes from the boss :) Very nicely done!
    Thanked by 1iamdavidnight
  • The boss fight looks good, great work so far. Is the vid choppy just in the recording or is it in game as well?
    Thanks! It's just the recording.
  • Any demo? I wouldn't mind giving this a proper play test.
    The demo will be out on the 9th of Jan 2021!
  • Love that boss fight. Getting super Dinoriders vibes from the boss :) Very nicely done!
    Thanks! :) That was the goal.
    Thanked by 1TheCorinthian
  • This looks awesome. My only crit is where are the feathers!? :P

    I'm guessing you're going more for JP/JW canon than realism though so understandable :)
    Thanked by 1iamdavidnight
  • edited
    mattbenic said:
    This looks awesome. My only crit is where are the feathers!? :P

    I'm guessing you're going more for JP/JW canon than realism though so understandable :)
    Haha thanks Matt!

    Yeah going for the more older JP style so no feathers. xD Might change, we'll see.
    Thanked by 1mattbenic
  • The Extinction Island demo has finally dropped.

    Thank you for all your help so far. You've been a great community! :smile:

    Download:
    Itch - https://davidnight.itch.io/extinction-island
    GameJolt - https://gamejolt.com/games/ExtinctionIsland/537167

    Up-vote the Announcement:
    https://itch.io/t/1156142/extinction-island-run-and-gun-platformer-with-dinosaurs-demo-out-now

    Rate the game:
    https://davidnight.itch.io/extinction-island

    Anything will help push this game up in the rankings!
    Thanked by 1watman
  • I'm looking forward to playing this!

    Meanwhile, I'm really curious - how effective was posting that general announcement in drawing traffic to the game? (Downloading/playing traffic, particularly - I don't know why itch prioritises viewing traffic in the analytics because I don't really care about the number of people viewing a page, I want to know about the people who are actually playing.) I saw it got a lot of upvotes, which is great.
  • It helped a little bit I'm guessing. It just has a general stat for people coming from Itch.

    I believe that getting the rating up and having it high on the popular grid helped more than anything.
    The higher your rating. The longer you stay up there.
    Thanked by 1watman
  • @iamdavidnight

    Hey, wow this is excellent! I enjoyed the demo very much.
    The platformer controls are buttery smooth and there's a lot of little mechanics that are a lot of fun (slope jumping, wall knife latch) and the exploration/collect aspects add a lot of fun gameplay. I liked how you use sound to indicate locations of secret areas, instead of say an offscreen indicator or some other means.

    The atmosphere sucks you in and I jumped when the first dinosaur ran past in the foreground, haha.

    I would like it more if the stalactites fell a little bit slower, but then the game difficulty would probably drop as well. :)

    Great job, I can see a lot of work has gone into it and it's very polished already. I wish you good luck and success in your continued development of this great little platformer.
    Thanked by 1iamdavidnight
  • My itch analytics breaks down where on itch people are coming from, ie:

    https://itch.io/
    https://mandyjwatson.itch.io/
    https://itch.io/games/duration-minutes/genre-adventure/html5/platform-web/tag-text-based
    https://itch.io/games/free/html5/made-with-twine/tag-text-based

    although I've never run a test with an announcement or an update post to see if that puts a unique URL into the analytics or if it just gets dumped under generic "itch.io".

    Thanked by 1iamdavidnight
  • edited
    @iamdavidnight

    Feedback time!

    First of all, sorry, but I didn't have much time at all, just squeezed in a quick few minutes between lunch and getting back to work.

    Everything seems polished and it's a great start... but not much point talking about the many good things here.

    I will just drop some critical feedback, keeping in mind everything is still in development of course.

    My left hand is incredibly dumb, so right off the bat I had to reconfigure my keys so the Arrows are bound to movement using Right hand, and left hand is pressing a few special keys like jump, roll, etc.. and just as it felt great to me, I suddenly got the Melee instruction, bound to mouse... and at that point my setup failed :) - I had no way to assign the Melee to a left-hand key instead.

    So that is honestly my biggest issue - the default control scheme does not suit me, and the reconfiguration is not fully implemented (unless I missed something).

    Also - full gamepad support would have instantly solved this.

    (BTW - I have similar control drawbacks in my own game, and several people complain about it - no ability to re-assign keys right now. To me the default setup feels amazing, but to others it is not great. So this is also on my list to fix very soon).
    Thanked by 1iamdavidnight
  • @konman Thanks for the feedback!
    Yeah looking at ways to make it a little easier actually so will look at the gravity of the falling spikes.

    @watman the analytics are quite good but yeah it doesn't discern specifics.
    Cool thing to note. I got the largest spike when I posted to a ton of different groups on reddit and facebook on the same day vs the release on itch.

    @mgeorgedeveloper thanks for the feedback!
    So for keyboard you need the mouse to aim your gun so it made sense to lock the attack keys to the mouse too.
    Currently working on a new build with controller support. It's in but just bug fixing a few things. :D
    Good luck with your game too!

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