fantabulosogamedev

[fantabulosogamedev]

ARE WE AWAKE ? ARE WE ALIVE ? THEN LET US BEGIN

[fantabulosogamedev]

Going Live on Twitch Shortly!

Hey folks!  If you’ve been itching for a sneak peek of the new Fantabulous project, your time is now - I’m doing my first devstream in years tackling some bugs with it!  The full announcement post for the game is still a ways out, so if you wanna see exactly what’s going on now would be a great time to tune in.  I’ll be live at https://www.twitch.tv/fantabulosoful shortly!

I’ll also likely switch over to Tears of the Kingdom in a few hours, so if you’re interested in that you can stay even longer/swing by then.  Hope to see you guys there!

[fantabulosogamedev]

Hey folks!  Here's a sneak peek at the alpha draft of the Shop menu, with the available items being  generated in-game - this isn't just a mockup!  At the shop, players can spend the Kelfos they earn on various items that give them an edge over the other players in the game.  A variety of items will exist, ranging from personal buffs to traps to the unique Wands that can change the state of the entire game.

I've blacked out what the Sausage Stone actually does, since its description would pretty much give away exactly what this project is about.  Observant people may already have a good guess as to what the project is, but I've still got a few more milestones to hit before I properly announce just what exactly is going on.

As an aside, this may be my last post before officially revealing the game - I’m running out of things to show off without spoiling what the game is!  I’m still not sure when the reveal will be, exactly, but stay tuned for the reveal in the not-too-distant future!

[fantabulosogamedev]

Will boycap be in the competitive multiplayer outing or has he died and gone to hell?

Boycap will be one of the playable characters in the game! Initially he was going to be one of the four starter characters, but I decided that I didn't want to have 50% of the initial roster be Capkin, so Oufle took his place. He won't be in the initial version that is released, but he'll be one of the first characters added in further updates - there are a total of eight characters planned for the final version. He'll also be using his Fantaria design, which I can't remember if I've actually shown on this blog...so in case I haven't, here it is!

[fantabulosogamedev]

The Crags convene to determine a punishment for an unfortunate soul...

Just what caused the Crags to bring Capboy here?  Why are they punishing him, and what exactly is that punishment going to be?  You’ll have to wait to find out the answers to these questions, but I will say that what happens to him may be left to the whims of fate...

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Apologies for vanishing over the past month!  Early in December I slipped on my stairs and injured my pelvis badly enough that it hurt too bad to sit in my office chair. Thankfully, after taking some time off work to recover, I’m feeling a lot better.  With the holidays mostly over I’m now getting back into the swing of working on the new project, so I’ll most likely be returning to a semi-regular pace of uploading teasers.  Hopefully see you guys again soon!

[fantabulosogamedev]

Here’s a whiteboxed sneak peek at something that you’ll encounter in the new Fantabulous project!  Note that the question marks will be actual symbols in the full version - revealing what they are would likely give away the project entirely!

[fantabulosogamedev]

Put together a trailer for the Cerulean Vault demo I released yesterday - you can check it out above!  I also released an update to the demo fixing a couple of critical bugs that impacted the “late-game” playability of the demo.

If you missed it, check out my post that went along with the release by clicking here!

Also as a reminder, Fantaria has a discord server!  You can join it by clicking here.

[fantabulosogamedev]

Fantaria Release: The First Cerulean Vault

Hey folks!

I’m excited to announce the release of a formerly backer-exclusive demo: the first Cerulean Vault!  Cerulean Vaults are a gameplay feature planned for Fantaria, which take the form of miniature challenge levels that Capboy encounters throughout his journey.  The world progression of Fantaria is current under some heavy renovating, but the vaults will be unlocked through rare collectibles found in the main levels - think along the lines of secret exits in Super Mario World.

This specific Cerulean Vault is focused on the sliprail grinding mechanic, a unique movement mechanic where Capboy utilizes his slipspace energy to grind along rails at high speeds.  While sliprails will be incorporated throughout the rest of the game, the high density of them in this Cerulean Vault really showcases some of the fun movement you can experience with them.

This vault was the testing bed for the first implementation of sliprail grinding, and with help from the backers I polished it into a state that people were quite happy with!  I’m excited to release this demo to the public and see what the wider community thinks.

You can find the demo by clicking here.  Note that this demo is primarily focused on the sliprail grinding mechanic, and some core mechanics such as leveling up and combat are not present at all in this demo.  However, a time trial mechanic exists for players who want to push the movement to its limits - share your times with your friends and compete to see who can beat it the fastest!

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While we’re here, lemme talk about the new project a bit too! Progress on it is going quite quickly, and I’m hoping to be able to announce it properly in the next couple of weeks.  For the time being, here’s a teaser for one of the NPCs you’ll encounter in it:

This NPC, who goes by the name of Harold, is actually one of the backer characters from Fantaria!  Created and sketched out by Alonaria, he’ll be present in both games, but you’ll likely see him in this new project first.  You’ll be able to encounter him as you play the new game and pay him to steal resources from other players...I guess I haven’t mentioned yet, this new project is focused on online competitive multiplayer!  We’ll take a closer look at Harold once this game is revealed and once he has a proper 3D model.

For any other backers who want to, I’d be very interested in working together to incorporate your characters into this new project as well - let’s cross that bridge once the project’s fully announced, however!

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That should be it for this update!  Hopefully you guys enjoy the Cerulean Vault demo.  I’m excited to hear your thoughts on it!

[fantabulosogamedev]

Is fantaria still happening?

Yep, Fantaria is still happening! It's simply being put on hiatus until this new project is complete.

When I get to the point of announcing the details about this new project, I'll also make a post detailing what's going on with Fantaria's development and how things will look moving forwards.

The short of it is that my vision for Fantaria is too ambitious for a one-person team with a $10,000 budget to make, and between some severe burnout and needing to get a proper job to survive, Fantaria's development has been fairly slow for the past year.

This new project has been a godsend for my motivation, and I've really gotten back into the swing of game development in the time I've been working on it - something I thought would be impossible with the new job. My hope is that this project will be a success, enabling me to pursue Fantaria full-time once again once it's complete - ideally with a larger team at my side!

If you're not interested in this new project at all, I still have some good Fantaria-related news to share: sometime in the near future, I'll be publicly releasing a demo showcasing one of Fantaria's unique new movement mechanics: sliprail grinding! This demo was released to the backers last June, and the feedback for it was very positive. I'm excited to publicly show off Fantaria's first gameplay since the Kickstarter demo and get some feedback from the wider community!

[fantabulosogamedev]

Here’s another quick preview/hint about this new project - it features four playable characters!  Besides the Fantaria veterans Capboy and Friendwoman, we have the brand new Oufle the Eggling on the left.  On the right is Squonky, a long-forgotten Spherefriend from The Fantabulous Game’s development.  Each of these four characters has their own special ability, but otherwise, they perform exactly the same. 

You may be wondering, what exactly are these abilities, and in what context are they used?  Unfortunately, you’ll have to wait a bit longer to find that out!

[fantabulosogamedev]

[fantabulosogamedev]

The Kickstarter is FUNDED!!

Hey everyone!

Thank you all so much for your support -- thanks to you, as of yesterday afternoon Kickstarter has reached its funding goal!! I can now guarantee the release of Chapter 1 of Fantaria, and hope to use its profits to continue and complete the trilogy after its release.  

There’s still 30 hours left, so let’s keep spreading the word -- even if we don’t manage to hit the next stretch goal, more funds will still improve the experience - this’ll be via more awesome new music, more abilities, and more time to polish, just to name a few things!  Not to mention, if you want to see your character designs in action (be they spherefriend, barkwurst, or something entirely original), there’s still time to donate to one of the higher tiers!

I’ll be making a simple post on the KS soon, somewhat similar to this one, but in a couple of days I’ll post a proper post-mortem about the campaign and roadmap for the game’s future development.  Stay tuned for those on the Kickstarter’s campaign page by clicking here!

[fantabulosogamedev]

Hey folks!  With 3 days left on the Kickstarter, 7k and I recently did a second interview recapping the game’s development history along with answering some questions about both the current state of the demo, and the future of its development!

If you haven’t backed the Kickstarter yet, I’d love your support here in the home stretch - we’re 86% of the way there!  If you’ve been holding out, now’s the time for your support -- check it out by clicking here.

[fantabulosogamedev]

Kickstarter Update 3: A Promotional Plan

Hey everyone!  Not going to rewrite the whole post here, but I made a really important post on the Kickstarter’s campaign that I’d love if you all checked out.

Check out the post by clicking here!

Tl;dr: I need your help to help keep the campaign rolling and to help bring the world of Fantaria to fruition!  Share the videos found in this album everywhere you can!

[fantabulosogamedev]

The Kickstarter and Demo are LIVE!!!

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/fantabuloso/fantaria-the-quest-for-sausage

This is not a drill!  Check out the KS and finally play my first published game since LFGv0.9!

If you wanna discuss stuff and hang out with the community, come on over to the Discord by clicking here!

[fantabulosogamedev]

Kickstarter Updates and Demo Release Date!

Hey guys!

Got some cool and important information here for y’all to check out, specifically in regards to the Kickstarter.

I’ve decided to refactor the plan for the Kickstarter slightly -- thankfully, this does not mean it’ll be delayed!  In fact, I have a final, guaranteed release date for it now...check out the end of the post for that info ;)

Kickstarter Changes

The actual refactoring is that I’m drastically lowering the funding goal for the Kickstarter, from $25,000 to $10,000, and changing this goal to instead be to fund Chapter 1 of Fantaria.  Specifically, Chapter 1 is the Shamrock Path, consisting of the Fightyplace, Ballcatraz, and the Shamrock Palace -- essentially all the meaningful content found in the original v0.9, with the exception of Signville.

As for the Egg and Sign paths, they are now going to be made into stretch goals, at $20,000 and $30,000, respectively.  You’ll notice that this is $5,000 more than the previous goal -- this is because the stretch goal for the Arena has now been split into two goals, specifically The Arena at $15,000 and The Nightmare Arena at $25,000.  So, essentially, the initial $30,000 of the previous plan is still intact, but it’s been divided up and reordered.  So, here’s the summary of the new plan:

$10k: Base funding goal!  Chapter 1: The Shamrock Rebellion 

$15k: Arena to fight past bosses and special battle rooms 

$20k: Chapter 2: Eggventures into the Fantabula

$25k: Nightmare Mode bosses and enemies added to the Arena 

$30k: Chapter 3: Signs of The End, + the secret of the crown gate 

$40k: A chapter's worth of secret levels scattered throughout the rest of the game 

$50k: Nightmare Mode second campaign

$60k: Local Coop, Local PvP 

$65k: Nightmare Coop 

$80k: Online Multiplayer

As for the reward tiers, they’ve also been slightly adjusted:

The initial Backerfriend goal, which previously would give the player the full game for $15, will now be $8-10 and give the player only Chapter 1 

If Chapter 2 is funded, a Super Backerfriend goal will be added at $15, giving the backer access to Chapters 2 and 3 as they release (see below)

Deluxe Backerfriend will be moved down to $20 from $25, and give the player the full game + OST

Spherefriend NPC will be moved down from $60 to $50 to adjust for previous tiers

And finally, the most exciting aspect is that the actual release plan of the game will now be episodic, releasing one chapter at a time via expansion pack DLC for every chapter that's funded!  This means that Chapter 1 will be released much, much sooner than the full game would have been before, meaning everyone gets to face off against the Shamrock King way sooner.  The price points for the chapters, if all are funded, will be as follows:

At base price, each Chapter will be $10.  

Those who own a previous chapter when/if a future chapter releases, but don't have access to the future chapters via KS backer rewards, would get a 25% discount on the new chapter as an early bird reward, making it $7.50.  

On release, Chapter 3 (if funded) will be discounted 50% if both Chap1 and Chap2 are owned, for a total price of $22.50 

Chapter 3 will not require Chapter 2, and will instead feature a slightly adjusted story where the Spherefriend Knight Squonky kills the Egg King and gives you the crown

A bundle will exist if all three chapters are funded and released, giving them for $25 as opposed to $30

The Demo

So, what’s the deal with the demo?  Well, here’s all that I have left:

Place Barkwursts in FP-3

Create death animation, end screen, and 100% completion reward logic for The Chosen One, the Fightyplace’s boss

Program upgrades for the three abilities

Polish tutorial structure

Polish FP2 and FP3 visually

...and, that’s it!  When you factor in that very little of the above stuff is actually required for the demo, I’m confident enough to finally tell you guys the true, verified, 100% guaranteed demo release date will be...

....

....

August 23rd, 2019!

Nearly exactly four years after I announced The Fantabulous Game, I’m incredibly excited to say that I have a guaranteed Kickstarter and Demo release date.  This new chapter-based release plan has reinvigorated my passion and drive with the game, and I’m incredibly excited to finally show you guys all the hard work I’ve put into Fantaria over the course of the past year, to say nothing of how much time I’ve spent working on TFG before the project was eventually put on hiatus.  Stay tuned for an updated trailer which should be ready by this upcoming Monday!

As always, if you want to stay up to date with the game, the best place to do that is by joining the Discord where you can see all of my minor updates and ask me questions directly.  Hope to see you guys there, but if not, I’ll see you soon in the comments on the new trailer!

-Fantabuloso