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[shoutscion]

I finally made it through the Jack and Casie demo without dying and I loved it! (question: was the music supposed to sound like that at the end? it was like two tracks playing at once) It's like nothing I've ever played and I was really surprised with the depth of game play that you've achieved from the inventory system. Anyway just wanted to give my feedback cuz I'm super excited for this

oh yeah that’s a total mistake. it’s supposed to be only the one track. you can tell i was sort of running out of time towards the end of the prototype, huh?

anyway, thanks for playing!

[shoutscion]

if you’re not following me on twitter, you might be missing out. on stupid bullshit

https://twitter.com/shoutscion

[shoutscion]

@shoutscion I did a doodle of Casie as soon as I tried out the demo! She so cute AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA-

[shoutscion]

Jack and Casie is a quirky puzzle action adventure that turns inventory management into a game as case and her “walking talking superdimensional storage closet” travel around the world, picking up, storing and using whatever useful items they find!

Read More & Play The Prototype, Free (Windows)

[shoutscion]

Jack and Casie scrapped overworld sprites

I worked on a few sprites for Jack and Casie, but none of them really made it into the current iteration, since the top-down style town maps got dropped in favor of the much more efficient visual novel style map screen. I thought I’d talk about the process. I think I learned a lot about pixel art, so I’m really happy about the work I did, though honestly none of my work is very impressive.

Keep reading

[shoutscion]

Mid afternoon drawing of other devs’ characters. Characters by @shoutscion I helped out with the music for the playable demo. Check out the kickstarter for the game! https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/764339878/jack-and-casie

[shoutscion]

They’re both so friggin’ adorable!

@shoutscion​ Its kinda late but congrats on getting the game funded!

[shoutscion]

Are you accepting feedback on Jack and Casie? If so, where's the best place to send it, since I have Thoughts about how it plays and it's maybe a little too long for this ask box? Twitter DM?

twitter’s fine. if you want you don’t even have to DM me, just tweet at me for half an hour. maybe that’ll prompt other people to say something interesting, too? who knows

i’m @shoutscion on twitter too, by the way

failing that you could also email jackandcasiedevelopment@gmail.com, or just post directly to the comments section on itch.io. i try to keep an eye out everywhere, really

[shoutscion]

I tried the Jack & Cassie demo and I really love it. But I have one niggling complaint... The bullets in the .357 cartridges are SMALLER than the .223 bullets. It messes with me just about every time I check the ammo type for a gun.

see that’s a really interesting bit of feedback

.357 and .223 rounds are actually real pistol and rifle rounds, named after the diameter of the bullet. i didn’t want to call them Small Pistol Rounds or something video gamey like that because i feel like that takes away from the believeability of the setting- after all, why would people who routinely shoot at things or get shot at by things not have specific names for the types of bullet they use? bullets are like half of their tools of the trade. there are exactly two things you need to know to keep metal gear sacagawea from kicking your entire house over and that’s how to shoot your gun, and what bullets go in the gun

in the interest of balancing gameplay with world building however i did end up taking another look at the system. the idea i’m currently working with is calling the basic pistol round a ‘.38′ and the basic rifle round a ‘.223′, and having both of them increase in size over the course of the game. this doesn’t literally solve the problem- according to my math, .38 is a larger number than .223- but it does give the player a pattern to recognize; pistol rounds are 2 digits, and rifle rounds are 3. pistol round’s designations is shorter, too, giving the impression that the round itself is smaller as well

hopefully that gives the impression i’m going for, anyway. i’d really hate to have to call pistol rounds .38P or something. not because it’s wrong or anything- Jack and Casie’s gunplay is already all weird and fucky by real world standards (does Casie even know what cover is? what the fuck do you mean she just puts on armor what about her face), so realism isn’t the problem as much as player engagement is- the most important thing about Jack and Casie’s design is that the world doesn’t explain itself to you, and the player is allowed to think about things and discover things and come to their own conclusions by themselves

( which sounds deep, but really it’s just so that i can tell more jokes )

[shoutscion]

Hey, I'm... not sure whether or not this is intentional, but I thought I might as well point it out. You can essentially use the entire feed as an extended inventory by using one object to push all the rest up ad nauseum. Which I guess would correspond to just... kicking them along the ground in front of you or something.

that is intentional, actually- ‘stalling’ the feed like that gives you a little bit of extra room but not only stops new items from spawning but despawns items if you push them up too high, especially whatever item Casie just used. it’s useful briefly, or if you’re content with the items you are already carrying, but it’s not a perfect solution because eventually stalling will keep even ammunition from spawning and you’ll just run out of attacks

(as a footnote- during development, i think the popular interpretation was that Jack was physically holding a big stupid pile of items out in front of him and he’d just keep picking up shit until he couldn’t see where he was going and ignored things on the ground)

[shoutscion]

The results of juggling 5 keys and 4 saws to open a locked storage create…

Look you would be livid too if you had to do that while being fired and punched and stabbed at for 15 minutes!

Casie belongs to @shoutscion 

The game in question is Jack and Casie, which is on Kickstarter with a free demo!

(also congrats on getting the game funded!)

[shoutscion]

Jack and Casie is on Kickstarter!

and it took its fuckin time too

“An 'Inventory Action Game' about a mysterious machine from an ancient civilization, and Casie.“

Check the link for a free prototype, more information, and concept art! Our goal is only 14,000USD. 

( and to all of my long-time viewers- thank you for all your support! )

( please look forward to even more crazy anime bullshit. )

[shoutscion]

i know the focal point is the banter and all but id like to take the time to talk about how the only indication that casie is on fire is her impression of a birthday candle

[shoutscion]

Toltuga and Suoicarme are not typical denizens of the Watching Woods- repair crews like this are only sortied in response to some sort of significant disturbance in an Ancient Ruin. which sounds bad, but it’s probably just some idiot tripping an alarm during a scrapping run or something

Toltuga is the bottom enemy. he’s just Tortuga from before but re-re-redesigned (fuck). inside his shitty little claw arms are a selection of fine tools that allow it to repair other robotic enemies even mid battle, like an awl torch and a power (normal sized, unintimidating) drill and a roll of duct tape. he’s compact and very hardy, with a reinforced frame that functions as a makeshift armor (as previously mentioned) (?). 

Suoicarme* is the guy on top- his right arm is a pile driver (that functions like Tortuga’s old design) and his left arm is a housing for various heavy repair ordnance. inside the multiple barrels are a flamethrower, an arc welder and a second, smaller, normal arm to manipulate things while it either flamethrowers them or arc welds them. he’s well built too but to a lesser extent then toltuga who is basically just a walking block of metal

*sounds like “Swiss Arm.” -y.

[shoutscion]

because the animation is so fast and the frame is so rare this sprite can afford to be absolutely terrible

meanwhile, this one took like 6 hours, and has a fuckin traceable geneology

[shoutscion]

normally casie just throws this item (in the same way she just throws everything) but in certain situations, like hitting an enemy’s weakness twice in a row, some weapons have different animations

[shoutscion]

i dont remember drawing this