Yes.

-The management.

The development of McDROID has been a 100% chaotic process but now that it’s almost finished, it’s not a good time to wander around and think of new concepts, the work must be finished. Distractions seem to abound  so it is time to bring in the big guns : a schedule.

Since there are a lot of tasks that need to be finished, I’m using a todo list thing, I settled on Todoist.com because it’s following me everywhere, even bugging me on my android phone.

And the result I would say is quite good because when you keep postponing a task it incurs negative karma, like say the chat widget or the level selectors which have been on the pile for 2 weeks.

Here is a snapshot of the progress so far.

And the trend, not very useful but fun to look at.

And I’m atomizing tasks so something gigantic like “redo the shop” is split into… uh well actually I’m not atomizing I just do it and then when it doesn’t work perfectly I put the fixes in the todo list and move on.

And because some of you have been waiting for some time for the new build, here is the list of stuff finished.

The thing about Jourdan is he asks heartfelt questions which take some soul searching.

Hello everyone.

PAX is over and GDC just finished so good news : the long awaited Beta 12 has arrived.

Seeing many many people play McDROID at the PAX booth was very good and you may see a lot of improvements in the way the game plays, also things are a bit clearer with the strawberry economy oh and if you’re tired of hunching over the keyboard and mouse, plug in your XBOX controller!

Change log:

• NEW Level 10! Deserted Base - the grand Finale with the new boss: Mutatosaurus which combines long range and melee.
• NEW Deployable - Complete level 10 on normal to unlock the sentry gun, a turret you can deploy anywhere!
• NEW Weapon - RTYPE’s wave cannon, formerly known as the Laser Mk4 - hold fire to build up a more powerful attack.
• NEW Achievements for completing later levels without using any turrets, and without losing any turrets
• NEW Snapshot animation to make persistence from normal-challenge-nightmare more obvious
• NEW Gamepad (XBOX 360) support on Windows (dpad for the shop, left trigger to deploy, right trigger to shoot, the rest is on-screen)
• Mouse Look! - right click to look around and left click to fire
• Economy is pure strawberry based now
• Desert Arena and Forest Arena require the secret levels complete on the co-op host
• BALANCING price of turrets
• BALANCING WOOF armor stronger
• BALANCING collecting on factory Mk2 and Mk3 faster
• BALANCING Level 7 Normal easier
• Text more readable on super high res screens
• Contents of bag now auto-collected at end of level
• FIX WOOF pet and fertiliser no longer auto destroy
• FIX level 6 nightmare immortal spawners no longer immortal
• FIX volume levels no longer act weirdly on loading new levels
• FIX info bubbles will adapt to size of text

We’re getting very close to release and the last bit that remain are the GUI and polishing but if you find bugs, post on the forum Any remaining bugs, leave a message on the forum or email support@elefantopia.com.

Enjoy :)

We finished the last touch on the gamepad control to a level of polish that I think you’ll all like.

McDROID really comes to life when the camera is free flowing and the mouse now does have that control scheme.

We somehow managed to fit in the complexity of the game, including the hierarchical shop and the rail, into something accessible. And we went console style with the shortcut buttons - how cool is that blue (X) !!

gamepad on McDROID vine.co/v/bpwl2UulwwH

March 19, 2013

We’ll be showing McDROID, having a contest and giving away stuff.

If you’re in the area, come say Hi @ booth 197.

Here is how the video wall is made.

 

making video wall vine.co/v/bdeFPaHJbWW

March 14, 2013

After searching and searching for the best method of delivery we finally found the Humble Store and it is fantastic.

The people at Humble Bundle are very kind and responsive and best of all they take a fair cut.

The workflow is by hand, you send them a link with your stuff and you with them via email and the widget changes, so what you get on their web site is very basic stats of sales. It is a good thing because at this stage of development I don’t want to decypher yet another web page (although seeing how good their widget is I am sure their web interface will end up being very simple and convenient).

The widget itself, you know it, they added a (+) which allows generous people to donate some more (Merci Benoit !).

There is not yet options to customize the look and thinking about it, it’s probably better like that, brand recognition and all.

Within 2 weeks that we have been using it, our income from direct sales have surpassed Desura’s so I’m happy.

At the moment, because it’s in beta, you have to contact them directly and I think they curate whom they chose.

I think they will be presenting their back end technology because I think it’s a brilliant mix and inspiring, I never spoke to anyone in the Indie space who uses Google App engine.

So here is the widget, bye.

I just finished playing the 10th play of desert co-op arena of McDROID, seeing how far I could go solo and I noticed I was using the same pattern when approaching a level:

1- first I plant in one corner to get strawberries but also to limit area of harvest as well as limit the number of berry spots to defend against thieves or corruptors. That means I maintain a contracted economy 

2- Then when the money is enough I start buying the first weapons.

3- once the economy is good enough the number of choices expands but usually I keep the stuff I bought in 2

In the case of Desert Arena I noticed I was doing the same thing over and over in 1 by keeping a shy economy and the assault is such that deploying turrets around the land was spreading my movement too thin, by 3 my shuttle exploded in a nice mushroom cloud.

I was trying variation of the same pattern, feeling increasingly bored.

So after 7 play I decided to make a conscious effort to use a completely opposit strategy, one that usually fails due to thief class enemies : spread my economy and concentrate my weapons. Rail on the back with one factory for fast harvest, one bliss engine and one missile launcher concentrating all my movements around the shuttle, using the weapons’ aoe to decimate or attract enemies to me. I’d accumulate gold like a squirrel and as I had enough, started upgrading like crazy and deployed only fully beefed up turrets.

Nothing genius here and I am sure many of you have more flexible minds than I, but I was surprised at how quickly mind gets stuck in patterns, how much resistance it oppose to changing what obviously doesn’t work and how good it feels to break free from these patterns, so good in fact that I started changing levels to encourage the breaking of habits.