Tag: Oggipital

Oggipital Pro Tip #19

Pro Tip #19

One of the best tips in the category “Level Up”, this justs spills all the beans on the de facto leveling-up strategy.

At Level Up time, cut a lone, uncommon Kisau Veela at the outskirts of the field.

I bet there’s going to be a few “A-HA!” moments when players start to understand the mechanics of the scoring and the leveling up. This tip bumps you ahead of everyone. As the rule for leveling up is that you need half of the Kisau Veelas to be of the same kind, and they need to be on the same side of the cut for the gate to open, you’d like to cut a lonely Kisau Veela who’s on the outskirts of the field.

Why? Well, if you do a cut either high up, or low down, you maximize the amount of Kisau Veelas being on one side of the cut. And cutting an uncommon type you will maximize your score, as you want to keep as many of the most common kind on the field at level up time.

Oggipital Pro Tip #18

Pro Tip #18

“That’s what the ladies always say”, huh? Is that even a category?

Take it slow at start. The Kisau Veelas will calm down, you’ve got enough time!

It’s an action game, alright, but the first mistake beginners do is to start slicing and dicing like the world is going to end. I’m sure you can get some nice results with that strategy as well, but I’m sceptical you’d climb very high on the high score leaderboard.

The secret is to take it easy, especially in the first levels. You’ve got around 20 seconds to make your cut, and there is no scoring related to the time itself. So let the Kisau Veelas calm down after they drop to the playfield (they’ll slow down pretty quickly), and then start looking for those monster multiplier scores – meaning, Kisau Veelas which line up nicely for a combo cut. It’s much simpler to cut them when they move slowly.

Oggipital Pro Tip #17

Pro Tip #17

From the Ministry of Awkward Playing Positions, this bulletin just in!

Tilt and twist your device and wrist for those perfect angles and long cuts.

Getting Carpal Tunnel Syndrome is part of the charm, eh? It’s a well-known fact that the playing position –  having to cut horizontally with the two-finger pinch move – is not the most ergonomic of them all. However, the style is free: keep your device a bit tilted to either side – some play the game on an iPad in landscape mode altogether, even if the game does not support it. Whatever works for you! Some do the pinch move with the thumb and index finger, some with the index and the middle finger. Are you left-handed, right-handed? Does not make a difference, just find your preferred position. You probably need to tilt your device for those long, diagonal super-bonus cuts anyway – this game activates you physically as well! 🙂

I don’t find the playing position awkward – perhaps I’m used to it – but us lefties have a tendency of tilting our wrist in that “don’t-smudge-the-ink”-position, which makes the thumb+index finger pinch more or less horizontal. I keep my preferred gaming device, the iPad Mini, slightly tilted to the left when I’m going for the high score, slacking about on the sofa.

Oggipital Pro Tip #16

Pro Tip #16

Luckily we weren’t finished for good, just for the scoring stuff. Save this in category “Do’s and Don’ts, Mostly Don’ts”. The latter sentence describes one more of those sudden death situations.

Incorrect cuts gets you a visitor. Be extra careful when the Oggiput is on the field.

There’s just no room for errors once the Oggiput comes along. Concentrate, let the situation calm down – but only a bit, as the Oggiput likes to jump across the playfield when he gets bored. Make that pinch, squash him like the bug he is. Try not to squash too many Kisau Veelas in the same go, but sometimes there’s just gonna be collateral damage.

Just. Don’t. Miss.

The Kisau Veelas: “Wansy”

The Kisau Veelas are named in foresight for the kids’ game I’m planning to do with them. One of the kids’ game’s aspects would be, not very original, an educational one, more precisely about counting. So the names are derived out of the English words for the numbers 1 – 10.

Wansy-256-1

This is Wansy. I haven’t put my mind to developing the characteristics of the Kisau Veelas, as it’s not that important in Oggipital. But for the kids’ game there certainly will be a well-thought character and characteristics palette.

Wansy-256-2

All of the Kisau Veelas have a set of facial expressions in Oggipital, and a specific small animation. There’s no sounds attached to them because having like 40 Kisau Veelas on the playfield would mean the game would never shut up. So the animations are there just for fun, for that small polish in the game.

Wansy_1B

The Kisau Veelas: Intro

Oggipital has a bunch of characters in it, but the thing is – the game is not at all about the characters. The game mechanics have initially been designed just to be actions and functions, not related to a character or a story at all. The game idea was initially much more of a hard-but-simple game, a very short slicing/cutting frenzy, do-or-die. The art style was supposed to be “line graphics on acid”, very much inspired by Super Hexagon. Super Hexagon happened to be the first thing that went big on the indie side at the time I entered Twitter.

I had – still have –  a great idea for a kid’s game, and I was juggling for a while if I would make that as my first game. This was at the time I noticed kids’ apps and games was becoming big (here in the Nordics’ driven a lot by Toca Boca), and I knew a well-made kids’ game would easily gain a top position on the App Store charts. I was right – six months after I saw dozens of new kids’ apps popping up and the App Store featured a lot of these. Feeling a bit defeated (by my laziness of not pursuing that game), but I’m sure there is room for yet another great kids’ game. Believe me, I have two little gamers here. The iPad is awesome for kids.

But the size of the project dissuaded me, and in hindsight that was good. The decision to make a simpler, smaller game as the first game was certainly the best approach to enter the game development industry.

However, I started thinking a bit ahead. I’m in this for the long haul, fully intended to run this as a business and make a living for me. In an attempt to maximize future benefits – both in workload and in marketing – I decided to change the art style of Oggipital (whatever the working title was in the beginning…hadn’t one, I think). I wanted to get a feeling for the art style for the kids’ game, and the style by Pietari Posti was so great that I wanted to fix that immediately.

The plan was to make a simplified set of the kids’ game characters and use them for Oggipital. This would pay off when the kids’ game is out, as the characters are already known. Building a brand, sort of. I noticed the game mechanics were a good fit for these simplified characters, so to browse my List Of Crazy Ideas did not take long, and I had the names and main characteristics of the characters ready. They will fit both games – the kids’ game will be an extension to the characters seen in Oggipital. Yes, the kids’ game will happen. One day.

In Oggipital the Kisau Veelas, as I call the funny chaps which you are about to slice and dice, are essentially just round blobs with funny faces, and fulfil the game mechanics’ need for round, cuttable, equal sized targets. But I’ll run a set of blog posts to show off each character – because the art style is awesome!