Legacy of Kain: Revival beta

[Vincent]

Nice work!  I'm glad you liked the final battle... and the credits: after all, you are in them.

Yes, the game does not count the time you spend in the menu, in a conversation, in a cutscene or when you reload.  So you know you spent 4 hours of real "flawless" gameplay from beginning to end.  

Will you try to get the other 4 endings?  You can get them pretty fast (since you already finished the game once) by playing it at easy and making saves along the way each time you complete an objective.

[bluemonkmn]

I didn't realize/remember that there were other endings.  I probably won't try to get them because I have so many other games to play these days (I'm starting to even wonder what's the point of game development any more!  Not quite a midlife crisis, though.)  But in case I do, what kinds of variations are required to get the other endings?  Leaving some objectives incomplete?

[Vincent]

Yes, there is a total of 5 endings.  You get a different ending depending on how many objective groups you have completed.

I made some branches in dialogs too.  For example, when you reach the Hylden Seer, there are quite a few dialog possibilities:
- variation if Vorador is dead
- variation if Vorador is revived
- variation if Nexus was defeated and absorbed
- variation if Nexus was defeated but not absorbed
- variation if Nexus was not met yet

If you want, I could send you some saved game files so you can see the other endings.  Of course, you will have to defeat the Elder God each time. 

[Vincent]

Oh, I forgot to say that if the endings is different based on how many objectives group you have completed, the last level changes depending on which objective you have completed.  There are 4 rooms in the last level (if we forget about the final boss room).  Each of these 4 rooms is attached to an objective group.  So each room changes depending on if the attached objective group is complete or not.  I have saved games to see the difference in the last level too, if you are interested.

[bluemonkmn]

Hey, Google AdWords just gave me another $100 in free advertising.  I thought maybe it would make sense to advertise a specific game (your game) along with SGDK2 to get the attention of people who want something more concrete to play with when getting SGDK2.  We should think about what kind of ads would be effective and then run another (pre-paid) ad campaign on my Google AdWords account to see how things turn out this time around.  Right now my ads are images based on the side-bar image in the about dialog and the web page banner.  And they have the following text:
A 2D game universe to explore...
designed by you
Check out the most flexible game creator you never heard of.
Create the game you never thought you could using a free IDE with superior online help.

The latest suggestions that Google provided with their new gift were:

• One of the easiest ways to improve your AdWords performance is to write great ads. Give people a specific, tangible reason to click on your ad, such as a special offer, a free catalog or discount.
• Here's another tip: people are more likely to click on ads if they see the precise terms they used in their search. For example, someone looking for "digital cameras" will be more likely to click on ads that include the exact phrase, "digital cameras."

So, I'm not sure what the next step is, but we should work out something between the two of us to try to get a successful set of ads. Maybe you could try getting an account again to see if you can do it in a way that doesn't risk charging you this time -- just to see what options are available. If not, I can try to communicate what the available options are, and what I think would make sense. I currently have 5 different size image ads and one text ad.

Interested?

P.S. they also provided a link with more "training" type info; a kind of online classroom.

[Vincent]

Hi bluemonkmn!

That's good!  But I admit, I don't feel very comfortable with this google adword stuff.  I went back into my adwords account but I have no money in it and no promotion code or anything to redeem to get free advertising.  So I guess it would be better to do it with your account.

I understand that the idea is to promote SGDK2 and use LoK: Revival to do so.  I am with you 100% on this.

Your advertisement text is good.  Is there emphasis on the word "free"?  Because it's far in the text and may not be obvious.

What can I do do help?

[bluemonkmn]

Oh, you *do* have an account?  Even if you have no credit in it, you could use it to see what kinds of ads could be created, even if you can't make them active, right?  That's all I was suggesting.  If you can see what image sizes are available for ads and what formats exist, you can help by creating appropriately sized images to contribute to my ad campaign.

Now that I think about it, though, I should wait until I have some updated web content to put on the SGDK2 homepage.  Sam was going to sent a nicely formatted version of the web site.  I should wait until I have a more attractive site before inviting people to it with ads.

Meanwhile, maybe you can come up with one or two images (including graphics from your game) and maybe some text that you think would attract attention to go on those images.  Post them here or send them to me, and if it looks like you're on the right track, I'll have you create a number of other similar images to use as ads.  Otherwise I'll think on it and make suggestions on how the ads coul be improved before putting too much work into all the variations.  My very rough thought (just for the text) might be like:
"Legacy of Kain series revived as a free 2-D game.
Play the game or make your own with the same free 2-D game creator."
Then I could make a page we can link to somewhere that has information and links to both products.

Find out if Google ads suports animated images in any form if you can do that with your limited account.

[Vincent]

Yes, I have an account.  I opened it last time we discussed the possibilities to advertise my game.

I'll try to make a couple of ads this weekend if I get the time.

[Vincent]

Hi Bluemokmn!

I tried a couple of times tome make some ads...  Most just look horrible and I deleted them.  But I made one that isn't too bad I guess.  I don'T think I will have time to make another this weekend, but I'll try to find an idea for another one.  Anyway, tell me what you think of the first one.  Does it look like you wanted?  Do you have other ideas?

By the way, you can "animate" some ads with google graphics ads, but only using the templates google offers.  If you try to upload an animated gif you make yourself, you get a warning saying that you cannot use this file because there is "inappropriate flashes and flickers" or something like that.  So the animation you see in the ad I make is by using an animated template.

Link toward the ad preview(I made some screenshot to emulate what the ad would look like and created an animted gif with the screenshots):
http://fvy2qg.blu.livefilestore.com/y1po7Xiqu3zUMGSo7U0Djs3s6Z4olFqBnbNLJeC5sJe6HVSgjFV0R6Suduawbw-zIkRl2dYxQtyoQnGXI043tfo3owvahrWELq6/Preview.gif?psid=1

I also took note of the exact recipe to reproduce the ad should you want to make it.

That's it for the moment!

Thanks!

[bluemonkmn]

That looks pretty good.  It looks like most of the graphics are of the characters.  It's be cool to get some of the awesome looking rich backgrounds you have in some of the ads too.  Maybe in some of the wider ads we can get some panoramic backgrounds.  Still waiting for the web site content update, but when the web site is ready, I'll start putting real effort into implementing this ad campaign.

[Vincent]

Okay, I'll try to do something with backgrounds.
There is project going on (that is out of my hands though) to redraw all the graphics in my game with 2D renders of 3D models.  It's not going fast and I have yet to see anything from the artists, but maybe the game will be prettier after it's done.  If we wait for this to be over before we do the ads, it would probably be greater...  But it might never happen too.
Hum...

[bluemonkmn]

I think there are some graphics that could be improved by rendering with a 3D modeler, but others that are already practically pixel-perfect in their stylized way, and might be very difficult to improve with 3D rendering.  It would be like trying to improve a Monet painting by re-creating the scene in a ray-tracer.  It loses its style .  For example, I think the forest graphics and mansion graphics are quite nice and would require a lot of work to re-create as tiles with better detail using a ray-tracer.  In a tile editor, you can add detail with just a few well-placed pixels, or leave some pixels out as part of your style (as you have done) but with a 3D modeler, you need to define a new geometry to get every detail.

I wish you success in getting something beautiful back, but I think there are some backgrounds that will make good ads even as the graphics stand now.  We'll see.  We have time.

[bluemonkmn]

Finally looking into the Ad Builder.  I don't know if they had that before or if I just didn't notice it.  The Product Showcase and Expandable Ads look interesting.  I'll have to play around with those when I get a chance.

[Vincent]

Hi bluemonkmn!

Yeah, I agree with you about recreating the game with 3D objects.  I'm not really sure with it will look like.  The big bonus I see with this project is to get rid of all the ripped stuff I took from other games.  It will be more unique and original I guess with 3D renders.  But for the final "look" I'm not sure.  I have no idea how this project is going.  To sum it up, I was contacted by a couple of 3d artists who wanted to remake the game with 3d models and wanted the source code, etc.  I told them it would probably be better and faster if I just extracted all the graphics of the game and send the package to them.  They agreed.  So basically, I'm waiting the receive the new graphics sheets that I will import in the game (probably at a better resolution, so I might have to make more graphic sheets) and then recompile and "voil

[bluemonkmn]

The graphics editor in SGDK2 was designed for editing tile graphics, not large images. With that in mind, I figured that it wasn't worth the effort to implement a scrollable editor, and simply limited the size.  This also eliminates performance problems that would exist in performing some operations on a large number of pixels.  Since the assumption is that the editor is for editing small graphics, any editing of large graphics should be done externally.