Category: Dev Journal

Progress updates on the development of my games.

Behind-the-scenes: Soulcaster 2 Level Editor

This is what I’ve been working on in the last few weeks.  There are a few new features, including:

  1. Multiple background layers (sky layer which is drawn above characters, for high walls or canopy)
  2. Animated decorations (e.g. torches, waterfalls)
  3. Base layer tile with optional locked scrolling and autoscroll (quick and dirty parallax or simulated palette animation)
  4. Scripting engine allows floor and trench type gates, so there can be one-way doors, collapsing bridges, cage traps

See the video here and bear with my first attempt at a narrated video:

And part 2:

This may not be too exciting for the average Soulcaster player, but maybe other developers will be interested to see how I made an editor using Windows Forms and XNA.

Post your best completion times

It only took a couple weeks before someone decided to try JUSTIN BAILEY and discovered a hidden tribute password.  But I’ll reveal a secret: there are actually 6 hidden passwords.

You can get hints for some of them by beating the game within a slightly inhuman time limit.  And one is another tribute password.

To all six dedicated fans who read this site, how quickly can you make it through the game?   I’d like to know how close you guys are getting.

Soulcaster has been patched! New feature: Quick Save Password

The new version of Soulcaster has just passed peer review, so anyone who has bought the game can download the new version for free. Changes:

  1. Password quick save and quick load.  You can save one password per profile and avoid the hunt for a scrap of paper if you have less than 75 minutes to play at once.  This was by far the biggest request from everyone who played the game.
  2. The “screen size” option now shows a boundary area when selecting so you can see the real area of the screen.  Thanks to Randy of Neuron (XNA Creators Club member) for this suggestion.
  3. Exploit fix: The “free upgrades” you could get by restarting a level after buying upgrades (keeping your upgrades but getting your checkpoint cash back) has been fixed.
  4. Exploit fix: It was possible to summon infinite souls through button mashing through a “single frame” error.  Thanks to Alex Shoup for finding this, keeping it secret from the interwebs, and sending me detailed info on how to reproduce it.

Please post thoughts and questions about the new save system, since I am looking for an elegant save system for Soulcaster II.

    Available Now

    Microsoft has officially made the game available for download from XBOX Live Indie Games as of yesterday afternoon. Check out the demo!

    So far the Live crowd seems to like it more than GameTrailers users.