Fry Me Omelettes (casual cooking game!)

> How big is the game? Took me ages to load the Beta. Or maybe just my connection is bad momentarily.

>

Sorry for the late reply. It's around 60mb of data. It was about 45mb before the newest update... adding too many egg sprites.

Thanks for playing! How do you feel about the game?

Nice job, very well done. The only part i was judging felt a bit long, especially after you played a few times. I wanted the results quicker. It could be sped up a bit.

After the end of Beta hosting on June 20, here's my report & evaluations.

The Visits

Since my google analytics no longer show the stats correctly, so I use the old trusty web-counter. This time I traced numbers of unique visitors... (should've use 'number of visits')

It's merely about 70 unique visits... over the hosting period of 3 weeks...

I wasn't pushing my advertising hard enough. And sometimes it's just too hard to notice my promotional posts on social medias.

Feedbacks

I got only a few but constructive comments (thanks to some of your praises).

Their critiques are basically:

• The game still confuses a few of the players on the tutorial.
• The judging sequence is a bit slow for some players.
• Game takes up lots of memory & time to load.
• Vesop-- difficult bi*ch

Fortunately these are not very hard issues.

(1)The game is designed to let players be intuitive & to try around stuffs. It's natural for first-timer to get confused...it's part of the gaming experience I want to have). Also, I think I gave just enough cues for most basic play-through.

(2) I guess the transitions between scenes (also critic's reactions) can be a bit more faster. Will do.

(3) This is a REAL problem that I been trying to remedy. As I add more graphics (& still plan to add more) into the game, it takes up space & memory heavily. This beta version contains 62MB! I will test out a 'resized & cut-corner' version, just to see if I can keep it about 40mb. Big challenge!

(4)Well, I will make her less strict, and a bit more likable. (Just a little )

Nobody says anything about the art/music, which kind of sad for me. I guess they really are not impressive enough... Oh well.

A Reflect On my Promoting

I don't know but... I wasn't very keen on promoting the game. (At that time I was busy pushing to ver0.8 update...Maybe I am a bit tired.) Well honestly, I did lose some degree of motivation. The passion was not there. I felt very reluctant of the promotional updates. It was not a good energy & attitude. ..

I'm still passionate in my work though.

By the way, I did not make any teasers or trailer videos for this beta release. But I will definitely make one game trailer!

I really hope I will - at that next time - really pushing myself out of comfort zone and go a bit more beyond what I did before, on advertising & networking.

That's about it! I will update the plans for game development on next month. (after I re-locate my site to another web-host)

After a month of hiatus, (also dealing with my blog site problem) I have returned to my game development.

This will be my 5th development stage: 'Web Release'.

It's already near complete, what's left is to polish the game.

Mostly it will be on making the game more accessible & attracting... which means improving some graphic to make it more pleasing, make it more 'fluid' to the gameplay, fixing a bit here and there etc.

There will be no more fundamental changings, but the game lacks a few things in my own opinion: It needs more fun factor and I think some additional elements can help. This will probably to be thought over & confirmed in later posts.

An outline of the plan is done & this is the simplified checklist:

In the mean time, I also optimize my game file size to the extreme! Thanks to the online image-compression service TinyPNG, I can compress the images to about 30% of their original file size, with little noticeable image quality loss! Also I changed all my music tracks form stereo to mono, saves half of the sizes. All in all, I am now able to export the game (html) from over 60mb to about 30mb! Very nice!

Next week, I'll be re-touching some backdrops, adding something and also changing the color palette to a more "pastel" feel!

• Current: Post-beta ver 0.82
• Partial backdrops revamped
• Implementing In-Game Achievements

Sorry for the hold back again, I got sick for awhile.

Here's some of my WIP screenshots:

Just added some utencils on the background.

I'm still pondering about switching to a more "pastel" color palette. (I think this is okay though.)

Also, i'm working on adding in-game achievement system.

About adding new elements...

I thought of some ideas, and one of it is the point gauge (multi-digit numbers many mobile games have) But I think it's pointless for my game, unlike arcade-type games when you get points by having direct targets, but not so in my game which are hidden for players to intuitively interact. And also I don't want a in-game money system. (don't want players to buy stuff, but to unlock them by playing).

So I think I have to hold off this 'new element' idea first, until when the game's more in completion...

That's about it.

Nice to see things are moving along niceley. I like the achievments part, gives the game a bit more replayability, and something to hunt for. In terms of achievements it's always good to have a description on the one's you didn't earn yet, so you know what you have accomplish do to get them.

I had an idea in my last playthrough, about the judges. Maybe they could be different tiers. Where they get gradually more picky. Tier 1, (Family and friends, that are not that picky) Tier 2, Local cooking competition, Tier 3, Michelin judges. etc etc where end goal could be to earn a Michelin star, or something. At least it gives you something more to aim for. Just an idea i had.

Nice to see things are moving along niceley. I like the achievments part, gives the game a bit more replayability, and something to hunt for. In terms of achievements it's always good to have a description on the one's you didn't earn yet, so you know what you have accomplish do to get them.

I had an idea in my last playthrough, about the judges. Maybe they could be different tiers. Where they get gradually more picky. Tier 1, (Family and friends, that are not that picky) Tier 2, Local cooking competition, Tier 3, Michelin judges. etc etc where end goal could be to earn a Michelin star, or something. At least it gives you something more to aim for. Just an idea i had.

My achievement system can do that. you can peek though the 'empty' achievement icons and see the descriptions. (example: win 10 passes)

Nice idea about the difficulty tiers, my initial idea is: 1st judge easy, 2nd middle ground & 3rd picky.(keep it simple) I'll see if there's a need for that when the game is out and commented .

Thanks —

• Current: Post-beta ver 0.86
• Some sound FXs added
• In-Game Achievement System done
• New Item #3 implemented
• New 'Challenges' added
• Working on remixing few music tracks

I really want to nag a bit about my very-very cluttered 'events', it’s getting harder & harder to code! So many bugs crawling around On the bright side, I can start to feel the game is getting near completion. (I can see the end of the tunnel now!)

Today, I introduce you a new dressing -- Olive Oil. It adds unique frangrance & flavor to your fried eggs/omelettes. Some judges might like it and and some might not. (and of course you need to play certain challenges to unlock this item!)

(damn GIF artifacts!)

There's actually more content that I could show, but I want to keep some of them hidden until you play it.

So that's all folks.

• Current: Post-Beta ver 0.89
• Drawing & Implementing Item #4

Not much to show now, but it's getting there!

Besides the list, there's still a lot left to do!

• Art: some 'mood' effects
• Music for trailer
• Coding: Critiques on the Item #4 & Olive Oil
• Debugging & more!

• Current: Pre-Release ver 0.92
• 4th item implementation done
• Adding 'Mood Effects'
• Fixing some 'EggLook'(top-down view) sprites

Also, I finished the "official" poster/banner for the game. More like a banner than "official" art to me.

I might show it on the next post.

The new 'Screen Mood Effect' is a simple graphic enhancement for the food reactions.

Something like on the screenshot below.

And finally...

I decided to release my game on Thanksgiving day (11/24)!

I think it would be the perfect date, wouldn't it?

(I probably will upload the game on Kongregate, exclusively.)

On the other hand... there's still so much to do/fix! (and 1 month left)

A simple announcement GIF for the upcoming game release.

• Current: Post-beta ver 0.93
• 'Screen Mood effects' added
• Added few new judge expression pics
• Debug: 'Overlapping Critiques' solved
• Working on Critic Stage Debugging
• Working on BG Retouch
• Working on Landing Page

This takes me half day to write. Today I write a bit more elaborately about my current WIP.

(also writing those will also keep me in check on my game)

There's still much to do & fix.

The first priority is to fix bugs & glitches! (cos' no one likes a broken game)

Then comes the other graphic fix & tweaks to make things look more nice & finished.

The promotional materials part is at the low priority: I won't find most of the time working on them when the game is not ready.

Now let's look at what's left to do from the list there. (ready for this wall of text!)

-BG Retouch:

The kitchen BG is okay I guess, but not for a few different color themes. The judging panel BG is okay except the plant backdrops (will redraw'em). The transition "curtain" need to change the colorless title logo to a color one. Also, I may change the main menu's egg sprites visually consistent with the actual gameplay 'egg looks'.

-Fix Egg Sprites:

Even fixed some of my worst egg sprites, I still think many of my egg sprites looked too plain & unrealistic without the fillings & dressings. I may add a thin layer of real textures on to them, if I got time.

-Critic Stage Debugging:

How to begin this... It's a rejoice to solve the critique overlapping problem, I'm happy.

See Reaction > Respond > Rejection Barrier > Taste Reaction > Judge on Taste > Verdict

These are the judging sequence.

But currently there's many inconsistencies within the sequence, due to careless coding. example: If you make a decent egg, One judge can react with unusual shock, then respond with praise & then rejects you afterwards.

This is what I am currently checking. It's very tedious but doable.

'Taste Reaction' & 'Judge on Taste' currently is very lackluster. There's no judging on the how the fillings & dressings taste. I will add them shortly. (have to keep them simple to prevent more bugs)

The REAL PAIN is the screen freezing. It happens when to each judges, the egg's data not matching any of my hard-coded criteria which I may have missed or coded wrongly. This happens 95% on the 'Reaction' & 'Respond' parts, which are over 1000 events alone! Other parts are more simple & I have no problems so far.

-More Stats & Options:

While there's nothing else to add in 'Stats', I may add a toggle for extra graphic enhancement in 'Options'. I'm searching for one eye-candy effect that can make the 'Egg look'/'Record' screen looked more "tantalizing".

-Landing Page:

I won't take too much time making this so I'll have to go simple .I'm using modified Wordpress theme and make it look like a landing page. Nothing much to see there right now, but will add a few more visuals in the next 2 weeks. snoutyplays homepage

-Game Trailer:

I've planned the storyboard, finished the music track, but probably don't have enough time to make footage, let alone video editing. (I won't make a half-assed version) So I have to postpone it after the game release.

I may give you some hints & preview about the trailer next time.

I come to realized that all the promotional artworks, banners, trailers, articles on indieDB, social media posts, development logs here and on my website... takes up about 20~30% of all the time making the game alone.

That's it! I must remind myself that i don't have enough time for this long-winded post.

Only 18 days to go folks!

I spared some time & gathered up some old versions to make a visual comparison:

From left to right: prototype, alpha (v0.24) & current (v0.95)

Main Menu:

Fry Zone:

Judge Panel:

• Current: Pre-Release ver0.95
• 'BG Retouch' done
• 'Fix EggLook Sprites' done
• 'More Stats & Options' done ('WebGL effects' added)
• Added 'Bypass' function against game-freezing on judging sequence
• Working on missing 'taste' critiques

A new option 'webGL Effects', for the some "bloom" effects.

These graphic enhancements are basically blur & glow. I use the effects subtle-ly, only on main menu, 'egg-look' screen, 'record' screen and the flame & smoke on the 'fry zone'& 'topping area'.

However, Beware that it could heavily impact framerates on a weak GPU in computers/mobile devices. (also the effect may not work properly on some browsers like Internet Explorer etc.)

Here's a short video I made recently in YouTube. (a sneak peek of gameplay footage)

I haven't been working on the trailer lately, but it will be done eventually.

9 days left!

looks great

• Current: Pre-Release ver0.98
• 'Kongregate Basic Integration' done
• Added 'Thanksgiving Launch' pic at the opening
• Doing everything I can for the rest

Some new additions : new Sound effects & 'Thanksgiving Launch' pic.

Also re-tweaked Kitchen music track to a bit more 'mellow' flute sound.

I've done a lot of small glitch fixes in the past few days.

On the judging sequence, there's still many possible way to trigger the 'bypass' (which I can't find the source). At least it doesn't freeze the game like it used to so frequently. Even the 'bypass' is present, there's still possible 'game freeze' situations due to my coding.

I will continue to work on that.

I am currently test-run the game privately on my site, and will also on Kongregate to make sure everything's working. I consider the possibility of sudden errors & incompatibilities, then I'll need enough time to fix. (things can happen)

Game Optimization

Sorry to say but honestly, this game still plays badly on mobile devices (I used my cheap tablet & it only plays 3~15 fps) I tried closing 'collisions' off to most sprites... but no signs of framerate rise. Then I realized i have 10~15 layers on most scenes & over 200 objects on screen (from debugger). Can't do anything on them-- they're essential.

It's BEST to play the game on computer, for now. (still I will find a way to improve fps)

Some also will have to be implemented on future update (ver1.1).

• A bunch of 'overcooked' omelette sprites I don't like but don't have time to fix.
• More diverse critiques (also open up some new criterias)

More will be added in further details. (after release)

And also the game trailer. (probably will release out with ver1.1)

p/s: I turned Mozart's 'Eine kleine Nachtmusik' into a remix for my trailer music. sorry Mozart.

3 days to the thanksgiving l(a)unch!