@Sebilio It certainly would be possible, but it's the first time anyone has asked me to make the game harder. There's only around 200 Difficult drawings, and my concern would be that making a change like that would mean altering the base code. That's usually a risk most developers don't like to make, just in case there's an unforeseen knock-on effect.
I can look into it, but I think adding in some additional words and the Gallery at the end of each game is more worth-while of an addition.
I'm currently working on an update that tightens things up, as well as adds in a gallery mode at the end so everyone can look back on their... works of art.
If you get a chance, please rate it on this site and on the eshop. It helps more than you might think
It'd be massively appreciated if you could find the time to rate it on here and the eShop. You'd be surprised how much those little stars make a massive difference.
@molkom Thanks for the support! I've already adapted some of the code to some of @cyrus_zuo 's suggestions.
I'm very interested in the "Dutch Auction" approach to the score, however, I'm unsure as to where that will fit in. The initial design made pretty good use of space... so suddenly adding in a feature like this can be slightly tricky.
@cyrus_zuo Hey! Thanks for the support! Hope you're enjoying it! Those are some great ideas. I'll be happy to add in what I can.
Regarding the gallery, I can have the blackout fade away when the timer gets down to 5 seconds. Giving artists a last minute 'shock'.
I did contemplate allowing players to have multiple custom categories, but eventually decided against in. However, I've had that request come up a couple times now. How many would you like?
I'm afraid I don't understand your first point regarding the score. Do you mean that each second, a point is added into a pot, meaning the longer you take to guess, the greater the score?
@bofis Very true, but Battlefield, COD and Titanfall just came out. All first person shooters, all competing against one another. Personally, I plan on getting 2 of those 3, as although similar, they'll still bring the fun factor.
Regarding Scribble and Pictoparty, however, both offer different experiences. Scribble has more words, more game modes, Mutators to change things up, options to allow people of different skills to compete against one another fairly, and on top of that be half the price. Both games have custom categories.
I don't feel that just because the cores of the games are the same (drawing), there's no room for another, especially when the Wii U is such a perfect platform for such a game.
You're right in saying it allows less players though. I'd have added more, but I didn't want to clutter the screen up unnecessarily. Even with 8 players, there were occasions where the wrong name was chosen, requiring some alterations.
I've played the game with 8 people sat around the TV, and that was pretty manic. Can't imagine wanting an additional 4 people, let alone 24 people in total.
I was made aware of Pictoparty after U Host's release, but still felt the two games could co-exist. I hope others will agree.
@cyrus_zuo I'm happy to say that's already in there! I've been playing the game on a regular basis with my niece, and kept tweaking the game until both she and I were happy with it.
There's an Easy mode that you can toggle on and off for individual players, so when it's their turn, the game only chooses from the "Easy" category.
You can also set the game so that 'Mutators' wont appear for "Easy Mode" players if you don't think they'd have fun, yet retain the normal gameplay for every other player.
@heathenmagic If you've played U Host, then a Scribble mini-game was included in that. I found that players had so much fun with it, I wanted to create a dedicated game especially based on it.
It's a bunch of fun, and I found I just kept adding to it and adding to it.
The final result is far beyond what I initially imagined the game being, and I'm really proud of it.
@tamantayoshi I did play around with online, but found it really didn't work at all for a game like this. With one player drawing, other players would have to literally write out the word as their guess, and doing that in a fast paced guessing game such as Scribble simply wasn't practical, especially when you combine it with local players simply shouting out answers.
HOWEVER, I didn't want to just strip out online functionality, so I included Miiverse integration in the "Just Doodle" mode, in which you can draw a picture then share the TV screen on Miiverse to allow others to guess.
Sorry to disappoint you on the Online aspect, but I hope you understand my reasoning. Of course, that doesn't stop players from streaming their games and having people guess online.
Glad you had a good time with it. A patch is currently in the works which includes an entirely new mini-game based on Pictionary. The Host has a set amount of time to draw as many pictures as they can, while contestants shout out their guesses.
It's my new favourite mini-game, knocking Pursuit off the top spot!
@fortius54 I built the game in a modular format, so I can easily add new modes/games and update everything very quickly. I'll look into the price a little bit down the line after the free DLC mini-games have been released.
@mrchills As others have said, I did indeed say 100,000, but that was just a number. In fact, there could be a lot more than that. U Host reserves a small space on your hard drive for these questions, which take up so little space it's barely calculable. There are also 2 categories, so you can have normal questions in one, and NSFW questions in another
I actually contemplated making a NSFW version of U Host, but figured I couldn't be as funny as you guys!
@argh4430 I needed to buy a capture device so I could record footage of the game, and actually found that streaming games works quite well. I tried to build the game so that the Host could be in a different room, so there'd be no issue with streaming... beyond losing the shouting at each other
@SKTTR - I've only heard from other developers regarding the prices of the other ratings. I believe PEGI is around about £400. Not sure about USK, but heard they're extremely problematic.
Maybe one day soon, but for now I'll focus on adding extra content to Internal Invasion and working on my newest project!
Let me know when you start up your own publishing initiative
@SKTTR - Thank you for your kind words! The slowdown doesn't happen all the time, so it's a hard nut to crack, but so far it is the single and only 'bug' that's been reported, so I'm pretty pleased about that!
Unfortunately the EU release is purely based on how well the game sells in the US. I'm from the UK, so it's bizarre to think that I can't even download the game onto my own retail console!
ESRB don't charge anything for indie games. PEGI and the other European rating boards on the other hand charge quite a significant amount. They're not the only ones! If I want to release my game in Australia, for example, they charge approximately $1200 just to rate it, apparently. That means I'd have to sell around 300 copies just so I can afford to release it.
In any case, I keep saying that I truly hope Internal Invasion will be my worst game. I have a great title in the works at the moment which will be (and only can be) a Wii U exclusive
That's fine, but I feel that describing a game as boring is 'subjective', not objective. However, reviewers are welcome to writing subjective reviews. What works for one, may not work for the other, and the reviews for the game reflect that. Prior to your review, I was averaging 75% in scores.
My referral to you as being unprofessional was due to you linking to this review saying I was mad at you, which is far from the case. I'm not even sure where that came from. To me it just felt as though you found it amusing that a developer would comment, and wanted to draw more attention to it. In any case, it seems an odd thing for a reviewer of a reputable site to do. Personally, I don't see it as being professional in the slightest, but you may feel that action was very professional indeed.
Like I said, I appreciate you taking the time to review my game, but you describe one other game as "crummy" and two others as "boring". I'm just wondering why you're being given these titles if they're clearly not your kind of thing. Most sites reviewers review games in the genre they like, so that they can share thoughts for other like minded gamers.
You're entitled to your opinion, for sure, but I'm just as entitled to point out things that I feel you may have missed. It just struck me as odd that a positively reviewed game scored so low on your site.
I do not mean to get on your bad side in the least. Frankly, I would rather be able to converse with you in the hopes of making the game even better... but judging from the review, I can't even see what you DID like about the game, and so I wouldn't even know where to start. If you are interested in helping me out with advice on the update, it would be greatly appreciated! Feel free to make contact with me on Twitter, and we can see what we can do about making Internal Invasion more your kind of thing!
It's a shame as other people have been able to cope with the lag at the beginning of the levels. In any case, I appreciate you taking the time to review the game.
It's entirely possible that the lag caused by the Nintendo Web Framework made the game frustrate you so much that you couldn't look past it to the other features it has to offer, such as the inverted gravity mechanics, the fact that you can alter the path of the character mid-flight, the extensive number of levels and challenge. I hope to get an updated version over to you as soon as possible.
Looking at your past reviews, I'm genuinely surprised you were asked to review this game. If the genre isn't your kind of thing, why would you be expected to give it a good review? It doesn't look as though you've given a positive review in quite some time.
Just noticed you're now twisting things on Twitter, saying I'm getting mad at you? I felt my comment above was quite calm. I merely stated my disappointment, and pointed out items that were missing in your review. I don't believe there's a shred of anger in there.
As the developer, I am very disappointed by this review. Elsewhere it's scoring 8.4, 7.8, 7.5, etc. This is the first time I've seen it drop below a 7, nearly 2 weeks after its release. In any case, I should point out that it's the limitations on the NWF that are causing the lag, and not the game itself.
I do wonder if the review would have scored a lot higher if the occasional lag, which doesn't in any way make the game unplayable, was gone. It seems a lot of focus as place on this small point, rather than the challenge of the game itself. There's an angry birds reference, but Internal Invasion is a lot more diverse and different than that. Even the price hasn't been taken into consideration. Remember! This is a budget title!
I agree with another commenter, that the review skips over quite a lot of areas of the game. Boss chase modes, controlling the character mid-flight, how to get the best scores on the levels, music, etc.
It wasn't even mentioned that I'm working on free content and updates for the game. Very disappointing and surprising review. The game's not perfect, but in no way should it be a 3/10 game.
@Thulfram Hi Thulfram! I hadn't made any changes to my game since March. The process with Nintendo was just slooooooow! I was accepted at the end of February, and made Internal Invasion using Construct 2. The thing is, NWF isn't really that great just yet, and my game required an awful lot of scaling back just to get an acceptable frame rate (believe it or not!). The fact that the C2 developer hasn't really supported the Nintendo side of things for months doesn't help either.
In the time it's taken to get a completed game onto the Wii U, I've nearly made a whole new game. It's bizarre really, but I'm happy with the result, and I thank you for your support! Feel free to ask me any more questions on here, or on twitter @bearboxmedia
I've made a full game using Construct 2. Brilliant engine, and I'm still learning new things each time I use it. With the frequent updates, it's always improving. I've applied for a Nintendo Dev license, and hope to release this month if at all possible.
Comments 28
Re: Power Up Your Switch With The Venom Power Pack and Stand
Ugh... and I supported the Switch Charge on Indiegogo for $100
Still not got the thing.
Re: Review: Scribble (Wii U eShop)
@Sebilio It certainly would be possible, but it's the first time anyone has asked me to make the game harder. There's only around 200 Difficult drawings, and my concern would be that making a change like that would mean altering the base code. That's usually a risk most developers don't like to make, just in case there's an unforeseen knock-on effect.
I can look into it, but I think adding in some additional words and the Gallery at the end of each game is more worth-while of an addition.
Re: Review: Scribble (Wii U eShop)
@Mossii Glad to hear your family had fun with it!
I'm currently working on an update that tightens things up, as well as adds in a gallery mode at the end so everyone can look back on their... works of art.
If you get a chance, please rate it on this site and on the eshop. It helps more than you might think
Re: Review: Scribble (Wii U eShop)
@CTMike Really happy to hear it!
It'd be massively appreciated if you could find the time to rate it on here and the eShop. You'd be surprised how much those little stars make a massive difference.
Thanks for your words!
Re: Review: Scribble (Wii U eShop)
@maceng Hi! Just confirming. You're aware the game already includes a custom category?
Re: Review: Scribble (Wii U eShop)
@molkom Thanks for the support! I've already adapted some of the code to some of @cyrus_zuo 's suggestions.
I'm very interested in the "Dutch Auction" approach to the score, however, I'm unsure as to where that will fit in. The initial design made pretty good use of space... so suddenly adding in a feature like this can be slightly tricky.
Re: Review: Scribble (Wii U eShop)
@cyrus_zuo Hey! Thanks for the support! Hope you're enjoying it! Those are some great ideas. I'll be happy to add in what I can.
Regarding the gallery, I can have the blackout fade away when the timer gets down to 5 seconds. Giving artists a last minute 'shock'.
I did contemplate allowing players to have multiple custom categories, but eventually decided against in. However, I've had that request come up a couple times now. How many would you like?
I'm afraid I don't understand your first point regarding the score. Do you mean that each second, a point is added into a pot, meaning the longer you take to guess, the greater the score?
Again, thanks for your comment.
Re: Exclusive: Scribble to Bring Pictionary-Style Party Gaming to Wii U This Holiday Season
@tamantayoshi It's currently in Nintendo's hands. If everything goes smoothly, we're looking at an early to mid December release.
Re: Exclusive: Scribble to Bring Pictionary-Style Party Gaming to Wii U This Holiday Season
@bofis Very true, but Battlefield, COD and Titanfall just came out. All first person shooters, all competing against one another. Personally, I plan on getting 2 of those 3, as although similar, they'll still bring the fun factor.
Regarding Scribble and Pictoparty, however, both offer different experiences. Scribble has more words, more game modes, Mutators to change things up, options to allow people of different skills to compete against one another fairly, and on top of that be half the price. Both games have custom categories.
I don't feel that just because the cores of the games are the same (drawing), there's no room for another, especially when the Wii U is such a perfect platform for such a game.
You're right in saying it allows less players though. I'd have added more, but I didn't want to clutter the screen up unnecessarily. Even with 8 players, there were occasions where the wrong name was chosen, requiring some alterations.
I've played the game with 8 people sat around the TV, and that was pretty manic. Can't imagine wanting an additional 4 people, let alone 24 people in total.
I was made aware of Pictoparty after U Host's release, but still felt the two games could co-exist. I hope others will agree.
Re: Exclusive: Scribble to Bring Pictionary-Style Party Gaming to Wii U This Holiday Season
@cyrus_zuo I'm happy to say that's already in there! I've been playing the game on a regular basis with my niece, and kept tweaking the game until both she and I were happy with it.
There's an Easy mode that you can toggle on and off for individual players, so when it's their turn, the game only chooses from the "Easy" category.
You can also set the game so that 'Mutators' wont appear for "Easy Mode" players if you don't think they'd have fun, yet retain the normal gameplay for every other player.
Re: Exclusive: Scribble to Bring Pictionary-Style Party Gaming to Wii U This Holiday Season
@heathenmagic If you've played U Host, then a Scribble mini-game was included in that. I found that players had so much fun with it, I wanted to create a dedicated game especially based on it.
It's a bunch of fun, and I found I just kept adding to it and adding to it.
The final result is far beyond what I initially imagined the game being, and I'm really proud of it.
Re: Exclusive: Scribble to Bring Pictionary-Style Party Gaming to Wii U This Holiday Season
@tamantayoshi I did play around with online, but found it really didn't work at all for a game like this. With one player drawing, other players would have to literally write out the word as their guess, and doing that in a fast paced guessing game such as Scribble simply wasn't practical, especially when you combine it with local players simply shouting out answers.
HOWEVER, I didn't want to just strip out online functionality, so I included Miiverse integration in the "Just Doodle" mode, in which you can draw a picture then share the TV screen on Miiverse to allow others to guess.
Sorry to disappoint you on the Online aspect, but I hope you understand my reasoning. Of course, that doesn't stop players from streaming their games and having people guess online.
Re: Exclusive: Scribble to Bring Pictionary-Style Party Gaming to Wii U This Holiday Season
Hey! Developer here! Massive thanks to Nintendo Life for this article.
If anyone has any questions about Scribble, feel free to ask them here!
Re: Review: U Host (Wii U eShop)
U Host is now on sale for a limited time only for those on the fence
Re: Video: Learn a Few Quirky Facts About the Mario Party Franchise
Never did play Mario Party 2 though
Re: Video: Learn a Few Quirky Facts About the Mario Party Franchise
@JLPick I'm just comparing it to the N64 games, I guess. The boards were great in those games, especially Mario Party 3
I'd like to try 10, but hate the car... so won't.
Re: Video: Learn a Few Quirky Facts About the Mario Party Franchise
One of Nintendo's biggest sellers, believe it or not.
Shame they've gotten rid of the boardgame format and replaced it with everyone in one car.
Used to love this series... until the Wii version. Not wide screen, and each game had me shaking the Wii Remote in an awkward fashion.
Re: Review: U Host (Wii U eShop)
Thanks for the review, Conor!
Glad you had a good time with it. A patch is currently in the works which includes an entirely new mini-game based on Pictionary. The Host has a set amount of time to draw as many pictures as they can, while contestants shout out their guesses.
It's my new favourite mini-game, knocking Pursuit off the top spot!
@fortius54 I built the game in a modular format, so I can easily add new modes/games and update everything very quickly. I'll look into the price a little bit down the line after the free DLC mini-games have been released.
@mrchills As others have said, I did indeed say 100,000, but that was just a number. In fact, there could be a lot more than that. U Host reserves a small space on your hard drive for these questions, which take up so little space it's barely calculable. There are also 2 categories, so you can have normal questions in one, and NSFW questions in another
I actually contemplated making a NSFW version of U Host, but figured I couldn't be as funny as you guys!
@argh4430 I needed to buy a capture device so I could record footage of the game, and actually found that streaming games works quite well. I tried to build the game so that the Host could be in a different room, so there'd be no issue with streaming... beyond losing the shouting at each other
Re: Video: Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door Has a Surprising Number of Glitches
Brilliant video! Brought back a lot of good memories.
Man, I love this game. Wish it was on virtual console.
Re: Plenty of Fishies Swimming onto Wii U this Week
Looks great!
Re: Review: Internal Invasion (Wii U eShop)
@SKTTR - I've only heard from other developers regarding the prices of the other ratings. I believe PEGI is around about £400. Not sure about USK, but heard they're extremely problematic.
Maybe one day soon, but for now I'll focus on adding extra content to Internal Invasion and working on my newest project!
Let me know when you start up your own publishing initiative
Re: Review: Internal Invasion (Wii U eShop)
@SKTTR - Thank you for your kind words! The slowdown doesn't happen all the time, so it's a hard nut to crack, but so far it is the single and only 'bug' that's been reported, so I'm pretty pleased about that!
Unfortunately the EU release is purely based on how well the game sells in the US. I'm from the UK, so it's bizarre to think that I can't even download the game onto my own retail console!
ESRB don't charge anything for indie games. PEGI and the other European rating boards on the other hand charge quite a significant amount. They're not the only ones! If I want to release my game in Australia, for example, they charge approximately $1200 just to rate it, apparently. That means I'd have to sell around 300 copies just so I can afford to release it.
In any case, I keep saying that I truly hope Internal Invasion will be my worst game. I have a great title in the works at the moment which will be (and only can be) a Wii U exclusive
It's going to be epic!!!
Re: Review: Internal Invasion (Wii U eShop)
That's fine, but I feel that describing a game as boring is 'subjective', not objective. However, reviewers are welcome to writing subjective reviews. What works for one, may not work for the other, and the reviews for the game reflect that. Prior to your review, I was averaging 75% in scores.
My referral to you as being unprofessional was due to you linking to this review saying I was mad at you, which is far from the case. I'm not even sure where that came from. To me it just felt as though you found it amusing that a developer would comment, and wanted to draw more attention to it. In any case, it seems an odd thing for a reviewer of a reputable site to do. Personally, I don't see it as being professional in the slightest, but you may feel that action was very professional indeed.
Like I said, I appreciate you taking the time to review my game, but you describe one other game as "crummy" and two others as "boring". I'm just wondering why you're being given these titles if they're clearly not your kind of thing. Most sites reviewers review games in the genre they like, so that they can share thoughts for other like minded gamers.
You're entitled to your opinion, for sure, but I'm just as entitled to point out things that I feel you may have missed. It just struck me as odd that a positively reviewed game scored so low on your site.
I do not mean to get on your bad side in the least. Frankly, I would rather be able to converse with you in the hopes of making the game even better... but judging from the review, I can't even see what you DID like about the game, and so I wouldn't even know where to start. If you are interested in helping me out with advice on the update, it would be greatly appreciated! Feel free to make contact with me on Twitter, and we can see what we can do about making Internal Invasion more your kind of thing!
Re: Review: Internal Invasion (Wii U eShop)
It's a shame as other people have been able to cope with the lag at the beginning of the levels. In any case, I appreciate you taking the time to review the game.
It's entirely possible that the lag caused by the Nintendo Web Framework made the game frustrate you so much that you couldn't look past it to the other features it has to offer, such as the inverted gravity mechanics, the fact that you can alter the path of the character mid-flight, the extensive number of levels and challenge. I hope to get an updated version over to you as soon as possible.
Looking at your past reviews, I'm genuinely surprised you were asked to review this game. If the genre isn't your kind of thing, why would you be expected to give it a good review? It doesn't look as though you've given a positive review in quite some time.
Just noticed you're now twisting things on Twitter, saying I'm getting mad at you? I felt my comment above was quite calm. I merely stated my disappointment, and pointed out items that were missing in your review. I don't believe there's a shred of anger in there.
Very unprofessional, I must say.
Re: Review: Internal Invasion (Wii U eShop)
As the developer, I am very disappointed by this review. Elsewhere it's scoring 8.4, 7.8, 7.5, etc. This is the first time I've seen it drop below a 7, nearly 2 weeks after its release. In any case, I should point out that it's the limitations on the NWF that are causing the lag, and not the game itself.
I do wonder if the review would have scored a lot higher if the occasional lag, which doesn't in any way make the game unplayable, was gone. It seems a lot of focus as place on this small point, rather than the challenge of the game itself. There's an angry birds reference, but Internal Invasion is a lot more diverse and different than that. Even the price hasn't been taken into consideration. Remember! This is a budget title!
I agree with another commenter, that the review skips over quite a lot of areas of the game. Boss chase modes, controlling the character mid-flight, how to get the best scores on the levels, music, etc.
It wasn't even mentioned that I'm working on free content and updates for the game. Very disappointing and surprising review. The game's not perfect, but in no way should it be a 3/10 game.
Re: Scirra's Construct 2 Engine to Support Wii U Nintendo Web Framework Development
@Thulfram Hi Thulfram! I hadn't made any changes to my game since March. The process with Nintendo was just slooooooow! I was accepted at the end of February, and made Internal Invasion using Construct 2. The thing is, NWF isn't really that great just yet, and my game required an awful lot of scaling back just to get an acceptable frame rate (believe it or not!). The fact that the C2 developer hasn't really supported the Nintendo side of things for months doesn't help either.
In the time it's taken to get a completed game onto the Wii U, I've nearly made a whole new game. It's bizarre really, but I'm happy with the result, and I thank you for your support! Feel free to ask me any more questions on here, or on twitter @bearboxmedia
Re: Interview: RCMADIAX on BLOK DROP U and Working On the Nintendo Web Framework
Are BigDog and WiiLovePeace the same person? Bit weird that it's the exact same comment...
Re: Scirra's Construct 2 Engine to Support Wii U Nintendo Web Framework Development
I've made a full game using Construct 2. Brilliant engine, and I'm still learning new things each time I use it. With the frequent updates, it's always improving. I've applied for a Nintendo Dev license, and hope to release this month if at all possible.