Did you all beta test the game? Or is the game so short that this many people have already played it twice within hours of its release? (I ask because I haven't had time to download it yet. I guess I'll see for myself soon enough.)
I can confirm that Ponto, Looki and I have betatested the game.I did too! C)p
...since it was so long in development, and again, didn't require making pixel art for each area.Granted. The basic level layouts and fluff were done withing a year or something, then some near-Daikatana-esque delay shenanigans ensued. While saving time at not making pixel art for everything, the level creating mechanism for this is quite a bit more complicated than in, say, Knytt Stories. So it's not like the levels could be whipped up overnight. :D
I thought a couple years ago Nifflas said he was collecting tons of photos for use in this game.That would've been for Saira. :P
I'm familiar with how short Nifflas's games usually are, but I guess I've been hoping that they would start being longer, for two reasons: 1, that he started charging for them, and 2, that he's moved away from pixel art. I know pixel art is very time-consuming, and when he started using photos for backgrounds instead I thought, that's too bad because I love Nifflas's pixel art, but at least this would free up some time for him to make the games bigger/longer with more areas. When Saira was released I was pretty surprised at how short it was, considering its price and the use of photos for graphics. But I guess I was still holding out hope that NightSky would be a longer game, since it was so long in development, and again, didn't require making pixel art for each area. (Now that I'm playing it I'm actually even surprised at how few photos there are so far. It's mostly just gradients and black foreground. I thought a couple years ago Nifflas said he was collecting tons of photos for use in this game.)Photos doesn't make the game creation process faster. It's much more time consuming to design a detailed world even when not drawing every pixel. Often, just opening Photoshop and draw a few pixels is so much faster. Saira have a complex system of several mini-puzzles, each taking time to program, vector animated creatures, a radio simulator, and so on. NightSky was not longer in development than any other Nifflas game, I spent a year on it, but it was difficult to get all those physics puzzles together. It's basically really hard to create a game. I'm one person, sometime getting help from others (sometime even a lot, like with with Yann, Chris and now Agneta), but I still carry the heaviest load myself. I'm extremely efficient wasting minimal time on planning and things that doesn't go into the end product. I'm very hard and fast working. It's not easy to design a game.
A small indie game dev studio would be a dream come true to me!
What does the settings exe do ? :/
And wow, I didn't realize so many people got to beta test this game while the rest of us were waiting so long for it! :PI at least was (once again :P) one of the "last-minute"-testers, so I waited only a few days less than you. ;)
I waited only a few years less than you. :crazy:And this (http://nifflas.lpchip.nl/index.php?topic=4445.0) is what you've been doing since then. ;)
I found NightSky (in the Alternative mode) too long though. Maybe it's because the setting1, the minimalistic form and the story2 didn't particularly appeal to me. The puzzles and the physics are really good on the other hand.
playing alternative mode before playing normal breaks the satisfying difficulty ramp-up that is otherwise present
if you just played one or the other then whatever but if you play both and you play alternative first it's ruined
On the topic, I'd personally recommend doing Normal mode first too, if for nothing else than to get a good hang of it first.
So, what do you want me to do?
* Take away quality
* Increase the development time
* Don't make the game so long
You're not getting a longer game unless I sacrifice something else instead.