Category: The Fancy Pants Adventures

Fancy Box: Report 1 – Making Levels

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It’s seriously been over a year since I last posted a video?? That’s just nuts!

Let’s start the year off right, here’s an introduction to the Fancy Box and level creation.

If you make a level, email it to me (under contact), and I’ll feature it in a future report! Just make sure to include the name you want credited.

Next video coming soon: Fancy Dueling! If you make an arena soon enough, it could make it in the next video.

Comments Fancy Box: Report 1 – Making Levels

Fancy Pants Experiments

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Sup Internet! Yup, Brad again, popping my head out to say hi yet again. I know things have been even quieter than usual around here, I put a lot of things on hold while working on World 3 / FPA on consoles, and so I’ve been spending a lot of time catching up on those things recently (fixing up the house taking up the most time lately).

But, not to worry! There’s still plenty going on behind the scenes, even if there’s no new big game announcements at this moment.

– Cornell Tour Pack for the Grateful Dead: Epic Tour online game

Play online here

I posted about the Epic Tour a few months back, but now there’s a new tour available online for 99 cents. Various enhancements have made it back to the original levels, and there’s a few levels leading up to the station that are new (and still free!). You’re able to collect 6 multitrack recordings and mix them how you like in the Cornell levels, so I think that’s a really good deal.

The Fancy Box

I’ve been getting the itch to work on something Fancy Pants related lately, so I wanted to start experimenting with features that weren’t able to make it into the FPA console game. I have a 2 player battle mode (Smash Bros. influenced, of course) up and running, but keep an eye out for something that hasn’t been seen by the public yet that I’m very excited about.

Oh, and I’ve made a package available for download that allows anyone to build their own Fancy Pants levels.

No clue where this is going, but I’m not above making an excuse to play with Fancy Pants Adventures a bit more!

Check out the Fancy Box here. Click on 2 players and ‘custom: Level4’ for a ‘smashing’ battle! 2 players could certainly use some beta testing. Normal baddies are a bit broken at the moment, though.

a s and tfgh for player 2, ; ‘ and arrows for player 1.

Check out this thread in the forum to try your hand at creating levels.

That’s it for now, now go make some awesome levels so I can play them and highlight them on the site!

Comments Fancy Pants Experiments

And We’re Back

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Finally, after the long, exhausting, almost three year long journey that was The Fancy Pants Adventures: World 3, I had to disappear from the internet a bit to regain some of my lost sanity. But I’m back, and more ready than ever to, I dunno, attempt to do awesome things at the Internet?

So what’s been going on these past few months? Lots, actually. First and foremost, I celebrated my first Fathers Day (:D) last Sunday, I’ve also been working on the Grateful Dead online game with Curious Sense. The first part of it is out now, and there’s some really awesome additions coming soon. Just make sure to register and create your own avatar, a lot of code went into making those little guys customizable! Disappear for awhile, come back with a launched game, not too bad, eh?

TommyLM and I have begun discussing Fraser’s Ride again, so expect to see some updates on that, finally! I can say, though, it looks WAY more awesome right now than it did the last time you saw it. I’ve also learned a bunch of code while working on W3 that should help make that development far easier.

I’ve also finally upgraded my audio / video equipment, so I’m itching to get back on YouTube and talk about teh gamez again. Anything you guys would like me to address, relating to W3 development, perhaps?

Been playing a lot of games recently, I’ll make a post later so I can go more in detail about the games I’m playing, since those usually have a pretty big influence on the games I’m working on.

And last but not least, I’ve got some cool ideas on how to get the Borne Games community more involved in some game making, so check out our forums for my latest hair-brained schemes.

Comments And We’re Back

World 3 is live!

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World 3 is currently live around the internet on all your favorite sites! Armor Games, Kongregate, and Newgrounds, to name a few (I’ll post links when I get home).

I’m still updating the game, but there’s two major bugs that I keep reading about. One is, if a stunned baddie hits a scratch shot from a mouse, it’ll break. Shouldn’t be too hard to fix when I get a chance.

The other is, FPM becomes invincible at some point. I haven’t been able to reproduce this one, maybe you guys can help me out. Anyone have this happen to them? Any idea what could be causing it? Are you hitting anything specific before becoming incincible? Halp!

Comments World 3 is live!

Where’s World 3?

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Here!

Well, most of it, at least. The public beta is live! Play through the entire game and help me get World 3 ready for its full release.

A few menus and such still need to be added later, but World 3’s been in development for long enough, amirite??

Oh, and like always, let me know what’s broken.

Fixed so far:

0.16

– Changed how the challenge scores work, which should fix the Beach (no idea why it was like that, thought I already fixed it).
– Bottle was missing from Misplaced.
– Fixed the pants menu.
– Adjusted the reset controls button in the menus.

0.15

– Biggest change is the pants color selector from the pause menu
– Option to reset controls from the main menu, in case something goes wrong (and I forgot that the game’s background is white, not grey, whoops)
– There was an extra star or something in Misplaced? Weird.
– Fixed Bat Spider’s congrats
– NPCs now only change your pants automatically the first time they congratulate you after beating their challenge.

0.14:

– Ducks and Parrots fixed
– Music overlapping fixed

0.12:

– Manly Beard fixed
– Music tweaks
– ‘quick sounds’ fixed (swimming, sand and puddle footsteps)
– rest of the dialog fixed (fingers crossed)
– Attacking ‘beard shockwaves’

0.11:

– Factory and Cave Plats fixed
– I broke some controls earlier, fixed them
– NPCs change your pants color after victory message
– Moved Mountain Goat Course finish line

0.10:

– Falling off the level while rolling
– Sliding into crabs
– Quitting from Beach scoreboard glitch
– Bumper tweaks

0.9:

– Beach fix
– QTP on throne fix
– Beta is now certified beatable!

0.8:

– Bunch of fixes, I’ll list them later
– I did break progressing passed the beach, though, and Mochi’s not letting me upload a new build, I’ll have to upload tomorrow. Hopefully, most of you can just skip it for now.

0.7:

– Beach sand effects
– All moving platforms
– Bottles pop up message
– Forest background
– Baddie pile and dialoge
– HUD during pirate ship
– Places where you could jump out the level (sorry, heh)
– Yellow key room
– Disco effects
– All far foreground animations (tub drain, getting pencil, a few others).
– Rainbowbeard’s text size
– Tub music fade in repeat

I’m sure I’ve missed something, check the build and let me know, just make sure that 0.7 is showing in the top right at the first menu screen, otherwise clear your cache and refresh the page.

Comments Where’s World 3?

FPA on PSN, 50% off!

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To celebrate the launch of The Fancy Pants Adventures on iOS, FPA on PSN is currently 50% off! That’s right, you can have FPA on the go AND play 4 player matches online for less than 10 bucks!

Which reminds me, another weekend, another battling event!

Download FPA on PSN (I’ll be playing it on XBLA too, don’t worry) for only five bucks, then come beat me at some King of the Hill!

Here’s how:

Tomorrow (Saturday), at 5:00pm CST

Quick Match -> Player Match

I’ll be switching between the XBLA and PSN versions, like usual.

And for anyone who’s in a different time zone, check here.

Wow, that entire post sounded like an infomercial. That’s CRAAAAAAAZY! 😀

Comments FPA on PSN, 50% off!

App Update

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So, right behind Apple’s own just released iPhoto, not a bad place to be!

Just wanted to address a few things. Hopefully, this page will come up if you’ve had trouble with the game and you Google around a bit.

Update: Build has been submitted to Apple, no idea how long it’ll take to go through, though.

Game size on phone: There was a slight error in packing up the game, and it expands to 1.1 gigs once installed. This is why the game isn’t installing on devices that have less than 1.1 gigs left, even though the filesize says under 300 megs in the App Store.

Save games disappearing: Apparently, progress is being lost when the game is started up again. Force quitting the game (double tap home, close the icon from the quick launch bar) and starting up the game again may restore the save file.

An update is coming soon that addresses both issues. File size on phone will be only slightly more than the download size. I don’t know if save files can be restored, but I’ll check.

Many apologies for any inconveniences you’re experiencing, I just wanted to let everyone know that Over the Top addressed both problems as soon as we knew about them, and an update is imminent!

Thank you so much, and I hope that you can enjoy the game even more in the future!

Comments App Update

First Fancy Pants League Event!

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As is with all online games, it’s far more difficult to get a game going through online matchmaking than it was at launch in FPA on consoles.

Well, let’s fix that. every Saturday, at 5:00pm CST, I declare the first gathering of the Fancy Pants Online Racing / Battling League! The plan is to flood the servers all at once at that time so that matchmaking is able to do it’s thing once more.

So that we’re all in the same matchmaking pool, go to:

Quick Match -> Player Match

If there isn’t a room waiting, go ahead and make one.

I won’t be joining any groups or playing story mode, just going back into matchmaking over and over.

I’ll be switching between the XBLA and PSN versions.

So hop online and bring your a-game, there’s a good chance we’ll be smacking each other around with pencils. In the very least, everyone should finally be able to play a 4 player match again!

Once more:

Saturday, 5:00 CST, Quick Match -> Player Match.

And I’m DrNeroCF on both services, see you online!

Comments First Fancy Pants League Event!

Fancy Pants Racing/Battling League!

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Sup everyone? So, FPA on 360 and PS3 has been out for a while now, and as is usually the case with online games, it’s much more difficult to find an online game, much less one with 4 people in it.

So, I propose we pick a day and a time to flood the servers and reach critical mass. I’ll be there, too, so bring your A game!

What day would work best for you guys, what time? (in CST, if you please) Once we have something decided, I’ll announce it on the Facebook/Twitters, and we’ll see what happens!

Comments Fancy Pants Racing/Battling League!

Ninja Update

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Just a quick upload for the Sneak Peek, fixes a lot of the issues, though baddies getting stuck because you stomped or jumppaded next to them is still in there. Cave plat room is fixed and colored, super backflip fixed, probably a few other things. Oh, I went back to the old root scrolling method, mixed with individual clips for zooming, should be much faster for anyone complaining about performance.

One of the bigger changes is how Ninjas are fought. They’re ninjas, so they have a ton of health, but you can easily overpower them with a strong pencil swing! Taking them head on should be more effective now, instead of cheaper tactics. I’d like everyone to check out Ninsplosion and see how their scores compare to before.

Got a lot of progress done on later World 3 levels, too, which is good news, but you guys can’t see that quite yet 😉

Comments Ninja Update

iOS release and more World 3

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What’s up everyone? Hope you’re all enjoying the holidays so far!

So I’ve posted this around on the Facebook and Twitters, but just for the sake of completeness, I’ll post it here, too. The Fancy Pants Adventures is coming out for iPhone, iPod Touch, and iPad January of 2012! I can’t say too much more about it yet, but you should be hearing more very soon. I can say, though, that we’ve spent a lot of time on the controls, making sure they’re easy to press and super responsive, and they stand up to the best I’ve seen on iOS.

But don’t forget about about World 3! I’d want to release it as soon as possible after FPA goes live on the App Store, so I guess you can consider that sort of a release date, as long as everything goes well.

As for the Sneak Peek, I’ve been working on painting a water level recently, and ended up tweaking the swimming a bit, just because it was bugging me. Tightened up the controls, fixed up a few animations, and smoothed out the camera a bit. Let me know how it feels, or if you even notice a difference. Or if I broke everything.

And finally, I have something coming up in the Sneak Peek Christmas, check back soon!

Comments iOS release and more World 3

Misplaced Cave

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Wow! Even though we’re between the launch of FPA on consoles and the release of World 3 online, our Facebook Likes and Twitter Followers continue to rise at an awesome rate.

We’re over 50k Likes + Follows, and as promised, I’ve added some new content to the Sneak Peek. Since I’ve been pretty quiet lately, I figured I should make this update count.

So, there’s now two main levels in the Sneak Peek: Squiggleville and Misplaced Cave! It’s one of the later levels in the game, is easily one of my favorites. Lot’s of alternate paths, and tons of places to perform stunts on.

Here’s the deal, though. I just finished up the Beach levels, so Caves isn’t quite finished yet. But that’s okay! As I work on it, I’ll update the Sneak Peek and post about the progress, so you’ll get to see what goes in to every single level in World 3 (aka, why isn’t World 3 out yet??). Every level has a MiniTrial, challenge level, hidden level, and nooks and crannies to explore, so you’ll be getting a ton of new content as the level progresses. It’s also an excuse for me to make new posts about what I’m currently working on.

To start us off:

Comments Misplaced Cave

More Baddie Fun

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Update!

So, I’ve gone and opened up Squiggleville for general use in the baddie beta, and also added a few new things. The Baddie Beta and everything else I’ve added has been moved into a ‘Behind the Curtain’ level, the newest there is a test level that I built while testing out the new collision. Hopefully you’ll be able to see what I’ve changed, and how it plays differently (as well as lots of Snailshell bugs, sorry!), as well as a few new platform tests which I find particularly neat (and took a long time to build!). If anyone’s interested in the actual changes and code behind the update, I can make a video on it later or something, though either way, we’re way past due for a video.

If anyone finds bugs in any level, please EMAIL me the replay, DON’T post it in the comments!

Sneak Peak Beta

Got some new additions to the baddie arena. This should be the last update before I put the arena into the greater Sneak Peek, and everyone will be able to play with the newest changes.

Added a few new baddies. I’m not sure if I’ll be taking any more baddie submissions, if something awesome comes my way, I’ll certainly throw it in, I’ll just have to be a bit more picky this time.

Lots of subtle little changes in the combat, so you might not feel anything in particular, but everything should feel a little more solid, and scores should go up a tad. Experimenting with a little health bar, and a bit of an auto lunge, and a few more accurate ways of auto aiming the combat.

Since I’ve said I’ll be adding something extra to the Sneak Peek, and I always say that I want everyone to know more about what goes on behind the scenes, I’m thinking of adding a few of the test levels that I use to try out new code and check for bugs. Should be a fun peek behind the curtain, maybe it’ll give everyone an insight on the parts of the game making process that don’t make it into the final release.

Oh right, something much bigger but very very boring, I’ve added some code to compress the replay arrays a tremendous amount. Once I unleash the new collision on to Squiggleville, I have a feeling that lots of replays will need to be sent so that I can squash all the new awesome bugs I created. A few fixes to the ledge hanging code, also boring, still a little buggy 🙁

As a tiny bonus, I’ll let everyone see the progress I’ve made with swimming. Lots of little things to make the water feel more alive, just a few new animations, you’ll see soon enough!

And again, so many thanks to everyone who submitted baddies to make combat debugging a little less horribly boring!

Comments More Baddie Fun