Hey all,

Simian Squared are currently working on 'The Other Brothers' and our programmer has decided to start a development diary. I thought you guys would appreciate it and I hope you guys will get in touch and let us know what you think of it as we move along

I am thinking to keep things simple, I'll link to the entries in this post.

Also you can find the new official website at: http://www.tobgame.com
- and our facebook page at https://www.facebook.com/theotherbrothersgame


Post 1
Excerpt:

Instead of slowing down sharply when the player moves the other direction, we slow down sharply when you reach the deadzone of the touch input or analogue stick, or when the finger has been lifted from the screen. This works naturally with the time it takes to slide a typical finger across.

Post 2
Excerpt:

The best (most helpful) scrolling in my opinion is the godlike Super Mario World on super nintendo.
Replicating this meant a surprising amount of rules. For a start, whenever you fall, it matches your falling speed, however if you jump up too high, it gently scrolls to meet the player, although this can be pushed if you raise fast enough.

Click here to check it out on Touch Arcade

Let us know what you think!

Chimp

This game looks ace, love the art style. Dev blog is interesting too, more of that please!

i love you guys to much

Haha thanks guys!

More updates in, Rob posted some of the prototype animations in the thread- testing a few ideas out here.

Post 3
Excerpt:

Thanks! some art refs for you (the Animation is now what I am working on!)



More (fresh) materials coming very soon! Don't forget to follow us on twitter or post comments, I love reading what you say.

I'll keep you posted

this is really looking great. keep us updated!

This is shaping up to look quite amazing guys and doing a DevDiary here on pc was a great idea Sub'd and following! keep us posted!!!

great work I love the art

Really nice! Just wondering why you didnt call it "The other bros."?

It lacks the rhyme factor that makes the name pop.

Been looking forward to this since I first saw it on the Unity forums. Thanks for the behind the scenes - going to be fun to watch it all unfold!

Thanks guys!

Here's some more from Thom and Björn:

A little bit of information to clarify our move to a new domain name and how exactly Simian Squared came onboard to reboot the project after the previous developer was dropped:
Excerpt:

We had to say goodbye to our previous programmer Matthew Davey, he is no longer affiliated with The Other Brothers. In his place, we have brought onboard Simian Squared Ltd who comprise of Robert Cummings and Giuseppe Landolina. We believe that our new team members will be able to bring to you our original vision for The Other Brothers.

And now the juicy stuff from Rob:

Ladders, Water and moving platforms
Excerpt:

But what about playability? How do you make something as boring as a climbable area, exciting?

Here's how!

1. player should be able to jump while on the ladder, and not catch it again until almost half a second has passed. This means there's no point spamming jump to go up ladders faster, and the player is forced to think. This also allows you proper clearance from the ladder when doing risky jumps.

2. the ladder must allow player to pass through platforms. We solve this with some clever collision states.

3. the ladder must allow us to hang from it or attach to it at will, so we can run past it and ignore it or jump through it without a worry. This is solved by checking if the player is pushing up or down when your character passes a ladder.

... click through to read more ...

Up next, Facebook winner #1:


Excerpt:

Facebook Competition Winner #1 announced!

A big thanks to our facebook contest winner Gary Norbraten for being such a good sport. Bjorn Hurri had a blast creating him gloriously pixelated! We have all had good laughs at the end result! He ended up being a perfect fit for The Other Brothers!

Keep posting guys,

Chimp

TA's Brad Nicholson!

Congratulations, Brad! you may be a runner up,
but you're still the coolest retro boss ever made!

For more information about The Other Brothers,
visit our facebook page, and follow us on the usual
social media sites! We will be leaking information regularly



The winning shot:

Rob just posted the second and coolest boss in The Other Brothers so far, Brad Lazer!

this looks so awesome and fun
really badass work so far guys

holyyy hot damn. this is beautiful. :tear:

so very very cool. kick ass work fella's

hells yes ..cant wait for more

I want an army of flying cats that shoot laser eye-beams too

Ahaahah loving the new bosses and that mean looking cat on dudes shoulder stuff is shaping up nicely guys keep er coming im excited to play this!!

thank you so much guys- I just found out that we made the Big News Weekly Recap! We're all honoured and so glad to be recognised!

More updates coming soon!

if you fancy it, you can check us out on Facebook too https://www.facebook.com/theotherbrothersgame

you can catch the whole team on Twitter too:

@bjornhurri @thomaspasieka @SquaredApe (rob) @ChimpSquared (me)

BJÖRN IS LIVESTREAMING IN 30 MINUTES
he will be working on TOB live - check it out!
www.livestream.com/bjornhurri

OMG kitty cats with lazer beams!!!

This game is already a winner. Awesome work!

More from Rob:

There's two things which will make or break animation in a retro game like The Other Brothers.

The first thing is the animation itself. It can suck, and there's not much you can do about that. Luckily the art quality is insane, with artists who are used to triple A work sketching them out at a cracking pace!

The second thing is how gently the programmer will treat the artist's frames and even massage them for more amazing sparkling goodness.

1. we have animation states for everything: run, idle, jump, skid, hurt, falling, attacks and more.

2. we play the intended animation - be it a one shot, or looping animation.

So what's different?

In TOB, I have several variables which track how fast the character is moving, how hard the player is pushing the direction and so on.

So we can weave in more frames in between, and play little one off frames to blend everything together. It's painstaking work because it takes a lot of trial and error to get the maximum out of the frames you have.

In addition to this, its really important to speed things up or slow them down in regards to animation playback. So to this end we do things like speed the animation up as the character's velocity increases.

We also track how long the player has being doing demanding activities, so when Joe or Jim halt for a breather, you see their idle animation play faster, before slowing down as they catch their breath.

It's all these little touches that really can make or break a retro title. You can't just fill it with animation frames and throw more money at it. It has to be authentic.

We've deliberately left in an easter egg surprise for people who have played old retro games: the classic left and right thrashing of the controls will allow you to spaz out for hilarious dance scenes, if you so choose!

Next to come will be some clips and anims you haven't seen, as there's been too much talk and not enough glorious sneak-peaks!

Be square (it's cool!)

- Rob

Wow. Looks awesome. Will be following this.

yo gsep and rob, its Mac from PCU. this game looks incredibly snazzy! The art direction is spot on, all of it fits perfectly together and feels alive. The development diary makes it sound like the mechanics are incredibly smooth. Thats an extremely important aspect of touch games, especially on a big screen for ipad.

With the graveyard scene, I think it would be cooler if you showed the lightning flashes light the scene. Right now you just raise the brightness globally and dont paint in any new highlights.

This is fantastic!