Universal Not a Clone: a satire on the mobile game market

Yikes, I've been so busy, I didn't realize there were so many new replies. Seriously, thanks to all the compliments and support. We're still quite a ways off before the release, as there's a lot of graphics and musics that needs to be replaced, and a lot more polish is necessary, but rest assured we're working hard on it.

Speaking of working hard, a new update!

[Cross-posted from Omiya Games]

After a long brainstorming discussions, we're ready to get started on creating the menus for the minigame store, minigame list, and options. Many thanks to Astra Wijaya for putting these clean mock-ups together! To start with, the mockup below has two menus shown: the left menu is the minigame store listing the available options. Unlocking a minigame is as easy as tapping the buy button, which lists the price of the minigame. If one wants to know about more details on each entry, they can tap on the icon or name of the minigame to open the left, which provides the description of the game as well as how to play it:



Also new is a menu devoted to listing all the minigames you've unlocked so far. By tapping on the info icon, not only will the description of the game be displayed, but also how to play the game, what the game is a clone of (if any), and even a button that lets the player practice the minigame safely.



Lastly, the options menu. This mockup below is, admittedly, a bit incomplete as we're still discussing what features we have left to add in the game. Regardless, a few settings were important enough to make it to this mockup, including audio configuration, changing language, displaying the leaderboard and achievements, credits, and so forth.



We should have more to show in the future as implement these mockups in the game.

 

Menu updates and new practice mode

[Cross-posted from Omiya Games]

We’ve finally implemented the menu mock-ups posted two weeks ago into the game! Here’s the not-quite-final screenshots of each menu:



The Top Charts menu allows one to unlock minigames via in-game currency.



Games menu displays what’s been unlocked.



Selecting a minigame in the Games menu and Top Charts brings up this dialog, the Details menu. New to this update is Practice Mode, a mode that lets you practice a specific minigame. There’s no scores or penalties recorded during Practice Mode, so it should provide a safe environment to learn and improve on approaching a tough minigame.

Also, excuse the typo on the description and instructions on the game. It’s obviously a work-in-progress.



Lastly, the list of options. Again, all the settings displayed above aren’t final.

 

[Cross-posted from Omiya Games]

Many apologize for the super-late update. We’ve had a lot of events occur between updates, including a move to the new office!



The New Office!

But that doesn't mean we didn’t make any progress. First is a new trailer that includes our updated menus:

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Naturally, the new Top Charts is the highlight for this trailer. Next up, the Game Over has a new two-page look to it. We’re still developing the screen, but here’s a brief preview:



Score Screen



Played Games List Screen

Lastly, Astra Wijaya is at it again with a new concept art for a minigame. Can you guess which one?

 

Thanks for the questions.

1. In regards to pay model, we're still figuring it out. Or more accurately, we're working on making the game fun first. I (Taro speaking personally here) believe in making a game you want to play takes priority, so we're currently working on ironing that out.
2. Thanks a lot! We really appreciate the support.
3. To be honest, we don't have a good Estimated Time of Arrival at all. It's pretty much, "ready when it's done." I (again, Taro) think mid- to late-2016 is looking likely, but things can change quite rapidly.
4. We aim to have 40.

 

The Joyride Updates!

[Cross-posted from Omiya Games]

Last time, we hinted that Astra Wijaya had some new updates to show off. This week, we’ve got some GIFs to cover those updates!





In other news, we were hard at work submitting to the MAGFest Indie Video Game Showcase these few weeks, so if it sounded like we disappeared again, it’s actually due to tight deadlines and upcoming holidays that’s been breaking up our update schedule. Still, we can say with confidence that since our commitment to simplify and lengthen the game, Not a Clone has been drastically improving. While playtesting from a few months ago resulted in a lot of confusion, our local demonstration this month at the Rensselaer Game Showcase and TVGS’ monthly Interactive Showcase were exceedingly positive. We still have a lot of work left to do, but we can assure with the latest feedback that the game will be much more fun than the original prototype!

 

[Cross-posted from Omiya Games]

We're adding a new feature to Not a Clone this week! Courtesy of programmer, Taro Omiya, Challenge is a new mode that occurs every 10 apps. For one single app, the difficulty dramatically increases:



The reward, as the animation above implies, is replenishing one life!



But what if you already have all 4 lives? No worries! In fact, life up is just one of the rewards. The other, which occurs much more often if you have more lives, is increasing the score by a drastic amount (4!).



Naturally, succeeding in this app leads to increasing your score dramatically.



So what happens if you lose to challenge mode? Simple: you lose one life, just like the other apps, and lose the opportunity to take the challenge again for 10 more games. Of course, we'll be play-testing this feature extensively, so a lot of these details are subject to change.

 

Thanks, dudewelcome! <= saying this out loud actually rolls off the tongue really well.

We only have a short update this week. Last weekend, we took a stab at creating an online multiplayer first-person shooter for the Ludum Dare game jam (a game-making marathon that lasts 72-hours). If you haven’t seen it already, our new PC/Mac/Linux game, hack.source.net, is a fun 2-player experiment where each player can hack the controls of the other player, disabling up to two buttons.

In the meantime, there’s only a few minor updates with Not a Clone: basically our entire team are enjoying their holidays. There is, however, one new feature in works. Called “inverted mode,” the instructions of a couple of minigames may randomly change to something opposite of the originally intended instruction. For example, in a Totemman minigame, the instructions will change from “Slap!” to “Die!” As one would expect, the intended solution to this minigame would be to figure out how to kill your poor character within the time limit. Obviously, there will be a lot of setup necessary for this new mode, such as keeping track of how many times the player won the minigame before allowing inverted mode, or providing a visual indicator for more experienced players. More updates will be coming in the near-future about this neat feature.

Happy holidays to everyone!

 

[Cross-posted from Omiya Games]

After a messy game jam and the relaxing holidays, we’re back and working hard to make Not a Clone the best mobile game about mobile games. There has been a lot of tweaks since the last update, so let’s list a couple. First and most notable is inverted objectives: in certain games, the objectives will occasionally change to something else, usually the opposite of the usual instructions. For example, here’s what normally happens to Flappy Sombrero when the sombrero hits a cactus:



With inverted objectives, however, the instructions changes. Instead of flying between the cactus, the sombrero is supposed to fly into it. To make the difference more clearer, we’ve also inverted the colors of the objectives, making it easier to recognize when the objectives has changed.



We’re still in the middle of working on this new mode, so stay tuned!

Speaking of staying in tune, last update, we’ve mentioned that Challenge mode was being implemented, and that certain details may change. One significant change is that you no longer lose a life if you fail the Challenge. As a consequence of this, we’re planning on making Challenge games a lot harder.

There’s also a few updates we’ve made to the opening of the game. First, the loading screen now shows different quips each time you open the game. Second, the number of icons that appears within the first few frames of opening the game now reflects the number of games you have unlocked. For example, the first time you play the game, you have 15 icons visible on the screen:



Lastly, the start screen now has a rolling label below the start button. It changes every couple of seconds to display a new information:



Lastly, we’re going to leave with a mystery concept art our artist put together. Can you guess what it could be?

 

[Cross-posted from Omiya Games]

We have a pretty short update this week. We hinted last week that Astra Wijaya was working on updating the graphics for a mystery minigame. Turns out, it’s Canabiker!



Not only did he get Canabiker done, Canabot is complete as well:



We also mentioned in our last post that Inverse Mode was in mid-process. We just finished this week, and plan on finishing Challenge Mode next.

 

Thanks, melvin!

Haha, yeah, it's a pretty silly idea that one could argue is "following the (many) leaders." Glad you find it interesting, though, since we really are working hard to make it as fun as possible. In fact...

 

We have a MAGFest booth!

That's right, we have a booth for MAGFest Indie Videogame Show (MIVS) at the National Harbor! This is an exciting milestone to us, and we definitely hope to see you there!

For this week's Not a Clone update, we finally finished Challenge Mode we've been talking about last week:

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As detailed earlier, Challenge Mode is a mode that occurs after reaching a certain score. For one game, you'll have to play through its 3 difficulty levels back-to-back within 10 seconds. The reward for succeeding in this minigame is either a score increase of 4 points, or gaining back one life. Failing results in...nothing, actually. You just lose the opportunity get the score boost or life up. Consider it a freebie!

Incidentally, Inverted Mode can stack on top of Challenge Mode, giving a small chance of making the challenge a lot easier:

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[Cross-posted from Omiya Games]

In preparation for MAGFest, wonderful artist Astra Wijaya put together some amazing stickers, pins and cards for our booth!



We’ve also decided on a tentative release quarter for the game as well: spring this year! As with all estimates, this can change depending on unforeseen circumstances, but it does mean we’re rapidly approaching release. We hope you look forward to it!

Here are some more close-ups on the MAGFest perks, by the way. Hope to see you there next week!