I mentioned before that I wanted to start working on adding Goblin Rules Football to Steam, and I did! You can find the steam store page here.
Doesn’t it just look amazing!? I know, I know, surely a true pro created that page and not just a game dev hobbyist with a spare $100. Would you believe that all of my store assets/icons/logos/whatever were accepted on Steam on my first try? I certainly didn’t believe it, but it happened! I think it took 5 different submissions/fixes/tweaks to get the store page for Stalks Stalks Stalks accepted. I’m growing as a game dev! Or something!
So, anyway, I hope anyone reading this goes to the Goblin Rules Football Steam page and adds it to their wish list! I would really appreciate it!
New Run Animations
My old run animations had a problem: The goblins were never really “running” since there was a frame in the animation where both feet were on the ground. When you run, you never have two feet on the ground at the same time. You have both feet off the ground at the same time at some point, but you only have two feet on the ground when you are walking.
So, I went and changed the “two feet on ground” frame so only one foot is landing on the ground.
So the only difference is the middle frame has the back foot off the ground with their leg bent. The difference isn’t all that noticeable in game, but it is, uh, better I guess? Or more correct?
I had to update this for all 3 goblin types, for both green and grey colors, and also had to update the animations for when the goblins are running while carrying the ball, punching, blocking, and blocking while carrying the ball. Fun!
I used the below “8 frame” run animation as a reference when making these updates. You can find a more detailed write up (and better run animation examples than my own) on the Slynyrd Pixel Blog.
New Visual Indicators
Another exciting thing was I got to play GRF against someone over the Internet! They’re a friend of mine and not just a random unbiased person, but still! I have had only a few other opportunities to play GRF against someone other than myself or the AI, and haven’t yet played it since adding a bunch of updates. One bit of feedback I got was that it was difficult to track who had the ball at all times. Before, there was only the “ball” marker above a goblin’s head:
This can easily get lost in crowds (especially since I had that marker sorted behind other markers, such as health and stamina, which has since been fixed as well). So, I added a new visual indicator at the goblin’s feet as well. A white circle when your team has the ball:
And a yellow circle when the opponent has the ball:
Definitely still more improvements to make to it. Right now it still renders behind other goblins, which again can get lost in the ground. I basically need to find a way to make it not render “over” the goblin with the ball, because that looks weird, but make it render over other goblins. Oh well, hopefully soon I can figure it out.
Next Steps…
For the steam store, I need to create a trailer. My trailer for Stalks was pretty dumb and bad. Maybe I can figure out enough video editing to make a good one for GRF? Something that will entice people to play it? Doubtful, but always worth a try!
For the game, there are still a lot of things to add. A way to adjust settings (volume, resolution, etc.) in game, creating a “sprint indicator” other than just the stamina bar going down (particle effects on feet?), some changes to powerups to make them more useful (such as making the defense power up make it so you can’t be tripped by slide tackles?), and surely a hundred other things.
Smell ya later nerds!