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Stopsignal
description.txt ---
Game developer, animator
Tired
--
discord: Stopsignal#2168
I do not use it much, but just in case!

Age 24, creature

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Joined on 1/17/12

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Stopsignal's News

Posted by Stopsignal - March 12th, 2021


Hi guys! Made a new game!!


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This is MonkeJazz!

My first ever paid game! Which is quite a rollercoaster mentally for me, hahahahah




First, some words:

Usually i don't think i'd be doing anything like this for a while, as i realized i prefer to make free games that i can port to HTML5 and post here for you guys to play (love the feedback more than the money, at least for now while i don't need to buy my own food, obviously), but it was made for a bundle with other developers, all of them cool, kinda unknown devs who make really great stuff. Awesome peeps. I am really happy to have worked with them!


So i can't post it here :(


But next one, luckily, will! I already got something cookin'



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In this game you play as a monkey who, armed with a sax and sweet, chill jazzy vibes, tries to help the people of this lonely coastal town get rid of their negative thoughts.


It's mostly an experimentation on building an atmosphere. I really liked how it turned out.


And this is the link to the bundle!

Please check their games! They are really nice, chill people and also made lots of free games before, some of them even post here!


Anyways, thanks for reading. Man, this feels great.

Also, thank you Newgrounds peeps for 400 followers! If i knew i'd get so many when i was a child, i'd been so happy :)

I'm so happy i stuck around.


Stay safe, peeps.

<3

-Stopsignal


note for myself: also, next time, try to not post a frontpage news at 4am, hahahahaha


Tags:

3

Posted by Stopsignal - December 2nd, 2020


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Manorvania has finally gotten off the frontpage. Man, that was a wild ride. It was fantastic!

17.000 people played. 17.000! That's a lot of people!

And a lot of nice reviews. Thanks guys. All of those mean a lot, every one of them. I specially got a kick out of the ones that mentioned music, as i'd go and show my friend, who did the theme.


Even though i eventually stopped replying (had to, class was hell and there was a point that catching up would have been too much) but i did read *every single one of them*. <3


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I've been meaning to write about the process of creating this little game, and the challenges that happened, and the things that i could have fixed.



1- IDEA


I *had* to make a game for halloween. It was some kind of self imposed challenge. I knew i wasn't gonna make a horror thing, as i wanted something 2D and i don't think i'm capable to make 2D horror. Therefore it had to be simple, silly fun.

Suddenly, i rememebered this thing.


That "thing" is just an experiment to see if i could make a good platformer system in Gamemaker. It was originally made for class, but they made me use Unity instead. All that work was for naught. At least the Unity game wasn't that bad.


As i could not use that work for anything, i decided to give it some extra features (text boxes), change a few things and just release it as an small joke.


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Thinking about it, that was quite short sighted from me. Still, i had that whole system to just tinker away and make a game with! After thinking for a bit, i went with making a true halloween game, with all the cliche horror characters and setting.


2- ART


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Eagle eyed people might have realized that the skeleton up there, in the experiment game, is the normal enemy of Manorvania. I mean, it had the animations already done and everything, why throw something that works? hahahaha

(I did have to add 2 frames to the run cycle to make it smoother, however)


Even the bats were recycled. This time, from the class game:


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Portraits were another monster entirely. I really, really couldn't visualize the style i was going for. And oh, i did go for a lot of them:


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First attempts, mostly based on my usual goofy style for simple characters (feels kinda weird to describe it that way, ahhahaha)

Almost went with something like the Vlad in the lower left. You can see some other couple attempts at the same style with the wolf and the witch, who kept that face for the rest of the sketches, hahahah


(Also some characters that wouldn't appear: a necromancer -replaced by Death, obviously- and friendly ghouls, which were tied to a mechanic cut for time. Also ignore the drawings of myself hahaha)


Second attempts don't really deserve much showing, as i went wilder just to see if it would fit. It didn't. I will keep the smug vlad, however:


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Eventually i went with a more defined, human look, even if it was still cartoony. I made LOTS of faces during this, specially of the main character. It needed to be a bit likeable, yet dumb, while also leaving me the possibility of making him smug and / or kind of a laid back asshole. This is all something i'm realizing in retrospective, as i was just drawing at the time.


Until i struck gold! I really liked this one.


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All of the other guys fell into place as soon as that one was done.


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And here are most of them complete!


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3- DESIGN


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Now, i was gonna write about the design of the manor itself, and the mechanics, but i'm quite tired to be honest, so i'll be really quick.

Basically, separating the whole level in chunks. Depending on the abilities unlocked, the player will be able to go to different parts of the level.


The trick, here, is to make it feel open and interesting:

The path is premeditated. Sure, you go through it at your own pace, but i control where you can go at a given time, and what you can see.


That last part is extremely important. To *see* things. The idea, IMO, of a metroidvania, is to get abilities which change how you perceive the world around you. "Oh, i can get to that platform now". "Oh, i can go through lasers now". "Oh, i can break that wall that i saw a while ago".

The player needs to see that there are places he can't get to yet, and slowly make a mental map of where everything is. Then you introduce a new mechanic, and part of the world gets unlocked, and the player gets to explore a new place and feel smart for figuring it out.


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Here the game taunts you with a powerup, but only if you can pass through those red blood lasers...


The only problem here is that, because of the size of the level, everything in Manorvania is stuck next to everything else, and a player might miss these things visually, or forget where they were. (It's not the same than having a big visual landmark for these things, like the boss statues in metroid). I tried my best, hahaha


Also, a powerup should never be used only to open a new door. It should also change the way you traverse the environment.


https://www.newgrounds.com/dump/draw/082d5a9247c3ff8e3cce352293f674d8

(dump link cause can't add more images)


I decided to make lots of shortcuts everywhere. Hazards become speed boosts, enemies become redundant, the power spike is fun. That, along a few secret passages here and there, makes it speedrunnable, which is great fun, hahahah


Another thing: Flow is EVERYTHING. If a jump feels bad, if the jump ends just before reaching the next platform or too early, it feels weird. Moving around must be as graceful as possible.


All abilities add great flow to how you jump around. You can see the mathematics in peoples heads when they get the hand of the movement- jump here, dash here, avoid this enemy, land here. It feels fantastic. I tried countless times lots of places just to see if there was something wrong with the flow, and editer accordingly.


Not everything is perfect however. The mansion is still too cramped for the movement. I realized this way too late.

Specially early on, as the platforming wasn't tuned that much for when you have absolutely no abilities. Oops.


At least this gives a "Picking up the Doom Shotgun when you only had the pistol" vibe. So it kinda pays off, but it's still sloppy, as while i wanted some of that, it didn't need to be that drastic.


...


Also sorry for the phone mission lol

and the final part hehe

it was WAY HARDER before though


also gamemakers html5 kinda sucks dude




4 i think - CONCLUSION


I had a blast doing this. Just that. And had a blast seeing people play it, and even speedrun it. I'm grateful to all of you for the support, i mean wow- you are fantastic <3


Some of you even laughed at the jokes!!! I was so nervous about that. I know i write weird characters. Next time i won't make the main character "write like this dude", i learned it gets old fast, hahahaha.

Next time will have more writing i think?


Big thanks to Juanba for the music, and Porcongo for the sounds. Cool dudes, man. Lots of people praised the sounds and music, and most of that credit should go to them <3


Check out juanba's music!! https://soundcloud.com/bauti777


Also, i decorated my itch io profile a bit if anyone wants to check it out, gotta be presentable, hahahah


Anyways, i'll be closing now. Thank you so much!!! Let's hope next year isn't as sucky sucky, shall we?

Also, might possibly be doing a new project. Hopefully releasing january. Let's see!


-Stop <3


EDIT:

also i know i had a massive mistake with the whole onion and garlic thing

i have no idea how i rolled a 0 on the intelligence check there

I WAS ON THE RIGHT TRACK that's my only excuse

oh that sweet, cursed foodstuff, the onion


Tags:

9

Posted by Stopsignal - November 11th, 2020


I always thought i'd never get much people to see my art / games here, but this year somehow had at least one good thing to give. Thank you so much, y'all!!! It's really, really inspiring to see people liking my stuff, and just makes me want to draw more and make more games.

Also, met some really really cool artists here, and just checking your stuff also fuels my inspiration quite a bunch. This is great.


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-Stop <3


ps: i recommend checking the art favourited in this profile, the artists are amazing and i can't get enough of them!


15

Posted by Stopsignal - October 31st, 2020


https://stopsignal.itch.io/manorvania


Made a game for halloween, which is now on Itch.Io! Hope i can port it to HTML5 soon so i can put it here, in NG too. Found a lot of love for my games here, hahahah

It's a short metroidvania where you play as Dracula and try to help your friends, who are mad at you. Also, skeletons.

Hope you like it!


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I'm incredibly, utterly tired, as i didn't know it'd take me this long. Wow. Well, at least it's done now, and i can go back to, eh, actual, real life responsibilities which i have been totally ignoring. Oops.


Posted by Stopsignal - July 16th, 2020


Greetings!

The weekend i made a game in 48 hours for the GMTK jam, with the theme "Out Of Control".

In it you try to get your work done for the weekend, while trying not to have a breakdown from stress.


I'd really like if any of you guys tries it. I'm really proud of this one, i think i did a good work. Hope you have a miserable time with it! Hahahahahha


https://stopsignal.itch.io/sfm-simulator


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Tags:

3

Posted by Stopsignal - December 13th, 2018


Just that! DM me for anything, if you like what i do and want something like that for yourself, or maybe want stickers or some pixelart or something, shoot me a dm, pal! I'm always here, around! We'll discuss stuff in the dms :)

No pricing here because it will probably vary depending on what you ask for!  Also you can see pretty much my drawing strenghts in my gallery, so you can see if it's approppiate to ask me or not. It probably is, hehe, so go ahead!


Posted by Stopsignal - January 8th, 2017


Never stopped, never will stop!

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Posted by Stopsignal - June 26th, 2016


I felt as i should upload a build of the game for now!


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TV SHOOTS BADDIES

 

It's just a small game i'm working on! For now only the "STORY" and the first "ARCADE" modes are really polished enough to be playable, (the first arcade mode being the first icon on left) and the other stuff is just concepts that i have to polish. 

ARCADE is kinda hardcore, so you should check the STORY mode if you are a first timer.

Some stuff:

-The two arenas next to the arcade arena are completely unfinished stuff, sorry!
-As is the next level after you beat the red boss. Also the red boss is really stupid.
-Particles showing up when you pause are something youll have to bear with for now, as who knows if i will be adding more particles, or even delete them, so for now i'll just let them stay there until i am finished with them!

 

Try it, if you can! You'll make me happy!

And even happier if you actually review stuff here! Specially if you found bugs or have cool ideas.

Happy TVeing!

 

 

:No installation required!

http://www.mediafire.com/download/9crq1pa0dtgeqbw/TVShootsBaddies+0.5.1.exe

 

 


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Posted by Stopsignal - January 15th, 2015


First time grabbing game maker, and it's so pretty i can't stop using it! So, i am making a project with it.

It will be a little bullet hell game, with bosses and levels and stuff. It won't be a large game, but it's without doubt a game that i am putting love into.

It will be really fun! Enjoy the screens for now.

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