Paper Sorcerer Avatars

Hey guys, I thought you guys might like Paper Sorcerer avatars! 

Each album contains all the square images at the size listed. 
Right click the image, "Save As" somewhere on your computer, and set your Avatar on forums and the like to spread the Paper Sorcerer love! 

You can also download the whole avatar set as a zip file if you like, from the Ultra Runaway website. 

If you haven't already tried the demo, you can download it or play it in your browser! 
Try the demo now 

Hope you enjoy, here are the links! 


256x256 220x220 150x150 120x120 100x100 75x75 65x65 64x64 60x60

Skill animations, short trailer

Today I'm talking about skill animations, last post I talked about the final summon roster.

I was working a long time on special effects for all the skills. The game has 327 unique skills right now and about 300 of those have unique animations. There's also quite a few other incidental effects, like different types of slashes and hit effects, as well as a death animation and enemy swings. For a better idea of what 300 looks like, here's part of my skill checklist I've been using to keep track of which effects I have implemented:

http://i.imgur.com/WK0x2.jpg

And without further ado, here are some special effects in Unity:

http://i.imgur.com/viJ1C.jpg

http://i.imgur.com/nR6UH.jpg

http://i.imgur.com/yeiS2.jpg

http://i.imgur.com/Fl2Ef.jpg

http://i.imgur.com/7b9t1.jpg

I also did animations to indicate whose turn it was, and who was being affected by buffs and heals. Before making the game, I didn't realize that the player needed so much feedback. I had to do research when I started getting playtest feedback that the battles weren't clear enough to know everything that was going on.

I also just finished working on the short version of the trailer, so you can see some of the effects in action there.

Press Release complete!

So, finished up the press release today, here it is:

http://i.imgur.com/LKczJ.jpg

 And here are some screenshots, too!

 

http://i.imgur.com/iGpIt.jpg

 

http://i.imgur.com/zYs3t.jpg

 http://i.imgur.com/rq9gG.jpg

http://i.imgur.com/rRwGT.jpg

 http://i.imgur.com/DTLiZ.jpg

http://i.imgur.com/XmVFv.jpg

Ways of Minimizing Risk

Like I said before, there are many obstacles in the path of a single developer finishing and shipping a game. So I thought I'd do a post about what I'm doing to mitigate that risk.

• Using a pre-made engine: Unity
• Using middleware: Orkashi RPG Kit
• Using a unique art style
• Chose to do a relatively easier to develop game structure
• I decided to do a dungeon crawler, which I love, but also doesn't require as many unique art assets as an open world. 
• Easier to be creative within constraints
• Finding ways to minimize animation
• First, animation is time-consuming. 
• Second, it doesn't contribute as much to the world/gameplay for the time it takes to do as many other tasks that are faster.
• Using sprites instead of full 3D models
• Focusing on digital distribution
• Rather than focusing on finding a publisher or investors to fund a large scale physical distribution and advertising campaign, I'm going to try crowdfunding and releasing in a digital format.
• Developing with a harder heart
• If I cut features that are close to my heart when I see them taking too much development time, or that they're making it less fun, the game is that much more likely to succeed.