[Beta] Lowglow - Atmospheric puzzle game (Accepting beta applications)

Discussion in 'Upcoming iOS Games' started by jonikuusisto, Feb 10, 2016.

  1. jonikuusisto

    jonikuusisto Member

    Feb 10, 2016
    14
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    CEO, Rockodile Games
    Turku, Finland
    #1 jonikuusisto, Feb 10, 2016
    Last edited: Mar 22, 2016
    [​IMG]

    Hello!

    I'm Joni and I'm part of an indie game team called Rockodile Games. We have been making small mobile games for a few years now and this game is our biggest game yet! We are located in Turku, Finland.

    Lowglow is an audiovisual puzzle game with glowingly beautiful graphics combined with a dynamic audio environment and it features over 100 mind-bending physics puzzles.

    Lowglow will be available on the iPad and iPhone as a Free to play game later in 2016.

    Softlaunched March 22nd in New Zealand and Australia!

    UPDATE***
    Compatible devices: iPhone 5s / 6 / 6+ / 6s / 6s+, iPad Air / Air 2 / Mini 2 / Mini 3 / Mini 4

    We're struggling on getting enough beta testers and we would really appreciate if you could come and test, give some feedback, tell us why you love it or hate it, all feedback is valuable!



    The gameplay video was recorded with PC so that's why there is a mouse visible.

    Screenshots:

    [​IMG]

    [​IMG]

    [​IMG]

    [​IMG]

    Cinematic Trailer:



    The mobile version is almost ready. We still have some tweaking to do.
    Softlaunching now in NZ and AU!

    Any feedback is much appreciated!

    Thanks for reading!
    - Joni
     
  2. ROGER-NL

    ROGER-NL Well-Known Member

    May 21, 2012
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    THE NETHERLANDS
    Looking forward to your game, saw it first at Pocketgamer, I never do Beta, but I am gonna play this as soon as it hits, good luck.
     
  3. spikeyflip

    spikeyflip Well-Known Member

    Jul 29, 2011
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    QA lead
    Northern California
    Hi Joni,

    Do you want the feedback by replying to this thread or pm?
     
  4. Misguided

    Misguided Well-Known Member

    Jan 27, 2009
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    Looks beautiful. Reminds me of auditorium in a way, which is very high praise in my book.
     
  5. copaeci

    copaeci Well-Known Member

    Nov 2, 2012
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    student, writer, reviewer, beta tester
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    art style looks so pretty, kind of crystal jelly thing.. :)
    good luck
     
  6. jonikuusisto

    jonikuusisto Member

    Feb 10, 2016
    14
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    CEO, Rockodile Games
    Turku, Finland
    Hi! You can give feedback by replying to this thread or by pm or you can send email to [email protected].

    Thanks!
     
  7. spikeyflip

    spikeyflip Well-Known Member

    Jul 29, 2011
    124
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    QA lead
    Northern California
    First impressions/feedback.
    1. Main title/menu: love the clean and simple look although the images of the old guys' doesn't make sense until you played the game. Replacing the image with the background image of a level or the animated dots below would make it better imo.

    2. Gameplay: love the physic/puzzler gameplay. I would suggest maybe an extra mode or so (i.e. time attack or some sort of survival where you're only given a limited amount of balls). This just gives your title replay value (maybe you can add those modes via igc?

    3. Issues: really just minor issues (i.e. spelling errors) a) After completing Village of Wos, on the text with the old guy ("There is something hopefull", hopefull should be spelled hopeful). b) After completing Quarry of Wos, on the text with the old guy ("They have stood here before us shadowolk", shadowolk should be shadowfolk).
     
  8. jonikuusisto

    jonikuusisto Member

    Feb 10, 2016
    14
    0
    0
    CEO, Rockodile Games
    Turku, Finland
    Thanks for the great feedback!

    There's definitely going to be changes in the game before launch and we'll take your feedback into consideration. In the next update we will lighten the story a bit and also correct those spelling errors!

    Thanks!
     
  9. triggywiggy

    triggywiggy Well-Known Member

    Jan 24, 2010
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    Love the art style for this :O
     
  10. This looks gorgeous. Can I ask why you decided to go F2P, though, when the Steam version is paid? Is the IAP just to unlock the full game or remove ads, or will thrte be consumables? Thanks!
     
  11. spikeyflip

    spikeyflip Well-Known Member

    Jul 29, 2011
    124
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    QA lead
    Northern California
    Hi got another spelling error for you: After finishing CITRINA RECLUSE: The following text appears: "Pitifull..." Change to: "Pitiful..."

    Also, since it's been released already on steam, I guess additional modes is out of the question ^_^;; but I do would like to see achivements implemented if possible.
     
  12. jonikuusisto

    jonikuusisto Member

    Feb 10, 2016
    14
    0
    0
    CEO, Rockodile Games
    Turku, Finland
    Hi!

    About the F2P: It has the benefit that players can try the game without paying anything and also the game can be played completely without paying. This helps us much in distributing the game without spending money on user acquisition. Most of mobile gamers have gotten used to f2p games so it's safer this way. We as developers love premium but we don't think that premium works on mobile for now.

    In the game the players can unlock the full game that removes ads and any limits. Also it has an energy system that works so that the levels require energy to be unlocked and the energy can be bought as an IAP and it will also regenerate over time. You can also get energy by watching ads.

    Thanks!
     
  13. jonikuusisto

    jonikuusisto Member

    Feb 10, 2016
    14
    0
    0
    CEO, Rockodile Games
    Turku, Finland
    Hi!

    Maybe we'll have to teach our writer some english :D

    Yeah the development is almost ready, but mods might be possible. The game will feature achievements! We have achievements already in use in Steam so we'll just modify and implement them in the game.

    Thanks!
     
  14. So the one-time unlock will remove all ads and energy limitations? The "also" you added after that confused me a bit.
     
  15. jonikuusisto

    jonikuusisto Member

    Feb 10, 2016
    14
    0
    0
    CEO, Rockodile Games
    Turku, Finland
    Oh sorry let me clarify:

    The one-time unlock will remove all ads and energy limitations. After unlocking the game it will work like a full premium game.

    Thanks!
     
  16. triggywiggy

    triggywiggy Well-Known Member

    Jan 24, 2010
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    Freelance writer, Student, Casually employed in re
    Perth, Western Australia
    So first impressions.

    As others have said there are grammar and spelling errors which need fixing. Such as required commas.

    Also I've been playing for five minutes and have hit a brick wall where I can't play anymore without paying. I understand that you want to make it F2P and that people can pay to play the full game. There is however nothing that tells me how the energy regenerates or how I get more energy other than paying for it. In fact I don't even know how I get more energy.

    If this was released on the App Store this brick wall would be enough to turn people away from the game. Maybe a good idea would be to have an explanation in the "get more energy" menu on how energy regenerates and another good idea would be to put adverts in that people can watch to gain more energy. Doing this would give you another revenue stream and allow people to keep playing and in some way be giving you profit that didn't intend to pay for anything.

    Apart from that the gameplay is quite enjoyable and reminds me a bit of a game I played a while back which was similar but used water and sand instead (can't remember the name).

    It just feels like it is missing something. It might be something to do with between the levels to me the menu design doesn't feel right. It feels awkward. It would probably be better if it was just vertical and in boxes or maybe zoomed in more?

    Anyway when I figure out how to get more energy and keep playing levels I'll give you some more feedback.

    Don't take my comments too hard. The gameplay itself is very enjoyable. It's just the little things that need sorting out.
     
  17. jonikuusisto

    jonikuusisto Member

    Feb 10, 2016
    14
    0
    0
    CEO, Rockodile Games
    Turku, Finland
    Hi!

    Thanks for the feedback.

    We will make the "Get more energy" dialog a bit more friendly in the future.

    It seems that you haven't pressed the "get more energy" button? It will take you to the shop screen. Just press it and all of your questions will be answered :) So it will tell you after pressing it that the energy will regenerate 1 unit in 20 minutes. Also there is a way to watch ads to gain 3 units of energy per ad. You can also fill the energy container to full by IAP.

    The IAPs in Testflight BETA are free to testers so if like you can also unlock the full game in the "SHOP" screen.

    Hope you enjoy the rest of the game!

    Thanks!
     
  18. jonikuusisto

    jonikuusisto Member

    Feb 10, 2016
    14
    0
    0
    CEO, Rockodile Games
    Turku, Finland
    Development history

    Hi guys!

    So here’s a bit more information on the development of Lowglow.

    The game has got good feedback from the community. Let me introduce something that we were doing in all of those hours of development.
    We started to think what type of game we wanted to create. We ended up to make a physic puzzle game with some cool effects and we wanted it to look beautiful and be relaxing.

    [​IMG]

    This was the first graphical iteration we made. The style looked too much like it would be in some technological environment and we decided to throw it away. There was also too less details and the environment was someway boring.

    In the same time I was creating a level editor so we could make some levels easier so we don't have to write them all by hand to text file. (That would be impossible to create good levels in that way).

    [​IMG]

    This was the editor we ended up. It is not visually good looking but we can set all parameters from there and place objects to levels. After our level designer started to create some levels for us with the new editor I was able to start tweaking our graphical style again with our artist.

    [​IMG]

    After couple of iterations we made it look the way we wanted to! It is much more relaxing than earlier version. We also made background full transparent and only the lights are revealing it. Light system was also modified so each environment object emits light where earlier version had only lights in droplets. I also modified the light shader so it calculates the color of lights so we could make better looking light effects. (Light system is done by using GLSL-shader that I wrote, if someone is interested.)

    With more lights to calculate, we had a problem: performance drop. Lights were using too much fill-rate of GPU. I coded couple of days to find a solution and then I succeed to make a system that updates lights and backgrounds in every second frame. That divided our draw progress into 2 frames instead of 1.

    Okea, the game looked too static on that point. The environment didn't respond whatever hit it. I started to write a shader that would solve the problem. After some experiments with shaders I succeed to create cool effect that we used to make environment feel more live.

    [​IMG]

    I was very happy with the result and we decided to go with it as it looked nice. First, I was a little pessimistic about the performance with the new effect but it was running very smoothly.

    Now we are concentrating on the user experience on mobile and we are softlaunching soon!

    The Testflight BETA is still open and you can apply here!
     
  19. spikeyflip

    spikeyflip Well-Known Member

    Jul 29, 2011
    124
    0
    0
    QA lead
    Northern California
    Just completed the game and have additional feedback.

    - Bonus levels: I've unlocked B1 before but noticed it is locked again. Is this an issue or by design? Either way, I feel that once you've unlocked a bonus level it should remain unlocked considering that the bonus levels uses the golden lines to unlock.

    - White/Center area: The levels appears easier to complete than the levels in EMER as it was more challenging. Imo, it felt like a letdown as you are on the final stages.

    - One thing that's frustrating is when moving the line that are near the edges, I see a white line (I guess to indicate the border?) but it was frustrating trying to move the line several times just to get the right angle but I keep hitting the border. Have you guys consider removing that? (the border).

    - Would love to see you guys implement a zoom in/zoom out feature (pinch in/pinch out to zoom in or out) at the world map just to see the entire map in general.

    Overall love the game ! Thank you so much giving me the chance to test it.
     
  20. jonikuusisto

    jonikuusisto Member

    Feb 10, 2016
    14
    0
    0
    CEO, Rockodile Games
    Turku, Finland
    Hi spikeyflip!

    Thanks for the feedback and nice to have you testing our game!

    - Bonus levels: They shouldn't lock again so this must be a bug. I can't seem to be able to reproduce this bug on my device so we have to investigate this further.

    - White district: Our analytics are telling the same story also. I think we'll have to adjust the difficulty.

    - Borders: Yeah the borders are there because of the different device models and screen sizes. It keeps the levels same(equal) on every device. For example on an iPad there are no vertical borders and on iPhone there are no horizontal borders(aspect ratios are different). We are going adjust the auto-repositioning system so that it will not be so frustrating to move the line near border.

    - Zoom: The game already has a zoom feature but it is disabled on the mobile version! That's because of the performance issues related to this. Frame rate is going to drop dramatically when zooming. The Steam version has the zoom feature ;)

    We're pushing an update to the game today that will fix a lot of problems!

    Thanks for your feedback!
     

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