Hi everyone, We're a brand now indie dev studio working on our very first game called Floria - A side scrolling action game. Using tilt controls control a flower that's been caught in s spring breeze and must fly as far as you can through the season while avoiding obstacles and collecting powerups. We're currently well along in our development and hope to release the game by the end of August.
Artistically this is really unique and beautiful. Really looking forward to seeing some game trailers
Thanks! The games actually into beta testing stage now, which means we ready to show of some gameplay trailers. Hopefully in the next couple of weeks we'll have something available.
Gameplay Trailer Here it is, the gameplay trailer for Floria. Enjoy ! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=09BAxI-y4gk
I can see you inspired yourselves on "Flower" game for Ps3 (pardon me if I'm wrong), but did something a bit different. It looks very nice and beautiful. I would just point 2 things I didn't like so much. One was the spider web, which didn't seem to fit very well in the artistical feel of the rest. And the fact that it was in mid air floating. The other thing is the bee. The wing flaping animation isn't that good, and the flying pattern is too artificial for gameplay purposes aparently. Doesn't seem to fit too well on the otherwise harmony of the game. Oh, and the flower is a bit too static, maybe some animation would make it great. Overall it looks very nice and enjoyable. Congratulations and good luck
It's a beautiful game, and as such I have a pretty high standard I want to see it meet or beat. It's not there yet, harsh truth be told. Here's what it needs to be perfect (from my perspective): It is trying to hard to be too many things at once. The idea of an avoidance game based on a delicate flower and natural obstacles is brilliant. But when you add genre staples such as invincibility and "power ups" - well, then these themes are really just afterthoughts. Simply put, embrace your themes. Flowers don't have powerups. This is a chance to do something awesome. Make it so you can hit a few things - make those "petals" on the flower, that fall off fluidly and gorgeously when the flower is hit. Give the flower and undulating and fluid animation. Make it's general direcitonal movement controllable, but make it's twists and delicate turns to be random and gorgeous. Add wind. Not only will it interact with the twisting and turning of the flower, but it will provide an interesting gameplay element - "pushing" the flower in one direction or another, while also having an effect on certain things (bees) while not changing others (spider web) very much at all. Work on the animations for those things - the spider web should be attached to a continuous landscape, the bees should be behaving dissimilarly to each other, with different sizes and movements. Make it feel more like a cluster of bees and less like 3 copy-pasted obstacles shaped like bees. Wind can also help with control and bringing things in tightly. Why not use the gyroscope as "wind" ? That way you can control the flower by tilting, and you see gusts affecting the flower and the other things on screen to whatever degrees you wish. The effect would be awesome, and it would allow for an extended play where the flower doesn't fall without ruining the aesthetic of a falling leaf/flower (if you only tilted forward, for instance, it would start succumbing to gravity - you'd have to do some updrafts every now and then). Here's a quick example of some great leaf fluidity: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fOdrdN31EvM I know it's a tall order, but you guys have a fantastic idea and some great artwork skills. I know if you want to devote the resources to making some of these changes, you'll blow it out of the park and have something really special, and not just a (beautiful) genre reskin. Best of luck. -Null
Thanks guys for your great comments and feedback. Manuel : Actually I've never played Flower in the PS3, and non of the other guys here have either (we're all xbox fanboys ), although after looking it up I do remember seeing a trailer for it a while back. So maybe subconsciously its been an inspiration for this game.. And yes I agree with the bees, the motions been bothering me as well and will definitely be reworked before the final release. Nullroar: The flower is actually controlled using the gyroscope on the iPhone. Unfortunately for making the gameplay video I had to use a mouse to control because I couldn't find a good solution to capturing screen video on the iPhone, and ended up having to use the iPhone simulator on the mac to do it. The motion on the actual phone is a lot more fluid. You also made some good suggestions, especially about having the effect of gravity on the flower. We've experimented with different control schemes based on the wind theme, but wasn't able to come up with something that worked particularly well, but we definitely will keep on trying. Thanks All!
Just a quick update. The games finally completed and we've submitted it to the app store for review. Fingers crossed now that all goes well!
Didnt think i would like this but watched the gameplay video and it looks great. Only thing now for me are the controls, would love it if you could use relative touch controls to move the flower. Is it just tilt at the moment ?
I'd like to know this too. The artwork looks great! Congrats on getting it submitted Good luck with the release
Thanks! Actually touch control was the first control scheme we used when making the game, however after some testing it was found that it just wasn't as fun as using the motion controls. The code for it is still in there, but just disabled. Maybe based on feedback once the game is out we might enable it again as an alternate control scheme in a future release. Also as a side note for those who are interested, we giving away some redeem codes once the game is released. Check out [thread=106162]This Thread[/thread] for details.
Would be great to have it in there though and just have a checkbox for what control method you want to use ? Have you tested it internally or with some users for feedback ? I'll check this out when its released but will hold off until the touch control version is out ! (sorry !)
Floria is now available! Great news, Floria has been approved and is now out on the App Store! Check it out at http://itunes.apple.com/app/floria/id451928277?mt=8
