http://setsandsettings.com/

Valence tidbits and whatnot

Fri, 15 Mar 2013 06:25:58 -0400

Hey everybody, Folmer here. Been a while since we posted anything so I figured I’d talk a bit about what’s been going on with Sets.

So aside from our usual messing around with whatever insanity we feel like doing at any given time, we’re still gearing up to do Valence- our roguelike platformer based on an old LD entry we did once - and we want to do it right. Someone on twitter (good lookin’ out, @seemo!) let us know about Bundle In A Box and their Indie Dev Grant, so we thought it would be a neat idea to throw it over to them to see how people respond to it.

We’ve also started a devlog for Valence which you can check out right here right now. At the moment it’s a collection of the fragments of screenshots and info we’ve leaked so far, we’ll keep it fresh as development of this freaking monster of a game goes on.

Secondly, there is a folder in the Sets and Settings dropbox full of 8x8 sprites. Just sprites everywhere, walkcycles and monsters and tiny tiles and everything, as far as the eye can see.

That’s my doing; I did that. What’s NOT to be found in that folder is an .swf, any code, or anything even resembling Andrew’s doing. I humbly suggest everyone yell at Andrew (@ambushsabre on twitter for easier yelling, you’re welcome) to rectify this situation.

Keep it thorough,

Folmer

Source

Mon, 28 Jan 2013 17:02:41 -0500

Yo! Andrew here. So I took some of the more interested and not-terribly-coded games and put the source on my github. The games included so far are K.O.T.S., Gravnav, and Irrupt. I encourage anyone to take a look at it and use the code in their own projects, but I have to put this disclaimer on there: I may have done some things horribly wrong, or committed some coding atrocity. If you see something like that, feel free to let me know, but I really do hope someone might find something useful in there. My only request is that if you do end up benefiting from it, that you send me a quick email, I’d love to know!

Check it out!

201(3)

Mon, 21 Jan 2013 06:20:00 -0500

2012 was a great year for us, so we wanted to kick the new year off right the only way we know how: By making video games.

Last week, we decided to have what we’ve dubbed the WEEKEND OF SETS, which spawned 3 games:

First we released Kastle, a one-button auto-runner about modern day (or possibly futuristic) castles. It was our #1GAM entry for Januari.

Read more about Kastle here or play it here!

Then, Andrew unleashed the 4 player K.O.T.S. The game is about tiny gunslingers with big guns to sling, trying to take control of a saloon. First player to capture the flag wins (and will probably have to take a drink. Losers must always take drinks, by the way. Them’s the rules).

Read more about K.O.T.S. here! Includes download link.

As the final game of WEEKEND OF SETS, we put out Alaska, a game we can only define as a “micro-SHMUP”. Alaska is about the player, the final boss, and the end.

Read more about Alaska here or play it here!

These 3 games are our way of saying “thank you you’re awesome” to the players and fans and indie game devs who’ve supported Sets and Settings throughout 2012, and we are extremely excited to make more games in 2013!

High fives all around.

- Andrew & Folmer

#GHOSTPARTY Valence is still our main project, but ghosts want...

Tue, 08 Jan 2013 06:48:36 -0500

#GHOSTPARTY

Valence is still our main project, but ghosts want to party and who are we to deny them that?

Valence

Thu, 03 Jan 2013 13:52:00 -0500

Valence is our next game. I wrote a big thing here and then lost it somehow so I’m going to move pretty quickly here. In a nutshell, Valence is a heavily stylized platformer mixed with The Binding Of Isaac. You’re probably thinking “‘heavily stylized?’ Ugh another black and white platformer” but it would be difficult to be more wrong. Just take a look at some of these teasers and decide for yourself.

First up is Brigitte Helm, the protagonist of the game. She is a self-described “repair woman”, but by “repair” she really means “robot murderer extraordinaire.”

“But..but Andrew! That picture is still in black and white!” Wow okay there buddy calm down. You want to see some color huh? Fine, but it’s going to try and kill you. Don’t say I didn’t warn you.

There aren’t words to describe how hard Folmer went on this next one, so I will just let the image do all the talking.

Folmer's List of Games That Are A Thing 2012

Fri, 28 Dec 2012 09:53:46 -0500

Game That Made Me Sit Back and Take Notes Like Back When I Was a Kid: Fez

Like many people, I was following the Fez hype / development hell / Phil Fish image macros. From day one I was excited about the aesthetics and the fact that there were no enemies in the game, according to Fish. But when it finally did come out, I assumed that I knew everything about the game already. The setting, the characters, the mechanics- everything was clear. Until I actually started playing the game and quickly found myself having to break out pen and paper to try and make sense of it all. I’m pretty sure I haven’t done that since the NES days.

Game That I Probably Wrecked Your High Score In Because I Am Really Really Good At It: /ESCAPE\ (iOS)

Incredible Ape’s /ESCAPE\ was originally a flash game, and I think it won a Ludum Dare at some point. I played the flash version quite a bit, and I always thought it would make for a great iOS title. And then it became one! And I was right! It came out early this year but it’s still my go to game.

Game That I Wanted To Suck Less Because It Looked So Fresh: Pid

Pid looks awesome. It looks like what Venus Patrol keeps yelling they wished that games looked like. Pid’s aesthetics are soft and whimsical and fit the oddball story perfectly. These are all good things to say about a video game. Sadly, the gameplay is rather forgettable, and above all else the game just makes me angry that it didn’t do more with itself.

Game That Is Quite Pleasant To Get Angry As Hell At: Stealth Bastard Deluxe

Stealth Bastard came out as a free game last year (I think), and it was hella impressive how much love was poured into it. The idea of taking stealth games and addressing the inherent slowness that comes with them was really dang clever. When Stealth Bastard Deluxe came out I was a little worried that it was going to be a soulless money-grab, but as it turns out the game really deserves the Deluxe.

Game(s) That Got It Like Dat: Paul Greasley’s LD Entries

Pixel art is pretty common in indie games, and there’s a lot of great stuff out there. But honestly? There are only 2 people doing something different with it: Superbrothers and Paul Greasley (aka FarmerGnome).

And the man is a hard worker! His output in 2012 includes the aforementioned LD games Soul Jar and Happy Little Murder Friends, as well as playable alphas of RAMBROS, Under The Ocean, and Fistful of Gun. Hats off to you dude.

Game That We Can Finally Replace Portal With As An Example Of Storytelling In Games: Papa Y Yo

Plots: When movies get it right, they’re good. When games get it right, they’re amazing. The story, the setting, and the way the mechanics tie into both make Papa Y Yo a thing of beauty. We desperately need more games like this.

Game That Should Make You Cry: Dys4ia

Anna Antropy knows what she’s doing. Dys4ia takes basic video game rules and utilizes them to great effect to not only tell a real story but also to share real feelings. But despite being rooted firmly in video game aesthetics and metaphors, it still manages to effortlessly touch people who consider themselves non-gamers. Dys4ia is one of the best examples of game design I’ve ever seen.

Alright, that’s it for me! Thanks for reading, thanks for all the support everyone has shown Sets and Settings in 2012, and expect us to shed some light on our upcoming project very soon!

Andrew’s list will show up sometime before the new year.

-Folmer

Last weekend we released Baburu, a game about grappling hooks and...

Wed, 12 Dec 2012 07:30:47 -0500

Last weekend we released Baburu, a game about grappling hooks and getting money. Baburu was made in 3 days and started as a thing Andrew was messing around with because Andrew is incapable of NOT making games at all times.

At first it was a let’s-get-this-done-in-a-couple-of-hours type deal, we planned to use super-minimalist pixel art for it:

Neat, but it didn’t do the concept justice (also, the tiles looked reaaaaally boring). Our focus quickly turned to polish, or “juice” as the buzzword seems to be these days. We discussed where to take the game and after I tried my hand at a new art style, we decided that what it needed was the feeling of it being bubbly— hence the game being called Baburu.

BABURU YAAAAY!

Andrew tackled the bubbly challenge by adding a ton of really cool details in the code, things like making the player bounce when hitting a wall and on-screen elements that would grow in when entering a room. I did my part by making everything round.

In the end, we’re really happy with how it came out, and while it’s still an exercise in limited design / rapid development, the amount of polish and details we got into it really makes it shine.

It’s up on Newgrounds with leaderboards so go and show off!

- Folmer

Soon. Tomorrow? Soon.

Thu, 06 Dec 2012 19:39:53 -0500

Soon. Tomorrow? Soon.

I SAID #LAZERCITY

Thu, 01 Nov 2012 06:02:11 -0400

#LAZERCITY

Thu, 01 Nov 2012 06:00:44 -0400

#LAZERCITY

Photo

Sun, 14 Oct 2012 19:52:38 -0400

IRRUPT is now officially out!

Thu, 04 Oct 2012 00:24:19 -0400

IRRUPT is now officially out!:

It’s out! We’ve done it! It’s a game that you can go and buy and download and beat us at. Good luck.

About the release date

Wed, 26 Sep 2012 09:24:35 -0400

Yeah about that, it’s not going to be this Thursday.

Ever since indiegames.com wrote about the Irrupt trailer there’s been a couple of articles that took the release date from there, but it’s wrong. The game is currently still awaiting Apple’s approval. We’re hoping that we can have it out by next Thursday (4th of October) but again let me stress that we simply don’t know yet.

For the record, it’s not that indiegames.com made a mistake, I just worded my email to them vaguely (“if all goes well it’ll be out this thursday”) and since that’s not a great thing to be saying in an article, they just took the important bit of that sentence instead. Lesson learned, I won’t be saying vague things to the media anymore!

so if you’ve been patiently looking forward to tomorrow so you can get your hands on Irrupt, i’m sorry. I hope you can wait another week!

It’ll be worth it.

- Folmer

Irrupt now has an official trailer!

Sun, 23 Sep 2012 18:41:19 -0400

Irrupt now has an official trailer!

Pets and Pettings!

Sat, 22 Sep 2012 05:43:03 -0400

Pets and Pettings!:

Sets and Settings proudly presents its noisy subdivision, Pets and Pettings. To celebrate our soon-to-be-released iOS game Irrupt, Pets and Pettings is currently serving up the pumping soundtrack to the game. Enjoy!

(Click on the title of this entry to make your way over to the music)

Why Irrupt looks like Irrupt

Thu, 20 Sep 2012 05:14:00 -0400

As a visual-artist-turned-game-designer, I don’t come up with game concepts based on mechanics. I don’t prototype games using programmer art or boxes or borrowed sprites. I don’t play other games and decide to make something based on them. The only way I can get myself excited about making a game is by firing up Photoshop and drawing until I end up with something that looks like a video game to me.

Basically, I make mock-ups and I let the images tell me what they want to be. There’s nothing planned out or technical about what I do, it’s just a feeling I get from what I’m seeing. Sometimes a pixel turns into a tile which turns into a set of tiles which tells me “oh. I guess we’re in a factory of some kind”. When I end up with tiles, I’ll lay them out to look like a level, and then populate the room with sprites. Most of the time, how the sprites look and how they’re placed in the rooms tells me where to go with the gameplay.

As far as I can tell there’s nothing conscious about this process, it’s purely visual. I might draw a factory worker (seems like a logical choice) but at some point mess up a color, decide I like that particular shade of green better, and turn the poor dude into a monstrous blob. Great, now it’s a monster factory? Yeah ok that works. Good setting for an arena shooter! Ok so who’s killing these things? and why are they doing that? Who the heck would own a monster factory? To answer those questions I’ll just keep drawing until everything becomes clear.

So how did Irrupt come to be?

Back when Andrew and I started making Irrupt, it looked like this:

But here’s a secret: If you flip that picture 90 degrees counter-clockwise, you’re looking at a platformer where a lil’ ninja is jumping to reach an exit.

When I made it, I was digging the color scheme and the patterns, but not the layout so much. So I played around with it until, for whatever reason, I started rotating the thing around. It clicked immediately: Blocks are falling down and the player is like a rocket that has to avoid these falling obstacles and get from right to left. This is an iOS game, this is something that you have to hold in your hand and interact with. It was obvious!

Excitedly, I showed the mockup to Andrew. At the time, Andrew was very interested in taking on something different from the flash games we’ve been making together so when he saw it, the first thing he said was “iOS.” Some people would call that sequence of events a coincidence, some would call it luck. I just call it Sets and Settings.

As we started prototyping and coming up with gameplay ideas, the story started unfolding itself to me: It’s in space, the falling blocks are asteroids, you have to escort astronauts from one spaceship to another. I was thinking about that scene in Sunshine where the crew has to get back to Icarus II after having explored an abandoned Icarus I. With those things in mind, the original mockup didn’t seem to do it for me anymore. So it became this:

Better. I have a huge boner for 70’s scifi airbrush illustration so it felt like a perfect fit. Popping colors, hard shapes, and just a tiny bit of dirty noise. Inspired by the works of Chris Foss and Shusei Nagaoka, I started exploring this style more and more.

Definitely getting there, until I started doing the menu screen. Which originally looked like this:

Except that there was no reasonable explanation to have a big structure in the center of the screen which would switch over to two similar looking structures at the edges. It felt jarring to me. And that feeling was what finalized the look of Irrupt.

Now, every screen you end up on is a configuration of the same thing. I spent a lot of time making sure that there was a visual flow, and for every transition an elaborate animation will play. It feels like you’re playing with a toy when you touch a button, almost like a Rubik’s Cube on speed is angry that you’re poking at it.

We’ve just submitted Irrupt to the App Store. I can’t wait for people to start poking.

- Folmer

Our Partnership

Sat, 15 Sep 2012 23:12:00 -0400

Now that the release of our fifth game (in 6 months) is imminent, I thought I’d write a little bit about something that we ourselves have been discussing a lot in the recent days: our partnership. I’m not going to make this into one of those “7 Steps to Finding a Good Partner and Happiness” articles, because honestly anything I say here might not work out for you. But, I think someone might learn something from our experiences or get inspired or whatever.

First, a little background on how we started working together. I started a thread on Something Awful that proposed a bi-weekly game jam, just so people could start actually making games. When I did that, I had an idea for a jam similar to the TIGsource A/B jam, so I asked for any pixel artists to get in contact for a future thread theme. Lo and behold, a user named the chaos engine sent me a pm and said he was okay at pixel art. But alas, as fate would have it, I never used that theme in the thread and I didn’t have him actually draw anything.

Fast forward about a month. I had finally come up with a game I wanted to make, and I threw together a prototype over a weekend using the oryx sprites. I was really happy with it and wanted to release it, but I couldn’t with any of the oryx art. So naturally, I checked my pm’s for the dude who had contacted me before, and we started working together to bring the yet un-released Cargo Breach into this world. After that we did GRAVNAV, and then we decided to come up with a name for our stuff so that people could refer to us as one. Hence, sets and settings was born.

However, there’s something about our partnership that’s incredibly special. We came from opposite ends of the gamedev spectrum: Folmer is an artist limited by programming, and I’m a programmer limited by art. But hey, there’s lot of programmer-artist duos out there, so what makes ours any different? Whenever we work on a project, we enter into a sort of feedback loop. He’ll make a mockup that’ll inspire me, so I’ll make that same thing as a prototype. That prototype will get him excited, so he’ll make some sweet sprites. Of course once I see those sprites, I just have to get them into the game animated, and so on and so forth. What ends up happening is that we complete entire projects without facing any real burnout. If there’s a dull moment, we only have to wait a few days at most before the other will deliver something exciting again. It really is incredible.

It’s tough to boil our relationship down to a single element, but I would say the most important thing is trust. We are always on the same page with everything, from art to gameplay to twitter posts. I’ve never had to worry whether or not the new piece of art was going to be amazing, and I don’t think he’s ever had to wonder if my programming is going to be up to par. In fact, just today we were remarking that if we both came up with an idea, we could probably make most of the game without talking at all. We communicate through our respective disciplines. I get a sprite and I know exactly what he’s thinking gameplay, and when I give him a prototype he knows exactly where to go with both art and gameplay. It’s totally stress-free.

The second thing that makes working together unlike any other team effort I’ve been a part of is a total lack of blame. If something goes wrong, even though it’s pretty clear whose fault it is, we figure out what it is and the person who can fix it fixes it. If one of us simply doesn’t have the skill to do something (such as Folmer can’t do portraits or I can’t do homing missiles at this point), we just re-evaluate our situation and figure out a different way to do it. And I mean this; in the 6 months that we’ve worked together and talked nearly every day, we’ve never had a real argument. Or a fake one. Or any type of argument really. A few days ago we pretended to do a breakup, and our callouts were so stupid that we both agreed there was literally nothing to complain about. We simply couldn’t come up with anything. Like I said above; it’s totally stress free all the time.

Anyways, I thought that this might be interesting to some people looking to get into partnerships of their own. My advice to those people is that you don’t have to compromise when it comes to partnership: there’s somebody out there for you (romantic, right?). And I can honestly say that once you find that person, you can’t imagine working with anyone else.

(As for IRRUPT chat: it’s coming. Really soon. Our playtesters love it, and the polish we’re putting on it is making us really excited. It’s by far our best work yet. I think Folmer had said something about doing a post about the art iteration we went through, so maybe he’ll actually use this blog for once.)

-Andrew

Yeah. This is a thing that is happening.

Sat, 01 Sep 2012 11:49:52 -0400

Shout out to Andrew’s hand for posing for us, we couldn’t have done it without you Andrew’s hand!

- Folmer

NEW THING: NICE SHOOT

Wed, 29 Aug 2012 16:48:00 -0400

Over the weekend we put in a combined total of over 100 hours as a part of the Ludum Dare Game Jam to bring you NICE SHOOT. It’s a game about evolving bullets.

Some cool facts about this game:

It boasts the most lines of code of any project we’ve done.
It features an impressive 120 frames of animation. Just for bullets.
The sound effects are basically totally broken.
34 (!) different levels, plus an awesome boss fight.
5 weapons, with up to 8 levels each.

Want to see one of those weapons? Here’s a little preview:

There’s plenty more where that came from, so go play it you goon:

NICE SHOOT

(You can read about our game and ludum dare here.)

-With love, Andrew and Folmer

(you can also expect our post-mortems sometime soon, in which we complain about how hard sitting a computer typing and clicking was. or something like that.)

We’re working on a Ludum Dare Jam game YAY!

Sat, 25 Aug 2012 19:49:35 -0400

We’re working on a Ludum Dare Jam game YAY!