Monaco on Facebook and Twitter

[DrWilloughby]

Not sure where to put this, if it's offensively promotional, feel free to delete!

In any case, I'm finally coming up for a breath of air after working feverishly on my game Monaco for months. I probably don't smell too good right now.

Anyways, I just made the twitter and Facebook pages for Monaco public, so if you wanna keep up with the action, I should be posting about my current activities pretty much daily!

Become a fan on FACEBOOK:
www.facebook.com/pages/Monaco/263181693605

Follow me on TWITTER:
www.twitter.com/MonacoIsMine

If you haven't heard of Monaco before... its a 4-player co-op stealth game. Kinda like Hitman crossed with Gauntlet. It received two IGF nominations (grand prize and excellence in design), and it will steal your cold, hard, indie hearts when it comes out, [TBA], on your favorite platform!

[Dan MacDonald]

I'll follow you Andy, you giddy school girl you

[ChrisP]

I'm boycotting all Facebook pages since they made them show on the public search profile (seriously, Facebook, MASSIVE privacy fail right there), and I haven't bothered with Twitter yet - otherwise I'd definitely join!

As an IGF judge I've had the opportunity to play Monaco already, and it is fantastic. You'd better release it on XBLA or something - I want 4-player co-op running in my lounge room.

(I did find that the game was a little touchy with the 360 controller on PC - I kept running blindly into rooms right after unlocking doors - but I'm sure you'll fix that. Or perhaps I'm just a gamepad klutz, not having played many console games.)

[DrWilloughby]

Originally Posted by ChrisP

I'm boycotting all Facebook pages since they made them show on the public search profile (seriously, Facebook, MASSIVE privacy fail right there), and I haven't bothered with Twitter yet - otherwise I'd definitely join!

As an IGF judge I've had the opportunity to play Monaco already, and it is fantastic. You'd better release it on XBLA or something - I want 4-player co-op running in my lounge room.

(I did find that the game was a little touchy with the 360 controller on PC - I kept running blindly into rooms right after unlocking doors - but I'm sure you'll fix that. Or perhaps I'm just a gamepad klutz, not having played many console games.)

Glad you liked it! WRT the gamepad being touchy and running into rooms prematurely, that's definitely a problem that seems to scale up for different people. Is the frame rate low on your machine? That could be part of the problem. (actually, the whole addition of smoke bombs, adrenaline, etc was to obliquely alleviate that very problem, sounds like it's not totally solved yet!)

[ChrisP]

Those special abilities are definitely useful and a really good addition to the game. I have been known to pick different characters to try out different strategies on a level that's foxing me. The locksmith and the hacker are my favourites so far; their passive special abilities are both absolutely invaluable.

Neither kind of special ability alleviates the control issue though, especially since the active ones are consumable (as they must be, of course - no sense letting people spam smoke bombs).

With keyboard control I have zero problems; after opening a door I can stop on a dime. I do have to pay close attention to the progress bar though, and sometimes I anticipate too early and end up cancelling the door opening by mistake. (Perhaps the progress bar could simply decay, at a rate that starts relatively slow and increases over time, instead of snapping back to 0?)

It may simply be a case of needing to tweak the mapping of joystick input to movement speed. Maybe a larger dead zone, or a quicker falloff once you start moving the joystick back towards the centre. Re-centreing a joystick is a very different action to releasing a button, and it's important that it can be done quickly in this case.

Worst case, use a separate button for manipulating the environment.

[GavinClifton]

Following you on both. I'm looking forward to playing this game.

[DrWilloughby]

Originally Posted by ChrisP

Those special abilities are definitely useful and a really good addition to the game. I have been known to pick different characters to try out different strategies on a level that's foxing me. The locksmith and the hacker are my favourites so far; their passive special abilities are both absolutely invaluable.

Neither kind of special ability alleviates the control issue though, especially since the active ones are consumable (as they must be, of course - no sense letting people spam smoke bombs).

With keyboard control I have zero problems; after opening a door I can stop on a dime. I do have to pay close attention to the progress bar though, and sometimes I anticipate too early and end up cancelling the door opening by mistake. (Perhaps the progress bar could simply decay, at a rate that starts relatively slow and increases over time, instead of snapping back to 0?)

It may simply be a case of needing to tweak the mapping of joystick input to movement speed. Maybe a larger dead zone, or a quicker falloff once you start moving the joystick back towards the centre. Re-centreing a joystick is a very different action to releasing a button, and it's important that it can be done quickly in this case.

Worst case, use a separate button for manipulating the environment.

A decay sounds like a good idea actually, would reduce frustration without taking anything away from gameplay. Thanks for the ideas!

[ChrisP]

No problem! Glad I could help. I really want to see this game shine as bright as possible.