Monster Puzzle RPG - My Game

So I released in the last few days a game called Monster Puzzle RPG. It's my third game in the Android Market. It's not successful so far, though. I made it together with my cousin, he told me about an interesting mechanic he wanted to pursue and, after some convincing, I went along with it.

Download Monster Puzzle RPG on Android Market!

Monster Puzzle RPG on ModDB!

Let's analyze the game(our own game xD), then.

Gameplay
The main mechanic of the game is a grid. A grid of blocks where you have to destroy the blocks and rotate the screen to get an advantage, so you can avoid AND attack the monsters. It's feels quite puzzle-ish, which is why it has the puzzle in it's name. To reinforce the puzzle aspect, I decided to grade the player based on his score and allow the player to retry the stage freely to increase his rank, similar to Angry Birds.

A picture of the puzzle-battle thing

While not inside a puzzle-battle, you proceed through the story in a visual novel manner, similar to games like 999. This way of telling the story was chosen because it's easier and faster to make, since we are indies, but even so it's still an effective way of telling a story, I believe.

We went for an sort of addictive gameplay thing where you kinda wanna make yourself unlock the S rank in every stage. Not sure if it worked, though.

Story
We went with a traditional medieval theme and a story about a treasure hunter that's looking for an specific treasure. I think that it fits well with the puzzle theme and that isn't integrated in to the gameplay yet, I suppose. The story is light-hearted and develops as Soleil, the main character, interacts with his companion, a little girl by the name of Ciel. They are both happy people, so the story stays warm through the demo, but if we continue the game it will go deeper in to darker themes.

Graphics
We went with pastel colors since we find that lighter on the eyes, so light colors are seemed though the entire game. The graphics are mainly vectorized stuff. We're not graphics specialists, but the game still went nicely, we believe.

Sounds
The sound effects are generic stuff, but they fit well. The music was compoused my cousin, who's really amazing and managed to create some cool songs for the game. We went with MID stuff, which kinda limited his potential, but the musics are still great and might justify a download, I hope. He used a program called Fruity Loops Studio

So there you have it! So the game still isn't successful(we hope we can turn that around), but we do not thing the game is faulty, it's just a matter of exposion.

Make a Game - Sound Effects and Music

Make a Game Series! 

First off, sorry for the delay between posts, but I the college semester was ending and I had no time. I'll still write everything I want before the day of the Ludum Dare, I think.

So I'm going to write about sound effects and music for games, trying to display some links and solutions for people who aren't really sound oriented but need to get a quick sound for a game. I'll also explain how I organized music and sound in libGDX.

Music, what to do?
Music is pretty important, of course. A game will become boring without it and it can touch a person's heart when the music is amazing. It's extremely strong in setting the tone in any type of game. Not trying to state the obvious here, but if you can tie in music and gameplay, like playing a faster tone when something action-like happens can really create the moment. Or break it. Look at the moment created here:

I think the video speaks for itself.
So you need to add music to your game. You have three options, really, you can either make it yourself, have someone else do it or use an existing piece. When you're a game company, you'll probably go with "have someone else do it", since they'll be professionals and you can ask them to convey the feelings you wish to pass on. But when you're a indie game designer, you'll want to either make it yourself, if you have some talent and/or experience with creating these things. I don't. I tried messing with some midi files but I got lost.

If you wanna go with music making, I recommend this:
Musagi, music maker
It's pretty beginner oriented. Don't beat yourself up if you can't do it, though. Use free music. Yes, that exists. But you HAVE to be careful, since you have to respect the desires of the authors. Some will ask for a link back, just credits, others may ask for nothing, but you have to respect that, or else you'll be doing something wrong and that is not nice! It may even be a crime.
Here are some sites for music:
Dano's songs, they are cool
Indie Game Music

Sound effects, do I need them?
I used to ask myself that, sometimes. But yes, you do. The experience feels much more bland without those little guys to tell you have made a good choice, if you can't select something or if you killed somebody. In-game, of course. My favorite example for good, well put sound effects are, of course...

Flash Kit

 Just pay attention to those genius-like sound effects! Amazing!
So, it's the same as music. If you wanna create some dirty, simplistic old school effects, use this amazing little dude here:
BFXR
It's awesome for making old school stuff, really!
Other than that, you could also get existing sounds, but be careful about the author's wishes and license. Flash Kit has both sounds and music, although it's a little bit hard to navigate.

Flash Kit

If you still need more resources, check this topic in gamedev:
Topic about Free sounds and music in Gamedev

 Sounds and Music in libGDX
That's pretty straightforward, actually. You just load up the classes with the file handlers and call the methods. If you wanna simply grab a code, here is the source code for a class that I use to play and "organize" the sound effects in my game:

SoundPlaying source code for libGDX!




So I think this is it, everybody!