Hey everyone! It's way past due for this but here's a new video of the progress that has been made on Nomolos! A significant portion of many of the levels of the game are shown here, including a few of the bosses you haven't seen! I will not include the final boss, of course!
Gradual Games' entire staff will be at MAGFest X this year showing off Nomolos. We hope to see you there!
Creator of PICO-8 and Love2D games.
Sunday, December 4, 2011
Sunday, October 30, 2011
Final boss battle complete!
I'm happy to announce that the final boss battle has been completed. All that remains now is cut scenes, the ending, and probably several months (but possibly less, depending on how testing goes) of heavy beta testing. We reached this point a little faster than I anticipated!
Thursday, September 22, 2011
Final two levels complete, new fifth boss, and final boss in progress
We've completed the final two levels of Nomolos, have graphics prepared for a 5th boss (not previously in the game outline), and are working on the graphics for the final boss. Soon I will begin coding the 5th boss. Progress is going very well and perhaps faster than at any previous stage of the project. Here's a screen shot from one of the final two levels:
It shouldn't be more than a couple more months and the entire game, start to finish will be done except for a couple of cut scenes, the ending, and several months of thorough beta testing (which is going to start happening more concurrently once I've finished the last two bosses). Allowing for life to happen, I think a reasonable release date for this game will be somewhere in the middle of 2012, about 6 months before my original planned release date, January 2013.
It shouldn't be more than a couple more months and the entire game, start to finish will be done except for a couple of cut scenes, the ending, and several months of thorough beta testing (which is going to start happening more concurrently once I've finished the last two bosses). Allowing for life to happen, I think a reasonable release date for this game will be somewhere in the middle of 2012, about 6 months before my original planned release date, January 2013.
Wednesday, August 17, 2011
Happy Birthday ...Nomolos?
For my birthday, my family got screen shots of Nomolos printed on a cake! It was awesome. It couldn't have come at a better time either, as Ravenwolf has recently completed the background art for the last pair of levels, is almost done with the enemies for these levels, and I've transcribed music for it. That leaves: designing the last two levels, programming the last few enemies, developing the final battle with Boulder the evil hippo, and finally a couple of cut scenes and the ending. That should definitely put us right around Christmas time for "draft" completion as I've been saying. Hopefully a few months of beta-testing and overall polish after that and the game can be released!
Sunday, May 22, 2011
Approaching "draft" completion and beginning testing
Progress is going very well on Nomolos recently---we've got the 5th background set and enemies completed, and are soon going to begin development on the 6th and final background set, enemies, and final boss. After that we will work on a couple of cut scenes, probably one at the beginning and the end of the game, and the ending. Even though the whole game is not quite complete, we're also entering a more rigorous beta testing phase. My estimate, allowing for life to happen, is that the game will be very close to completion by Christmas time. I'm not sure yet whether I'll be at MAGfest physically next year, but hopefully Nomolos will have some sort of presence there if not. Either way, Laurie and I are very excited that we're in sight of the end of this long, challenging but ultimately very fun project. And we're looking forward to seeing other people play it, regardless of what form that may be.
Sunday, March 6, 2011
Second boss done, & bead art
Hi everyone! Don't worry, I'm not gone nor has life gotten in the way of Nomolos, I've just been lazy about updating this blog. Recent news includes this Nomolos bead art by Ravenwolf (made without a peg board! pretty good for without a peg board...hopefully we'll get one eventually)
In other news on the game, we're almost done with the first 8 levels of the game. We plan to have 12 levels total, and four bosses. We've just completed the second boss---so progress is going very well! We're about to begin work on the third boss of the game.
In other news on the game, we're almost done with the first 8 levels of the game. We plan to have 12 levels total, and four bosses. We've just completed the second boss---so progress is going very well! We're about to begin work on the third boss of the game.
Thursday, January 13, 2011
Nomolos video at MAGFest 9
A brief demo video of Nomolos was shown at MAGFest 9 this year by Assimilate creator, bigjt_2 (John White). Thanks for making that possible, John! Anyone who was at MAGFest and has found this blog, you may contact me via the comments system or email me at gradualgames@gmail.com if you have questions about how we're making the game or when it will be released, or even constructive criticism.
Here's the video:
The project is moving along at a good pace. Ravenwolf recently completed a new set of enemies, for the firey mountain level, and I've transcribed a piece by Domenico Scarlatti to be the soundtrack for it. I also completed programming the new enemies. Programming new enemies is turning out to be a lot faster than the first few I programmed, as it turns out a few basic movement templates can be tweaked to produce wildly different behavior, which is pretty cool.
Also, a second boss is in the works. The remainder of the game has been roughly outlined, and I think it is definitely doable within a year or so. Keep checking this blog!
Here's the video:
The project is moving along at a good pace. Ravenwolf recently completed a new set of enemies, for the firey mountain level, and I've transcribed a piece by Domenico Scarlatti to be the soundtrack for it. I also completed programming the new enemies. Programming new enemies is turning out to be a lot faster than the first few I programmed, as it turns out a few basic movement templates can be tweaked to produce wildly different behavior, which is pretty cool.
Also, a second boss is in the works. The remainder of the game has been roughly outlined, and I think it is definitely doable within a year or so. Keep checking this blog!
Sunday, November 21, 2010
New identity: Gradual Games
I realized that I was named several different things in different portals to the nes development world: Gradualore on nesdev and nintendoage, just myself on youtube (derek george andrews), and this blog was originally called nesgamedevelopment. So, I decided to come up with a more original name. Both my moniker, Gradualore, and our name as a developer, Gradual Games, point to our philosophy or approach to game development: gradual.
We now have a youtube channel at:
Gradual Games on Youtube
And we have an email address, gradualgames@gmail.com.
As for status on Nomolos at the moment---I just got finished refactoring how the game data is organized in PRG banks. I decided to sweep level data towards earlier PRG banks, and all re-usable or fixed data to later PRG banks. This seemed natural since UNROM requires the last bank to be fixed. I also reconfigured the game to be 256k rather than 128k. We have half the art we expect to put in the game right now and it is over half the size of 128k, so it is almost certain to go over that size. This gives us some breathing room for extra goodies like cut scenes and maybe a nice ending eventually.
We now have a youtube channel at:
Gradual Games on Youtube
And we have an email address, gradualgames@gmail.com.
As for status on Nomolos at the moment---I just got finished refactoring how the game data is organized in PRG banks. I decided to sweep level data towards earlier PRG banks, and all re-usable or fixed data to later PRG banks. This seemed natural since UNROM requires the last bank to be fixed. I also reconfigured the game to be 256k rather than 128k. We have half the art we expect to put in the game right now and it is over half the size of 128k, so it is almost certain to go over that size. This gives us some breathing room for extra goodies like cut scenes and maybe a nice ending eventually.
Sunday, October 17, 2010
Nomolos video
Here's a video showing progress on Nomolos:
Nomolos progress
I'll be putting brief updates here on this blog, on nesdev and on nintendoage, every several months or so.
Nomolos progress
I'll be putting brief updates here on this blog, on nesdev and on nintendoage, every several months or so.
Saturday, September 4, 2010
Famitracker plugins & Nomolos progress
Hey everyone,
From here on out, my blog scope is going to be very limited, but I think I'll keep posting thoughts in here. Several months ago I completed an addition to the well known NES music creation program Famitracker. This addition allows the development of plugins which can export your song to any format you can imagine. The feature has been released with an example exporter and an example sound driver that works with files that the exporter generates. Anyone is welcome to use the sound driver in their own games and improve it for their own use. If it is not enough for you you are also welcome to write your own plugin for your own sound engine.
As I write this, several improvements have recently been made to the plugin system and famitracker itself. I'll make another update when those things are released.
As for Nomolos, progress on the game is going well. The first boss has been completed, and several new background sets are in the works. I estimate it will be at least another year, perhaps two years before the game is complete. However, it should be pretty soon that I can demo the progress on the game to the larger NES development community. Here's a screen shot to tantalize you:
From here on out, my blog scope is going to be very limited, but I think I'll keep posting thoughts in here. Several months ago I completed an addition to the well known NES music creation program Famitracker. This addition allows the development of plugins which can export your song to any format you can imagine. The feature has been released with an example exporter and an example sound driver that works with files that the exporter generates. Anyone is welcome to use the sound driver in their own games and improve it for their own use. If it is not enough for you you are also welcome to write your own plugin for your own sound engine.
As I write this, several improvements have recently been made to the plugin system and famitracker itself. I'll make another update when those things are released.
As for Nomolos, progress on the game is going well. The first boss has been completed, and several new background sets are in the works. I estimate it will be at least another year, perhaps two years before the game is complete. However, it should be pretty soon that I can demo the progress on the game to the larger NES development community. Here's a screen shot to tantalize you:
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