Bottoms up! - The development log of a game

[zoidberg rules]

Here's a reply! Looks pretty good, will download and play soon!

[Assaultman67]

Looks pretty good skokey!

(can I call you skokey? ... no? but your name is so fucking hard to pronounce ... still no? ...Well, I just called you skokey and i'll probably still call you that so deal with it I guess ...)

[Assaultman67]

Unfortunately, I should be studying right now, so maybe tomorrow afternoon after my last final

[zoidberg rules]

Brilliant! Only had time to play a couple of levels, since I'm supposed to be leaving for 6th form in about half an hour, but I loved it!

Nice challenging little game, looks great, and the sound effects are brilliant!

The one thing i hope is that when you do release it on the Itunes store, it's free! (Since I'm a bit of a cheapskate and have no card details linked to my account... )

Also, unlockables would be brilliant, like new bottles and little rider dudes.

ANOTHER EDIT!: Keep the little pink dude, no offense, but I think the new character takes away some of the charm, at the moment, it's a cute little game with happy music and, in my opinion at least, the new... Charles was it? Sort of doesn't fit in.

Just throwing my opinion into the mix!

Also, a little arrow pointing toward the goal would be nice, or an overview of the level before you start, just so you know where you're supposed to be launching yourself!

[zoidberg rules]

That's nice and all, but more levels?

[zoidberg rules]

Just don't go down cliche street and have enemies left right and center that give you extra altitude by bouncing off of them!

Also, just a suggestion, I think for the ipod/android version, the level selection could work well if it were similar to the one in "cut the rope".

[zoidberg rules]

It looks a little something like this...

EDIT: Added secent quality screen grabs!

World selection screen:

Then, after you click on that, level selection screen:

[zoidberg rules]

Yup.

[zoidberg rules]

Yeah, thats what was geting at, to be fair, the world, or "box" you are in in cut the rope makes no difference to gameplay or anything, it's just the background.

[Count Roland]

Man, triple post made me feel guilty for none of us saying anything.

[zoidberg rules]

All approved of, all of it, network of levels should work great!

[Count Roland]

It's not exactly my kind of game though, so I feel kinda prejudiced against saying helpful things and want to avoid doing exactly that.

[Assaultman67]

I know its kinda late to say this, but i cannot get your game to work :C

Its been sitting on my desktop in a folder for several days now and i just now started it up.

[ErikSchroder]

Bottoms Coming Up!

Chapter One: Parte Prima

Hi, Erik here. I'm the official noise maker (among other things) of Royal Railway and this project. We thought we'd start posting some episodes (currently in text form) where we want to tell you how we made the world's greatest demo for the world's greatest game. We'd like to call this series "Bottoms Coming Up!" It'll of course not end with these few text-based chapters, but through the entire time until release. We'll also start making some "making of" videos in the near future. I thought I'd start by telling you how I made the music, since it's obviously the best part of the game.

I had a real hard time getting started with the music. Before the game was even a game in any form, I had misunderstood Adam's vision – I thought that it was supposed to play like a Shoot ‘em up, but without the shooting of course, so I had some adventurous music in mind. I had come up with two songs (which sounded a lot like "Super Mario Galaxy") before I learned how he'd originally thought the game would be like and I became sad.

Adam sent me some music samples from "Super Meat Boy" - I disapproved. Nah, the game had a cosy wintry theme so I wanted the music to match that. Keeping in mind that the game is time-based and very frustrating at points, I didn't want the music to contribute to even more stress, but at the same time it couldn't be too calm either. I tried to think about games with similar music of what I had in mind and I immediately thought of "Yoshi Touch & Go" for the Nintendo DS.

I decided to actually steal the rhythm of the "Sky Area" song and even the instrument of choice for the part that was supposed to drive the song (though in the end I did split this part into two different instruments). The first draft of the song is available beneath marked "Version 1", but Adam thought it sounded too "happy", so I changed an F# note to an F note and voilà; I could change the song to a minor key, second draft is marked "Version 2". I made these snippets quickly in FL Studio on my PC (which I use for regular use) because I was too lazy to start up my MacBook Pro.

Version 1
Version 2

Since I'm Mr. Lazy, it took a couple of weeks before I finally opened up Cubase on my Mac and actually start producing my music which had already been finished in my head for quite some time. I find the hardest part to be selecting the instruments and make the "foundation" sound good. I probably spent a few hours with just the accompaniment (the guitar and the bell sound). Then it was time to choose the instrument for the main melody. Originally, I had music box in mind (tee-hee, "Yoshi Touch & Go"), but I went with flute instead. Although, I did get a music box in there somewhere! Well, to be politically correct it's a glockenspiel.


The flute.

One of the things I like the most about the song is the bass, which was heavily influenced by the bass in "Dragon Roost Island" from "The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker", Yes, to summarize – this song is just one big rip-off, but since it's awesome – it doesn't matter.


The bass.

If you are interested in what I used for the making of this song, here's a list:

Music & Audio Software
Cubase 5.5
Adobe Audition 1.5*

Virtual Instruments
HALion Sonic (Bright Acoustic Steel, Crystal Bells, Big and Silky, Glockenspiel)
HALion One (Percussion, Acoustic Bass VX, Expressive Flute, Latin Percussion)
Battery 3 (Basic Kit)

* I used Adobe Audition to do some post work on the audio file such as normalizing, boosting and limiting. Since then I have upgraded to both Adobe Audition CS5.5 and Cubase 6.


The entire project.

The Final Product
Bottoms Up!
Bottoms Up! (Alternate)

[ErikSchroder]

Bottoms Coming Up!

Chapter Three: The Dry Martini

--------------

Today, kids, it's all about sound effects!

The first sound I made was when the ice breaks. I thought about which sound I was going to use, but it didn't take long until I decided that glass was the best choice. Since we didn't have long, I chose to be lazy and get all sounds off the internet. I chose http://soundsnap.com as my source. I don't remember how I found out about that website, but it has a very large library.

Anyways, I chose to edit all sounds with Adobe Audition 1.5. With the ice breaking sound I used a sound when glass breaks, pitched it down a little and added some reverb or echo. With other sounds like when you fire the bottle for example I used 3 sounds simultaneously; 1 for the cork, 1 for when you pour champagne into a glass (up-speeded) and 1 for the champagne fizz noise (which is constant because the bottle is foaming constantly). There were no (at least that I could find) sounds when the champagne is spraying, so I had to experiment a little. The fan noise is another example of where I had to mix several sounds; I took machine noise and mixed with a strong wind, since all I could find was lame bathroom fans. The sound with most mixed sounds is the intro; 2 different samples of bells ringing in the far distant, 3 different wind samples and 2 fireworks (whereof 1 is used twice).


The fan.


The intro.

At one point I decided to sample some stuff on my own with my Zoom H4N (a portable recording device). I went out an early winter morning and thought I'd record sounds for when the bottle impacts and is sliding on the ground. I used a bottle of julmust (Swedish holiday beverage) but it didn't end well. No, the bottle didn't break or anything but the recording session didn't go well. It was hard to make it sound as I had imagined and it was freezing outside and I was very inexperienced with recording sound effects. Then again, I still am, but still.


Zoom H4N.

I could talk a little about the software I am using. I've been using Adobe Audition since it was called Cool Edit Pro 2.0 and was developed by Syntrillium Software. I love it. I have tried out Goldwave and Audacity, but I think they're too clunky and I think that I just can't get that same precision as I can with Adobe Audition.

Nah, I'm not much for making sound effects at all. I hope I don't have to worry about this in the future and just focus on the music (when it comes to sound in general). I give the sounds in "Bottoms Up!" 3 out of 5 bottles.