MelterMan Drops On DESURA!

The MelterMan early access is now up on Desura.com!  Download it and play for FREE!  Let us know what you think and vote for us on Steam.  We have more content coming, and plan to publish it on X-Box and Playstation.  Follow us on Facebook (MelterMan), Twitter (@MelterManGame) and at Melterman.com for updates.

http://www.desura.com/games/melter-man

GDC Interview

Check out this awesome interview from GDC with our professors and MelterMan's very own lead designer, Kyle Kern.  Thanks to Microsoft's Level-Up!

http://channel9.msdn.com/Shows/Level-Up/Episode-8-Interview-with-Robert-Kessler-and-Roger-Altizer-of-University-of-Utah

Steam Greenlight and other notable mentions!

MelterMan is officially up on Steam Greenlight, so please vote for us!  We also have two reviews on youtube, check them out here:

Murel's Indie Hour Interview with our lead designer, Kyle Kern:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BTt7uD1z0e0

Indie Insights play through:

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=BeXOFLYg73k

Steam Greenlight link:

http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=427787428

Thank you all for your support!

Finalized intro

I made a book asset for the intro (seen below) that simply tells our basic story and sets up the game.  We're also going to reuse the book for the pause menus.  We also discussed what to do about the end of the game for the full version.  We plan on having MelterMan press the big red shut off button and having the toys exploide.  We're still working on all of that, but I am making the final image which will be a memo from "the desk of MelterMan" saying something like "I got everything under control.  Sorry about the mess, I'll waive the fee for this one."

Continuing Refinements

We've been continuing to refine the artwork and level design since our demo build is due Tuesday 4/14.  I made 12 new background tiles for the levels to add some interest and change.  Kevin made some nice animations for our melting, vacuum and air cones.  These will add some nice motion and polish.  We also decided on a logo for the demo version and I'm still working on the intro with the instruction manual.

Polishing and Detail Assets

So now that we're getting close to being finished, most of the artwork left are just little things that make the game feel more polished.  I will be making a texture for inclined ground, revising the drain and faucet textures, revisiting the character's texture, making light and dark collidable gears, and Kevin will be making some animations for the sucking, melting and air cones.

We also needed to come up with some kind of story intro.  We decided to make an instruction manual that tells a factory employee what to do in case of a toy take over.  It will the in a similar style to the image below.  We should have a lot of fun with it!

Movement

So we're nearing the end of the semester and all the art left is mostly refining and finishing.  We decided that we needed better edge art work for the levels and that I needed to redo the graffiti words to look more cohesive.  We also felt that we needed to create more movement in the levels to make it feel more like a factory.  I made a gear asset that will be collidable and rotate, which can interact with goo and add random movement that should be interesting.  Also, I made modular conveyor belt pieces so we can create conveyor belts that are as long as we need them to be.  Each piece has its own sprite sheet so once a conveyor belt is created, it will animate together.  We are also going to make a toy spawner that spits out toys randomly.  We feel like adding these elements will add make the game more dynamic.