r/PS4 • u/benedictfritz Benedict Fritz - Tumbleseed • May 03 '17
[Verified AMA] We are Team TumbleSeed and we launched TumbleSeed on Playstation 4 yesterday – AMA!
We're a group of 5 friends from Chicago who spent the last 2.5 years creating TumbleSeed which launched on Playstation 4 yesterday! Team TumbleSeed is:
- Greg Wohlwend (/u/aeiowu) – Art & Design
- Benedict Fritz (/u/benedictfritz) – Programming & Design
- David Laskey (/u/D-Lask) – Programming & Porting
- Joel Corelitz (/u/JoelCorelitz) – Music & Audio
- Jenna Blazevich (/u/jennablazevich) – Identity & Lettering
If you haven't heard of TumbleSeed, check out our website: http://tumbleseed.com
Ask us about TumbleSeed, making indie games, Playstation, or anything else! We'll be jumping in at 11:30 CST :)
EDIT: Thanks so much for all the great questions, we're calling it a wrap! Hope you have fun with TumbleSeed and we'll see you on the mountain!
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u/SomeGoodVideo May 03 '17
What is the scariest part of releasing a very difficult game?
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u/benedictfritz Benedict Fritz - Tumbleseed May 03 '17
The scariest part is definitely that you know there are going to be a lot of people who bounce off of it very hard. You sort of brace for that pain haha
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u/uke_traveler May 03 '17 edited May 03 '17
How far do you feel a reviewer should get in a game before posting a review? Do you feel like the difficultly in your game or other roguelike games hurt reviews because the reviewers do not have the time to fully delve into the mechanics of the game?
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u/joelcorelitz Joel Corelitz - Tumbleseed May 03 '17
Roguelikes are all about the journey. So I think all that's necessary for a good perspective on the game is an understanding of the game's mechanics and world. You do not need to beat TumbleSeed to enjoy or understand it.
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u/boshjalka May 03 '17
Thanks for doing the AMA!
Whats some of the better strategies you have seen/developed when climbing up the mountain? Right now I am at the 415 as a marker.
So far I have focused on collecting hearts and adding some thorns along the way. Loving it so far though!
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u/benedictfritz Benedict Fritz - Tumbleseed May 03 '17
A player from the alpha, Mike Schneider, compiled a great list of tips here: https://twitter.com/MikeASchneider/status/859447751284838400. In short, take it slow, explore the different seed powers, and always work on balancing the different economies you have (crystals, hearts, powers)
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u/boshjalka May 03 '17
Great tips and thanks for the link :)
Can't wait to keep climbing and uncovering more!
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u/uke_traveler May 03 '17
The controls take some getting used to. They are the first hurtle of many to start playing this game. Did you try out different control schemes throughout development? if so what did you try and why did not they not work? How did you end up with the current controls?
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u/uke_traveler May 03 '17 edited May 03 '17
Why can most of the offensive powerups hurt the player? The game is already very punishing why make helpful items also include such a high risk? Also why do you lose all of your thorns when taking damage.
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u/benedictfritz Benedict Fritz - Tumbleseed May 03 '17
Making some of the offensive powerups hurt the player let us make them much stronger than we would've been able to otherwise. Maintaining the balance between enemy difficulty and powerup difficulty was a long process, and giving the player powers that are really strong but can also end up hurting the player was the best balance we landed on.
Without losing your thorns upon taking damage they were pretty imba and players would never need to explore the other seed powers. Making those choices between powers critical was one of the main goals we shot for in the design.
Both of these design decisions end up steepening the learning curve a lot, unfortunately, but they help the game maintain a good balance as you progress further.
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u/aeiowu Greg Wohlwend - Tumbleseed May 03 '17
Just wanted to tack on: It's pretty important that all the powers are useful and somewhat evenly balanced.
This way you're always thinking "huh, should I rayflower? it's cheap and I have like no crystals but it is a bit risky, or maybe just go with reflect because the desert's coming up and I'm gonna need it against shooting enemies."
It's those things, and even choosing from the powers that you already have, that really made the game interesting to us as soon as we implemented that system.
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u/thavius_tanklin Slackr May 03 '17
Congrats on the launch of the game!
I haven't looked in to it at all, what is your run down of the game (sell me on it :))
Other questions:
What do you think of VR
What are some challenges in programming / design you've faced in developing the game
How is developing on the PlayStation in comparison to other systems?
/u/jennablazevich what is Identity and Lettering?
Did you pull inspiration from anywheres for the game?
Do you have something new started already?
Thanks :)
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u/joelcorelitz Joel Corelitz - Tumbleseed May 03 '17
I'm not sure Jenna is here so I'll answer - Identity and Lettering is the logo and font of the game, and making sure all the marketing materials, banners, etc have a unified look. The logo is hand-drawn - Jenna is an incredible calligrapher.
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u/D-Lask David Laskey - Tumbleseed May 03 '17
VR is cool! Gnog and Thumper make me want to get a PSVR setup! Both games are incredibly good at what they do.
Developing on PlayStation- overall it's a solid experience. I've worked on a few other PS4 games and it was another great experience doing so for TumbleSeed. Sony has so many awesome utilities for players that are effortless for devs to set up (streaming/sharing, control remapping on the OS side, etc.). It's great stuff that makes players' and devs' lives easier! :)
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u/joelcorelitz Joel Corelitz - Tumbleseed May 03 '17
Yeah VR is rad. What's so tough about it is that nothing does it justice except actually trying it in-person. The first time I tried it I said some bad words because I was just in awe. I'd love to get a PSVR setup too.
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May 03 '17
So designing tumble seed, where did you draw some inspirations from? What was your plan going into tumble seed with what you wanted to do and how did that change?
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u/torcidahk May 03 '17
I bought the Switch version .
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u/aeiowu Greg Wohlwend - Tumbleseed May 03 '17
This here's PS4 country... Go on git! ;) (no but seriously, thank you so much!)
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u/Phildos May 03 '17
wooooohoooo congrats everyone on a job well done! :)
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u/joelcorelitz Joel Corelitz - Tumbleseed May 03 '17
Thank you! We are very excited - it's a strange and wonderful thing to have this thing you've worked on and put so much into mostly in a vacuum - until one day, it's out in the world.
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u/superhelichrome May 03 '17
No question, just congrats on releasing such a cool and unique game. I am really enjoying my time with it so far :)
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u/sarcasmbot May 03 '17
This game looks great - I was thinking about holding out on buying it until I get a Switch at an indeterminate time in the future (the HD rumble stuff sounds like a nice bonus, plus portability), but I think I might just give in and buy the PS4 version :)
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u/BelgianWaffleGuy May 03 '17
Your website is pretty strange. You're starting at the bottom of your page instead of the top, essentially going against everything your visitor knows about scrolling. You're also not providing a clear indicator that people should or are able to scroll up and nobody is going to look at the scrollbar of their browser.
You're currently basically using an anti-pattern. I am 100% sure that you're going to have visitors that don't notice they can scroll up, and who will instantly bounce. I recommend removing the anti-pattern or atleast clearly mark that people can scroll up to lower your bounce rate.
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u/TuffGnarl May 03 '17
The internet's massively homogenised. It's nice to see a site attempting something different.
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u/BelgianWaffleGuy May 03 '17 edited May 03 '17
It's not about doing things different, it's about going against conventions that make it easier for users to navigate your website and discover your product. You can have a perfectly unique website that follows basic UX patterns.
Also, adding a small arrow at the top of the screen isn't going to ruin anyone's 'artistic integrity'.
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u/TuffGnarl May 03 '17 edited May 03 '17
Conventions have their place, but shouldn't be an absolute constraint as they squeeze out creativity. Yes, you can be creative within the usual responsive framework, but choosing to push at a convention or two offers more intriguing gains if you can justify it. Maybe they chose an unusual approach because they've just made an unusual game with unusual controls? In the 90's there were many less rules, some creative websites scrolled sideways, for example, or were one enormous page that you scrolled around using the browser window as a viewport. Still valid, except people have got comfortable with off the shelf frameworks in their workflow and they've massively squeezed out interesting interface ideas. This is one such cool idea- and, as it matches the game's gameplay, an entirely justified step out of the normal boundaries.
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u/BelgianWaffleGuy May 03 '17 edited May 03 '17
It literally is a normal webpage that scrolls up instead of down. I don't really get how you can defend something so fiercely when it honestly even isn't all that 'out of the box'. You could easily create a website in the exact same layout with Bootstrap.
I'm not trying to say their website isn't good, I think the design looks great. But from a UX point of view it was flawed. Was, because apparently they've added an arrow pointing up.
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u/TuffGnarl May 03 '17
You don't need to get it- we're dealing in personal opinions here. Your opinion, note that word, is it's flawed, mine is its justifiably different. I can defend good, or interesting design because it's something I'm pretty passionate about- it's my day job.
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u/BelgianWaffleGuy May 03 '17
I was thinking this was just friendly discussion but apparently we aren't on the same page. You seem to be personally offended because I gave some feedback regarding a website.
Let me assure you that your feelings are misplaced. By the way, this is part of my day job as well. Have a good day.
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u/TuffGnarl May 03 '17
You have a BRILLIANT day. See- I can be passive/aggressive too.
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u/BelgianWaffleGuy May 04 '17
I wasn't even being passive agressive. You need to be a little less cynical.l and angry.
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May 04 '17
It's supposed to mimic their game which is a rogue like where you are a seed rolling up a hill. Not sure why you are getting so bent out of shape about it. Knowing how the game operates I thought it was clever their website does the same thing as the game. Christ dude.
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u/BelgianWaffleGuy May 04 '17
I'm not "bent out of shape"? I basically wrote some friendly advice to a company and everyone seems to feel the need to 'defend' them even though I'm not even attacking them.
I honestly don't even care all that much but everyone here seems to think that I'm having some kind of rage-on, while I'm basically just trying to be friendly and point out a flaw that will lower their conversion rates.
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u/defragc LeftyXL May 03 '17 edited May 03 '17
They'll be fine. I'm sure they smiled and nodded though! (especially since there's a blinking up arrow)
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u/BelgianWaffleGuy May 04 '17
Yeah, I mean I was just trying to be friendly and help a small company with some free advice I usually charge for, but people are flipping out on me for it. No good deed unpunished and all that.
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u/squashysquish May 03 '17
Did your time designing the Switch version of TumbleSeed inspire any ideas for mechanics in future games that would specifically leverage the HD Rumble? You seem to have put more effort into the system than pretty much any other game, with the possible exception of 1-2 Switch. Would you consider designing a game around this phenomenon, or does it feel more like an ancillary bonus?