Kung Fu Clicker

[jamespierce]

Hello gamedevs community,

After watching so many of you publish games I can finally post my first game in this showcase as well: Kung Fu Clicker !

"Can you climb the mysterious tower to the top and prove yourself to be the most worthy Kung Fu master? Defeat the elementals, collect their essences and keep climbing. Complete quests along the way to upgrade your character in the shop and finally reach the highest floor of the tower!"

Game link: http://browsergameshub.com/KungFuClicker/

Kung Fu Clicker is a browser game optimized for mobile by solely using touch (or click) inputs. On a desktop browser however, you can also use the arrow keys.

The game controls are simple: Tap left / right to attack, block and jump in the desired direction. Collect the essences in the order displayed on the screen (from left to right) by blocking the attacks of the corresponding elemental. You block an attack by attacking an elemental that is already charging towards you. Punch the other elementals before they start charging at you!

After each successful collection of essences, you climb to the next level by jumping up the ledges. Beware however, as the ledges fall down shortly after you touched them!

I don't want to give too much away because that's part of the game: to learn and improve as you play along. There is a short and simple tutorial in the game, however, to get you started. You can come back and continue playing anytime by the way, the game uses local storage to save your quests' progress and all purchases in the shop.

I've had a lot of fun creating this small game and I'm already working on a new title, which I am excited to post here again in the coming weeks.

Have fun playing and let me know what you think! Don't hold back on the critics, I know this is an amateur game but any feedback is appreciated so I can improve

P.S.: A couple side notes / questions:

- I would love to licence this game to a publisher but since this is my first game and I'm a newcomer, I am scared Kung Fu Clicker has still written amateur all over it. Also, I'd assume I need to approach a publisher with a package of games instead of just one simple one like this. With this said, if you are a publisher or know someone where I could legitimately make a good impression with this, let me know! Meanwhile the game is also playable on gamejolt (desktop only): http://gamejolt.com/games/kung-fu-clicker/194699

- I am a terrible artist. The characters, elementals, objects and interface have been designed by me. The backgrounds have been designed by my girlfriend. Thanks to her help the game looks a lot better than it would just drawn by myself. I am looking for an artist who doesn't charge too much for future games, though. I'm not trying to rip-off talented artists by being cheap but I just can't afford a top notch reputable designer at this point. Maybe a student out there who would like to get in touch with me? Hit me up on twitter @thejamespierce .

- Lastly, thank you for reading this post and checking out my game 

[b10b]

I enjoyed playing this.  I was a big "Kung Fu Master" (1984) game fan.  But I was bad at playing it because it got hard quick.  Your approach remedies some of that and has some interesting mechanics.  It took me a few plays to understand the timing of the elements, and the collection mechanics.  The tutorial totally failed at explaining that (players don't read), and was an obstruction best avoided imo.  So add more in-game hints or an auto-play section.  The bonus level was a great change of scene.

Yes, graphics and presentation can be improved for sure - why not have a look at what art can be bought on a non-exclusive royalty free basis, and perhaps by spending <$100 you may be able to elevate the presentation to the same level as the game concept?

 

[jamespierce]

Thank you @b10b for your detailed feedback! I really appreciate your words of advice. I love the auto-play idea for an in-game tutorial, I didn't even think about that. Combined with some slow motion and short prompts, I think it would do a much better job and explaining the game mechanics, you are right.

I have tried purchasing non-exclusive art, but the problems I ran into were twofold:

- I couldn't find art that fits together well. So for example I would find elementals in pixel art but only suitable heroes in vector graphics. Same goes for backgrounds, objects, icons etc. In the end the whole collection didn't look congruent at all with so many different art styles mixed. And if I would make different skins for the same hero it gets even more complicated to find congruent art !

- The other problem I ran into is that there simply weren't enough sprite sheets available for what I needed. Yes maybe I would find a ninja or a monk somewhere but finding all the enemies was impossible. So in the end there is always something left that I would need to draw myself (or hire someone to draw something similar to the already chosen art style) and whatever filled in art was added just doesn't fit in the overall collection, especially if it's drawn by myself ^^

So regarding purchasing sprite sheets online, I think the only way to do it is to purchase some sprites that you like and then build a game around those sprites. But building a game first and then browsing the online shops for sprites would be fruitless in most cases (at least from my experience so far). That's why I'm looking for an artist to work with, so whatever he / she draws will have a congruent art style for the whole game.

[b10b]

Yes, good points on the limitations of as-is non-exclusive art.  I had a quick look on GraphicRiver and think there's probably enough to choose from on this subject ("karate", rather than "kung fu").  It'll get you mostly there and then require a bit of custom adaptation to transition the art styles and fill in the gaps.  That said, perhaps you are right and even a few hundred bucks of off-the-peg spend would be better off being spent on a creative pro to create bespoke.  Why not make a handful of games to this current standard, and then pursue artwork for all of them from the same artist - might save you some fixed costs, allow you to refine your dev approach, and at the end you'd have a catalogue of consistent games that may appeal to sponsors?

[jamespierce]

Thank you @b10b for another great advice. I'll do just that: Complete a small collection of games and then find an artist for everything, hopefully getting a discount since it will be a bigger project at once. Also, I can meanwhile practice my own pixel art skills to create the games until I find an artist.

Also, I haven't spent a lot of time on GraphicRiver tbh. I was searching mostly on OpenGameArt and GameDevMarket. Also, I found many links in forums which I don't remember but those were usually smaller shops or very genre-specific shops. I spent a lot of time browsing indivdual artist's pages, too, and I even reached out to some to ask if I can use their game art in licensed games. Unfortunately, only one of them answered me with "I don't know" lol.

Anyways, the hunt for great art continues and maybe I can become a somewhat decent pixel artist myself in the process. (I do prefer vector graphics though but that's just much harder to learn for me.)