Tuesday, December 1, 2015

It's that feeling all over again... launching new product - Introloop!!

I still remembered blogging about the day I launched Duel Otters a year ago.

This week, it's the same feeling again! That's right! I am launching a new product!

It is not a game however, it is a Unity plugin. Duel Otters and some projects of my previous employment at a game company is powered by it. I grew up and make living together with this. I take care of it like my own baby. (ok that's over exaggerated but I really like it)

I am a gamer and music gamer. I am crazy for game soundtrack. Grinding levels in MMO is never complete without soundtrack replacement from games I have beaten. (I feel sorry for the MMO composer but leveling in the same map was so tedious!)

I still remembered listening to opening music from MMZ2 while slicing Evil Druids, listening to Cannonball from MMZ3 while doing White Knight job quest in Maple Story. Listening to Valkyrie Profile battle music while traveling the vast Morroc desert. It's been fun. But something is missing!

Music in the game itself has some charms... why when I listen to it now it loses certain power? Yes.. that must be it.. it's because... it ends!

In the original game the music never ends. And it loops perfectly to certain point that is not the beginning. The intro sets mood, then keep going with the rest of the song without abusing that intro again.

My endeavor does not stop there as I meticulously cut and paste the music into 1 hour version so it loops to where I want.. ahaha those days...

Fast forward to today, I still appreciate the power of intro in programmed game music. But it seemed that not many people appreciate this. When I came to know Unity, I know I have to do this. As expect Unity cannot do looping to certain point. And no one seemed to complain on Google. What's happening here!

That left me no choice, my first Unity plugin is Introloop, easily play looping music with one time intro section!!

I started developing this 2 years ago at the workplace I was employed. I have battled with ridiculous timing issue and memory issue. (At first I think it would be easy... ha!) Nevertheless I have deploy it on Panthera Frontier, a commercial game of a company I worked for.

When I quit the company to pursue master degree at Japan, I take the plugin with me and continue to fix it. Actually, rewrite it from scratch with previous mistakes in mind. Duel Otters is heavily powered by that plugin but it seemed so transparent that no one noticed it. (But I am sure that the player can feel it, the power of intro!)

Finally when Unity 5 was released, the nightmare is over. Memory issue is no more. Duel Otters was ported to Unity 5 with the shiniest version of Introloop yet, and it seemed to withstand 200k+ downloads that comes from App Store featuring nicely.

So I think, it's time to prepare it for the world now. It will be on Asset Store!

So in the last 7 days I have been preparing website that teach you how to use, along with section to brainwash the importance of intro onto everyone. It's time that the world should realize why commercial games shines.

I also preparing a demo, with music from Duel Otters and doujinshi music I composed. I dare everyone to test it even on mobile devices. I am sure it will work, because these last 2 years I have been fixing it always.

This feeling, is just like that week I am animating videos, preparing website, register company for Duel Otters. So nostalgic! This time I am alone though. (But that time also I am kind of have to do everything... that's life!)

Now in a few days, it should be my first non-game thing that I made for the world!



(This girl is Sargono, somehow she became my mascot so I decided to draw her to be a presenter of this plugin lol. Looking at the Asset Store full of technical icons makes me sick, so Sargono herself will try to brighten things up! Yay!)

(As for the closed eyes actually I cheated. Because if I draw open eyes it's so easy to screw up, I left it to viewer's imagination! ... another reason is someone might be put off by anime-ish character so with closed eyes maybe it will became less anime.. I think.)