[anuStar] devlog ~01: and hipon's 2014 greeting

Hi guys,

hipon's here, a lot of things have happened and *unfinished...* in 2013. Stellar's latest game, PIXLE II, has been completed its development phase and we're still looking for sponsor right now, if everything goes smooth, the game will be released Q1 this year.

Actually, I wasn't much involved in development of PIXLE II, I was focusing in porting Koutack to iOS and for a newbie mobile programmer like me, it's really time consuming and sometimes, it gets reaaally boring because I work with optimization most of the time.

And for the other members, they usually have a lot of freetime after development phase is done.Well, to tell you the truth, I also have some spare time these days.

So, what am I doing in my spare time? please take a look at a gif below..

(some assets credited to Gunstar Heroes and artists at pixeljoint)

the details will be posted later! :D

~hipon

PIXLE II devlog ~02: We missed you!

Happy new year, folks. Lazcht tuning in!

It's first post since 2014. What's up there? In Jakarta when i live in, some places are still flooded, but luckily not my place (yet).

Been a while i'm not writing here, well we got Chel to cover us up and tell some development shits so we can slack a bit now lol, -edit- Chel is going off for certain time due to some personal problems.

So yeah i was kinda losing my ability to blog or doing networking etc since months ago. Lot of things happened IRL too as i need to adjust stuff to improve my productivity to even better than before.

Currently i'm being greedy working on multiple small projects after PIXLE II is done. some artbooks, collab game, prototype, and Montage Roux (i'll reserve my time later to post about this project, i swear this time)

Also this has been forever since the devlog~01, so maybe you want to read it again (as well myself).

Progress

It's done. Now looking for sponsor, so it might be slight change due to requests (if any). We put some stories to spice up the content, adding more achievements, and 100% completion medal. Fixing tutorials, putting up ingame hints for total newbie.

If you're a sponsor and interested with PIXLE II (and want to try the demo), please contact us right away! ;)

PIXLE II devlog ~01: Whoa hello!

screenshot of PIXLE

Been a while like usual, folks! It's me Laz, as usual, reporting things that happens lately. ;)

Remember PIXLE? It's our game that released last year. It got lots of positive feedback, also some great inputs to fill holes in the game design and execution we thought it'd be good for a sequel.

Now we're making this project a sequel! It's more like an enhancement though. As we want to maximize PIXLE's potential without changing too much design.

We're collaborating with blue_mc, the same guy who ports PIXLE to android (port project will be continued after this if things goes as planned). What's hipon doing anyway? Ah he's doing fine in "Koutack iOS" project (not sure if its title will be changed later though), with me as the artist too.

Projects news

Long time no see!
Okay, so i just want to inform you guys about our current projects and what's our current plan with them:

Linoveus Cube

Surprisingly, we plan to suspend this project, due to the stress of the design and code mess, hipon said some things about the game should be changed otherwise it will be a failure. But to make that change, means almost to redo all the code from the start, and we decided to not force the project to continue, at least for now.



This is the sneakpeek record from us, personally (it's me Laz) i think it's a beautiful project, but it lacks of balance in ...the design depth. Even though the game was intended to be a Ludum Dare (3 days dev) game, then it transformed to a week game, then to months game, it's feels so hard to finish. Why? Lot of features were being cut down, and we were actually planning to pack it just like that, yet hipon didn't feel right to continue it, so we decide to suspend the project and start something else more manageable.

Let's just hope this project could be rebooted sometimes later.

HA!

Grand Steam

Still suspended for now. Project has a good potential, but we need to prioritize something else for now.

just a little reminder for you of how the game looks like.

Montage Roux

Ongoing, slowly but if everything's going according to the plan, it's going to be an interesting project. ^_^

PIXLE mobile porting experiment (collaboration with blue_mc)

He said he didn't want anyone to know yet, but i just don't feel good to not mentioning this project at all. It's still an experiment, so he doesn't want us to expect much of its completion (maybe?). So far so good though. XD

So what now?

What we want to focus most for now, is bringing Koutack to IOS platform. Hipon's doing research on starling and started to prototype things. So pardon us for not showing updates from the time being ^^;

Cheers,
~Laz

Koutack viral release!

Hey, another news from us. Koutack is now available to play at our own portal, and...basically everywhere else, lol. We also uploaded new version that has some bug fixes and optimizations, also more quotes!

We're glad people actually like its challenge, and some of them even made video and text walkthrough, haha, deep gratitude to you guys! *salutes*

Play at Null Game Center

Play at Kongregate

Play at Newgrounds

Play at deviantArt

Play at Armorgames

 

And yeah, a free soundtrack for you! ;)

Sell music on Amazon at ReverbNation.com

See you later!
~stellar-0

Koutack released!

Play the Game!

Finally, Koutack is released! It's my first #1GAM (One game a month) game and surprisingly, it turned out good :D

When I started to work on game design, I wanted to make a game that has "minimum design and maximum gameplay". It took me several days to find some inspiration, I got inspiration mostly from traditional game, I didn't remember how exactly the gameplay is, but the goal is to get rid of balls or something until there's only one ball on the stage. After doing some calculation, prototyping and stuff, I'm satisfied with the final result.


Clea also did really good job in Audio, I thought clea would make a bit cheerful music but it turned out really different, but I like it so far, it gives unique feel to the game :D

More screenshots:



Anyway, I'm planning to write a post-mortem of this game, if everything goes smooth it would be here soon!

Hope you enjoy the game!

~hipon

One Game A Month! Ready folks?

Actually i planned this (literally) back on 2012, yet after some discussion, we plan to NOT make games each month. We were planning to make more serious/deep games on 2012, which estimated would done in about 2-3 months. And TURNED OUT, we didn't deliver anything actually. Well, PIXLE, Wonderland Cosa Nostra and Late Lino were released last year, but two of them has already done on 2011, so i'd say, they don't really count.

Late Lino released! and testimonies~

Howdy folks, this is our first post in 2013, happy new year! Had quite fun in 2012? We did. And this is another game for you, from us.

click here to play the game!

As mentioned before in previously, Late Lino was actually game for Ludum Dare #22 entry, 1 year ago (2011). We made some minor changes and actually publish the game for new year gift. Good luck for you, have fun, and let us have even better new year :)

Some greetings in late 2012

yes, Rob is still working on holiday, except now with mercy.

Happy holiday, folks! 
(we still develop stuff tho, lol.)
Late Lino'll be here THIS year.
~stellar-0

End of year news, anyone?

Long time no blog folks. We're not dead or anything, haha.

I've been too busy lately (it's Laz) for even maintaining the Facebook Page. This is already almost end of year... I never forget our projects like Grand Steam, Linoveus Cube tho. But seems like time is running out for us to wrap Late Lino first for christmas and new year.

So most likely we won't launch Grand Steam or Linoveus Cube project this year yet. (I miss Grand Steam!)

Wut? Main website is down!

Experiencing missing links and images?

We got some trouble regarding hosting service so www.stellar-0.com is currently out of service, you could contact us directly to stellar0.mail@gmail.com at the moment. Hopefully could fix this today. Sorry for the inconvenience!

Cheers folks~

Linoveus Cube ~part III

hmm now to think about it
he looked like Yuan Shao from DW7

Linoveus Cube has been developed for 1 month. SIGH... We missed 1 week deadline so hard guh. See previous devlogs/report here.

LudumDare#24: Linoveus Cube ~part II

Continuation of Game development process

screenshot taken at 26th Aug, the second day

See previous part here!

Laz: Okay actually we should have noted what we have done in separate 3 days, because they (clea and hipon) already forgotten what was going on =_= Why the hell i am the only one who remembered the development process?

Grand Steam leaks! (a sneakpeek video)

What is leaking ?!

In case you haven't noticed, we have uploaded a sneak peek video of Grand Steam during the combat playtest!

Check this out folks! ^^

Sorry for the lags (i are an amateur screen recorder ;^;)

Please Don't forget to subscribe our Youtube channel so you can stay updated with our new videos!

LudumDare#24: Linoveus Cube ~part I

Opening

Hey everyone, we’re here again to report something. You know LudumDare right? You will know it anyway after you visited the link so i'll save my time on that.

LudumDare #24 was held on 24~28th of August 2012 (Compo mode ended in 27th, Jam/team mode is 28 which is yesterday). Yeah we were SUPPOSED to submit our game as Jammer and we FAILED, gracefully. So rather than sharing success story (as we were getting asked to) we prefer on making this, our fail story.

Distributed!

Hi there folks! Lately we have been distributing our flash games to varous portal such as TigDB and GameJolt, even deviantArt, when we have time maybe we should list those over here so everyone will know. We also plan to send game packages to some portal so they'll put the games on their sites.

If one of you folks own a website, game reviewer site or free game portals and want our games to be added/ reviewed, we're more than glad to allow it. We have already prepared game packages/ press kits to download for reviewers' convenience. (As you can see we just added "Media kits" tab above).

Also, if any of you wondered how the games will make profit for us, it's the ingame advertising, sponsorships (if possible), and non-exclusive licensing/ sitelocking offers (feel free contact us for more info). In any case, we desperately need so much exposure for our games, aside for financial matter, we need feedbacks from as many player as possible to make us even better game developer! 


So you folks, if you care, like, love our games, please do tell your friends about us and our games, it means to us big time! XD

That's all i want to cover today, thanks for reading, have a nice day and cya around! Grand Steam dev log is coming out next i guess, heheh.


~Laz out

Grand Steam ~log03

So it turned to be me again who is blogging here haha. Thanks for coming here to read, and i am Laz (and later this Grand Steam log is edited by hipon). I tweeted about making sneakpeek video of Grand Steam but ended up to another failure because of some serious mess, so uh... next time, okay? =_=;;

Recent development progress:
- Skill cooldown system implemented
- Battle result implemented
- New character designs, some sprites
- New enemy designs

Grand Steam newest screenshot, name is dummy btw

Let's continue on where we left off last time, about gameplay flow was it?
(See list of Grand Steam's logs here !)

Music Licensing

What is it about?

For those who isn't familiar with the term, I will try to explain with a simple example:

I wrote a piece of piano music titled 'singing trees', I put them on my site and you happen to like this song. Then you think: "Hmm.. this might be suitable for my current game!"

Then you contact me, we chat a little bit, then you pay a small amount of fee to use the song 'singing trees' on your game 'Tree Panic'. Pretty simple, no?

Are you sure it's that simple?

Well, there are lots of variations and depths of music licensing contracts details, including exclusivity, validity time, numbers of projects you want to use them on, and how big your project is; commercially speaking, but we don't have to go through all that every time. For the best of both parties, it's good practice to keep the deal as simple as possible, without sacrificing the important valued details of course.

So, how much is this small fee you mentioned above?

Assuming it is a non exclusive and a one project license, 5 Euro/song. I honestly think it's a really good price, considering the value of my musical composition/quality. But then again, how much value is created when you add my music to your project, is highly dependent on you. For example, licensing a song which have a high compatibility with your project will mostly make bigger impact/impression than licensing a random/lower compatible song.

Aren't you selling yourself too short here?

Maybe, but I have some reasonable logic behind this decision.

• I'm not worldwide known and famous like Masashi Hamauzu, at least not yet.
• If I set higher price, I may still get deals, but is it worth the tradeoff?
• Every piece I compose is unique and original, wouldn't it be a huge waste to keep them dusty on my garage?
• No matter how good my songs and my skills are as a composer, what good does it do if I'm the only one enjoying them?
• As a musician, I will feel great joy and pleasure when people listen to, enjoy, or somehow benefit from my music in one way or another.

I don't really know/understand music or I don't have time to listen through your whole playlist just to find the 'right' songs, can you help?

Well, sure. You can probably show me your project website/screenshot/demo, then I will recommend you the 'right' songs. I think it will be quite fast and easy, since I know/remember my songs really well, unless something bad happened to me and screwing my musical memory/assessment skills lol.

So, where are the links to these licensable musics? 

I know that I should make a shopping basket/song preview model of webpage for this kind of thing, but it's not easy. While we are working on it, we can do this manually by email. Sorry for the inconvenience.

Action/Battle http://www.reverbnation.com/tunepak/3591031
Dungeon/Stage http://www.reverbnation.com/tunepak/3591033
Town/City http://www.reverbnation.com/tunepak/3592450 
Misc http://www.reverbnation.com/tunepak/3592453

They are downloadable for free, mp3 file. What are the licenses?

They are free for personal and listening purpose only. To use them in your projects, you have to contact me first. Here's a list of what you can and cannot do with these free downloads:

You can:

• Listen to them
• Share them with anyone

You cannot:

• Edit, mix, alter them
• Resell them
• Repost them as your own work
• Use them in your projects, commercial or not

I like your musical style, but I can't find anything usable on your whole playlist.

If that is the case, then maybe it's time you ask me for a custom composition, in which I personally write the song to be used specifically in your project. It's highly beneficial and can bring tremendous value to your project. But it takes time, sometime a lot of it, and good amount of focus, and dedication to do this type of work, so it costs more, hehe.

Ending.

That's it for now, I hope now the term 'music licensing' no longer confuse you,
or put a frown on your face ^ ^

See you later on my next post, and thank you.

~clea leshlick

New website prototype

lol, hello again. Laz online.

you know what? our domain stellar-0.com is down at the moment so we redirected it back to stellar-0.blogspot.com temporarily.

why? umm... can't really explain it well since im so new about this stuff ^ ^a

we want to migrate/upgrade our site to a brand new website, more customized layout, rather than just a blogspot blog. we previously only registered the domain stellar-0.com and published our blogspot with the .com domain, now we have bought a new hosting service, i transferred the .com to the new hosting service...and honestly i don't really understand how domain transfer work, so the .com turned out to be a blank index page instead of the blogspot....and that's the reason behind the redirection i mentioned earlier... lolol XD

effin colors

New website?

no, really, don't zoom it in. though it's still ugly, cant resist to share here haha. here goes our new stellar website prototype, pardon the bright colors, i just wanted to know if the float menus are working. i guess will just be my web developing experiment... i learned much how to make CSS from scratch, thanks a lot to this site.

Inspiration.

nitrome.com's layout

i was aiming for Nitrome.com's website structure so it's a bit similar, haha. its actually only part of my exercise, i don't know for sure how it will change in future.

i guess, next mission is to integrate this blog into the content window of the site like above bordered in black. but im not sure if i can do that. i hope reijubv can help out soon with the site-thingy. honestly i dont know anything about basic web developing, i am just curious, had little experience with CSS from customizing deviantArt's journal skin, thats all. :|

anyway, too tired to write more. see you again and happy Sunday night! still, enjoy the weekend.
~Laz out.

[Blacklisted] Nekosoft

Hi, just to let everyone know, Neko soft owes us more than 200 EUR for audio services and they're now blacklisted and visible under the post tag/label [Blacklist].

We have given them more than 30 days to pay up, also we have sent a notice/warning email, but sadly they did not respond.

The game is titled Sugar's Delight (NSFW) and they use this email address to contact us, xrth@gmx.de.

My personal message to neko soft: using half completed version of my musics in your finished game is not a good idea. Demos/WIPs/Mockups as their name suggest, is not to be used on the final product. Goodluck on your next game and I hope you won't scam anyone else.

To all others, beware of this team/person, you don't want same thing happening to you.

~clea leshlick