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Hey everyone, Sorry for the slow updates, it's slow going these days as we are all working in other jobs to make ends meet. But anyway, first of all, work is continuing on the next area, we can't wait to show it off. So in this update we've added a new enemy to the garden. It is cocoon that hatches into a spider. At the moment the spider hatches as soon as the player goes near it but maybe it might be better if there's time to destroy the cocoon before it hatches...Let us know what you think of it, good/bad/needs work? Also in the update are lots of tweaks to gameplay and some bug fixes. Thanks, the bitSmithers
Hey everyone, Sorry for the slow updates, it's slow going these days as we are all working in other jobs to make ends meet. But anyway, first of all, work is continuing on the next area, we can't wait to show it off. So in this update we've added a new enemy to the garden. It is cocoon that hatches into a spider. At the moment the spider hatches as soon as the player goes near it but maybe it might be better if there's time to destroy the cocoon before it hatches...Let us know what you think of it, good/bad/needs work? Also in the update are lots of tweaks to gameplay and some bug fixes. Thanks, the bitSmithers
Hey everyone, Been a while since the last update. Reworked most of the pathfinding system. Works a lot better now and is a lot more efficient. It's been moved onto another thread so there's no performance drop when lots of enemies are trying to find their way to you. We also hope to have the trading cards out at some point over the summer. Lots of other fixes, tweaks and changes in the release notes below :) Thanks, bitSmith
Hey everyone, Been a while since the last update. Reworked most of the pathfinding system. Works a lot better now and is a lot more efficient. It's been moved onto another thread so there's no performance drop when lots of enemies are trying to find their way to you. We also hope to have the trading cards out at some point over the summer. Lots of other fixes, tweaks and changes in the release notes below :) Thanks, bitSmith
Hey, Just a small update to get things moving again and let you all know we're still here. Work has started on the next area so there won't be any big updates until then. Will still try to push out updates each Thursday no matter how small they are though. As always release notes below, Thanks, bitSmith
Hey, Just a small update to get things moving again and let you all know we're still here. Work has started on the next area so there won't be any big updates until then. Will still try to push out updates each Thursday no matter how small they are though. As always release notes below, Thanks, bitSmith
Hey all :) Not a big update really, not too spicy either, but important for those who need/want custom keyboard controls. Not alot else in the update, few little tweaks and changes. Details as always below. There'll be no update next week but hopefully the following week we can get something nice out. Till then, thanks for playing, bitSmith.
Hey all :) Not a big update really, not too spicy either, but important for those who need/want custom keyboard controls. Not alot else in the update, few little tweaks and changes. Details as always below. There'll be no update next week but hopefully the following week we can get something nice out. Till then, thanks for playing, bitSmith.
Hey everyone, Didn't have a lot of development time this week, sorry. But been working on custom keyboard controls, there's still a few niggles left in it at the moment. So would rather wait until they're properly done to push it out. So it'll be next Thursday until the next update comes out. Until next week, bitSmithers
Hey everyone, Didn't have a lot of development time this week, sorry. But been working on custom keyboard controls, there's still a few niggles left in it at the moment. So would rather wait until they're properly done to push it out. So it'll be next Thursday until the next update comes out. Until next week, bitSmithers
Hey everyone, Didn't have a lot of development time this week, sorry. But been working on custom keyboard controls, there's still a few niggles left in it at the moment. So would rather wait until they're proberly done to push it out. So it'll be next Thursday until the next update comes out. Until next week, bitSmithers
Hello everyone, A new pickup has been added to the game this week. Pills! They temporarily increase your stats. For example, one of them will increase your damage. They also stack on top of each other. So with the damage pill, the more you find the more damage you do. The thing is though, is that they only last for one run, so if you die they get reset. They were added in to make each run a little different. They add a bit more randomness to each run. Also in the update is more bug fixes and tweaks to the game. See you all next week for another update, bitSmith
Hello everyone, A new pickup has been added to the game this week. Pills! They temporarily increase your stats. For example, one of them will increase your damage. They also stack on top of each other. So with the damage pill, the more you find the more damage you do. The thing is though, is that they only last for one run, so if you die they get reset. They were added in to make each run a little different. They add a bit more randomness to each run. Also in the update is more bug fixes and tweaks to the game. See you all next week for another update, bitSmith
Hey FranknJohners, New exciting update this Thursday. Have added a new mini-game to the game, well the only mini-game. Plus some fixes and tweaks to the main game. Details of which are in the release notes below. The new minigame is called FranknBall, a 2 to 4 player competitive football (or soccer depending where you are) mini-game. I think it plays a bit more like air hockey than anything. Just a bit of fun really. Made it over a week last summer and thought it'd be fun to put up and see what people think. Can be accessed through the main menu. Give it a go and let us know what you think. Anyway, till next week. The Smithers of Bits
Hey FranknJohners, New exciting update this Thursday. Have added a new mini-game to the game, well the only mini-game. Plus some fixes and tweaks to the main game. Details of which are in the release notes below. The new minigame is called FranknBall, a 2 to 4 player competitive football (or soccer depending where you are) mini-game. I think it plays a bit more like air hockey than anything. Just a bit of fun really. Made it over a week last summer and thought it'd be fun to put up and see what people think. Can be accessed through the main menu. Give it a go and let us know what you think. Anyway, till next week. The Smithers of Bits
Hey All, Another Thursday another update, these Thursday updates seem to be going well. Anyway, 5 new Skullcaps have been added into the game this week. Can you find them all :) Hope you have fun with them. Have finally added in Linux support, been wanting to get a working version out for a while. I have only tested it on Ubuntu 14.04 so far, but I am sure it will work on others too. Let me know in the forums of any success on other distros or any problems encountered, thanks. Plus, lots of fixes, tweaks and changes. Details in the release notes below. See you next Thursday for another exciting update, the bitSmithers
Hey All, Another Thursday another update, these Thursday updates seem to be going well. Anyway, 5 new Skullcaps have been added into the game this week. Can you find them all :) Hope you have fun with them. Have finally added in Linux support, been wanting to get a working version out for a while. I have only tested it on Ubuntu 14.04 so far, but I am sure it will work on others too. Let me know in the forums of any success on other distros or any problems encountered, thanks. Plus, lots of fixes, tweaks and changes. Details in the release notes below. See you next Thursday for another exciting update, the bitSmithers
Hello everyone, Just a small update here with some bug fixes and gameplay tweaks. We are gonna try and get more frequent updates out. For the time being, the plan is to release the updates every week on a Thursday. Till next Thursday The bitSmith Team
Hello everyone, Just a small update here with some bug fixes and gameplay tweaks. We are gonna try and get more frequent updates out. For the time being, the plan is to release the updates every week on a Thursday. Till next Thursday The bitSmith Team
Happy New Year FranknPeeps! Weve got a little (late) festive present for you all, the Furnace of Anger has finally opened its gates to let FranknJohn and Mary Anne continue their journey into the depths of Dr Harmins lair. What horrors await? Who knows, but you can be sure that theyre tougher than those sissy little garden twerps! Weve made a few little tweaks to the game also, adding a quick tutorial (still a work in progress!), and combining the skill trees into one single one. Were getting there its been slower than wed hoped, and we hope you can forgive us for that, but sometimes life (and emigration!) get in the way. Were one step closer to exiting Early Access for those of you that are on board with that we would love to hear your opinion on the things you like in the game, as well as the things you dont. For those of you that would rather wait until the final release (its OK, we understand!) we look forward to seeing you on the other side. Lets all have a fantastic 2016! The bitSmiths Edit. Patch Notes Version 0.5 Added - added the furnace area ( with new enemies, traps, props, audio etc) - added save version number to profile - added a temporary boss room for furnace - added a little ooze number pop in UI on collection - added Ooze Containment upgrade (saves some ooze when leaving Hub) - added game brightness slider - randomised piston animation (speed and start time) - added secrets in garden - added basic tutorial with story/lore - added water plane below garden room - New garden rooms with secrets in them - created a new boss room for the garden for the bossified furnace enemies - enemies can be bossified - added some text in TutorialManager stating that the tutorial is isn't finished - alternate attacks (slam and swipe) - Furnace area entrance unlocked after getting to end of furnace (temporary) Bug fixes - fixed loads of bugs in enemy spawning - bug fix in level gen script when creating branches (level generation would never finish) - bug fix where fnj is still red from hurt in surgical table fixed - fixes to furnace and garden enemies - fix where enemy hurt pause gets stuck - small bug fix for traps when enemies die in trap - Turtle skullcap bug fix kept decreasing players defences - fix for the damage particles playing at the wrong position - crash where enemy dying in rake trap fixed - Boss Room bug fix (end not triggered) - fix for not all skullcaps spawning - implemented a workaround for a weird Unity bug with triggers - rare level generation bug fixed - fix bug where upgrades lead to player gaining health when Hit - fix for camera after fall - fixed a mimic bug - fixes to props - animator transition fixes for furnace enemies - idle anims playing on doors in levels - Fixed no audio on head after load bug - Enemy line of sight bug fixed - various bug fixes Changes - games is a little easier on first playthrough - rake resetting better - gave rocks "health" so they get destroyed quicker when damage upgraded - garden sprinkler spurts 6 rounds of projectiles then pauses for a bit - marbles changes to ooze - upgrade tree trimmed and merged into one tree - tweaks to slam and swipe attack - reworked area loading - tweaked level generation - tweaks to furnace and garden enemies - tweak to projectile shoot follow script - tweaked enemy spawning - tweaked some of the platforms in garden as they were interfering with pathfinding - removed/moved some enemy spawners that were inside geometry in furnace rooms - tweaked the boss room to pick two of the next levels enemies and bossify them - demon horns fire ability does a little more damage - if picking up two health pickups and only one is needed. One of them doesn't get used, just falls back down - enemies aggro others when they get aggroed themselves (used to be just on hurt) - little less health spawned per level - few tweaks to some skullcaps - Optimization for the outline shader - made crit damage red - enemies don't pause when being attack (thought this was already in...) - made the colliders on the treerock group smaller because they were making the rocks hard to Hit - point light shadows get turned off at distances greater than 20 to improve performance - re worked the projectiles, same functionality but more modular - changes to how passable objects animation are played - pathfinding optimisations - various tweaks/optimisations - performance tweaks
Happy New Year FranknPeeps! We’ve got a little (late) festive present for you all, the Furnace of Anger has finally opened its gates to let FranknJohn and Mary Anne continue their journey into the depths of Dr Harmin’s lair. What horrors await? Who knows, but you can be sure that they’re tougher than those sissy little garden twerps! We’ve made a few little tweaks to the game also, adding a quick tutorial (still a work in progress!), and combining the skill trees into one single one. We’re getting there – it’s been slower than we’d hoped, and we hope you can forgive us for that, but sometimes life (and emigration!) get in the way. We’re one step closer to exiting Early Access – for those of you that are on board with that we would love to hear your opinion on the things you like in the game, as well as the things you don’t. For those of you that would rather wait until the final release (it’s OK, we understand!) we look forward to seeing you on the other side. Let’s all have a fantastic 2016! The bitSmiths Edit. Patch Notes Version 0.5 Added - added the furnace area ( with new enemies, traps, props, audio etc) - added save version number to profile - added a temporary boss room for furnace - added a little ooze number pop in UI on collection - added Ooze Containment upgrade (saves some ooze when leaving Hub) - added game brightness slider - randomised piston animation (speed and start time) - added secrets in garden - added basic tutorial with story/lore - added water plane below garden room - New garden rooms with secrets in them - created a new boss room for the garden for the bossified furnace enemies - enemies can be bossified - added some text in TutorialManager stating that the tutorial is isn't finished - alternate attacks (slam and swipe) - Furnace area entrance unlocked after getting to end of furnace (temporary) Bug fixes - fixed loads of bugs in enemy spawning - bug fix in level gen script when creating branches (level generation would never finish) - bug fix where fnj is still red from hurt in surgical table fixed - fixes to furnace and garden enemies - fix where enemy hurt pause gets stuck - small bug fix for traps when enemies die in trap - Turtle skullcap bug fix kept decreasing players defences - fix for the damage particles playing at the wrong position - crash where enemy dying in rake trap fixed - Boss Room bug fix (end not triggered) - fix for not all skullcaps spawning - implemented a workaround for a weird Unity bug with triggers - rare level generation bug fixed - fix bug where upgrades lead to player gaining health when Hit - fix for camera after fall - fixed a mimic bug - fixes to props - animator transition fixes for furnace enemies - idle anims playing on doors in levels - Fixed no audio on head after load bug - Enemy line of sight bug fixed - various bug fixes Changes - games is a little easier on first playthrough - rake resetting better - gave rocks "health" so they get destroyed quicker when damage upgraded - garden sprinkler spurts 6 rounds of projectiles then pauses for a bit - marbles changes to ooze - upgrade tree trimmed and merged into one tree - tweaks to slam and swipe attack - reworked area loading - tweaked level generation - tweaks to furnace and garden enemies - tweak to projectile shoot follow script - tweaked enemy spawning - tweaked some of the platforms in garden as they were interfering with pathfinding - removed/moved some enemy spawners that were inside geometry in furnace rooms - tweaked the boss room to pick two of the next levels enemies and bossify them - demon horns fire ability does a little more damage - if picking up two health pickups and only one is needed. One of them doesn't get used, just falls back down - enemies aggro others when they get aggroed themselves (used to be just on hurt) - little less health spawned per level - few tweaks to some skullcaps - Optimization for the outline shader - made crit damage red - enemies don't pause when being attack (thought this was already in...) - made the colliders on the treerock group smaller because they were making the rocks hard to Hit - point light shadows get turned off at distances greater than 20 to improve performance - re worked the projectiles, same functionality but more modular - changes to how passable objects animation are played - pathfinding optimisations - various tweaks/optimisations - performance tweaks
Here it is! Today's update brings a swath of additions and changes, namingly local co-op play and revamped combat. We're super excited to get the update out and hear what you think of it! Being a bit of an idiot (Paul), I tried to add a discount to coincide with the update at the last minute, but it told me I can only add one for the following day (obviously!) So for those of you who simply can't wait, you can get it at full price. If you're in no rush, add it to your wishlist and avail of a juicy 33% discount tomorrow from 6pm. The discount lasts a week.
Check out our last two posts that discuss both in detail.
http://steamcommunity.com/games/305460/announcements/detail/240159292067193012
http://steamcommunity.com/games/305460/announcements/detail/240159465335915314
One last thing before we hit the patch notes, I'd like to introduce you to MaryAnne, the first additional playable character in FranknJohn. She is a badass fighter created by Dr.Harmin some years ago, but he found her too wild and powerful to control. Since then, she has been biding her time, waiting for the right moment to unleash her ferocious retribution.
Patch Notes
Local Co-op
I am back! The update coming on May 19th brings co-op play to FranknJohn. But that is not all! Oh no. We have also been super busy making the core combat more exciting and engaging based on your valuable feedback.
Turn on the kettle and pull up a chair. This is a long one.
The most common criticism on the base attack has been that it lacks variety. You are doing this single action for the whole game, which gets repetitive and doesn't offer much in the way of variety or experimentation. Bottom line, it just wasn't very exciting and couldn't carry the whole game.
A big part of the problem lay with the way the base attack had been built. It was implemented using physics with a spring joint to control how the head behaved. The head was shot out using force and recoiled using the spring. This lead to many issues when trying to modify the attack for a Skullcap and ended up restricting their design. Due to the unpredictable nature of the physics, we could never gain exact control over it, hence some of the weird behaviours you may have noticed.
Attacking was also quite ‘loose’. We tried to enhance the functionality of the attack by giving players some agency over the direction of the head once it had left the body. This sounds cool in theory, but in practice, analogue sticks just aren't cut out for that kind of use (nor are our fingers!) It came at the expense of accuracy and feeling, leading to a kind of toxic frustration that erodes away at you the more you play. A more focused base attack was needed.
So we went back to the drawing board and dissected the entire system. We had one simple goal - how could we make the core gameplay more exciting? What we came up with was a system that is more flexible, providing more attacking options through additional base attacks and opening the door for Skullcaps to offer real variety.
The first thing we did, was scrap the physics. Instead of forces and springs, we moved to simple lerping and as a result gained complete control over the head. Attack speed, range, recoil and a tonne of other small values that add to the feel of the attack, are now extremely accurate. The base attack is more satisfying than ever! It’s a punchy, straight in and out jab without any of the loose feeling or uncertainty. Happy days!
Moving onto Skullcaps! They have been sort of loosely defined as ‘power-ups’, with a blue-sky approach to their design. Some had cooldown abilities, some had added damage, some had weird effects on gameplay and some didn't do much at all. Not only was it hard to communicate what each new Skullcap did, they didn't really augment gameplay in a satisfying way. So we set about sorting Skullcaps into categories and used a distributed point system to balance them and open up different styles of play.
The Skivvy
Hey there!
As you know, we've been hard at work on local co-op play. Well, the time has just about come for us to release it into your grabby hands! Not stopping there, we have also revisited the core mechanic and changed how Skullcaps work in response to your valuable feedback.
Today, I want to dig into how the co-op works. On Wednesday, I'll talk about what we've done to make the core mechanics more EXCITING!
From the very beginning, we saw ourselves playing FranknJohn with a buddy. We all grew up wasting away summer holidays in front of a SNES with our friends, squirting water guns at zombies, hurling red shells and Shoryuken'ing each other in the face. It was a magic time. A time, that time itself has seemed to forgotten. We want to bring a bit of that magic back.
We've been very conscious about avoiding a 'tacked on' feel, where perhaps one player has more authority or power than the other. In FNJ, both players are equal. With the change to Skullcaps (more on this in Wednesdays post), you can adopt play styles that compliment each other. You could play it safe and use range, get up close and personal, or a mixture of the two. You must really work together to overcome the games challenges.
Here is a list of the current co-op mechanics and rule sets:
Well done to RandomSanity on snatching the 1-of-a-kind FranknJohn tee-shirt! Get your details on over to us at info@bitsmithgames.com and we'll get it posted to you in a jiffy. The big question is, did you manage to kill the boss? http://cloud-2.steamusercontent.com/ugc/45375528363309562/84EBDA731D8688CC573CFE3099C7CC71455A4C8C/1024x0.resizedimage
Hey FranknPeeps, We have a tasty FranknJohn T-Shirt to give away! Take a look If you would like to win this elegant garment, simply post a screenshot to the community hub. We will pick our favourite on Friday 17th April and send you the shirt, along with our admiration and respect. What are we looking for in a screenshot? Peril, excitement, certain doom or just something funny.
Hey there! We've been busy putting the finishing touches on local co-op play and we can't wait to share it with you. We've also been making nice progress on the next area, The Furnace of Anger. In the coming days I'll be sharing more information with you, including a release date for the co-op update as well as concepts for the Furnace enemies. Rest assured however, you'll be able to play with your friends very soon :) Onto Update #2 then. It's a small one, but that doesn't mean it's insignificant, right? General
Hello Franknpeeps! Today brings the first update of many. We've caught many of the issues you've had with the game since launch and we've also added a bunch of cool stuff. Our next focus is on getting local co-op to you as soon as possible and then onto The Furnace of Anger. Check out the patch notes below and let us know what you think! As always, restart Steam to kick in the update. General
Hey there! We are slowly waking up from our post PAX/GDC coma's and have been busy working on some exciting new stuff that I want to talk to you about. First of all, thanks so much to all of you who have bought the game so far. It's really humbling to hear you are having fun with it. Of course, the main reason we chose to go on Early Access, was to get it into players hands and hear what they have to say about it. Positive things are always nice, but it's the negative things we really want to hear. We've been sifting through a tonne of feedback and it's really interesting to hear about things that we thought were obvious and awesome, that turned out not so to others. For instance, nobody seems to enjoy fighting Zombies or Nibblers as the only real strategy to defeat them is to hit them while running away. With that, let me give you an overview about what's coming in the new few updates. We'll give you plenty of notice when Updates #2 and #3 are coming. Update #1 - Balancing & Bug fixes (Coming next week!) Our focus for this update is to tighten up certain aspects of the game and squish many of the bugs that have been encountered since launch. Here's a taster for what's in store -
Hey everyone, FranknJohn will be at PAX East in Boston this weekend, flying all the way over from Ireland. Make sure to stop by to check it out and chat with Paul, the lead designer. You may even be able to nab a cool FranknJohn button ;) Just to note that with most of the team away at PAX and GDC this week, forum responses might be a little slower than we'd like, but we will certainly get back to everyone within the same day. Here's to the launch and the exciting road ahead. bitSmith Games
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