A Hat in Time Discussion

[Goodbye18000]

A Hat in Time is a 3D collect-a-thon platformer in the spirit of the classic Nintendo 64 titles you know and love!

It had a Kickstarter that ended greatly! It got $296,360 pledged of its $30,000 goal.
You can preorder here!

 

[Squire Grooktook]

I have a friend who's pretty interested in this. Looks pretty solid.

 

[Ruin]

i thought this was gonna be a new professor layton game :c

 

[juju_for_president]

I've been following A Hat in Time for kinda awhile (about 3 months or so), and I am really happy with what they have shown, especially the Obstacle Course video:

Watch it as is first, then watch it while listening to this:

Spoiler

 

[KaboomKid]

I forgot that they funded voice acting for this game. I'm really curious how that's going to turn out, because I've always liked the charm of Banjo-Kazooie/Klonoa:DtP style gibberish for these sorts of games. I guess it'll be fine, as long as they don't give Hat Kid a bunch of internal monologue.

[Guy] "I need you to find my missing shoe!"
[Hat Kid] ("The man asked me to find his shoe. My soul ached as I pondered his request. The thoughts of missing shoes filled my heart with a deep sadness, a sadness I knew could not bear for much longer.")

Y'know, it might be better if Hat Kid just doesn't talk at all!

 

[Jutsei]

Can't wait to play this on Wii U.
Gonna be awesome

 

[juju_for_president]

Hat Kid's internal monologue confirmed voiced by Morgan Freeman. :P

 

[Goodbye18000]

Slight bump, but you can now upgrade to get alpha access if you haven't backed at a high enough level to get it to begin with!

I did. It contains:

• Two chapters:
  • Chapter 1 Act 1 – Welcome to Mafia Town
  • Chapter 2 Act 3 – Queen Vanessa’s Manor
• Community Feedback Tracker
  • Not a forum, but a way to contact each of the developers directly with "ideas, problems, questions and thanks".
• Speedrunning practice
  • They are asking to not report any bugs that allow a person to speedrun a level. So long as it doesn't crash the game or make it unwinnable, it's a-okay!
• Recording and monetization privileges for YouTube
  • Which is nice cause of the stupidity involving copyright currently

Until next update chaps, see you next time!

 

[juju_for_president]

I really, REALLY, REEEEEALLY want to get the Alpha version, but at $40 to get the preorder + upgrade, it is beyond what I am currently willing to spend. :'(

If anyone on the forum here has the demo, please talk all about how incredible it was. It might make me break down and throw my money at it to get that Alpha access.

 

[Goodbye18000]

I'll be doing videos, don't worry buddy.

 

[Jutsei]

I'll be doing videos, don't worry buddy.

Good Guy Goodbye18000

 

[Goodbye18000]

Oh and this wasn't posted here yet.

This game will very likely have a level editor that works with Steam Workshop, that will allow for custom levels, objectives, enemies and even hats.
So you know what's going to happen, right?
Someone's just going to port Super Mario Sunshine and make a FLUDD cap.

 

[juju_for_president]

Even if I don't end up buying the upgraded pre-order package, I know that this game is going to be a day-one buy for me. It is right up there with Child of Light and Freedom Planet as my most anticipated games of 2014!

 

[Kai]

I feel quite old now that kickstarter projects are starting to cash in on PS1/PS2-era nostalgia.

 

[Goodbye18000]

I feel quite old now that kickstarter projects are starting to cash in on PS1/PS2-era nostalgia.

If you don't mind feeling older, this one is actually a combination of Late-N64 Gameplay and Early-GameCube graphics.


We've seemed to skip over 16-bit though, in terms of Kickstarting Nostalgia. I haven't seen a new 16-bit style game yet.
I mean, we got a few really nice 2D Sprite ones like Mercenary Kings, but not a faithful 16 bit one.

 

[juju_for_president]

We've seemed to skip over 16-bit though, in terms of Kickstarting Nostalgia.

<cough> <cough> Freedom Planet <cough>

Note to self: make Freedom Planet thread on Skullheart

 

[Kai]

If you don't mind feeling older, this one is actually a combination of Late-N64 Gameplay and Early-GameCube graphics.

PS1 and PS2 line up with N64 and GameCube pretty much exactly. Same timeframe. My memory's still good, I'm not that old.

We've seemed to skip over 16-bit though, in terms of Kickstarting Nostalgia. I haven't seen a new 16-bit style game yet. I mean, we got a few really nice 2D Sprite ones like Mercenary Kings, but not a faithful 16 bit one.

We're never gonna get, "true," 16-bit games, we're just going to get throwback design that harkens back to that time when pixels were bigger. In people's rose-tinted memories, 8 and 16 bit games often run together.

 

[SanoBaron]

glad to see Grant Kirkhope on a new project that isnt a total sham or looks not good. (you can hate on me all you want for not liking the concept of yaiba. I dont care. I think it looks like garbage and I hope it is)

 

[Goodbye18000]

Yaiba is a weird game. The only reason I might get it is because Beck from Mighty No. 9 is going to be a playable costume and it will be hilarious seeing him call people terrible profanities.

 

[Goodbye18000]

5 days until Alpha! I'm so stoked I could literally set ablaze any moment now.

"We're working on some new tech for a new part of the game, and Jonas accidentally messed something up... enjoy the result!"

 

[juju_for_president]

I saw that on their Facebook page. It reminds me of Psyconauts for some reason, and that is a great game to make me think of when you are making a 3D platformer.

 

[Goodbye18000]

Alpha codes are being sent out now. I'll post my videos here too when they're up.

 

[Goodbye18000]

Part 1 of my Alpha Build Playthrough

 

[Goodbye18000]

In case you don't want to watch my video, which is totally understandable due to he framerate and my laptop being crap, here's my impressions of the alpha:

• Still very much a WIP. There are a number of things that still don't work properly (tight ropes, rockets) and a few easy to replicate glitches. THANKFULLY, the community tracker is up and running, and the team is working on fixing the top ranked bugs and items.
• That said, for what it is, it is very polished. The first world, Mafia Town, is beautiful. It's huge, it's colorful, I'm still finding secrets in it. There's a reference to Diddy Kong Racing that's brilliant. I won't spoil it, though you'd see it if you watch the video. There's a lot of room for new missions to be added as well. You can only access about 35% of the world from what I see.
• The second level is terrifying. It's basically Amnesia for Kids except hiding is a bit easier. The puzzles are difficult but far from impossible. There is a pretty big difficulty jump.
• The hats are unchangable at this point, but that's the number one ranked addition to the game. There's 3 hats and 3 badges in the demo:
  • Top Hat: Default
  • Thor's Cap: Obtained in Mafia Town, no known use
  • Fox's Mask: Obtained at the end of Queen Vanessa's Castle, lets you see hidden boxes to use as platforms as well as letting you walk through glowing green items.
  • Electric Badge: When equipped, causes enemies to take one damage when they attack you. Think Zap Tap from Paper Mario.
  • Ghost Badge: Gives Hat Kid a command dash with full invincibility.
  • Owl Brew Badge: Gives Hat Kid a projectile that causes 2 damage to enemies but can hurt you for one if hit too close. Think Bombs in Zelda.
• The surprise ending for beating both levels totally caught me off guard. There's not much you can do in the room except start the credits, but good lord does it make me excited for the story.
• The voice acting is great. You have a cute British girl for Mustache Girl, a great voice for the Mafia (with different voices for different members) and JonTron plays SpaceBirds. 10/10.

Overall, it's fun, but needs updates before I can recommend paying the $40 for the Alpha ($20 for the game, $20 for upgrade). I'ma play it again and again to help debug it.

 

[Goodbye18000]

I finally got all the Time Objects in the A Hat in Time Alpha build.
Most were easy. There were two I had trouble with:

• One was hidden in a random pipe that there was no indication of you could go into. Thankfully they added a little collectable in it so it was easier to figure out. The Secret Level in that pipe was really easy.
• The second was easy to find where, but the mission was nigh impossible. You race on a rocket against a Mafia member in a hot air balloon. He naturally goes faster than you (except on descent) and if you touch ANYTHING, you blow up. Including him. And he has rubberband AI and is NOT afraid to just ram you. I would have quit earlier if there wasn't an awesome throwback to Diddy Kong Racing each time.

Overall well worth the money I donated to them (the amount of which I won't say, it's embarrassing) and I look forward to the Beta!

 

[Goodbye18000]

Not me, but some awesome Canadian YouTubers are streaming the Alpha in 15 min if you wanna watch. I love these guys.

 

[juju_for_president]

Just watched one of the playthroughs of the Alpha.

Man, I knew the Queen Vanessa segment was supposed to be scary, but that... is that how people felt seeing Redeads in Orcarina of Time for the first time? Because I think I felt something like that.

I'm going to go hide under by bed now.

 

[Goodbye18000]

There's been a few updates to the Alpha, nothing too big, just bug fixes/adding music.

BUT at PAX apparently they're going to have multiplayer ready to go. If it gets added to the alpha, I'll have to give it a shot.

 

[Goodbye18000]

Update 5 is now live (even though I'm pretty sure I'm the only one on this board with the alpha)

General

• Settings: Added a graphics detail preset, and moved existing options to “customize”
• Settings: Removed the “High Quality Shaders” option (it is now active by default)
  • The net performance gain from turning this option off was minimal and resulted in significantly longer loading times (due to shaders having to be recompiled)
• Settings: Added a “Auto-detect Controller” setting
• Added a new health meter
• Max health has been reduced to 4
• Added a small animation to the energy meter
• Energy meter is now only visible when the player has any badges
• Snatcher badge now dodges in the initially held direction, as opposed to the currently held direction
• Added a new Gamepad system that allows for user-defined controllers (HatinTimeGame/Config/Gamepads/)
  • This system currently uses button layout instead of GUID, we hope to change this in the future
  • This implementation does not currently have an in-game interface, we hope to provide that later down the road
  • Feel free to share any custom configs with us over at the Community Feedback Tracker
    • (for instance, none of us at Gears have a Dualshock 4, and as such cannot provide a DualShock config ourselves at the moment)
• Fixed a bug where SaveData was saved in the wrong location
  • This may reset previous save data, sorry
• HUB now has its actual music playing (instead of The Moonjumper’s theme)

Mafia Town

• Fixed balloon collision being mis-aligned
• Fixed a bug when re-trying the Mafia mini-boss [Ticket]

Queen Vanessa Manor

• Fixed a bug allowing the play to walk through the kitchen table [Ticket]
• Fixed being able to press a switch on 3rd floor through a wall [Ticket]

Bookstore

• Reduced bloom strength

Mac OSX

• Fixed shader cache being out of date
• Fixed a bug causing the game not to save
• Graphics settings are now available

As always, you can report bugs and suggest ideas on our Community Feedback Tracker! You can get access to the alpha build over on our preorder page!