Zeepkist News

I'm really excited to announce that Zeepkist: Crash 2D has finally launched!



Zeepkist: Crash 2D is a web game that's available on Poki.com!



The mechanics are similar to "dismount" type games: You crash your zeepkist and try to rack up as many points as possible, which you can use to buy new zeepkists, hats, levels, and obstacles!

It's entirely free, and is monetized by letting players watch ads!






You probably have a bunch of questions! I'll try to answer a bunch of them, and if you have more, feel free to leave a comment!


Q: What is this? A: A new game by me!




Q: Why did you make another game? A: Poki reached out to me about a year and a half ago to see if I was interested in publishing to web platforms. I didn't have anything to put on Poki at the time (Zeepkist itself is far too big for that of course).

Later, however, I was playing around with 2D physics and made this little game, and I decided to get in touch with Poki to see if they were interested in this little thing I was making. And they were!

My biggest motivation for putting time and effort into this is because I'm curious if small games-on-the-side like this can make money, which I need to live. And I'm especially curious if this can give me an additional income stream that might be a bit more steady than Steam. It's also smart not to put all of your eggs into one basket.

Another, smaller, motivation is that I'm curious to see if this will raise Zeepkist "brand awareness". Maybe people will play Zeepkist 2D on Poki, google Zeepkist or come across it on Youtube, and decide to give Zeepkist a try!




Q: Did this take time away from developing Zeepkist? A: Yes! Absolutely, solo-developing two games at the same time is not easy. But I hope it will pay off in the end and all be worth it :)


Q: What's next? A: Back to work on Zeepkist v16! Development on Zeepkist continued throughout development of Zeepkist 2D, as you might have noticed from the devlogs and patches!

I'm curious to see how well Zeepkist 2D does. If it makes sense for me to make more web games I'll absolutely think about doing that. At the end of the day I still need to pay rent! :D



I hope that answers all of your questions!

Go play Zeepkist 2D, tell your friends, and Happy Zeepkisting!!!

- Yannic

- Awarded level contest season 3 hat to winners!

There were 15 winners this time because one submission had 9 collaborators listed.

This smelled fishy, so Akane and I decided on the following:



Happy Zeepkisting!!!

Hey everyone!!

If you've been following along on the Discord you may have been keeping track of some recent developments!

You may also have read the previous devlog and been waiting for more!

Well, I've been cooking this one for a while now! It's time for devlog 3!!




The keen observer might have noticed something, once or twice, in the background of Zeepkist's main menu.

Look at the very top of the image, behind the glass:



I've always been fairly secretive about the whole affair. It's been something I prototyped long ago and since then never had the time to actually implement.

Here's what it looks like in the Unity Editor:



For v16, I figured it was time to add this for real :)

IT'S MONORAIL TIME



Monorails!

The ideal form of public transport!! Tried and tested in real life, their swag outperforms trains, their grace makes them preferable to airplanes, and their passenger-carrying capacity makes them an obvious winner over automobiles.

Zeepkist could not do without, of course.


[h2]Monorails[/h2]



Monorails come with dedicated monorail station blocks, which allow for easy access to player-enterable monorail cars.



Upon entering monorail cars, players can brake and a little anchor icon will display in the bottom of the screen. The anchor icon means that the player's Zeepkist is connected to the monorail car beneath it.



This mechanic makes it possible for players to hop onto monorails, connect, and go through curves and over hills without any fear of falling off!

I've also decided to retrofit this new mechanic to sleds, which were a perfect candidate for this "connection" mechanic! No more falling out of sleds for you folks!! :D




[h2]Tunnels[/h2]

Next, I wanted to make sure that the new monorails meshed well with already existing Zeepkist blocks, so I made sure the following was possible:







Monorails can use bobsleigh tubes as tunnels!


[h2]Special Blocks[/h2]

Monorails also come with a couple of special blocks!



There's a "horn" block which lets the monorail toot its horn.



And a buffer stop which will, naturally, not allow the monorail to continue.


[h2]Bankings[/h2]

Monorails also come with a couple of banked blocks!



These are especially useful for making it easier to dismount monorails. Zeepkists will easily roll off of tilted monorails!



On top of which, banked monorails are extremely radical to ride on!




[h2]Insanity[/h2]

Finally, monorails can go up and down!



And they can go further up!



...and down! Really, you can do whatever you want with monorails!!




[h2]One Warning[/h2]

However! And I cannot stress this enough! All of these monorails are 100% physics based. They are not following any invisible splines or whatever. They exist in your level as rigidbodies with colliders, some forces applied, and nothing more!

⚠️ This means they can derail! ⚠️



They can even derail on perfectly regular looking track pieces, if you set their speed too high!!



⚠️ Their default speed, 100, works very smooth and stable, and should not cause any problems under regular use.

⚠️ However if you feel like fiddling with their speed values and decide to send them through too tight corners, they will absolutely derail in any manner of unpredictable ways.

⚠️ And even then, Unity's physics aren't perfect, so even completely fine monorails might sometimes decide to break and derail!

⚠️ So be careful of that!! :D ⚠️




That's it for this devlog!! I hope you enjoyed the little behind-the-scenes insight and I hope all of you are as excited for Zeepkist Version 16 as I am!!

If you want to be even more up to date on Zeepkist development, you can join the Discord!

Happy Zeepkisting!!

CHOO CHOO

[h3]THEME: Wall Riding[/h3]

Build a level that has players racing primarily on the wall ride blocks

Looking for ideas? How about a track that: sends you round spirals, through intersecting loops, sloped switchbacks, or racing on the side of buildings!



[h3]DEADLINE[/h3]

• Your track should be complete and submitted by Sunday, 14th January 2024 at 18:00 GMT
• Submissions will be combined into a single workshop item after the deadline above
  

[h3]SUBMISSION RULES[/h3]

1. You can only submit one level (you can modify or replace your submission as much as you like until the deadline)
   
2. Level collaborations are permitted (Maximum of 3 players per level. This counts as a level submission for each individual creator)
   
3. The name of the level MUST start with "ZSL - " (e.g "ZSL - My Level")
   

[h3]LEVEL RULES[/h3]

1. Scaling track pieces is permitted
   
2. Level MUST follow any theme requirements set above
   
3. Level MUST be under 4000 blocks
4. Level MUST have an author time above 30 seconds
5. Level MUST have an author time under 1 minute 15 seconds (75s)
   
6. Level MUST have at least 2 checkpoints. Consider adding additional checkpoints for split timing or where it would prevent a cut, as cuts do not make for good tournament tracks!
   
7. Level MUST NOT have hidden finishes/shortcuts (e.g using no-collision or invisible blocks to hide a secret path that is NOT the intended route)
   
8. Level MUST NOT have alternative "risky" finishes
   

[h3]HOW TO SUBMIT YOUR LEVEL[/h3]

1. Join our Official Discord server
2. Upload the level to the Steam Workshop
   
3. Link the workshop item in the theme's thread in #level-submissions
   
   Don't have Discord? You can submit your entry by linking your workshop item in the comments section of this announcement post!
   

[h3]WINNERS & PRIZES[/h3]

• Up to 15 of the submitted levels will be used for the next Zeepkist Super League event
  
• The community will vote on their favourite maps from the theme once submissions close
  
• Top 3 in the community votes for Best Decor and Best Track Layout will each win a special hard hat cosmetic in-game. Discord users will also get a `Level Contest Winner` role and 3,000 chat EXP in our Discord server.
  

[h3]BANNER CONTEST[/h3]
We're also hosting a themed banner contest for our discord server banner image where you can win a special beret hat!!

The theme is Chinese New Year to celebrate the Year of the Dragon and ends at the same time as this level contest!! View the banner contest event details on Discord

- Akane

- Awarded super league season 3 hat to winners!