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Gnerp Gnerp, time for a devlog.
Oh well, it's a bit questionable why I should do a devlog since I have a blog anyway, but I got the feeling that more people might notice this if I made a devlog, too. Apologies. :gentleman:

So, this game is Beyong the Black Hole, a puzzle game that is sequel to FIG in more than one, but not every aspect. Practically the game gives you control over the green fella, thus allowing puzzles about doing also other stuff than just clicking. This also means a bit more complicated controls, but hey, I’ll put a tutorial in ‘n all. The reason I removed the lemmings-like movement was because in FIG it was used too much as an arbitrary time limit, resulting in hurrying in many levels. When that was combined with the fact that some of the hotspots were a bit tiny, a couple levels ended up rather hellish. I’ve also updated the graphical look a bit, and I’m becoming really fond of that “MSpaint-ish” look. The game will feature 35 (or possibly 36) levels placed on 7 planets like last time. Johan Hargne, who composed the musics for FIG, can be seen working on this one, too. I'm lucky to have not one but two amazing composer-"friends".

I'll probably release a demo of sorts eventually, but we'll see what this 'eventually' is. The demo shall probably have the first planet, that is 5 levels + the tutorial.

I've already got some nitpicks from the testers regarding both the scrolling system the game uses, and control scheme. Granted, now that you have to control the guy too AND you can throw stuff, the controls are far far more complicated, but I hope that it doesn't prove to be too much of an obstacle. For the scrolling, you may remember that one scrolling level in FIG, that was really out of place when compared to all the other levels. To be honest, I had to struggle a bit in order to keep the levels in the given borders. That's why BtBH will have horizontal scrolling around. That, again, complicates the gameplay a bit, but hopefully, again, not too much. Why am I telling this? I don't know.

Anyway, time for SCREEENSHOOOOTSSS:
(http://www.hempuli.com/Fig222.PNG)
(http://www.hempuli.com/Fig4.PNG)
(http://www.hempuli.com/FIG2222.PNG)
(http://www.hempuli.com/Fig10.png)

Are those actual in-game screenshots or just mockups, either way,  :-*

They're actual, in-game screenshots! :) Nice that you like them.

Hempuli! A sequel to Floating Islands Game? How wonderful. FIG is, as I may have mentioned, a favourite of mine. So much charm, and some insidious puzzles. Good to see you've got the same musicians doing the new soundtrack, too. Because the music was quite nice.

Will be watching!  :coffee:

Thank you gainsworthy! :)

I just realized that I will not have much to write here, other than reports when I've finished a level or something like that. Since there're already 10 levels, the game isn't exactly on the 'experimenting' -phase anymore, so I don't want to reveal everything yet. :) I'm working currently on level 11.

That is more than awesome, that is  :tiger: awesome.

Then post more screenshots if you don't have much to write here. They look absolutly delicious after all! :-*

Hempuli's GAME CHARM OOZE stat is ridiculously high.

Posting so I can follow

Wow.

I've been horribly bad at updating this.
I'll post some screenshottey goodness in a couple days, I've taken some time off the game, but it seems like level 11 shall be ready in a couple days. Until then, here's an apologetic picture to compensate:

(http://img188.imageshack.us/img188/8145/fig8.png)

I love it! When can we play a demo? :-*

OOo-kay! Level 11 is now finished-like! It took a huge amount of time to get working on this again, but whatever, I managed to do it.

I think the demo shall be out when I reach level 14 or 15. Let's see.

Even more testers have complained about the scrolling system, so I guess I should finally do something about it. Bothersome, but I guess you can never make things intuitive enough (and this game isn't very intuitive for sure!)

Looking forward to playing it.

Work on BtBH continues steadily. In fact, it’s coming together very nicely! Level 12 will be soon finished, and I’ve also created the tutorial and a credit page. I’ve also fleshed out the main menu, to make it more understandable. The demo shall be out 18th of june, which happens to be my birthday. I’ll have plenty of time to finish things up before that!

More exciting posts coming!

I'm joyously expecting it! :)

Boo yah! Level 12 is ready, and I've got the demo quite much ready. :) I'll try to finish level 13 before the demo is released, because I'm filled with creative power and have a pretty solid idea of that level.

For your enjoyment (though man, I hope I'll get more comments on this after the demo is released!):
(http://img192.imageshack.us/img192/1423/figtuto.png)

Wow, this looks awesome! :-* I love the colours you used and how the game, in general looks. Definitely looking forward to playing this one.

I love the look of this game, and since you're about to finish the demo I'm guessing you're going to submit this to Indiecade :)?

I'm really looking forward to trying the demo!

yay Hempuli, keep it upp.


fig was awesome, i'm sure this will be cool too.

I haven't even thought of that! But it seems that the deadline passed on 1th of June, so I'm a bit late.

Thanks for the comments! :)

They extended it to the 20th. I definitely think you should enter it!

Oh jolly good! Their homesite appears to be down currently, but I'll try to gather some more information. Thanks for telling about this possibility! ;)

OK, it's here! Gentlemen, I present you:

Beyond the Black Hole, demo version 1.0!

This demo features 6 of the game's 35 levels, all chosen from the finished 12 and stuffed to one planet. There's also the tutorial level on top of that. I'll stop here and let the readme speak a bit:

"In each level, your objective is to collect all the yellow stars (there's usually only one, and none should be hidden from view) and reach the exit. Reaching the stars and overall solving the levels requires using the main character to carry things around, and the mouse to interact with other things. Most levels require both methods of interaction. In every level, there's also a hidden blue star, which requires either extra skill or just common curiousness to be found. Collecting all the blue stars also results in a bonus, though not in this demo!

NOTE! You can adjust volume from the settings.txt!

** CONTROLS **

A & D = move left & right
W = jump
Space = pick up / put down
Left mouse button = throw when aiming, interact, confirm
Right mouse button = aim when carrying an item, return to planet menu
ESC = quit level/game
Enter = restart level

** CREDITS **

Full credits shall be in the finished game!

Idea, design, graphics & programming: Arvi Teikari
Musics: Johan Hargne
Main tester: Looki
Support and sound editing: Nicklas Nygren"

There were other people that should be mentioned there, I'll list them here later.

I hope you enjoy the game! Get it here! (http://www.hempuli.com/BtBH-demo.zip)

Screenshots (I'll copy one from this topic, nothing new here!):
(http://img188.imageshack.us/img188/8145/fig8.png)
(http://www.hempuli.com/Fig10.png)

Lovely!

But I'm stuck at level 2  :epileptic:

Great! I'll try to get around to playing it sometime this weekend. Think I've got some time. I'll be back with impressions!

Edit: Oh yeah, before I forget. Happy Birthday, right?!

Nice!  ;D I beat up to the last 2 levels, and then stopped after a while as I couldn't figure them out. The game is really fun, but I think that the difficulty of the levels increases almost a bit too fast. I'm not sure how many levels you intend to make, but I'm already pretty stuck after the first 3 or 4...  :P

This is very, very charming! I do have to say that the difficulty of some of the levels is somewhat of a contrast to the serene atmosphere of the game, but eh, why not ;)

Some critiques, mostly minor:

• The single-pixel circles on the level select screen clash with the vector art style of the game.
• The level select screen should make it clear which levels you've already beaten.
• The teleporters should have some visual feedback once they become usable. (A blinking light on top or something.)
• It's often not obvious at all which objects are clickable, which leads to the frustrating mouse-over-everything style of gameplay some adventures were notorious for.

Otherwise, loving it so far! Beat all the levels except for the terrifying monster one. I got the chili or whatever it is, but have no idea what to do with it...

Thanks for the feedback! I agree with everything you say, though there is that red dot around the cursor that points to interactable objects! I wouldn't want any pixel-hunting. Also the cursor turns to green when you can click something.

This looks rather fantastic, Hempuli

This was great!  I got to level 5 and it was great, ill go back and beat it later today.  Man this is just really a great game you have going here, the music, the artwork , puzzles, everything.  My minor critique is pretty subjective I guess but I'm not too big of a fan of the main character.  He's not terrible but with all the other lovely art you have it seems a shame to have the next step up from a stick figure to be the main character.  Excellent game, probably one of the better games I've played in a long while!

Oh neat, this is pretty solid. I'm really liking your quality standards- this is good stuff. The puzzles seem very well thought out- there's a lot of room for exploring possible solutions.

I'm looking forward to the finished version.

Nitpick:
The soft glows look off to me given the style of the artwork, did you try using hard edged effects instead?

Thanks, everyone. :)

@nate: Yeah, I guess you're right. Though perhaps having a rather uninteresting character makes you pay more attention to the surroundings?

@sparky: Yeah, other people have said about that too. I've tried several different glow styles, but personally I like the smooth glow best.

...I call upon the dark spirit of the netherworld...
...An ominous spell is cast along with virgin sarcifices...

...
GLORIOUS THREAD NECROMANCY ENSUES!

So yeah, I'm working on this, still! I'm sorry about the several-month-long pause, but I had other games in mind and quite frankly didn't feel like I'd want to work on this anymore. ANYWAY - I haven't done much, I have started levels 13 and 14 but neither is ready due to loss of faith and puzzle ideas. However, during working on them, I've started to ponder whether it'd work better if I changed the control scheme towards the more casual style of the first part (i.e. mouse-only control). I've got some criticism about the complex nature of the controls, so maybe if I redesigned the levels to allow a simpler control scheme would do the trick?

What would you guys think? I'm quite on the edge with this so all feedback would be great. I think I'll make a quick prototype of the new engine I had in mind and post it here. Redoing the levels for the new engine shouldn't be too much of a hassle because I already have all the assets and the game code isn't that complicated. So it'd be mostly a matter of just doing it.

More pics:
(http://img98.imageshack.us/img98/765/96693556.png)
(http://img218.imageshack.us/img218/9315/monf.png)

Played it and i like it. Really nice puzzles. A good feeling for humor. Great artwork and solid programming.

Also the concept of level selecter is great!
The only think i can think of is that you bring the menu more in the style of the game itself. When i see the menu, i'm not remembering the fun i had playing it.

Maybe a hint button that helps players that are stuck?

Ok! Here is the test level of the "new" control scheme:

www.hempuli.com/hki2-nomouse.exe

If you end up in the menu screen, you can't do much because nothing works. The puzzle isn't very interesting or even good but should give you an idea of how the system'd work.

I'd really really appreciate any feedback on this! I'm really torn between whether to change or not.

I'd prefer being able to walk around.

Maybe you can even do both.

You can have the stop/go sort of levels by having another creature as the protagonist that needs to be guided. Maybe his dog or something.

Like on some levels you get the animal instead and it has the alternate controls.

I really like this game, I spent a good minute mousing over the planets on the menu, because every tasty bit of this place you are creating is interesting and just looking at the names of the levels made me happy.

Is it too late to put some basic plot in this game, or expand on the mythos a bit?

This is what it would be like if Matt Thorson (http://www.gamemakergames.com/archive/an-untitled-story) Made the next Hapland.

(I'd like to point you to Floating Islands Game on Hempulazaur's site (http://www.hempuli.com/), as this is the sequal to that.)

I do like the possibility of both schemes, though if that's unfeasible, I like the first better.

Thanks for the feedback!

In the end I decided to keep the old controlling system. I've started working again on level 14, so here's a sneak shot:

(http://img706.imageshack.us/img706/1692/castleub.png)

Note that I also updated the main character with a Cool Scarf!

When I run it:

(http://img841.imageshack.us/img841/3891/malwarex.png)

Hu. Stupid AntiVir?

Another person just reported the same thing! It's a false alarm, but because some people will inevitably get that anyway I'm replacing the AdvDir.mfx! Hold your horses, a fix is appearing soon! Apparently most German people use an antivir software that doesn't like certain parts of MMF 2.

In fact, it's up now (or if you're faster than light, in a few seconds!)!

Sorry for the double post, but I want to inform you two who follow this that level 13 is ready! Teaser pic:
(http://img262.imageshack.us/img262/411/phantoon.png)

As the image above indicates, I've already started working on level 14, so hopefully I'll get it ready pretty quickly (or hopefully it doesn't take another 5 months!).

Looks great!

I'd love to play this game when it's done.

(http://i25.photobucket.com/albums/c61/abercombie_babe_1997/pill.gif)
I want to play this game until it's powdered dust in which case I will then snort the dust to experience the game's full degree of epic.

Btw, I liked it better when he didn't have pants he can keep his scarf.  :eyebrows:
But in all seriousness, keep on trucking.

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I'm not sure how I feel about this, but I just finished level 14. Took mere 17 months to do that, eh. I think I want to squeeze out 20 levels and call the game finished, for I've lost my level concept stuff and in general am rather sick of the engine (but not the game, note!)

(http://i.imgur.com/Nw5lz.png)

(Uh oh, I need to contact Johan about some more music. Hopefully he's still around.)