wow guys, your throwing tons of stuff at me.

so I think i'll have it so the player can save whenever they want as long as they have surfaced for air, whether it be up top, or in one of the several underwater caverns.

the ideas of being able to walk around inside the sub, and convert sun to air are great, but I think they are getting a little to complicated. I wanted to make this a very easy game where the player could focus on exploring and not worrying about lots of other stuff.

and you will start in a small little bay with an underwater tunnel so the player gets a nice little  practice area.

the sonar idea is cool but I saw that in another game that was a multiplayer game where there were two subs and you only had sonar to navigate, and although its a cool idea, I think it just further complicates things.

keep them coming guys.

quick question, why the No for gamemaker? if you let us know what you are and are not looking for. it will be much easier.

I dont know about adding the crew. cause it seems kind of uneccessary.

I had originally planned to use the journal as a framing device and on death you would start back from your base (in my head thats where your journal was because thats where you went to save). it would almost be like in Prince of Persia where he would go "wait thats not how it happened".

I guess my point of warping back to the base was I had this idea in my head.

you wake up in the morning, go out, adventure, and explore, then come back at night.

Now that I think about it the long travel time would be annoying, unless of course I created large flat areas where you could set up extra bases, which would definetly work. like you are slowly colonizing the world.

going with the linear constantly moving game, what if it was on-stage and had a scrolling background, while guys run past holding blocks and cardboard enemies.

my main goal is exploration, its exploring the darkness, perhaps this path leads to a dead end, perhaps it leads to the lost city of the Deep ones. I dont want it to be a horror game, so I think adding a crew doesnt hurt, but im afraid that the crew is just going to be a row of red shirts.

hey I have a technical question.

would it be possible to on the press of a button rotate the room in gamemaker, or probably more likely, turn the view and gravity 90 degrees.

I always wanted to make a game like "I wish I were the Moon" but you were changing a different fairytale on each level, and the entire thing would be in a childrens book. so if you were playing with the red Riding hood book, and gave Red a shotgun, the ending would be WAY different. Im thinking almost like grimms fairytales meets mad libs.

malec2b:
what exactly are you looking for in tile sets?

would anybody be willing to do an introduction to construct. I currently use GM, and wouldnt mind switching over because I feel that the graphic capabilities of GM seem lacking unless you are doing lowspec pixel art. sadly, the website didnt have any tutorials. I would like something that has a little better art engine and the directx in construct sounds great.

yeah I just read an article about open world gaming and it focused heavily on Metroid, one of my main inspirations for this game. and it kept bringing up the point of isolation in metroid, same as alien, or even the abyss. I definetly think that this is what I want now. I was getting away from my original idea. the ocean is big and scary. I am having trouble with designing the guy to pop out of the sub, so I think I might go back to the drawing board and create the guy first, and then build a ship based on his size. so does everyone like the idea of dying is basically a game over, you can save whenever you want by going back to your base. so you will just spawn from there.

p.s. I wish I knew enough about programming to make this in 3d, cause that would be super mind blowing.

ummm. I count in powers. you have to switch from 1 to 2 in the begining but after that its all good.
1
2
4
16
256
65536

what you dont count that way?

yay. more designing!

so I have sat down and made a list of all the different things I want the Player to be able to find.

I am still working on the sub design and allowing the player to exit for exploring.

1. the main player Pilots a sub, and has a set status of divers. you start with 3 divers, that will go out to explore. if they die you would need to go back to the base to reload. (basically thing of you running a ship and these are the sailors)

2. I can use the same idea above but instead of divers it can be small drones, this would make more sense as how everything fits in the sub. (the sub is about Van sized) also I can perhaps give the player different types of drones to send out.

4. the main player is the only person on the sub. he leaves just like Blaster Master but if the player dies its game over and back to the base.

sound off everyone.

Mirror's edge

Well I definetly see being able to exit the sun is the way to go. Some really great ideas here. I like the tether idea but I know I don't have the coding skills to do it. I like the idea of psychologically binding the player to the sub. Perhaps by making them slower and giving them a small amount of light they will not wander too far from the sub, unless confronted with a reason too, such as a small crack to explore. Also making the player weaker would enforce this.

so still working on this.

Ive dropped the size of the sub. so right now it will either be about the size of a go-kart or I may possible just get rid of the sub all together and it will be you in a diving suit, and you will have like a motorized jetpack. one of my main problems is if the player leave the subs, what if they jump off a cliff, the will never be able to get back to the sub. this is what originally got me thinking of the jetpack, but then it seemed to make the sub pointless. My other option is the go-kart sized sub that can transform into a kind of tank.

so right now I am trying to figure that out. each has their pros and cons. I just need to figure out what to do. but I am pretty sure that at this point I have made the descion for the player to be stuck in the primary movement mode. if they are in a sub, they cant leave, and if they walka round they can only walk around. so here are som pros and cons of each idea.

Sub: allows the player to have a more underwater feel, and a more easily controlled movement scheme. player wont be allowed to leave, and must stay in the water.

person: more platformy and would allow the player to walk around and even leave the water.
problem is the player may loose the feeling of being underwater.

so please weigh in so I can see what everyone thinks. (if I do the sub I will stick with the white whale)

P.S. also who moderates this section. I would like to move this to Devlog.

Bones: looks pretty cool.

PureQuestion: yeah it needs to be sped up a little bit, but its jsut a test now.

I'm trying to figure out if the main movement method of the game. Is the sub simple fast travel? will the player be walking around more. what about giving them a tank like vehicle that is a sub/truck that allows them to explore quickly in all areas. this would simplify the game, and allow for one uniform control scheme. if my main goal is a large world to explore then it seems that a simple control would allow you to explore more, and give less to worry about.

well i should probably start a devlog of this soon. but I dont want to start all over so.... if any moderators read this feel free to move it.

update:


playing around with filligree, and trying to get some ornate metal work, but still in a small pixel size. I am thinking of doubling the pixel size of the sub.

and here is the movement engine. all art is temp and no collision. eventually the sub will turn around instead of drive backwards. I dont know about he tilting up and down. I think it messes up the sprite to much.
http://www.mediafire.com/?sharekey=b30dd42f306864f690a82c7bb0fad7ade04e75f6e8ebb871

Yeah I guess I'm not really that worried about the steampunk theme. I actually got the idea of the white from the nautilus from the lxg movie. I thought about adding the blue lights to the rust one but the I was afraid it would be to dead space especially since I have the spine health bar. My original idea for the white was the sub was based on moby dick and the inventor your piloting it for is named ishmael.

Are you looking for new grappling hook physics that are realistic or old school arcade physics like new bionic commando?

hey wondering if anyone has a good way to do fake lighting in GM. I basically want a level to get darker as you go deeper, but the area around the player will always be lit. I would like it if other things could also use the same gradient system. My problem is I am having trouble with multiple things being able to be lit. 

not sure if i should continue this stuff here but a did a mockup of the sub.






i wanted a mechanical feeling but still a fish, well whale in this case. just some color mockups, till i find one I like. I want to add more detail, and I was thinking that the lights on the back could be the air meter. (I have a thing for minimalistic hubs)