I was just wondering if anyone has actually had some decent sales on Amazon. I think their starting fee is 100$ so has anyone actually made enough to break even?

Well most likely the seven days will be to nail down the game, then a month to polish, but one problem Microgue had was not having a strong gameplay focus, so my goal is to nail that down in the 7 days then polish and tweak afterwards.

so your suggestion is multiple routes to the goals, and then peppering those routes with doors, to complicate ones travels.

Bridges will remain, but they will be relegated to unlocking the new areas, when discs are collected and there will be one disc per area. they will not require energy to activate.

1. the only thing that is tough is "Should I turn this thing on, potentially being wrong, or see if there's another way that won't cost me so much power?" when there is no other way. the player is given a bridge and must activate. There are not multiple pathways. I think the risk reward idea is good, but I think it needs to be implemented another way, not by main path obstacles.

2. I agree and thats why I plan on adding more environmental animation, and any "monsters" that are in the scene will be the same two colors as the background.

2c. I thought about that and did some mockups, but then if feels odd still centering the player in the screen. I was also thinking more lantern then flashlight.

3. Yeah I want to have noises, in fact I am thinking about doing no music, and just ambient sounds.

4.I do agree that there isn't much conflict for the player. and I had a few ideas.
A. I thought about putting batteries around and the player can use them to operate doors and bridges or recharge their energy. this of course means I cant have puzzles with different types of doors, because it would suck to need to use switches multiple times.

B. I also thought about making generators with limited amounts of energy and the player can recharge at them, but needs to decide how much to recharge, does he drain this or only grab a little bit.

had another idea to tweak the game. there are now 3 types of doors. blue, green, and the current red. each one will have specific switches. so you might need to open a blue door and a green door to get to a specific area.

I really like the run cycle in this. I might need to try and get some vertical movement in.

yeah. I originally went with the super close camera for that very reason. to give that tight feeling.

I think I might go and zoom in a little bit more back to the original. one of my original ideas was the player trying to remember where they came from and not getting lost. the game will probably also be made much simpler, without the puzzles. I liked the idea of using your energy to run stuff, but it doesn't make much sense in game context at the moment as its not really adding any choice. No matter what the player is going to lose energy, there is no way around it. (But dont be discouraged, I do have an idea for how this could work, but cant implement it here, so you might be getting another game about powering machinery in the future.)

as for Discs, they Open up larger doors giving you access to other areas. Also I am thinking about using wall codes as signs to give the player some help. these would just be background but would help the player out. like Arrows point to the different Areas. to help with navigation, but not be to hand holdy.

so I am going to try and finalize the world tomorrow. I still dont know if I am going to do just straight maze, or puzzle, or what. but I do know that I want it to be pretty small. My final plan is to give the game different "Adventures" where the goal and mechanic is always the same, but maybe there are like a few different level layouts and these are unlocked by beating previous ones.

do you mean like weapons and stuff? I want the player to be basically defenseless as they wander these passages.

Here is another update. I made a small test world. Thinking about maybe making puzzles just from bridges and doors. and switches would swap all bridges and doors. making the player take alternate routes to get to discs.

Oh I turned off energy drain for the test.

I will have to fix that.

I updated the link with a new build. The screen is a little more zoomed out. I still havent figured out what the game is yet. I wanted something where you were running around this cave looking for these discs. I wasn't sure if I should make the path to them very obvious, or really crazy, and then I added all the energy things to make the game a bit harder.

My main gameplay inspirations were aliens, and 2001 a space oddessey. I wonder if perhaps I should think about the game as more of you rewalking a crime scene, with the discs giving you pieces of the story. the game would be more o a maze for you to solve, with a definite ending and maybe a certain percentage of hidden discs.

Edit: It might be a good idea to look at Anna Anthropy's Redder. It has a similar vibe.

so the main reason I had the smaller screen was for that claustrophobic feeling. Think it still works with the slightly larger screen?

Rek: I really need to fix a lot of the art. The "Pillar" is actually a door and the thing in your picture is the switch which opens and closes all the doors. I think I might remove the doors though. Its very hard to make readable doors in profile. I guess if the first door was right next to a switch and you saw it open, it would make sense though.

maybe like this



I cant do much for puzzle right now I think. I have bridges which can only be activated from one side, and the doors which all operate from the same switch.

[Edit:]

Hey guys. started on a 7 day game as a bit of a break and started making this



Try it Here

Controls:
Left arrow or A to move left
Right arrow or D to move right
Space or S for action

so basically you walk around trying to find the 4 lost discs, there are bridges to operate and door switches. pressing action next to them will allow you to operate them at the cost of 5 energy. if you run out of energy something in the dark gets you, and you start back at the beginning. the game doesn't have an end yet, but it will require you to get all 4 discs, and return them to the base up top (Not added yet). The Level is temporary and will not have any super complicated puzzles or anything (I might even remove the idea of door switches and make the game only about searching this strange place for the missing discs, giving the player this maze like structure, but telling a lot of the story through background set pieces.

Edit: I need any and all feedback. I can post the framing story if you like, and I also hope to be done by Saturday.

the transmat pads might be a little to sci-fi I think. but I could use those ideas, Like a Heavy wall that's lifted, by power and you have to move under.

[Rek]

Rek I actually thought about doing elevators and those could work very similar.

JMStark That's pretty much the plan at the moment, the Energy as a core theme. It slowly ticks down as you wander also. There are Generators that give you more energy though, but it sucks having to backtrack to one. This could change though, because I want to get that right feeling of watching your energy and running around looking for energy.

Most obstacles will probably be combinations of current things in the game; Doors, Bridges, and so on. I have done things where you come to a cross path and one door is open the other is closed meaning you have to solve one side then the other.

I think the next thing to add is a one way travel system that would be better for moving the player around. and allowing them to get around doors, but I havent thought of a good way to do it yet. Any Ideas?

Edit: I just remembered I added Bridges. They can be activated from either side. all I have to do is switch them so they can only be activated from one side. Should be an easy fix.

Hey guys. I started working on a 7 day game cause I needed a break from Microgue so I could come back with fresh eyes. Basically this was the idea I had.

You are exploring an abandoned asteroid looking for answers as to why everyone has died. There are monsters in the shadows, and the only thing keeping you safe is the light on your suit. sadly the battery slowly drains and to make matters worse, you will need the suit power to operate bridges, doors and other machines.


(Reused a lot of art for this)

so its mostly a simple horror themed metroidvania (although I like Fez's term of a Mystroidvania). Inspired by Alien and 2001: a Space Odyssey (Hence the suit)
as for controls its super simple. walk left, walk right, Action. action means you do what ever context sensitive thing is currently there; Climb a Ladder, Activate a switch, Etc. The player is not able to jump.

So what I need help with are ideas for obstacles. I already have a global door switch opening or closing every door. so I can lock off certain areas using it and force the player to take other routes. I also have bridges which require energy to activate although they only need it once.

I am also wondering if I should perhaps add puzzles almost like a fez style game, although I wonder if that might make take longer then 7 days. You cant see it in the shot, but I have small background things of a lighter grey, a crack in the wall, an exposed pipe, and I could use that to give hints or clues. Writing on the walls. Symbols needed for a Combination puzzle. stuff like that.

I have the entire engine done, and I can now use the Ogmo Editor to build the entire world, so world building is super fast and pretty much all I have left. I don't want the game to be huge and sprawling though, I want a claustrophobic feeling with the levels. and a gnarled twisting vibe like an Ant colony.

Okay, so this was a game that was on Tigsource, but i dont think it ever got finished. It was a metroidvania, where all sprites and tilemaps only used one color each. You were a yellow guy with a gun, and the it had health and weapon upgrades. it sort of looked like a ZX Spectrum game. it was called an acronym for a while and it stood for like generic sci fi or something. Any ideas?

yeah its pretty organic, trying tons of stuff and throwing out what doesn't work, the main problem is that it makes it very hard to get to far in the actual design, because of the layers needed to build up.

WRPG + Dance Game

You are a new hero who was born mute and can only speak through dance. use your amazing dance moves to defeat monsters and use the new "Dancilogue" system to choose how the story goes.

I should have a new build up this weekend. The game is going pretty good and the randomization feels pretty good, making each playthrough completely different. I have still have a lot of stuff I want to add to it, but I think a big question is knowing how much initial content to have in something. cause I could probably spend a year just adding new things, but its getting to a point where I really need to go ahead and release this game.

I mIght actually tint the player sprite. I am afraid that just the move would be to hard to see. It will tint purple like the enemies do when frozen.