Pushmo looks like my perfect kind of handheld puzzler. http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=dZ0crVzTqLw&t=3m58s

[Update]

Update

Scenery objects are now placeable and visible in the editor. I can't move or delete them yet, though.



The orange layers in the corner are the entity (just scenery at the moment) layers. The two green ones are foreground/background tiles. The middle grey one is the player, and the bottom grey one will be the background. The code's fairly flexible so I could easily add more layers if I need them. Another possibility is making them dynamic, so I can add extra layers on a per-room basis as I need them. It would make the editor code a little more awkward, but may be worthwhile doing.

I also made improvements to the materials system to make it more flexible. Materials can now have multiple graphical variations, which is selects from randomly for each tile. I can also add materials without all the features, for example the sand doesn't have wall or ceiling tiles.



It's working pretty well I think. The background rocks do look pretty awful at the moment, but the important thing is that they were a doddle to draw out. It's so much easier just painting out the shape of them without having to manually select every single tile, as with previous games I've made. Hopefully with a few more features in the material system I can get rocks that look better but that take no more effort to draw.

That AI is great fun. Game looks well sexay.

It is by dimps yeah. Can't decide if I like the look of it or not. They're totally different games though so I might end up getting both eventually.

The new demo is quite nice. A few tweaks to classic green hill since the first demo, and I enjoyed blasting through modern.

Some new firmware stuff announced:

http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2011-10-21-streetpass-mii-plaza-upgrades-detailed

Including photo messaging, hurrah!

Even if Grey is a real game, I'd prefer the first 3DS Pokémon to do the job properly rather than be a port of a DS one. It's a great opportunity to add the ability to walk diagonally.

Thanks guys. Fair point on the sand texture. It might look better if it was a little brighter too.

I might fill the background in with more stuff, to make the area more of a cave than a standard beach. Then it could feasibly have areas to explore above it and to the left.

[Update]

Update

Electric meter fixed, very happy.

More entity editing code. Quite a big task for evenings after work but I'm chipping away at it.

Started a beach mockup.



I'm not remotely working within the current limitations of the editor - the materials system etc. I figure it's better to be ambitious in the mockups and then maybe add features to the game to help achieve the desired effect.

[Update]

Thanks Mecha!

Update

Did a little bit of coding on scenery placement (eventually leading to more general entity placement). However, I also broke my electricity meter, and don't have my heating on in the interests of conserving the remaining credit, so I'm gonna go play Rock Band to warm up!

Might return later with a bit of sketching or maybe a mockup. I'm planning on concentrating on the first area of the game, the beach. I may actually use the jetski after all as Trixie's transport from the yacht to the island or wherever the game takes place.

Concentrating on one area seems like a decent short term goal. I'll get the scenery system and everything in place, and figure out a decent way of doing backgrounds, and hopefully get something nice out of it.

[Update]

I really like the name of the game, it's very catchy (the name alone has me hooked in).

Good to hear! A bit of alliteration never hurts.

Update

Further worked on how the layer system integrates into the editor and rendering. Trixie now draws between the two tile layers.



Did a bit more aimless sketching. The jetski doesn't have anything to do with the game, just a bit of fun.

Thanks

I don't have many details or plans for audio yet, though I have a friend who usually does my music and effects who's fairly likely to be working on this too. I never deal with audio this early in a project though. Keep an eye on this thread for when I eventually get round to it though!

I couldn't resist doing a bit more work this evening. Had a pretty awesome time listening to pogo and sketching.


(click for massive)

Couple of potential 'bad guys'. They're not really bad guys, they're just a little bitter because Trixie and Troy are better at treasure tracking than they are.

No idea if they'll fit into this game's style and play mechanics, but they can always wait for a future game.

[Update]

Well last week was a bit of a write-off. Finally got a day off though, so it's been productivity city.

Update

Made the material and scenery palettes functional. You can select scenery though you can't actually place any of that yet.





I wrote a quick rectangle-packing algorithm to fit as many materials / scenery bits / whatever on screen as possible. It's not really been tested yet though as I only have four materials.

I also moved all the tile stuff into a TileLayer class, and now have a couple of layers. This also paves the way for doing entity layers and suchlike.



Obviously the final background tiles will be more interesting than just blue-coloured foreground tiles.

Also added a bit of layer display UI to the editor, which will eventually show the current layer and have visibility options. (You can see it greyed out in the bottom-right of the editor screenies above).

Happy to be back on the case!

No Harley love? Cool sprites though.

The graphics make me feel a bit ill really. I think it's all the smoothed normals on the geometry, barely a sharp edge anywhere. And the muddy textures.



Could do with more difference in colour between the foreground and background too. I suppose they're relying on the 3D effect to differentiate stuff.

[Update]

Update

Just sketching tonight! Trixie oversleeps on the day of the expedition.



I hate it when people lean on my chair, but Troy puts up with it.

[Day 18]

Day 18

• some rough ideas for the game environment.

Raw notes:

World: A large castle / frozen mountain environment. Game starts at sea level with a mixture of old castle walls, tundra environment, floating ice bergs. slowly moves "up hill" abd transitions to larger castle structures, perilous mountain environments, and dangerous areas that are mostly ice. For variety, you will find glowy blue ice caverns, castle interiors, and more recently built structures. I have been inspired by the environments of games like Ico and Another World which are extremely cohesive rather than going for lots of aesthetic variety.

Theme: For the environment I want to mix elements of traditional medieval environments (the castle) with inspiration taken from personal experience in northwest US. Places such as Alaska, Rocky Mountains, and Yellowstone National Park. Drawing inspiration from north american wildlife such as Elk and Bison for creature design. I want to address an issue in games where creatures always feel like clear design obstacles to overcome rather than actual living creatures.  My hope is to capture the genuine feeling of surprise and wonder when you see an animal in the wild, and hopefully a sense of danger too. There will be animals that you interact with to help you progress through environments without killing them, but rather just causing a reaction from them.

A single monster in the game that persists through the whole experience. Largely inspired by the Tuunbaq creature from the excellent novel the Terror. Never fully seen and represents the feeling of being lost in a dangerous environment rather than just being a blatant boss monster.

Traversal depends on Wanda's climbing tools - mainly ice picks and a grappling hook. This is my main current goal for prototyping. Want to get some version that working and hopefully find a fun traversal system.

Mixing in modern technology in the environment for areas like save spots, map rooms, and equipment enhancements. The environment is an ancient ruin, and a major expedition happened here a few decades ago from which no one returned. Their outposts still dot the environment and the player slowly retraces their steps throughout the game. (Spoiler: it was probably the monster that killed them all, but really it was due to their own stupidity and stubborness)

Scrambling up the side of icy surfaces and rock walls using the spike boots and ice picks. Smooth, contextual transition between types of traversal that leads to a feeling of engaging flow and mastery. Scramble up wall, jump into open air, use grappling hook to *just* make that jump across to the other pillar.

Death is always handled leniently. If you fall to your death or get killed, you are returned to somewhere that feels like you don't have to redo a section you have already completed or mastered. Perhaps a system with flares that light up and give off smoke to indicate a save/spawn point.

Not depicting violent deaths of characters. I really want to get away from needless portrayal of violence in games. I want the game to still have tension so you care about your decisions, but I don't want to show lots of gory deaths like Limbo. My overall hope with games is deeply inspired by Jenova Chen. I want to contribute themes and feelings in games that aren't often explored, and the main theme of this game is exploring the feeling of memory as time moves on and memories slip away from you. I want to take that idea and interpret it visually in the way the environment evolves and create a bittersweet feeling of life moving forward.

Might play more with the theme of memory and time with some environments that are a bit more surreal. Extremely inspired by this album and how it explores memory:
http://soundcloud.com/alteredzones/sets/the-caretaker-an-empty-bliss

That ticks tons of boxes for me!

[Update]

Update

Well, work is indeed crunch-tastic so I'm rather tired. But I want to keep this alive, so I did a little work on the editor.



Started the palette for selecting materials, scenery objects, and who knows what else in the future. As is traditional in all my editors, it'll be shown by holding Tab.

Cool, the more the merrier! And it can get quite merry.

Edit - not wishing to imply that we get ridiculously wasted.

Yeah I'd like to get some wildlife in there too. Not given it a lot of thought yet though.

Looks like this week at work will be a crunchy one, so my productivity may suffer yet again.

[Update]

Update

Today I improved and refactored some of the code, working towards adding scenery entities. I added some scenery to my previous mockup.



All of the bushes and stuff would be individually placed. Scenery will also have the ability to animate.

I've decided that the day-night cycle that I did a quick prototype of near the start of the project isn't feasible. I didn't have any gameplay ideas for it, so it's not a great loss. I just decided that I'd rather spend the time adding more variation and details to the scenery, instead of coming up with four different palettes for everything in the game.