[Things are happening]

arrgg

Things are happening to get in the way of this game, and I am letting them happen. This game has been on hiatus for a few days; the breathing platformer will happen -- just, you know, maybe really slowly. Heh. Sorry.

Oh, also I'm going to re-plan the map out. Right now my plan is sprawling out of control and I'd really like to just keep it nice and simple.

There's a very visible effect that comes up the moment you enter the water; don't worry about that! A timer sounds like it could be nice, though.

I was thinking about the delay but that gives the player too much warning when I want to be a jerk :D

Working on maps, unsure if it's better to have a freeform sort of setup or a more linear path.

Freeform/wandery?

Path with branches?

Path with branches that return to the main path?

Path with branches that conclude in dead ends? (I did this for 100th)


Currently the map has a few paths you only have one chance to take; I'm not sure if I want to promote excessive backtracking but I also don't want to lock the player into a path if that makes sense. hrm

I have a wonderful obstacle for slowing the player down, and as an added bonus it's done in a startling, demoralizing, and unexpected way.

I'll probably be adding some more, though, and those are really good ideas!


I think I was always really bad at holding my breath during movies D: I was glad I did not have to do what those people did.

supershigi thanks for the input also :3 I like the likening this to aspects of horror games and now I feel like I have to involve that somehow.


On the topic of real life challenges, I've been considering things like additional instructions that could strain breath:

'Say Open Sesame before opening this door'

I don't think I'll do it but it was an interesting thought.

Okay I have to say I saw this some time back and it's looking awesome and I do not think it clashes too much with the more pixelated style of the foreground; it looks awesome.

Actually, while it's fine compared with the foreground I have a small problem with how the background (mountains) looks against it. I'd really like to see this in motion though -- this game seems to have a lot of motion and it's important.

Hmm. This is good points.

And I think I should return focus to my original thought of:

Don't give rewards -- but drop the player into shockingly bad situations at unexpected times, or make easy-looking situations suddenly worse than expected. Create panic around breath-holding; if someone's already following the rule, they're likely to want to keep following it. If they don't care anyway, well, who cares?


Thanks for keeping me on track, guys :3

Maybe I'll just make a bunch of set pieces (dead machines) as minimal rewards that look kinda cool -- but are also rewarding just because you fought your hardest to get there.

[The following won't be happening:]

The following won't be happening:

Alright, so for some real devlog stuff, I've been thinking about some solutions to problems I've been having.

---> PROBLEM: How to reward the player for going out of their way to do things? I don't want to have gems/jewels that just count up a number, because that's kind of boring. Completionists can get a kick out of it, but I'm not particularly excited by it!

---> SOLUTION?: Rather than just 'look you found a cool place!' I'd like to reward the player with abilities or game-relevant things. Unfortunately: there are no enemies at the moment. Should I change that? Even if I do, I'm not convinced I can come up with enough game-relevant things.

---> SOLUTION!: Deactivated machines will be located underwater. The whole game will be filled with a bunch of these machines, and while submerged they're useless. I'm going to add some more mundane ones (doors), but the general idea is that the cave, while littered with jewels and stuff, also houses some kind of larger machine that is made up of several parts. I'm not entirely sure what they'll do, but... goddamn, is there going to be some kind of subgame made up of interaction with these machines?


Anyway, if you have any cool ideas I'd love to hear 'em O: I might be implementing some kind of hacking interface -- the natural 'cave' is already oddly littered with mechanisms (drains, faucets). It'd be cool to explain that; to eventually explain it rather than let it fall under 'game logic'! Of course, the ultimate goal would be to 'wake up' the entire big machine and then figure out its inner puzzle.


Originally I was considering a town that you could return to (and the game would save itself) but somehow this machine idea is making me feel better. And shit. The player's going to be a robot now :/ I guesss I've never actually done that before, but it still feels overdone. OH WELL


(There will probably be a secondary goal related to just getting rich as balls and running away with all the jewels. Forget the cavemachine's problems! Get rich!)

You better be able to knock them over and watch them struggle to get back up again :D

Sorry about the ragequitting, poe.

It seems worth mentioning that 100th is no longer exclusive, and it was even frontpaged on newgrounds! yaaay.

Tumetsu I just always, always use spritefonts and an efficient little class I wrote

but oh god FontStruct looks beautiful

Well that's up to the player :3

If you take the route that facilitates such, probably not more than 30 seconds, if that that.

Oh- unless you just take the quick way to the end I spose!


---> But to be clear, there will be opportunities to hold your breath for much longer.

xD Amazing story

moi, but do they do that until they pass out

... aside from those who mean to o.o

 

Excellent. Unique fonts for all!

inhale, exhale!

is it weird that I make a new font for every game o_o

(is this the right place? this thread is Art, right?)

(also does anyone happen to want a font? i like making them.)

There may be some good reason

Ran out of space ):

It's grammatically correct, if slightly harder to understand.

Yes. That's a good point. The one person who was confused about this did not see the disclaimer, so. We'll see.

This picture is now the entirety of the first post.

It is the first room of the game, and I think it sums up the instructions rather nicely.

Do you think there's anything I should say to be clearer?

Oh my god what seriously

<3

I was thinking about the mic thing, but wouldn't that also just pick up noise around them too?

Also, breathing out while underwater is totally fine, and it would be really tough to differentiate.

It'd kind of suck to have the thing accidentally get set off is what I'm saying >:


(definitely gonna have some kind of disclaimer like these x3)