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[Peevish]

UPDATE

8-Bit Funding Page

Since this devlog began, OEM has been through 2 coders. minasss got a full-time job, so he left the project and Fareed took over. We scrapped the Python engine and started building in FlashPunk. Then Fareed got a full-time job and left the project. By that point Game Maker Mac had come out, so I started learning it and am, for the time being at least, making the game by myself.

What is it?

It's a low-res adventure game with 4 characters. It's being built simultaneously on Windows and Mac in Game Maker, so far by just me, but I'll probably enlist help for certain parts of the game.



The game relishes in the specifics: it takes place in the San Francisco Bay Area, with each location so far being adapted from real locations and neighborhoods. The city, much of the world in fact, is now occupied by the titular monsters. They live, they have friendships, they have insecurities, they have hobbies, they pass the time, they laugh and cry and sleep and make things.

They also eat humans whenever they can catch them.



Human society is mostly gone, which means the water is running cleaner, the hole in the ozone layer is slowly healing itself, and endangered species populations are on the rise. What's left of humanity is mostly young people from 10 to 30; older, slower people are the first to get eaten.

How Does It Play?

You control four main characters:

     

Sebastian, Tek, Marshall, and Julie. They live in several shipping containers in the West Oakland shipyards. They live by scrounging canned and dried foods out of abandoned shopping centers, and occasionally bartering their supplies with other survivors for other resources. Each character has their own unique skills and personalities that you mediate between.

It does not play like a traditional adventure game. It also does not look like a traditional adventure game. And the plot is not going where you think it's going.

Who Is Working Has Worked On It?

minasss worked on the first, Python-based engine.
Fareed worked on the second, Flash-based engine.
Aquanoctis has made a bunch of beautiful concept art.
Sparky has worked on backgrounds.
Everything else, from writing to art to the current Game Maker build, has been me.



How Far Along Are You?

So close, and yet so far.

The core mechanics for character control are complete and working, so from here I move into prototyping puzzles.

The game is to be released in several short-ish installments, both to serve the way the story is told and to keep any one part of the game from being too big to complete.



Anything Else?

There's a production journal over at oneeyedmonsters.wordpress.com. It's updated on Fridays and whenever else I find something to say. There's also this recruitment video I made some time back, always still relevant! http://vimeo.com/4063669

Fire away with any questions you may have. We'll be updating a lot.



Cheers!

[LazyWaffle]

I gotta say, man, this looks awesome.

[adam a]

It looks pretty cool, I like the idea of using all the real world details in the game especially, there's something intriguing about that. The setting in general seems pretty inventive. I like that pixelly monster too, he doesn't seem that scary, he seems like a bit of a thinks-before-he-eats type.

Looking forward to the demo.

[george]

I love, love, love the story. Keeping one eye on this.

[Peevish]

Well that's about as friendly as one could expect the first comments to be, thanks all! Adam, you've pretty much hit nail-to-head there, that's the kind of look we're going for. Though "she" would be closer to accurate.

[Hockey kid]

I love the style of the illustration better than the pixel art.
Better colors too.

[Peevish]

All the pixel art is mine, whereas Aquanoctis has been doing the concept art. The character art is pretty final but that monster art is all stand-in. I myself am kind of proud of how it came out, but it's unlikely that's how the final art will look. I dunno folks, who else likes the more muted palette?

Also, Sparky's find background sketch, to be colored soon (click for full-size):

[Peevish]

You'll not see the characters at this resolution in the game, but here's some of Ryan's character concepts:









Also also! We're looking for some additional coding. Everything's in Python and Pyglet, we'd love to expand the fam.

[Aquanoctis]

Oh god, I wish I hadn't drawn them in such horribly stiff and awkward poses...

[AndroidScholar1]

Oh god, I wish I hadn't drawn them in such horribly stiff and awkward poses...

They look fine - allows you to work more on their appearance without the distraction of their pose. Could always just do accompanying sketches later on.

This game looks great so far. The RL setting mixed with fantasy is pretty nice - there was some game a couple years back that tried to do it but ending up being a bad game overall, then of course there was Darksiders that did it this year that proved stylistic graphics mixed with nearer to realistic detail on the environment works great. Good to see others are trying to go for this approach too

Can't wait for the demo / first release

[Peevish]

Wazoo!

Mass of updates:

-OEM & Francesco went in different directions, I wish Francesco all the best and thank him for the time he spent on building an engine in Python.

-OEM left Python for Unity!

-OEM has a new coder, Fareed, who is rocking my socks.

-I am learning UnityScript, which means learning a lot more about coding syntax in general.

-OEM has quite likely left Unity for Flash. Still picking the best option, still probably going to use Unity for prototyping, but we're eyeing FlashPunk for the final build.

-Esperiments: Rough Lighting Idea (suggested by Sparky); Super-Basic Pathfinding (2nd iteration)

-Mass of updates to the blog: oneeyedmonsters.wordpress.com

[Peevish]

Question:

What do you folks think is the most pleasing aspect ratio?

When faffing about in Unity I turned on the 16:9 setting and liked it a lot; I'm a film studies geek, so it's understandable, that's widescreen. Here are a few crops of Sparky's background:

320x240 (4:3)


320x180 (16:9)


400x225 (16:9)


400:180 (20:9)


I'm kinda leaning towards the 320x180 actually; I think going a little shorter will make it easier to focus on your four 16-pixel-tall protagonists. More headroom = lazier eye.

But what do you think? What are people's opinions on aspect ratio?

Here's the whole image, uncropped.

[Oddball]

I make most my games 16:9 these days, but that's because I prefer having the black bands top and bottom when the screen is a different aspect ratio. I've used 800x450 a lot and never had any complaints, or had anyone comment on it for that matter, and my latest offering will be 400x225. To be honest though I don't think it's that much of an issue with the general consumer. I think most are used to a variety of ratios and will happily accept whatever aspect a game runs in.

[Peevish]

Right, so since I can basically run with whatever ratio, I'm trying to balance what's aesthetically pleasing to me and what's suitable given the small character size. 180 vertical pixels makes the characters taller, proportionately, than 240 vertical pixels.

[Peevish]

If anyone wants to hear me expound on why I think games are good for telling sophisticated stories, head over to the One-Eyed Monsters blog: http://oneeyedmonsters.wordpress.com/

We're working on the camera system of late. Pathfinding, character selection, and entering/exiting rooms are all successes. Much tuning to be done but let's get the basics all working first.