next »

[I_smell]

The walk-run idea's great, thanks.

I haven't updated at all because a couple other people told me to use Astar pathfinding. So I researched it, understood it completely, and spent like the last 3 days throwing myself at a .fla and failing. I CANNOT get this to work at all. I give up, it's fucking impossible.

So anyway here's some example levels with my own shitty pathfinding that I can't fix.
Someone suggested I do the art isometric. It sucks to draw everything top-down, but I don't wanna be another Metal Gear ripoff, so I dunno if I should or not.

By the way I might aswell spit the story of this game at y'all- it's needlessly complex:
It's a few hundred years in a future and the earth's population is super big. People have spread out to colonise the sea n deserts n such. The game opens in the north pole where there's a few huge pyramids dotted about. Inside each one is a paradise city with digitally synthetic vacation skyline, simulated wheather effects, no crime, no homeless, it's great.
UNFORTUNATELY, underneath each city is a bigger underground colony of people who can't afford to live on the surface, and the aforementioned gypsies, tramps and thieves. They work the mines n run the generators that power the world up-top. It's all very heated n there's a load of slavery all that shite.
So this one miner digs up something top secret left behind from some old future-war: It's an Iron-Man stealth suit. He gets himself some attention and tries to start a revolution against the imperial surface. It fails and he gets thrown in jail. You have to break out and make your way up the imperial tower; basically be a guerrilla terrorist and fuck up the power for the better-privelaged long enough to kick-start some kind of revolution.

Long-story short, you have to get to the stairs every level.

[Greg Sergeant]

3 days......fucking impossible

wat

Ai is shaping up, i hope you do something more original than knocking on  walls, throwing pebbles, and armed guards in the final game!

Be cool to play as a serial killer or a giant spider, sneak upon my prey

[I_smell]

UPDATE

I now HAVE REAL PATHFINDING, which I'm really happy about. Someone at FlashGameLicense helped me out with it, it's still the hardest thing in the world. But yeah now I'm a lot more confident in this.

There's a couple more levels, but I've not really kicked it up to Go Time yet. Like this still feels like a prototype and I'm not sure when it'll start feeling like a game. What I usually do is draw all the characters n stuff first, but what can I even do with art here? This is really different than the Metal Slug, Streets of Rage-type stuff I usually make.

People are still suggesting I change it to be isometric. HERE'S A TEST OF THAT- Ignore how janky it is, it's just a test.
It looks slightly better, BUT it means I'd have to draw and animate everything at like 5 seperate angles, which would make the whole game take longer than I want it to.
And that's a really awkward angle to draw things in.

+I was afraid it'd seem like a Metal Gear ripoff if I did that, but it doesn't look like one so I think I'm safe on that.

Maybe I should draw it the same way I drew No Time To Explain, I dunno:

[RCIX]

Durr, your isometric test link goes to a road trip rampage video :S

[I_smell]

Durrrr sorry, fixed.

[Contrary]

I've got this stealth game in my head called "Future-Robin Hood".

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6MfisiGqtEM
plz use this as inspiration.

[I_smell]

I just did an art test that I like the look of:



if I can get the game to look like this and still work well, then that'd be great.
And I got the name from this goofy-ass song.

[I_smell]

YO IT'S ORTHOGONAL NOW.

Kind of annyoing cos I have to draw everything from like 8 different angles.
Everythin's a bit glitchy n jumpy right now cos I just flipped the script.

Kinda thinking now about how I should redesign the silver suit, and maybe the enemies.
Someone told me it looks too easy and I agree.

[Christian Knudsen]

Holy moley, you're making fast progress on this! Looks great!

[I_smell]

I added some levels where you need to unlock doors. This feels kinda cheap, but it adds a bit more to the levels in that you have to get from A to B, and then back to A. Which is really what stealth is all about I guess.
It's hard to come up with a good animation that says YOU USED THE COMPUTER AND UNLOCKED THIS DOOR! FUTURE SCIENCE! Right now I've got nothing.
You still can't knock out guards but I'm gonna introduce that like halfway through.
If you play through the game twice then you'll have all your abilities from the start so you can kinda go nuts.

Also I'm taking out the thing where you throw rocks. I only used it on like one level, and I'm not really dieing to use it again. Also nobody likes the interface for that fr some reason. So I'm just gonna get rid of it.

After a bit I'll add lasers, dark shadow stuff, and cameras that make swat teams invade the room if you get seen by em. But I wanna avoid anything weird for as long as possible.
I dunno, that's just how I do things. I don't wanna lean on gimmicks or anythin, y'know.

OH and I wanna add some collectibles that force you into bad situations if you wanna get em. I'm playin through Meat Boy right now, I beat the Light World like 3 weeks ago but I'm still lovin this game.

[Miguelito]

This looks wonderful. Can I say that art is really your strong suit?

If I were you, I'd capitalize on that: Use as few pop-up text as possible (like in that last screenshot) and try to convey things like "The door is locked, I need this" via the graphics only.

Red and green blinking lights, and thought bubbles for the protagonist. He has these big, cute eyes and is really perfect to empathize with.
 
Also, when you're manoeuvring through a stealth maze with enemies, you don't want any text boxes blocking your view either...

[mokesmoe]

You could have the door pop open when you use the terminal.

Collectibles sound like a good idea.

[caiys]

Just saw the video and the art style is really top notch.

I think I'd prefer it a lot more if the areas where a lot bigger and tackling guards from behind to snap their necks without being seen or heard was part of the core gameplay. I really loved the first Metal Gear Solid for this type of gameplay. The grey outfit doesn't strike me as very stealthy though.

[I_smell]

The areas will get bigger. I've got one level right now that stretches down slightly, and it's gonna get more complex as it goes.
I don't know how much bigger they'll get, cos I don't want people feeling like they don't wanna try a level again cos it's gonna take too long.

And neutralising guards is somethin I'm about to introduce. On the second playthrough you'll be given the ability from the start, and be challenged to knock out every guard on your way through the game.
I don't wanna give it out right from the start, cos then the game becomes walk in->-choke guard->-walk out->-repeat.

If I were you, I'd capitalize on that: Use as few pop-up text as possible (like in that last screenshot) and try to convey things like "The door is locked, I need this" via the graphics only.

Oh yeah I should do that. I usually do that straight away n avoid text. Don't know why I didn't here.

[VomitOnLino]

Glad to see you pulled through on the path-finding!

Also seconding the notion of the text-boxes. Keep them at a minimum or avoid them all together! I think it would be nice to communicate it visually and for things like passwords you could use a visual keypad that also could be used with either the mouse or keyboard.

I'd use message boxes only when the player seems to be stuck, in order to help him out (e.g. remains in one area longer than X minutes...)