Alright, thanks Ashkin and Mr. LL!
I know it's only the screen editor at this point, but it's a pretty central part of the game, and I really want to make sure it's intuitive enough to use. Especially with height as part of it now.
Anyway, I should have all of the elements into the editor shortly, and then I'll shoot you two over a quick build.
This sounds so frickin sweet, I'm keeping a close eye on this thread. Also, the graphics looks super, I love the unorthodox color palette you're using!
Heh, thanks!
I'm actually using a palette I made that includes a bunch of unusual color gradients, just to try to break myself out of dependency on some of the more "safe" colors I would otherwise choose. I'm still not very good at it, though.
Is there an idea as to how many different items and bosses (if that's to be a thing)we will have? I remember designing some parts of a dungeon around having an item from a previous dungeon in the original Birdy World (said item being the item that let you swim) and having fun with that so yeah. I figure you'd add more boss variety. Maybe it could vary depending on dungeon location? Which brings up another question, will there be a way to implement dungeon puzzles and different dungeon themes according to where the dungeon is placed? (Like a dungeon placed in water may be water themed, while a dungeon placed in a mountainous area may be fire/lava themed or mine-themed. Something like that.)
I definitely will want themed dungeons, complete with (hopefully) enemies, traps, and bosses to fit, but I'm still toying around with concepts for the dungeon structure/sequence, as a whole.
My plan right now is to have multiple animal/character types that you can choose from at the beginning of each new world. Say, from 4 different species (selected each round from 6). Each of the different animal types starts from a different starting point (a sort of temple devoted to that animal), and possesses from the start a unique ability (this part would make things a little tricky...) Ideally, the different teams would be able to "claim" screens by finding the treasure in each one (each screen's ownership would go to whichever team had the most players travel there and find the treasure). In a claimed screen, maybe enemies wouldn't be able to hurt the reigning team? I dunno, it's an idea... It would hopefully support a sense of "home base", and maybe a bit of competition.
Anyway, in order to earn another animal team's ability, you have to go to their temple at their starting point, and go through a dungeon there, which would be constructed by the other three teams, just as normal.
I've been weighing the pros and cons of this idea for a while, and still can't decide if I like it. On the plus side, it would mean splitting up the players, initially, maybe giving them a little more room to sprawl. It might offer a sense of competition in fighting over territory, at least farther away from each team's home, where fewer players would travel. It would give each team a different ability to play with right from the start, and limit the core abilities that you get to the more useful/interesting ones (which I'd pick for each team). Plus, it would ensure that these dungeons would be far enough away from one another, in what would hopefully seem an alien environment.
The drawbacks, though, would be that there'd no longer be the sense of camaraderie of everyone working towards a new dungeon, then filling it out and choosing a power at the end; it would sort of interfere with the whole "the game is directed by the players" feel that the first one was all about (though, actually I could add in "to be discovered" dungeons in addition to the "other team's temple" dungeons, if I can manage it without over-complicating things...) And balancing/restricting each team's powers against one another could potentially be a nightmare. What's to stop the team that can swim from surrounding their temple with water? (I actually do have a few ideas, but they all seem awfully confusing...)
Anyway, like I said, I'm playing with ideas for the whole structure of the game. Hopefully I'll come up with a nice compromise by the time I need to implement it.
Developer
