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[Arnaud DE BOCK]

Can't wait to try it!
Really love the graphic style!

[horsman]

This game looks super rad.

[Alchiggins]

Again, thank you all for the praise.

Here's a bunch of new screens, finally including some from the game's "real" world.

I've been experimenting with framing the character off-center in each screen, instead of putting him straight in the middle. Any thoughts?

Dream world, giant:


Dream world, re-did much of the graphics for the ruined village:
(I know, the shadow looks weird in that one spot, I already fixed it.)


Real world, office building:


Real world, metro:


Real world, at the desk:

[Alchiggins]

Alright, so I'm playing around with the idea of making the game a bit "gamier." As it currently stands, the game consists entirely of exploration and dialogue trees - there isn't much interactivity besides that. Now I'm considering throwing a handful of dungeons in there to spice things up.

Part of the reasons that I originally wanted to make the game (mostly) dungeon-and-combat free was because I wanted to make an interactive story that could be enjoyable without traditional gameplay just because it hasn't been done enough, but I also wanted to make the game more accessible to non-gamers. I thought that, by removing a lot of the challenge but keeping a lot of the decision-making, that non-gamers wouldn't be intimidated by the game. Boy, was I wrong.

I had my non-gamer dad try out the game, and he struggled just to navigate the game world. He kept running into walls and the edges of cliffs expecting to move through them somehow. He also failed to distinguish identify what parts of the game world were important to interact with, and which were not. Nobody else who's played the game so far have had these troubles.

I never realized how many conventions in games there are that we take for granted - stuff like not being able to move in cutscenes, etc. As much as I tried for it not to be, Waker is a game designed for someone with a gamer's intuition. As a gamer myself (obviously), there's no getting around that.

So, yeah, I've come to realize that non-gamers are going to struggle with it, whether it's challenging or not, and after playing Anodyne and re-playing Cave Story, I've been craving to attempt to design some clever dungeons. Still, part of me wants to make something fun without resorting to traditional gameplay just because people don't do it enough.

Not sure what to do - thoughts?

[rundown]

I wouldn't place the character in the middle of the screen either, you could really capture some feelings with that. Like when the person would stand near something dangerous, or he saw something from a distance.

And for the "gamier" part. I suggest to highlight your objects. Not that mutch. Even a certain collor would do. Just look at different games. Like mirrors edge for example. Everything you want to interact with is red for instance. In other games the interactive things are less ambiant collored.

Anyway, you seem to have a nice build here at hand. Good luck!

[NickGlowsinDark]

Hah, I know exactly what you mean when you're describing the difficulty in adjusting a game's "intuition level" for different gaming abilities.  I'm working on something that's got a little more action in it, and after tearing my hair out watching my "not-very-gamer" friends die over and over, I decided to introduce a difficulty setting.  Even so, my "Meatboy-speedrun-enthusiast" gamer friends still blow through it and hardly pay any attention to the story at all, and I'm struggling to find a happy medium.
I went back to your blog and followed the link to BetaFish; I love your article on notgames!  I'll be keeping an eye on your devlog, but I'd like to read more about the technical development of your game, like the issue you mention here with your father.
Also, the bit where the graphics look very stark and unfinished in the "real world,"  I hope you'll be keeping that, and it's not just some leftover prototyping-graphics.  That's a really neat mechanic, and makes me think of the Wizard of Oz.
As for discriminating between "important" objects and just background stuff, one thing I remember looking for in other games is a stark black line around the object.  Ever play any of the old King's Quests, or other similar point-n-clicks?  You could always tell when an object was something you were supposed to click on, because it was just drawn differently.  Higher color saturation, black border- something about it just made it seem more "alive."  The highlighted thing rundown mentioned is also a possibility.  Maybe a faint "glow" that outlines the object when you come within X pixels of it.  The color red in Mirror's Edge and the color yellow in Dead Space made it obvious when you should be focusing on something important on the screen, but you could always go with something a bit more subtle.

[Alchiggins]

I wouldn't place the character in the middle of the screen either, you could really capture some feelings with that. Like when the person would stand near something dangerous, or he saw something from a distance.

I've already made it so that the character is off-center in nearly every screen.

And for the "gamier" part. I suggest to highlight your objects. Not that mutch. Even a certain collor would do. Just look at different games. Like mirrors edge for example. Everything you want to interact with is red for instance. In other games the interactive things are less ambiant collored.

As for discriminating between "important" objects and just background stuff, one thing I remember looking for in other games is a stark black line around the object.  Ever play any of the old King's Quests, or other similar point-n-clicks?  You could always tell when an object was something you were supposed to click on, because it was just drawn differently.  Higher color saturation, black border- something about it just made it seem more "alive."  The highlighted thing rundown mentioned is also a possibility.  Maybe a faint "glow" that outlines the object when you come within X pixels of it.  The color red in Mirror's Edge and the color yellow in Dead Space made it obvious when you should be focusing on something important on the screen, but you could always go with something a bit more subtle.

I've been making it so that individual interactable objects stand-out, but I haven't been thinking in terms of communicating to the player about an object's interactability in a more general way. Thanks for getting me thinking about that.

Anyway, you seem to have a nice build here at hand. Good luck!

Thanks! Appreciate it.

I went back to your blog and followed the link to BetaFish; I love your article on notgames!  I'll be keeping an eye on your devlog, but I'd like to read more about the technical development of your game, like the issue you mention here with your father.

Thanks! I'll keep that in mind. I haven't written much about Waker's development in a while. I've mostly been adding new content that I want to keep secret, but if I can think of something interesting to write about, I'll do it.

Also, the bit where the graphics look very stark and unfinished in the "real world,"  I hope you'll be keeping that, and it's not just some leftover prototyping-graphics.  That's a really neat mechanic, and makes me think of the Wizard of Oz.

Those graphics are here to stay! I wanted to make the two worlds as different as I could without disorienting the player. Also gives me an excuse to use simpler graphics and save some time. :p

Hah, I know exactly what you mean when you're describing the difficulty in adjusting a game's "intuition level" for different gaming abilities.  I'm working on something that's got a little more action in it, and after tearing my hair out watching my "not-very-gamer" friends die over and over, I decided to introduce a difficulty setting.  Even so, my "Meatboy-speedrun-enthusiast" gamer friends still blow through it and hardly pay any attention to the story at all, and I'm struggling to find a happy medium.

It's a challenge. Since most of Waker's difficulty comes from just being able to find things, and make the right choices (when there is a "right choice"), I can't really adjust the difficulty to meet the differing abilities of players.

I've ultimately decided to add a little dungeoneering in there, but the player can fail it and still complete the game - they might just get a less desirable ending to the game. This seems like a fair compromise to keep the game accessible while appeasing those of us who want a little bit of action.

[Alchiggins]

The project's not dead, but I've had to put it on the side for the past month for the sake of college. Starting next week, development should resume, and I'll have enough free time to put serious effort into it again. I'm aiming to have the game halfway complete by the beginning of summer, with a playable demo of that half for all of you to check out. So stay tuned!

Wrote a blog entry about the current state of the game a while back. It's here if you missed it.

Also, I've been thinking about renaming the game. "Waker" by itself is sort of awkward to say, and when I tell people about the game, they ask me what a "waker" is, and so I try to explain the game's lore, and it sounds dumb because it's original fantasy lore. So, I've been thinking about either renaming it to "The Last Waker" or "Wakers and Dreamers." I think the second one works better since it sort-of explains what a Waker is in the title itself, and the first one is a bit too... blockbuster-y, for lack of a better word. On a purely aesthetic level, do you think that "Wakers and Dreamers" is a good title?