Opposites Attract

Opposites Attract

Author: Paul "GiffE" Gifford (and anyone else who wishes to help Wink

)
Genre: Puzzle/Platformer
Technology: DirectX9, irrKlang, (Future release will include Box2D)
Platform: Windows Only (possibly later I'll wrap it for mac, linux, and mobile with opengl)

Elevator Pitch: The player is electro-magnetically charged and you can push or pull yourself or objects around the game world. So far death is only caused by water (which fries you till you explode)

Story: Magnus Magnetsson III, falls in love with the scullery maid. Appalled at this, Arch-Duke Magnus Magnetsson II (the father) sends the maid to work at the bottom of the Magnetica Mines, knowing such a place would be too dangerous for his son to follow her, giving their unique family trait of being magnetically charged....little does he realize just how strong the pull can be when 'Opposites Attract'! (BIG Thank's to RamSteelwood for this story concept!)

Current Public Game Revision #: 32 (Download)
Current Public Editor Revision #: 16

Design Hopes

Here I will write freeform thoughts and hopes I had to include in the final game. I will update and remove them as I go:

While currently there are only 1 type of magnet (Static ones on walls that pull you) I hoped to create more types of them. The first being a moving one that you can pull/push yourself onto to get past certain things.
The other magnet type being a huge block which you can pull or push around (stack on top of one another) to get up higher. I also hoped to make it so the those blocks and press down on buttons which hold doors open.
On a side note of doors: I will be creating a "logic gate" so the level can require both switch/buttons, (or,xor, and not gates as well)

Another mechanic I thought of would be a charge negating field. Where it renders your ability, or perhaps just 1 type of charge (just positive or instance) to useless when you are inside it.

Log

3-11-2012 - Revision 32,16
First I must start off saying this project was started for my university, I will be working on it after the semester is over however. I wish to finish it or a large chunk of it by May 2012 so I can enter it in my Uni's game programming competition. (This year I'm entering a group project which will take up the better half of April and May to make)

This is my first 'DevLog' here at TIGSource (love this site by the way), but I did wish to show you guys my project and get some feedback on the game as I go. I will periodically post some of the (VERY!) early builds, but as the game starts to takes shape I'm going to have to apologize for holding off on giving it out for free. Being the poor college student I am I wish to capitalize on my work. I'll probably have a very cheap pre-order/donate & play beta similar to the minecraft business model. I've always been a fan of the "Release Early and Often" mentality.

That's it for my "business" prelude, I just figured I laid out my intentions so no one gets the wrong idea when I stop posting builds. Now onto development progress!

Since the video (build 28 below) I've added a few things (which are not necessarily finished:

A "Sign" entity which lets the level editor place a sign down which displays text when the player walks on it.
This can be used for story, instructions, and environments
The Maid Sprite with idle animations.
A cutscene "script" (not functioning yet) but it parses and animates cutscene script files in this format
Renamed Project to "Opposites Attract"
Added a commandline "-map mapname" parameter which lets you boot the game directly to that map.
The level editor now has a "test" button which saves and boots the game to that map
The level editor also now has "save" and "save as" features as well as hot keys for each of those functions.
I started creating a "tutorial" level which will show and explain how to play.
Finally I added checkpoint and endpoint entities, however they do not do anything yet as death as not been done yet.

3-15-2012 - Revision 34,17
Don't all jump out of your seat at once with feedback! Undecided

The major change is I added a new magnet type.
The block magnet can be pushed and pulled around, in the tutorial map so far I just used it to get to a higher location which the player could otherwise not jump to.
I hope to create a button which it can hold down to keep doors open. Also they have no collision with each other at the moment.

Screens and Video

Here's some development builds of the game to give you a grasp of whats going on. And what kinda progress I've made.

Videos in Reverse Chronological Order:
Build 34 (shows tutorial map so far and new magnetic blocks):

Build 28:

Build 22 (Just after adding static magnets):

Build 17 (VERY early! Just after collision detection was added):

Screens:
The "Sign" entity, displays text that the level editor desires.

Along side the game I'm working on a level editor to provide users and any artists in my team (just me...) the ability to create their own maps easily.

Thanks for taking the time to read all this!

I welcome all criticism, just note the audio will ALL have to for release. I do not own the rights to them and they are just place holder content. (The sounds were commented on in the "Name clinic" thread so I figured I'd point that out here)