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[theSoupSmith]

Most recent video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j734Q4cjC1Q&feature=youtu.be

Well I have been lurking here long enough, I think it is time to finally put down the compiler for a moment and start the devlog for my current/first project:

Concept
On the most basic level, Crescent is a mashup of Pokemon and Asteroids. Crystals of varying colors are released by blowing up asteroids. The player then uses those crystals to unlock more playable creatures, or level up the creatures they already have access to.

Crystals
Most of Crescent's game-play revolves around crystals. Players collect these by blasting asteroids and flying over them if they appear. They are central to the mechanics of the game, and act as currency, exp, score, and player health. They come in six colors: Green, yellow, orange, red, purple and blue; Each corresponding to a different "sector" of the nebula that the game takes place in. The most immediate benefit of collecting a crystal is that it heals the creature if they share a color. Secondly, the collected crystal's value is added to the player's score which can then spent on a variety of things.

Creatures
Where other 2d space shooters have the player piloting ships, in Crescent they command giant space dwelling animals! Throughout the game, the player will encounter various creatures which they can then unlock with crystal points once they have defeated that creature a requisite number of times. Common creatures might take a few hundred kills before they can be unlocked while rare creatures might only require a single defeat before becoming available.

Powers
Each creature has a list of powers that unlock as the creature is enhanced by the player. Some creatures are able to use the powers of others once they have been unlocked, so it encourages players to upgrade each creature they find even if they don't plan on using it. Once unlocked the ability can be mapped to one of five button slots, giving the player control over how their creature plays.

Powers also act as equipment of sorts, and provide passive bonuses just for being assigned to a button. (Adding a special dash might increase the creature's base speed for example) This allows players to customize their creatures as they progress, and mix and match as they experiment with what best fits their play style.

Creature Health
Each creature is associated with at least one color, and is healed whenever a crystal of that color is acquired. However creatures of the same color share a health bar, so if one bar runs out the player will have to switch to a creature that feeds off a different type of crystal. This causes Crescent to feature a "six tier health bar" which is always visible regardless of what color creature is currently being controlled. Some creatures have multiple colors, meaning they take damage twice as fast! This isn't entirely a bad thing, as creatures gain bonus crystal points when they gather a crystal that shares one of their colors.

The Nebula
The game takes place in a vibrant, life-filled nebula that happens to be in the shape of a crescent. The nebula is made up of six distinct sectors, each associated with a different crystal color. Asteroids within a sector are more likely to contain crystals of that sector's color, making creatures more powerful when they are in their own habitat.

Well that about wraps up the concepts of the game. Please stay tuned for more dev-loggish updates, and let me know what you think as the project progresses!

[JobLeonard]

That sounds awesome. When you say living and vibrant, do you mean a (simplistic) ecological simulation? I would love to see a game where you just drift around and can watch the other animals do their thing.

[theSoupSmith]

First Update
OK So I just posted the concept, but I wanted to add some of the technical development stuff as well!

I am developing Crescent for XBOX and PC using the XNA framework. I do both the art and the programming, which is why the graphics are so simple.

Progress
The "feel" of the game has been fleshed out, and the core concepts have stopped shifting. The collision engine has been refined to a point I am happy with, and objects can be added and controlled rather easily.

My most recent accomplishment was getting the first bit of enemy AI into the game. I put together a small video in which you can see my hapless turtle being chased by space lobsters here:





I am very happy with the "swimming" effect I was able to achieve, and look forward to having the time to script out some other creature behaviors soon as well.

Next Goal
Currently the unlocking/upgrading system is nonexistant, and I really want to get it at least partially in place before I put together a polished trailer. This will require a fair amount of work on the creature selection menu, as well as some blurbs to be written about each creature currently in the game. (Not many yet!)

Please let me know what you think of the video link posted above! It is of rather poor quality as I just used the free version of Fraps to record it... but free is a very good price!

[theSoupSmith]

That sounds awesome. When you say living and vibrant, do you mean a (simplistic) ecological simulation? I would love to see a game where you just drift around and can watch the other animals do their thing.

That is part of the goal. The world works in "zones" (kind of like how rooms in the older Zelda games work). Each zone wraps around on itself, but the player can open gateways to the neighboring areas by pressing the R-Shoulder button. I have toyed with the idea of one large seamless world, and once I start getting feedback I might move in that direction (no pun intended!)

Each zone has its own creatures doing their own thing. Some are aggressive and will attack you, others just swim by and will run away if engaged. Some creatures will hunt other types specifically as well.

This all kind of folds into the effect of trying to unlock creatures: Some creatures may be hard to acquire because as soon as you enter their zone they are already under attack by a computer controlled creature.

[Bandreus]

Thi is interesting indeed! I like the concept and I am eager to know more about other aspects of the game. ie what's the ultimate goal of the game?

Other than that, I really love what you have there. Video looks promising.

About the creatures: different behaviors. I like this.

The nebula. I would like the continuous world more, but that's just me. You might have gameplay/pacing reasons for keeping it that way.

[theSoupSmith]

I like the concept and I am eager to know more about other aspects of the game. ie what's the ultimate goal of the game?

I am glad you like the concept! Most of my focus at the moment has been on gameplay and atmosphere. I plan on having the collection and exploration theme of the game lead directly into a "story" that unravels as the player progresses. My personal goal is to have the player realize that they are part of a story without being told - perhaps not even realizing that there is one until they are 1/3 to 2/3 through the game. I hope to accomplish this by keeping story elements very "light handed". I wish I could give more information, but the story and setting still needs as much development as the rest of the game!

Progress
Since people seem to be interested in creature behavior, I thought I would share this video of the new "Flighty" creature AI type:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M26pApQhaMQ&feature=youtu.be

You can see that the purple/green rock things are passive and don't mind company. While in passive mode they wrap around the screen just like other objects, however when one is attacked it sends a message to all other flighty creatures that it is time to escape! When in escape mode a creature leaves the zone permanently instead of wrapping around - hopefully making creatures that don't fight back a challenge to collect as well!

[theSoupSmith]

Phew! Lots of work done in the last few days. I think my next big goal should be to find a better screen recorder than Fraps. So far Fraps has proven to be super easy to use, but causes pretty severe framerate drops while it is running. For now, I apologize for the video quality!

As for the game itself:

AI Progress
In the last few days I have finished up another one of the major creature AH behaviors: Territorial. Creatures with this behavior go about their business unless you get in their way - in which case they stop what they are doing and attack you. Unlike agressive creatures they stop moving to attack but do become aggressive (and begin to move as such) if they are attacked back.

A space turtle warning my lobster to stay clear:




Interface Progress
Who's that... creature? I have contemplated adding a question mark over the silhouette to make the homage complete, but I think for now the solid black looks rather nice. Up until now all creatures were just unlocked - now all players can see before they encounter one is an outline and a whole lot of question marks. I have chosen to show the colors of the un-encountered creatures for aesthetic reasons... but I might change that in the future.

I also might change it so that a player will have to unlocked a creature before its stats are visible (location and rarity would still appear after just 1 defeat) This is a case of not wanting players to invest in a creature that doesn't play in a way that they like vs adding more "flavor" to the creature unlocking process. For now, I am leaning towards making the game more welcoming to new players - but this too may change.

See a quick video of me taking the first step towards unlocking the elusive Purplid:




New Content
Creatures and asteroids aren't the only interactive objects in the nebula! I added a new spaceblob... thingy... that sucks in players and does damage to them until they break out.

It was challenging to get to feel of the player's ordeal just right, but once I had the player match the blob's trajectory upon its demise everything clicked a little better.

Check out a brave space turtle blast its way out of a space blob:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r-q6O-MM090&feature=plcp

Goals
Well that wraps up this update. One of my new goals that is quickly gaining in priority is to find a better name than "creature" to describe the denizens of the nebula. It seems a bit too generic. Also, the points the player collects that they use to unlock the creature are currently referred to as "DNA" and that gives me too many Spore flashbacks for my liking, so perhaps I need a new name for that as well.

As always, thank you for taking the time to watch the videos, and let me know what you think!

[SolarLune]

I like the sound and feel of this. To me the game feels a little small because of the single screen gameplay, but otherwise, it sounds like an interesting project. Also, the characters and objects feel static, without any lighting or animation, but I know it's early, so that's to be expected. Good job so far!

[theSoupSmith]

So far all the suggestions have pretty much mentioned that the single screen game-play was too limiting. Taking those thought to heart, I have converted Crescent into an open world (nebula?) experience!

Here is a video of the new borderless nebula (and a new creature) in action:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uBARjA6Xyio&feature=youtu.be

As always, thanks for watching and let me know what you think.

[JobLeonard]

I love how they flee from the predator! That makes the scene come alive. But before that the swarm behaviour quite static... maybe you want to look into Boid simulations a bit?

Actually, you don't even need that. Here's a few versions of a simulation I wrote that doesn't involve boids at all:











If you want, I can give some pointers into how to get different "drifting" behaviour (it's basically mostly using polar coordinates, and finetuning indirect feedback loops through speed <-> accelerations <-> jerk).

[theSoupSmith]

I love how they flee from the predator! That makes the scene come alive. But before that the swarm behaviour quite static... maybe you want to look into Boid simulations a bit?

I cannot thank you enough for this! I have spent a large chunk of the day reading up on boid simulation and have been trying to get something that at least resembles it into the game.

Here is a link to my latest attempt:




The schools do a pretty good job at working on an individual level as well as sticking together, but are having trouble avoiding contact with each-other.

Progress
Beyond work on the AI, I managed to get two new creatures into the game as well as two new attacks for the spider creature. You are able to glimpse it all in the video link above. (The jelly-fish makes a very brief cameo at the beginning). The spider web locks down objects that collide with it, and the attack has a random chance of originating from one of the spiders front 4 feet.

             

Goals:
The creature AI is getting increasingly complex - I think I want to get a few more variables into the world before working on it more. I also want to see if non-interactive background objects prove to be too distracting or if they might be able to add to the atmosphere.

Thanks again for taking the time to read/watch these updates. In just a few short days of suggestions the game is already much better thanks to you-all!

[theSoupSmith]

Update
I have been busy the last few days adding more and more content to the game! A plethora of new creatures can be seen, including this big guy:

A few more specialized creature attacks/abilities have made their way in, which can be seen in the newest (combat focused!) gameplay video here:





On a technical level, I was able to improve performance quite a bit by restricting collision detection to a few thousand pixel radius around the player. This still allows for some off-screen collisions, but prevented some of the lag I was experiencing when groups of creatures across the sector from the player were fighting.

As always, I value any feedback you can give!

[theSoupSmith]

Update
These past few days have been a blaze of html tutorials and graphic design - not what I want to be putting my time into, however it needed to be done! Thankfully, after two straight days of work, the website is now more than just a link to Twitter and Facebook. There is a lot of improvement that can be done, however as someone who is much happier working with objects and classes than style sheets I am rather happy where it has landed.

Website:
http://www.thistleforgegames.com

I am not without new game updates, however! I was able to create a few new creatures as well as implement a few new special attacks.

     

You can see them in two new videos:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j734Q4cjC1Q&feature=youtu.be




Goals
The big goal now is to put together a trailer... maybe with music and without a Fraps watermark. I have been reluctant to show videos of the game to anyone outside the gamedev community, and a more polished video would help me get there.

As always thank you for any feedback you can give on the videos, or in this instance the website - and I hope to have a nice gameplay/announcement trailer to share in a little while.