Welcome, Guest. Please login or register.

Login with username, password and session length

 
Advanced search

1411283 Posts in 69325 Topics- by 58380 Members - Latest Member: bob1029

March 29, 2024, 02:05:11 AM

Need hosting? Check out Digital Ocean
(more details in this thread)
TIGSource ForumsCommunityDevLogsVerumsomnex+ (A Dreamlike Puzzle Platformer)
Pages: [1] 2 3 4
Print
Author Topic: Verumsomnex+ (A Dreamlike Puzzle Platformer)  (Read 15182 times)
QOG
Level 3
***



View Profile WWW
« on: July 01, 2014, 12:19:55 PM »

Recent Image:


About
This game is a remake and expansion of an old game of mine, the original Verumsomnex, which can be accessed here. The original is short and ugly, but I feel could be made into something really cool, so that’s what I’m trying to do.I want to make the game quite dreamlike. This means a usually relaxed atmosphere with intentional brief moments of surprise or frustration. The player has been released from a mental institution with vague orders to find the truth. To do so, s/he wanders through a strange landscape solving puzzles and trying not to die. Games I’d consider the same “genre” I’m going for are Psychosomnium, Polkadot, and  Lab 14. So far I've got basic platforming, some art, and a vaguely-working dialogue system.

Any thoughts/comments/questions on the game welcome. More details shortly.
« Last Edit: August 19, 2016, 07:20:45 PM by QOG » Logged
QOG
Level 3
***



View Profile WWW
« Reply #1 on: July 04, 2014, 12:07:54 PM »

Update #1:
I've got the dialogue system vaguely working, just needs some fancying up. Not sure whether I should bother adding portraits: they'll mean less room for text, although then I could get rid of the nametags.






Also working on some of the actual game mechanics for the first major level, like elevators. Got this working right away, which was a nice surprise. The player stands in front of one of the arrows, presses Z, and it goes up or down a floor. Presuming you're allowed and there aren't any inconvenient ceilings/floors in the way.


This area looks a bit drab thus far, but I'm planning to have nurses/other patients wandering around. Plus, it is a hospital...
Logged
knight
Level 3
***

aka dude4k


View Profile
« Reply #2 on: July 04, 2014, 01:49:34 PM »

I'll be watching this. I played though you're other one just now and enjoyed it. I would have liked it a little more without the tough platforming bits like the spikeball. As a person who is also making a outside the box/weird puzzle platformer, I wish you the best of luck finishing!
Logged
QOG
Level 3
***



View Profile WWW
« Reply #3 on: July 04, 2014, 05:50:54 PM »

Glad you enjoyed it.
There will be some platforming in this (more so than the original, because there's more of everything than in the original), but I'm trying to make it more puzzle like. Thus, instead of frantic platforming, it's more about finding the right path or timing, which should be easyish to then actually do.
Logged
QOG
Level 3
***



View Profile WWW
« Reply #4 on: July 05, 2014, 11:22:12 AM »

Update #2:
Got completely sidetracked today, ended up mostly working on the second major area (AKA Level 4 AKA Floating Island), rather than fixing up the Hospital or figuring anything out on the dialogue system.
However, the game itself is looking a lot better:






My current plan for levels is to alternate a short one, generally just a single puzzle, followed by a larger, multipuzzle/obstacle-type thing area. As you can see, most are in the earliest of stages.

Level 1 - Weindeer (Dream sequence)
Status: Concept.
Level 2 - The Hospital
Status: Empty level, some art, an NPC, and working elevators.
Level 3 - Drugville (acid sequence)
Status: Vague concept.
Level 4 - Floating Island
Status: Most art, NPCs, and puzzles done. Just need to do a couple of ending rooms.
Level 5 - The Arcade (homage sequence)
Status: Some rough gameplay, most graphics.
Level 6 - The City
Status: Not even really a concept yet.
Level 7 - Goodbye (keeping details secret for now)
Status: Concept.

I'm planning to work on level design for a while and ignore the technical stuff, since I don't feel like dealing with it right now.
Logged
orange08
Level 2
**



View Profile WWW
« Reply #5 on: July 06, 2014, 04:04:04 PM »

Very nice, humorous art style. Good luck with this!
Logged

QOG
Level 3
***



View Profile WWW
« Reply #6 on: July 07, 2014, 12:32:41 PM »

Update #3
Very nice, humorous art style. Good luck with this!
Thanks! The art style is now in glorious 4X resolution!

Maybe that's too big...

Anyway, nothing too major today, although I've gotten the dialogue system doing most of what it's supposed to.

The Floating Island level is most of the way done as well, it just needs some ending cutscene-type things. Pretty happy to be finishing it, since it's all the content of the original game plus a fair number of extras.
Logged
QOG
Level 3
***



View Profile WWW
« Reply #7 on: July 09, 2014, 10:42:52 AM »

Update #4:
The Hospital is now less ugly:


Also working on Level 5.
Pong:

Space Invaders:

I think I'll do a third game, but I haven't decided which one. Maybe Tetris, but that'd be more of a pain to simulate.

Logged
QOG
Level 3
***



View Profile WWW
« Reply #8 on: July 15, 2014, 01:36:38 PM »

Update #5:
More on the Hospital today. Finished up two puzzles, added in the background IV walker guys you can see here.


And working a bit on the area after the Hospital.

Not too sure yet what you'll actually need to do in this area, but the look is at least getting towards what I want.

Having a bit of trouble coming up with puzzles for new areas. I don't want everything to be pushing buttons in a certain order or colliding with stuff in a certain way. That doesn't seem properly dreamlike. But at the same time, I don't want it to turn into a super-gimmicky here is a new mechanic that has never been used before and will never be used again set up.
Logged
QOG
Level 3
***



View Profile WWW
« Reply #9 on: July 24, 2014, 08:53:06 AM »

Update #6:
I've mostly been working on small stuff, like making the NPCs look a little less boring.


And here's a gif of the pong level.

Not sure why there's that pause at the end...

Anyway, I've also decided to switch the 6th area from The City, which just seemed really generic, to The Palace, so I may show some screenshots of that with the next update.
Logged
alvarop
Level 9
****


ignorant


View Profile WWW
« Reply #10 on: July 24, 2014, 09:58:26 AM »

The gif brought me here. Interesting pong level and project.
Logged

i make games that can only ever be played once on http://throwaway.fun
Zaphos
Level 5
*****



View Profile WWW
« Reply #11 on: July 24, 2014, 10:05:47 AM »

This looks great!  Definitely looking forward to seeing more of it.
Logged

How to Be a Tree | Voro | Realistic Kissing Simulator | twitter | Programmer at Epic Games
Whiteclaws
Level 10
*****


#include <funny.h>


View Profile
« Reply #12 on: July 24, 2014, 11:06:27 AM »

Looks rad, particles give it a polished look, I'm getting a Cave Story vibe from it (Which is a good thing)
Logged
Green Gospod
Level 1
*


View Profile
« Reply #13 on: July 24, 2014, 11:16:22 AM »

Looks rad, particles give it a polished look, I'm getting a Cave Story vibe from it (Which is a good thing)
Why?
Because its a low-res platformer with dialogue?
Logged
Whiteclaws
Level 10
*****


#include <funny.h>


View Profile
« Reply #14 on: July 24, 2014, 11:17:26 AM »

Looks rad, particles give it a polished look, I'm getting a Cave Story vibe from it (Which is a good thing)
Why?
Because its a low-res platformer with dialogue?
Yes
and it looks awesome
Edit: Thinking about it, It looks more Vlambeer
Logged
Green Gospod
Level 1
*


View Profile
« Reply #15 on: July 24, 2014, 11:34:19 AM »

Looks rad, particles give it a polished look, I'm getting a Cave Story vibe from it (Which is a good thing)
Why?
Because its a low-res platformer with dialogue?
Yes
and it looks awesome
Edit: Thinking about it, It looks more Vlambeer
Well okay, but you can say that to many games then.  Smiley
Logged
QOG
Level 3
***



View Profile WWW
« Reply #16 on: July 28, 2014, 11:19:15 AM »

It looks more Vlambeer
Character redesign:

Needs more screenshake.

Anyway, thanks everyone for your interest. Hey look it's
Update #7:
I decided it was weird for the colors to change for the retro game stages but not any others, so I've been changing that:



I got all the jump/land effects to display the right colors. Now these areas just need some actual content/gameplay...

Meanwhile, I've been doing a fair amount of work on planning out Level 6. I decided to scrap the city setting and make it The Palace. I'll try to show some of the work in the next update, right now it's mostly a map I don't want to show for spoiler reasons and a level I don't want to show for near-total lack of art reasons. But anyway, progress is being made.

Not-so-quick question for people: The original game had two endings, getting one meant game over, you had to restart. This wasn't a problem since the game was quite short and if you knew the puzzle solutions it wouldn't take long to get to the second ending. However, with my quasi-remake, the game is much longer and will have six 'paths,' I suppose would be the right word. At each main level (2,4,6) the player either advances to the next level or gets a game over scenario. I have some options here. Restarting the whole game is pretty well out, that seems incredibly frustrating. I'm leaning towards restarting the level, but that might be too much: levels 4 and 6 especially are fairly long and have platforming bits that aren't too difficult but would probably be tedious to repeat. But if I just have it jump the player back to the last checkpoint like it does any other time the player dies, I  worry that the whole "Game Over" paths will lose a lot of their impact. Rather than something bizarre happening and really forcing the player back, it'll just be a more cinematic running into spikes. How do I make the "Game Over" feel scary and distinct from other setbacks without frustrating or boring the player?

Sorry for the wall of text...
Logged
Rat Casket
Level 10
*****


i can do what i want


View Profile WWW
« Reply #17 on: July 28, 2014, 08:19:12 PM »

love it
love this
love you
Logged

Zaphos
Level 5
*****



View Profile WWW
« Reply #18 on: July 28, 2014, 10:08:44 PM »

The colors are so good Smiley

Not-so-quick question for people: The original game had two endings, getting one meant game over, you had to restart. This wasn't a problem since the game was quite short and if you knew the puzzle solutions it wouldn't take long to get to the second ending. However, with my quasi-remake, the game is much longer and will have six 'paths,' I suppose would be the right word. At each main level (2,4,6) the player either advances to the next level or gets a game over scenario. I have some options here. Restarting the whole game is pretty well out, that seems incredibly frustrating. I'm leaning towards restarting the level, but that might be too much: levels 4 and 6 especially are fairly long and have platforming bits that aren't too difficult but would probably be tedious to repeat. But if I just have it jump the player back to the last checkpoint like it does any other time the player dies, I  worry that the whole "Game Over" paths will lose a lot of their impact. Rather than something bizarre happening and really forcing the player back, it'll just be a more cinematic running into spikes. How do I make the "Game Over" feel scary and distinct from other setbacks without frustrating or boring the player?
Maybe do some kinda extra glitch sequence for the game over?  (Perhaps to explain what 'game over' entails, or to explain how the player gets 'back' from the game over, or both, or neither.  For example, perhaps you end up in some sort of video game hell and must escape [ending up back near the last checkpoint], or perhaps the 'game over' entails a lot of the level being destroyed and the player need just replay a short 'remix' of the now-destroyed level to get back to the end area?)
Logged

How to Be a Tree | Voro | Realistic Kissing Simulator | twitter | Programmer at Epic Games
QOG
Level 3
***



View Profile WWW
« Reply #19 on: July 29, 2014, 07:53:29 AM »

@Rabbit: Thanks for the enthusiasm. Wink

@Zaphos: I really like the destroyed level idea, I think I'll probably do that (though it'll take a while to implement). Thanks very much for the suggestion.
Logged
Pages: [1] 2 3 4
Print
Jump to:  

Theme orange-lt created by panic