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[Savick]

All art shown below is placeholder art and will be upgraded in terms of shading quality and complexity. I'm working on mechanics and core gameplay right now, so that comes first.

     aaaaaaa I'm so excited to be making my first game and getting this far (and still having fun). I'm actually doing both the pixels and code (in GM Studio) and it is amazing.

Anyway, about Ferryman.
     You play as the Charon, who basically ferries wayward souls across the river styx in a boat. However I'm giving him some danger along the way to pick up his passengers. That being various demon things by air and out of the water. If they hit the boat or reach the left outside of the screen you take damage.
     Right now magic spells are mouse guided/cast by a custom cursor. I'm learning as I go so I only have one attack and a non-animated placeholder monster. The graphics are still very basic, but I'm not sure how much detail I want.  

What I'm thinking about next.
     I have in mind different docks or piers passengers will be waiting on for you to pick them up. I was thinking you would get money/items from dropping them off again at the next pier successfully. And you would happen upon a shop sometimes where you could upgrade and buy new spells, etc.

Gameplay would be about surviving the shmup segments and then upgrading your power so you can kill bosses and get to the next dock with your next passenger. That's all I have for now, but I'll have more soon!

Any comments or suggestions are encouraged.

[Savick]

7/30

Worked on the art some more and rough animations. That textbox needs work! There's a lot of stuff I want to implement code wise, but having the patience to learn and apply it is tough sometimes. I hunger for comments.

[bombjack]

Hi,

I really like the way you use few colors in your art.
I'm expecting to see more on the gameplay that make feel as a auto-scrolling runner/shump stuff...
I really like the idea of the Styx River etc...

hope it feed your hunger 

[ndke]

Very interesting, I like this.
Will there be quests given by passengers you pick up?

[Savick]

Well, thanks for stopping by, you two!

bombjack >> I'm glad you like the colors as they are now, yet I am thinking of adding more detail/shading depth as I go. Maybe not a huge amount but at least 2 toned. As for the gameplay I actually have Charon moving and shooting now so he can avoid monsters/attacks and only his body takes damage. I'll post a gif of that soon.

ndke >> I actually have been thinking about a quest system or rather having Charon stop by a small town and have npcs be clickable where you can talk to them / give them rides to places. Not dying and dropping them off at the destination would complete the objective and get you a reward. Also thanks for your interest.

It's a new day, so I'll post more content as I work on it.

Oh! Also, here's a music track I've been thinking about using for the main parts when Charon is just traveling around. It's taken with credit from freemusicarchive.org and loops quite nicely.
http://freemusicarchive.org/music/Rolemusic/The_Pirate_And_The_Dancer/06_rolemusic_-_he_plays_me_the_best_rhythms

[TautNerve]

You can really see progress from the gifs on the first post to the next.
I would suggest keep tightening the core mechanics before improving the graphics.
You can always make a mockup picture of how you want it to look eventually, if you
are impatient about seeing how the overall look is going to be eventually.
So think about the design and the gameplay, decide how you want the mechanics to work.
Once you have everything mostly planned out it will all flow better and you will have
an easier time with progressing on everything, knowing that you are headed the correct way.

Best of luck

[Savick]

TautNerve >> That's some fine advice, friend, and I plan on following it.

New gif!
Boat movey action! HP bar and weapon selected! Readable mouse clicky stuff!
And Taut, if you wanna make music for my game, I'd be delighted, but I really can't pay much at the moment.

[loudo]

I love your pixel stuff. Good job!
The character reminds me the one of Loom. I like it.

[Savick]

I love your pixel stuff. Good job!
The character reminds me the one of Loom. I like it.

Hey thanks! I never played Loom, but I can see the resemblance.

[Oleg Klishin]

Like the graphics, like the idea! Some parallax backgrounds will definitely look good. Maybe you should also animate the water. Depends on your skill. But it is already moody and cute at the same time, keep working on it!

[Savick]

Like the graphics, like the idea! Some parallax backgrounds will definitely look good. Maybe you should also animate the water. Depends on your skill. But it is already moody and cute at the same time, keep working on it!

Parallax backgrounds are definitely something I want to add and I know how they work. I'm working on some new transparent water that has a layer in front and behind the boat at different speeds and like, undulating heights. Need to animate that into little swirls and stuff too yeah. And yep, I'm totally going for moody/cute.

Also, the forumer Taut Nerve (who posted earlier in the thread) has agreed to do music and sound for me! Huzzah!

[Oleg Klishin]

This game somehow reminds me of Path of Scylla from Hydorah, I'm not sure why. Water animation there is simple but nice:




I can't beat that level though

[Savick]

This game somehow reminds me of Path of Scylla from Hydorah, I'm not sure why. Water animation there is simple but nice:




I can't beat that level though

Hydorah is a wonderful game from what I know and that is some nice water. Pretty inspiring stuff. Thanks for posting it. My combat sections involve a lot more clicking and mouse interaction and I'm thinking about having scroll follow the player for more exploring based stuff. Also my enemies will have hit points so it will be a matter of coming up to them, avoiding their shots, casting spells, using items, and killing them before advancing onward.

[Savick]

New content ahoy!




Getting the Spell and Item select from sprite to functional is going to be interesting I'm sure.
 

[illugion]

Wow nice, first game! I really like the setting, the character on the ship looks really cool. The idea of getting passengers is interesting, would they fall off if you got hit ?

( also, good job using gamemaker, i tried using it and it seems so hard )

[Savick]

Wow nice, first game! I really like the setting, the character on the ship looks really cool. The idea of getting passengers is interesting, would they fall off if you got hit ?

( also, good job using gamemaker, i tried using it and it seems so hard )

Thank you! I want to have the passengers be immune to damage because it will be tricky enough dodging attacks with Charon. (even though he has a small hit box - boat doesn't take damage) I think I might have the riders say stuff when you die or mess up or something to keep them lively. And game maker is totes hard. It's also fun to me to learn and apply code.

[Irock]

Looks neat.

I've always liked the concept of traveling along a linear path and running into shops and other things along the way for some reason. Maybe because it makes the linear level feel less like a level and more like a living, breathing area in an actual world.

[Savick]

Looks neat.

I've always liked the concept of traveling along a linear path and running into shops and other things along the way for some reason. Maybe because it makes the linear level feel less like a level and more like a living, breathing area in an actual world.

Hey, thanks. I like that analogy. I'm not sure if I want multiple rooms or a really long span of level that signifies the river with like the town in the center and the various places you go to visit along the way of a long looped level.

[Savick]

Here's me testing a text based menu that cycles through three options that, if you click the left mouse button, the mouse cursor becomes the intended icon and let's you use the associated function. Kind of like an old adventure game in a way? I really didn't think I could do something like this a week ago.    

[ndke]

It looks good!
The only strange thing is that your menu has antialiased fonts and the rest is not anti aliased
But that's only a minor problem, I like the progress you make