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[tbydxn]

Rad Moon: Rising is my attempt at a 2D jumpy-shooty space adventure.

Yep, it's a game where you're a space person going around collecting loot and shooting aliens with a raygun. Hmm...
But what will hopefully save RM:R from triteness are some fun puzzles and a subtle sense of humour that I'm trying to imbue in it.



I'm trying to keep things as small and manageable as I can, as I'm working alone and time is, of course, quite limited. It's important to me to end up with some sort of finished game out of this because that's not something I've achieved thus far.



So far I've been working on graphics and the mechanics of the gameplay for the most part. That's all still super buggy now but I figure it's time to start trying to shape out some levels for this thing, so that's what I'm focusing on at the moment.
It's a task that I find pretty difficult and likely I'm going to have to make some pretty rubbish levels before I get anywhere with it. I showed my flatmate my prototype for level 1 and I think it's safe to say that it was a confusing experience for him. Ah well.
I guess some sort of screen capture video would be the best way to show level design for critique so I'll try to make that happen for the next log.



If you have any thoughts on any of this I'd be really interested to hear them. Thanks!

[Ohmnivore]

Was the title inspired in any way by creedence clearwater's bad moon rising? 

[Ohmnivore]

But seriously, I dig the tone in the dialog boxes and the pixel art is awesome!

[AlexHW]

It looks like it has all sorts of stuff. I like the colors. I'm not a fan of the blurry background and edges of the screen. The health bar and score seem to take up a large portion of the screen- is that necessary? since that competes with the players attention, I'd try reducing their size.

[tbydxn]

You can shoot upwards and downwards now!

Thanks Ohmnivore. It certainly was, although that's where the CCR connection ends, I'm afraid!

AlexHW, thanks for the feedback! I think you may well be right about the size of the HUD info; I'll be taking another look at it at some point before the end.
As for the background, it's a work in progress still, but I'm going for a bit of a weird abstract effect that I think may prove a little contentious. Hopefully it looks a little better in motion.

I've been able to ensnare my friend Anders to help out with some of the art and level design needs of the project, which is a huge boon. He's been concepting ways to improve the look of the game, and also ways to visually differentiate the first and second half, while I've been fixing odd bugs here and there.
One thing that we're keen on implementing is some sort of foreground graphical element, as seen in the video with the rocks at the bottom of the level.

http://youtu.be/XrdORj6jb-g

This is a video of an in-progress level 1, just with generic grey blocks and no decoration. It's hard to know how much stuff to put into one levels and how quickly the challenge should ramp up, but I guess that will become more clear as we make more levels.

[tbydxn]

Piping Hot!

A few developments this week...

- A tube feature that will zoom the player around. This will be used to bookend levels.
- Various graphical improvements, including some new tiles and a new version of the foreground rocks. And a sparkly poof of smoke for when Ghostrilla appears.
- General bug fixing. Player is now slightly less likely to become impaled in a platform.

Onwards!