alvarop
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« on: November 06, 2014, 08:25:45 PM » |
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too dark and no fancy images. this devlog is doomed Projet on hiatus for nowIntroduction and backgroundFor those who don't know, Maxim Gorky was one of the first people to assist to one of the Lumiere's brothers projections. He witnessed the birth of cinema. Maxim Gorky (1868–1936) saw a program of Lumière films at a Russian fair and published this article in a local paper a few days later, on July 4, 1896. This is what Maxim Gorky had to say about his first experience : Last night I was in the Kingdom of Shadows.
If you only knew how strange it is to be there. It is a world without sound, without colour. Every thing there—the earth, the trees, the people, the water and the air—is dipped in monotonous grey. Grey rays of the sun across the grey sky, grey eyes in grey faces, and the leaves of the trees are ashen grey. It is not life but its shadow, It is not motion but its soundless spectre.
yaya, wtv, talk about the gameHis text will be used as inspiration for the game's atmosphere and cinema as a whole will be a background theme. I will not approach the theme directly, but I'll make some nods here and there and construct a mysterious story around it. Russian cinema nods here and there, just symbolic links between the game and film. Why? Because I'm interested in russian film poetics. Maybe I'm using Gorky because it is my "first" more ambitious game and I like the connection. I'm making the graphics in colour, but maybe I should go with black and white. Not sure. The game is basically a short and simple metroidvania (?, inspirations : You have to win the game, Love), in which instead of finding powerups and gaining abilities, you lose them. As you advance, the game becomes more difficult and the levels must be approached in new ways, as you won't be able to use your old abilities anymore. Story-wise, you're revisiting a dungeon in which you adventured during your youth. You're putting everything were it belongs, for a future hero. Reactivating traps, re-energizing power-up gems, resuscitating creatures, etc. Oh, and instead of getting coins, you must find hidden characters and hand them your fortune, little by little. i'm not a communist. I need your input aka im noobSo I've been working on a progression sequence in which you lose an ability in each room. Even if this happens, you should not be blocked and be able to progress (you might not be able to go back, but that's intentional). Now, the issues I have are related to how the game feels "streamlined" and making the level design on itself it pretty difficult. I'm wondering if this is because of the main concept itself or what... Maybe some level design experts here might be able to guide me in the right path. You can try the progression sequence here :[offline] In the progression sequence, the text you see over the gems tells you what you will lose, not what to do. Obviously, graphics are placeholder and this is more of a test than anything. I'm aware of some bugs (can't double jump next to wall) JUMP X Double JUMP X,X I'm thinking about changing the order in which you lose the powerups to I changed them to : Enemy killing - Double Jump - Wall Jump - No movement to the right. But who knows. I do. None of the normal feedback things are implemented yet. When you're on the gem, you lose the powerup. You guys are usually pretty straight-forward with the critiques so go ahead and let me know what you think about the idea in general and the progress sequence.
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« Last Edit: January 31, 2015, 06:27:08 AM by alvarop »
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Nilanjan
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« Reply #1 on: November 08, 2014, 10:21:16 AM » |
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Wow...This could turn out to be something very unique...You have to win the game is pretty great,so really looking forward to this...Played the progression sequence.I'm no way an expert on level design but most games we play gets progressively harder and in order to balance it we get power ups or new abilities to overcome the new obstacles.As you have mentioned killing enemies will probably go out first so the game will probably primarily revolve around environmental navigation.So you would probably need to design devious environmental puzzles. And somehow hold the players interest by rewarding them by something when they overcome the puzzles(be it by way of storytelling or new areas to explore).You could also have boss encounters where after you have probably brought it back to life are being chased by it Just my 200 cents Good job mate
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alvarop
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« Reply #2 on: November 08, 2014, 10:28:56 AM » |
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Yes, I'm playing around with power-ups and different environmental hazards / enemies to get the game to feel fun and challenging. The progress sequence doesn't really give a feel for what I'm trying to achieve though. There will be more "free-roaming" spaces, more of a story or at least, some kind of narrative, secret characters for the second quest (I'm thinking, since you're revisiting an old dungeon / temple, you could see old bosses you've defeated and give them some of your gold or something like that). I'm still in early development phase playing with stuff.
I want to explore the idea of losing power-ups also by restraining how the player interacts with the game. He can do less and less, and by the end, he even loses the ability to use a key (when he can't move right anymore). Maybe I could add something like a fire ball that he can throw with the mouse, and take it away from him, so once he reaches that point, he doesn't use the mouse anymore. I like that idea, of changing how the player must face the challenges and engage in the game, even physically.
A friend of mine told me that as of now, it felt very frustrating to lose the wall-jump first so that's one thing I'm going to change for sure.
I have been analysing You have to win the game level design and I found some of it to be very clever and enlightening. I'm taking inspiration from it, but I would like my game to have its own identity, for sure.
Anyways, it is still in early development. I do have the "pieces", but I need to put them together to create something good.
Thanks for the feedback, I appreciate it!
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« Last Edit: November 08, 2014, 10:43:29 AM by alvarop »
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blekdar
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« Reply #3 on: November 08, 2014, 03:42:19 PM » |
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I played the little demo thing. It worked well until the room where I lost the ability to move right. The spawn point kept spawning me at the step below, so I couldn't jump up to the platforms.
THAT BEING SAID, I enjoy the concept. It's a unique take on the metroidvania style. The only concern I have is making the player feeling rewarded for losing their abilities, aside from the obvious challenge. Superbrothers Sword & Sorcery did a similar idea where you became weaker as the game progressed, which pertained to the story (character was trying to unlock the secrets of this book at the cost of her power yada yada). As long as it makes sense or you find a way to make it feel rewarding, power to you.
Also, always nice to see another construct 2 user on these forums. Cheers mate!
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alvarop
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« Reply #4 on: November 08, 2014, 03:50:32 PM » |
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I played the little demo thing. It worked well until the room where I lost the ability to move right. The spawn point kept spawning me at the step below, so I couldn't jump up to the platforms.
Also, always nice to see another construct 2 user on these forums. Cheers mate!
Yup, I realized I fucked up. What can I say? Hehe... At least everything worked until the last progression challenge, which just means I would have to tweak a couple of tiles and respawn points to let the player get to the end. And yeah, I am a C2 user also
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s0
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« Reply #5 on: November 08, 2014, 06:41:56 PM » |
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For those who don't know, Maxim Gorky was one of the first people to assist to one of the Lumiere's brothers projections. He witnessed the birth of cinema.
Maxim Gorky (1868–1936) saw a program of Lumière films at a Russian fair and published this article in a local paper a few days later, on July 4, 1896. gorky was also a really good novelist btw. i read the autobiographical book he wrote about his childhood as a teen and was pretty depressed/disturbed by it. ANYWAY a lot of the abilities you're taking away are related to movement. there are some problems im seeing with this: the game may become more challenging as it progresses but it's also going to become simpler. maybe that's what you're going for. but if you're not, you might want to consider not removing fundamental things like the ability to move right and instead only take away "convenience" abilities that make the game easier but are optional to use. it's also going to limit the player's ability to explore and backtrack, which is going to be a big concern if this is a metroidvania. you could either use multiple paths for each room, which is doable but complex. or you could do something like section the game into distinct "worlds", let the player explore freely within those and remove 1 powerup at the end of each of them.
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alvarop
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« Reply #6 on: November 08, 2014, 06:54:42 PM » |
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For those who don't know, Maxim Gorky was one of the first people to assist to one of the Lumiere's brothers projections. He witnessed the birth of cinema.
Maxim Gorky (1868–1936) saw a program of Lumière films at a Russian fair and published this article in a local paper a few days later, on July 4, 1896. gorky was also a really good novelist btw. i read the autobiographical book he wrote about his childhood as a teen and was pretty depressed/disturbed by it. ANYWAY a lot of the abilities you're taking away are related to movement. there are some problems im seeing with this: the game may become more challenging as it progresses but it's also going to become simpler. maybe that's what you're going for. but if you're not, you might want to consider not removing fundamental things like the ability to move right and instead only take away "convenience" abilities that make the game easier but are optional to use. it's also going to limit the player's ability to explore and backtrack, which is going to be a big concern if this is a metroidvania. you could either use multiple paths for each room, which is doable but complex. or you could do something like section the game into distinct "worlds", let the player explore freely within those and remove 1 powerup at the end of each of them. Yes, he is also known as one of the greats of russian litterature (well, I consider him as such), but being a film buff, his texts on early cinema touched me personally. But yeah, I kinda omitted to mention that in the devlog, true. Anyways, he is a very interesting character and I'm doing some research to see how I could integrate his personality in the game. Taking away the ability to move right is something I'm questioning, but in the way I'm seeing it, it is pretty much an end-game "downgrade". At that point of the game, you'd have no choice but to advance to a set of specific levels. Once you're in them, you can either go left and advance, go left and die (restart). I'm also thinking about building that part with rooms that have two exits (one good, one bad), constructing some type of maze in order to make sure the game doesn't get too linear at that point. I also like the idea that, at the same time that the player is discovering new paths, he's unlocking downgrades and thus, "closing" others. This will cause some players to not be able to finish the game at 100% if they go for the downgrades too quickly. (Because there will be a secondary quest in which the player is giving away his gold to hidden characters, which he can only reach with certain abilities at certain times). While this can be seen as a negative aspect to the game usually, it makes for a neat relation between exploration / consequences. It is a challenge and it's been messing with my head since I started developing the game, but I'm already getting a better feel for it. In the end, I still take your advice, because all you're saying is true, but I'm kinda trying to see if there is "a way" to do what I have in mind... maybe there isn't. It's an experiment, so it could fail.
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« Last Edit: November 08, 2014, 07:00:44 PM by alvarop »
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The Translocator
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« Reply #7 on: November 16, 2014, 06:30:15 PM » |
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If you start the player with enough abilities and then task them with losing them all figuring out what order to lose them in would be a game in itself as long as you don't make it impossible to get stuck. For example, if you have to choose between losing double jump and wall jump, neither is inherently better than the other so you have to route in advance to see which will let you keep progressing. Although I tend to like my Metroidvanias more futuristic the concept of losing your abilities is one I really want to play.
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Boreal
Level 6
Reinventing the wheel
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« Reply #8 on: November 16, 2014, 07:31:31 PM » |
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I think a good mechanic to build in to a game like this would be to have to find the correct order to lose your abilities in. So say you lose the ability to double-jump before the ability to dash, but you need the double-jump to reach the area that contains the dash. Then you must go back to retrieve the double-jump power.
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alvarop
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« Reply #9 on: November 16, 2014, 07:34:33 PM » |
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If you start the player with enough abilities and then task them with losing them all figuring out what order to lose them in would be a game in itself as long as you don't make it impossible to get stuck. For example, if you have to choose between losing double jump and wall jump, neither is inherently better than the other so you have to route in advance to see which will let you keep progressing. Although I tend to like my Metroidvanias more futuristic the concept of losing your abilities is one I really want to play.
Right, I'm going for more of a "to get to point X you must pass by the room where you lose ability Z" X is where progress is. But I'll consider your thing. I'm still iterating over level design and such. I think a good mechanic to build in to a game like this would be to have to find the correct order to lose your abilities in. So say you lose the ability to double-jump before the ability to dash, but you need the double-jump to reach the area that contains the dash. Then you must go back to retrieve the double-jump power.
I'm working on exactly that. However, getting your abilities back is not something that would really fit with what I'm trying to say through the game. I might have to go that route though, who knows. Still working on it. I'm not posting screenshots because the game looks like shit at the moment.
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Siilk
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« Reply #10 on: November 16, 2014, 08:55:58 PM » |
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Really like the concept, this could be very interesting game. Good luck!
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SeanNoonan
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« Reply #11 on: November 16, 2014, 09:25:25 PM » |
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Good luck, chap - I'm looking forward to whatever you come up with
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Nilanjan
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« Reply #13 on: November 17, 2014, 01:35:03 AM » |
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I want it too...
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tjpalmer
Level 1
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« Reply #14 on: November 24, 2014, 11:01:16 AM » |
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Sounds like some unique ideas. I'll be curious to see more of what it looks like.
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alvarop
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« Reply #15 on: November 24, 2014, 11:09:40 AM » |
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Currently it looks like nothing as I'm trying to make no graphics at all and concentrate on gameplay, so... everything is pretty much placeholder. I prototyped a first version of the game and as it is, it's really no fun. It feels way to linear and I don't like that at all. I'm thinking of making the "powerdowns" a more dynamic thing, where the user chooses what power to give up in exchange of an "unlock" (new zone, door, etc.). He can get his power back anytime, but that "blocks" whatever he unlocked again.. unless he gives up another power.
So each ability would become, in its own way, it's own "currency" to go forward in the game, and what powers the user gives up is really up to him... but he must choose wisely and prepare in advance. This is just at the idea stage, I have yet to try it out (building it as we speak). Thematically speaking, the "energy" emanating from each ability can be used to unlock certain things.
TL;DR : I'm tweaking some ideas and applying some of the feedback I got here. I'll keep you guys updated.
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