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[Hempuli‽]

Hmm. It seems that I can't come up with a good way of climbing. I'll look into the suggestion you gave, Soulliard.

[PlayMeTape]

I was thinking about doing a game on this cartridge and my idea was something like what Soulliard suggested. I wanted the climbing to be seen from the back of the player and you had to plot the course with your mouse. Either you'd plot the entire course and it would be sort of a visual puzzle. Or you'd have to click on things for your feet and hands to use them. If you clicked on something that you couldn't hold on to you'd get a chance to click on something else to gain footing again before falling.

Something like that. It seems I suck at explaining things today but I hope you understand.

[Hempuli‽]

I guess I'll change the game to the view Soulliard suggested. The planning would still be there, and it wouldn't be just climbing - on less steep parts, there could be platforms sticking out from the wall, allowing you (and some creatures) to stand on them, and in steeper areas you'd just have to climb. Of course there needs to be surfaces one can't climb, like ice or some 'rough surface', and surfaces / weather effects that make climbing and overall behaving harder.

Thanks for the suggestions, everyone, I guess this game'll head somewhere after all!

[KM]

Hempuli‽ did you need any music for the game by the way? I may have incidentally made some music based on the idea of a wall climbing game. There's a story behind this but to sum it up, my memory is just really bad. Anyway, send me a PM or something and I can show you the demo.

[Hempuli‽]

badoomph! No luck with that project. I couldn't really bring myself to work on it, so I decided to start working on something else entirely. So, now the game is called Planetary cavity syndrome, and it'll be about digging a planet. And something.

www.hempuli.com/planet.exe

(I have to add more layers, currently it's a bit too tight)

[Jonathan Whiting]

Aww, that's a real shame.  Even if it does give further evidence to my opinion that "you can't make a game about climbing" I'm still disappointed to know it.

New game looks like it has some interesting potential though   I'm sure you're aware, but the colours are iiiick!

[Hempuli‽]

www.hempuli.com/planet.exe

Updated with bigger planet and possibility to create walls.
I'm not totally sure to which direction I want to take this - My first idea was to make a lemmings-stylish RTS/rescource management game where you dug into the planet, defended against monsters and collected rescources. However, there'd also be the interesting possibility of a roguelike-like. The level would be a bit small for that, though, but I think the different view to the level might make it interesting. There's one thing that I'm absolutely sure of: there'll be no arrow key movement, unless I find a way to rotate the whole thing. It's very confusing to try to remember the 'swapped' controls on the other side of the planet. However, with some pathfinding, I could make a rather nice mouse-based thing. Hmm. All suggestions would be welcome(d?)!

[Pineapple]

What's wrong with rotating the level? That's the solution I would be shooting for.

[JaJitsu]

Love your games Hempuli, this one is looking great too.

[Hempuli‽]

the thing wrong with rotating the level is that it's not supported in this case . I'd happily implement it otherwise.

[J. R. Hill]

Aww, that's a real shame.  Even if it does give further evidence to my opinion that "you can't make a game about climbing" I'm still disappointed to know it.

But Mountain Climbers...

[Hempuli‽]

OK, I actually found a way to do the rotation. Now I should just think what I want to do with this.

[Inanimate]

Rogue-like with RTS elements. Defend a generated planet against generated waves of foes, with a variety of tools (building tool, destruction tool, offense tool, exploration tool?). Mix the best parts of both of your ideas!

[Pineapple]

Try some stuff like the winner LD17 entry Gia-something. I think those general concepts could fit well in your game.

[Hempuli‽]

OK, I'll take that spherical view away temporarily, it's really confusing to design the level with it. I'll incorporate it to the final product, though!

So, I guess the game will be like a bare-bones version of Dwarf Fortress meets lemmings - you collect rescources and fight underground beasts in a mouse-driven interface-thing.

[Hempuli‽]

Ohh-kay. I've made a really simple pathfinding thing to test the movements of the characters. There were some weird problems assigning the ID's, but those should be gone now. I fear that the game requires .NET framework to run.



www.hempuli.com/path.exe

It should be able to support some 50+ units.

[Hempuli‽]

Apparently it DOESN'T require the .NET framework. Eh. Good.

Anyway, today I implemented hauling. The blue guys now carry boxes around into nice piles on their own. You can also command the red ones to haul if you want. The haulers always want to return to their 'base', so they wont stay in place if you command them about. I think I'll make an on/off switch that can decide if the character does hauling. Also it might be cool to have a specific 'hauler' -class. Slaves? :D

www.hempuli.com/path.exe

[Hempuli‽]

the game now creates nice landscapes! Next I have to do some construction/rescource stuff to see if the hauling breaks the whole thing. Also I have to add underground caves. It may be that I have to remove the hauling altogether and instead use just some sort of rescource counters, because there can be (and probably will be) annoying bugs related to getting the resources to the building sites. We'll see. I'm quite happy with the project this far :>

[J. R. Hill]

Just a thought, but could you do a similar pixel-noise filter on the background too?  I think that would be awesome.

[Hempuli‽]

Excellent idea. Thanks!