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[Stane]

Just a lil' experiment. Very early stage. Posting it here to see if it'll fly. Most of things are just placeholders at the moment. If experiments turn out successful I'll start making assets.

Click here to try it out.

http://www.stane-island.net/games/G1/

[ortoslon]

feels too fast. have you played 2DCube's Frozzd?

[PsySal]

Awesome, keep it up. It is hard to keep track of left-right as being clockwise-counter though. What about if the game world turns, instead of you?

[Stane]

Experimenting with rotating universe also, but it kinda feels more psychodelic, at the moment. Will see later. I hope when I add anim for the main character that it'll be a bit easier to track, as now itc just a static sprite.

N' I was kinda aiming for Sonic insane speed. Haven't played Frozzid. I'll check it out tho. I played Aether and Soozis for iPhone which had kinda sam spheroidal 2D platformin. 

[Stane]

I have taken a look at Frozzd. Worthy game indeed, with much the same world mechanics.

[PsySal]

Experimenting with rotating universe also, but it kinda feels more psychodelic, at the moment. Will see later. I hope when I add anim for the main character that it'll be a bit easier to track, as now itc just a static sprite.

N' I was kinda aiming for Sonic insane speed. Haven't played Frozzid. I'll check it out tho. I played Aether and Soozis for iPhone which had kinda sam spheroidal 2D platformin. 

My immediate thought is a universe that rotates, but only partly. Imagine a pie slice from a circle of about 120' or so; if you walk 60' negative or positive from "up", then the universe rotates. That way left-right would always map correctly, but you wouldn't get the ugly "scroll-locked" feeling that you might find if the arrows only rotate the universe. Most scrolling games avoid scrolling directly on the player for this reason, and I think that effect would be more pronounced in a rotating sphere game.

[Stane]

Yeah, I think I know what you mean. The thing that bothers me the most about world rotation is that, as angular speed is constant, tangential speed grows with distance from rotation center, as a result you get fast moving objects on the periphery of vision and almost static center.

Not sure how much it would be of issue with what you are suggesting tho. Worth a try anyway, so I'll keep working on it.

As for today some anims of the main character.





and link:

http://www.stane-island.net/games/G1/

[R] button activates now the world rotation, but that is now very very crude.

[PsySal]

Aha, yeah I see what you mean about tangential speed. For me, it was easier to control with world rotation on but confusing as to where I was. Did notice a bug where if I turned rotation on and then off the main character could get stuck (visually) at an odd angle.

Cool concept, and it's good to see progress coming along!

[del]

I like it. It has a unique character. I think you've got some good feed back on the rotation and disorientation. It'd be nice to see some more "game" to it.
Good luck.

[Stane]

Did notice a bug where if I turned rotation on and then off the main character could get stuck (visually) at an odd angle.

Yeah, there is one right there and one another which prevented me from implementing what you suggested about world rotation only for a certain range of degrees. I might sort it out eventually. Now I'm personally in dilemma about which version feels better. World rotating is definitely disorienting, but it might be cool to have it activated all of a sudden for certain locations. Add element of surprise in boss fights n' such.

[Stane]

Things shaping nicely. New artwork and makeup.



http://www.stane-island.net/games/G1

Thanks for feedback so far everyone!

[PsySal]

Really awesome. Only... I touched a crystal and I *died*! 

I think that the crystals need to be more obviously deadly, blue makes me think they are scenery. Great music, I love the thumping...

[Zaphos]

Visually, it's looking nice

I think the movement feels a bit 'off' somehow ... maybe try putting a bit of acceleration on the main character's fall?  The transition between planets also feels very sudden and non-smooth right now, which is kind of jarring.  And it seems kind of inconsistent about how it decides to pull you in to another planet's gravity; like maybe if you're already falling 'down' you will not transition to another planet even if you buzz really close to it, but while you're still going 'up' you transition relatively early to the other planet.

edit: Variable jump heights seem like they'd be really nice to have, as well.

[Golds]

One thing that's off about it, it appears that your character moves around the planetoids at a constant angular velocity, instead of a real velocity.  So when you jump up high, you still move around 180 degrees of the planet in about a second, even though this means the player is traveling a much larger distance and is hence traveling at a much faster actual "speed".

To feel more natural, you should maybe have your player's forward velocity be linear, with a gravity vector applied in the direction of the normal to the surface of your planetoid.m.  Or at least scale the angular speed based on the distance to the center of your spheroid.

Otherwise, good start.  Feels like it could polish up into a nice little game.

[Ryoh]

Great game. Reminds me alot of space hopper http://www.nitrome.com/games/spacehopper/ by nitrome. The two games are quite similar. I do prefer your end goal i.e get to the end of the level rather than collect all the stars.

One criticism/bug: Enemies who walk around the planet do not rotate/orient themselves correctly on the world but I am sure you are already aware of that one.


keep up the good work.

[supershigi]

Nice job, that was a lot of fun ^_^ I played both versions and it's difficult to decide which one I like more, although I definitely felt like I had more control over the player when the world moved with me (version 2).  I died a lot less because the controls were more intuitive, although my eyes were kind of sore afterwards due to the all the spinning.  Also I noticed that at some point I stopped being able to hop between planets; I was one hit away from dying so I don't know if that had anything to do with it.  Overall, I liked it!   

[Stane]

Hello again dear friends. I ain't dead yet and neither is this lil project of mine. First world (5 levels) is kinda complete, including the first boss fight.

Here are some new screen shots.







I'd like all sorts of feedback, but mainly about gameplay and level design, since balancing the difficulty is my weak spot.

Click here to play.

http://www.stane-island.net/games/G1/

[Jamie_D]

It's not bad but i think you should ask yourself why you have spheres - do they really add to the gameplay rather then being a nod to mario galaxy.

I think if you added some kind of a momemtem system, almost where there was gravity to the point where spinning around the planet gives you speed would add a lot to this game, particualry if you turned it into a time-trial racing game.

Finally, as it may have been mentioned, crystals tend to be pick ups in plat formers so i would either change how they function in the game mythos or change how they look to signal danger better.


Keep it up though, it's a very nice looking game.

[Stane]

Believe it or not Mario Galaxy was not on my mind when I started off this one. I was kinda aiming for that running through loops you have in Sonic games. Kinda wanted to recreate similar effect originally. It evolved in a different direction, and ended up looking as Mario Galaxy.

I think if you added some kind of a momentum system, almost where there was gravity to the point where spinning around the planet gives you speed would add a lot to this game, especially if you turned it into a time-trial racing game.

Gravity is kinda tricky to control, at least I didn't manage to implement it well. I was experimenting with full blown gravity engine in my previous attempt:

http://www.stane-island.net/games/Starlust

but there it proved a hell to control. :-/

I still might combine the elements of both engines.

Good point about crystals. They are supposed to be just a static barrier which upon touch. I'll probably change the gfx for them if they come off as too confusing.