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Grabb.us(
Made in Game Maker Studio 2, NO Generative A.I. or ML tech is used in the making of Grabbus)
If you have questions about the game, I am available to answer them here! Soon, I will need the assistance of a sound effects artist. I'll put out a bulletin for such when ready! But if you would like to message me to show your portfolio for the job, feel free! I'm ready to shop around.
Status(Updated as of April 2nd, 2024) TREMENDOUS progress has been made!
I got a microchip fab job for two years to raise money while slowly working on the game in my free time.
Now I'm working on Grabbus full-time with the money I've saved up!
Some original music has also been commissioned, with more on the way.
A demo is planned to come out at the end of 2024!The demo will focus on doing only delves as a way to test the main gameplay, without most worldmap features active. (Think "Arcade mode", rather than "Campaign mode")
The world map will still be seen in the screen between delves as a way to tease its graphics and generation capabilities
Features that are now in: Scrolling, sortable inventory, autotiling (1 tileset so far), physics, throwable items and enemies, stats and itemization, 3 elixirs that can be consumed for effects or mixed into weapons to give them special abilities, item-merging and shooting mechanics, enemy AI and merging system, 3 artifacts that mix to form 9 different passive relic items, dungeon generation, optimized world terrain generation, building menu, proprietary cutscene player and editor, working save files... and a bunch more little details and QoL features. Grabbus is currently at a "let's put the meat on the bones" stage. A foundation for something big to grow.
Dev BackgroundI'm Colin! I've been practicing programming, art, and animation in tandem since a very young age.
I've been working on Grabbus for over 5 years as of this writing.
There's a TON of projects under my belt, most of which didn't pan out, but that's how it can be! I'm not discouraged and look forward to improving! This time however, I am confident I'm onto something worth finishing! I'm in a place in my life now that is FAR more conducive to a big project, so I'm not letting go!
It is my hope that by sharing what I have so far, I can receive valuable feedback and promote things early enough to drum up interest in the upcoming demo. This is the sort of game that will need lots of testing!
PremiseYou play as Morris, a rat that finds himself revived in a mysterious virtual world inhabited by other captured rats and strange metamorphic natives. Morris forms a symbiotic link with a lifeform he names Grabbus who guides and protects him in this odd place. Good thing he's there, for who knows what corrupted horrors or schemes lurk beneath the furthest reaches of the simulated wilderness...
Design and GameplayThe major tenets of Grabbus' design are...
- -Roguelite Delving with a Shoot-em-up Flavor
The player moves Morris around the stage while also controlling Grabbus. Grabbus allows the player to shoot equipped weapons, use and store items, and manipulate the environment. Some objects have different context-sensitive actions that can be triggered by holding both grab buttons with the object clutched.
The entire game world is procedurally-generated, from the world map, to the delves themselves, to the weapons and enemies you find. Exploring for random loot, and the mixing thereof, is an essential piece of the game.
And by mixing, I mean mixing. Grabbus has a robust item-merging system that is the main mechanic. You may merge most items (within reason) and get various predictable results, even if you have started with random items. The strategy of what items to mix and when is essential to success. Enemies come with varying abilities, but also merge together like items! When this happens, their components are stacked and the enemy becomes harder to destroy. But the rewards... worth it. Better yet, if you manage to survive without your HP reaching zero, you can keep merging-up more powerful items without limit! No number caps! Yep. No caps. Have fun breaking the game! You are encouraged to absolutely destroy and exploit anything you can as the difficulty level climbs, earning you bigger, cooler rewards!
- -Characters and Story
I've coded a somewhat unique cutscene engine and editor. I can quickly draw characters for this system and have them appear super emotive and talkative using tags in the script that activate effects and change sprites. The unique thing it does is how it analyzes the text and changes the timing of the word-scrolling and the lip-sync based on the letter combos to make it "feel" more like the text is being spoken by the on-screen character.
- -Building, Expansion, and Upgrades
The world map. It's big. As big as your computer has space for the numbers. And you can build on it.
Build stuff to upgrade Grabbus and Morris' abilities. Build roads to explore further out. Build stuff to make delves easier. Build stuff to make them harder. Build stuff that helps build other stuff. Build shops, then shop for more items, or buildings to build. Then have that shop get destroyed by a creep while you were in a dungeon. That's right, the world map is dynamic and keeps running turn-by-turn with each floor you complete in a delve. Hope nothing bad happens while you're away!
- -Always a New Challenge
Grabbus scales in difficulty and complexity (Not just HP and damage boosts!) as you venture further out in the world map. Stranger, more dangerous challenges or characters may appear. But the rewards are too great to ignore... Some say you may even gain the power to change the world as you see fit...
My goal is to take advantage of procedural generation techniques I've developed over many years of experimentation to increase the variety of emergent gameplay possibilities and objectives. But I'll have more details on that as I come to it.
- -Accessibility
Grabbus is a game for everyone! So I'm open to feedback about new options and modes, and for avoiding insensitive content.
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