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[Oracle]

Ok, so im pretty satisfied with Pengu as a first project.
So now im trying something a tad bigger; a simple plataformer.

Ill make this some sort of blog, updating with graphics and demos.

Story:

Alex´s birthday has come, hes turning 10, and like always Alex is being truly demanding, expecting all the next gen consoles, games, bikes and whatnot and behaving like a true brat.

- I better get all those things i asked!

Its time to open the presents, since Alex feels like it, but as he starts to unwrap the gifts, he makes a big scene, because he didnt receive exactly what he expected.

- NOOOOOOOOOOOoooooooo!!! it was ver. 1.10, not 1.01 !! what are you thinking??!
Are you guys retarded?? NOO!!

His parents feel awful, her mother is in tears, and everyone at the party is looking at them with a sorry face. They really dont know what to do about his son..

His grandfather keeps watching the whole situation and with calm, he hands out his present.

-Enjoy little Alex...My grandfather gave it to me when i was in a...
Alex interrupts.
-Wow! a magic kit! how completely... BOO-RING!

Alex takes off, and goes to his room with all the presents...the little magic kit rest on the corner half opened while Alex plays his brand new Gamestation VI.

- Take this you m...!!

Suddenly the kit starts flashing and glowing.. and the components start flying along the room!
Alex is completely unaware of the situation, completely focused on the game!
In the meantime some sort of portal has started to open on the middle of the room, getting bigger and bigger, but when alex finally notice is too late; He´s being swallowed by the portal!

What will happen next?


Stage 00 - Tutorial;

Alex is lying on the ground...As he wakes up he realizes hes in a strange place, some kind of forest. Soon a weird creature arrives, and explains what happenned and soon after, he teaches Alex the basics.

Alex will learn basic movement; left, right, jump, crouch/hide in hat, hover
And during this level he will find his first item; the card deck; Alex can throw the cards to damage nearby enemies.

As he finish the tutorial, the creature explains how Alex needs to find the rest of the items on the kit if he wants to survive in this world.


Ideas? Critique? Spellchecking? all much apreciated

[Zaphos]

Tim Schafer once said

"All games are wish-fulfillments," he explained. And this led into a great anecdote relating to Psychonauts: originally the main character was an ostrich. He loved it. He said there was this cool control scheme where one stick would move around and the other stick would peck. All of the ostrich's powers came from the fact that he was mentally imbalanced and had multiple personalities. Then, he caught himself, and asked himself: how many people fanaticize about being a insane ostrich?

Now, even though Tim Schafer's wrong, it's still worth thinking about -- when you create a main character in a game, the player is supposed to "be" that character ... so it's harder to make the game work if the character is someone the player really cannot empathize with.  This Alex sounds terribly unlikeable, and I think that's going to be hard to work with in crafting an enjoyable game story.  I'm not saying it's unworkable; just that you're making your life harder as a story teller.

Also, it seems like the plot may be a bit tricky to convey -- details like the idea that it is this magic kit which is creating the portal may be hard to translate from words to sprite art.

Overall the story seems very 'familiar' to me, the young bratty boy and the games/toys as a portal to a fantasy world are both a bit of a fantasy cliche.  The story also seems to be using the fantasy world to teach the boy life lessons (not explicitly stated, but it's the implied direction), which gives it a cheesy "children's cartoon" feel.

I would be interested to see some twist on those expectations -- for example, if the boy does not learn any lessons, but instead emerges from the magic world as a super powerful brat and ends up something like the all-powerful boy in that Twilight Zone episode.  (Although that might quickly turn the game from a platformer to a god-game variant)

I would love to hear more about what you plan to do with the gameplay itself.

[Guert]

I'd also like to know what you have planned in terms of gameplay...
Anyway, I think this could fit very well in the project section...

What do you think?

[Oracle]

Im sorry to dissapoint you guys, i really am; but im keeping this simple...otherwise it will just be like making my first project a 1000+ hour RPG that i know i wont finish.
Pengu was really basic, im aware of it, but i tried to correct every aspect of it, and for what it was, it was finished.
Im trying to place the bar a bit higher now, with a full platform game, but i dont want to set it too high either.

I need to feel confident about what im doing first, and finish the projects i start up...ummm knowing i can do it, and have the perseverance to do it.
Eventually i would like to just run wild and really make some new stuff that are a bit more "out there"...but for the moment is just out of the picture.

Gameplay wise, im borrowing things from all around; mostly classics, making a nice retro-game, with some nice graphics and even though it might be cliche...fun story.

Big levels, with objectives inside them; items that grant you some new abilities and spells...ands thats it.

Again sorry to disapoint.

Feel free to move this to wherever this belongs, but maybe someone in the same situation as me will find it valuable, hell some might find it funny, but i think more than one person will learn a bit in the process of my progression, even if it is not to make the same mistakes i did.

Anyway, i got a few things to share;








I got a pretty solid engine so far; Alex can;

Move without problems and collisions, throw cards, hide in the hat/crouch, dash, hover/float over wind currents, card collect, and keys/doors seem to work just fine;
I got some gfx for the levels done already, tho not much, and pretty much every basic char animation is done.

Ill post a demo, or a video when i have something more playable...ill keep you guys posted thanks for the interest

[Zaphos]

Simplicity doesn't disappoint me -- I think it's a good idea to keep it simple.  Although I also think that it is possible to keep things simple without resorting to cliches.

Anyway, nice art as usual!

[Derek]

I'd also like to know what you have planned in terms of gameplay...
Anyway, I think this could fit very well in the project section...

What do you think?

The Projects forum is for collaborative projects where the entire community can participate.  So this belongs here, definitely!

Im sorry to dissapoint you guys, i really am; but im keeping this simple...otherwise it will just be like making my first project a 1000+ hour RPG that i know i wont finish.

Well, it's definitely refreshing to hear someone with realistic expectations for projects.  I'm telling you, if you start with Pengu, then finish this... it won't be long before you're a game-making ninja.

Not that you shouldn't take Zaphos's advice to heart... maybe not for this project but for the next.  It's good advice.

It'd be cool if you could get an ability that let you jump into your hat and then pop out a rabbit.  Not sure what the rabbit can do... maybe bite through carrot blocks? :D

[Oracle]

Derek: Im taking every advice here to heart, i find them all to be truly valuable
The rabbit will play a big role as a supportive character the way im planning it.

I have a small update for those interested,



-I changed the resolution ( it was sad to kiss 320x240 goodbye, but i think it makes the gfx look crisper and it serves a good purpose on gameplay)
-Finished the jump animation of Alex the magician
-Created the animations of Alex without the hat, and the animation without the hat & cape.
-Added some more backdrops, and played with the background colours.

[jwaap]

This is looking great! I love your style. It is probably important to add some tile variation, since such lines can annoy eyes. A simple way of doing this is by adding some "foreground" platforms that are unreachable. Example:



Of course that is just a crappy edit, but it illustrates the idea.

Looking forward to playing this!

[moshboy]

Yep loving the crisp style. Great stuff. Looking forward to further developments.

[Tr00jg]

Yeah, like Jwaap said. I would not prefer those straight lines... Let the lines perhaps fade?

[Guert]

The Projects forum is for collaborative projects where the entire community can participate.  So this belongs here, definitely!

Ah yes, true! Sorry!

[Oracle]

Okay, i have something new to show you guys! Nothing much yet, but i think im getting somewhere

I ran into some troubles in there with the slowdown, but i changed some stuff around and it should work fine as an engine.

Added a bunch of stuff...some that isnt noticeable in that demo tho..and in the end i decided to remove the dash from the game.



Controls:
W, (Jump, Double Jump)
A, (Left)
S, (Crouch/Hide in hat, Cancel the cape)
D, (Right)

Mouse, (Aim)
Left click, (Shoot)
Right click, (Cape, Get out of hat)

http://myfreefilehosting.com/f/9e16837f2d_0.4MB

Please, do share your toughts!

------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Jwaap: Noted , ill break the tiling as soon as i get a chance, tho, i dont think it will be too flashy.... thanks a bunch for the edit!

moshboy: Thanks for the interest and the kind words:)

Tr00jg: I dont know about fading, since the levels are connected, but ill work something out to break the monotony, thanks for the input!

[Zaphos]

The demo seems to be working as expected -- not much there yet, but what's there is looking good!

Some specific comments:

• Doors are collectible items?  That's really odd ...
• Controls don't feel quite responsive because of dead zones where they don't work -- like the jump key doesn't seem to double jump as the character is falling downwards, and the "go into hat" / duck key doesn't work while moving.
• It was odd to me that the duck key didn't toggle ducking; the idea that you right click to un-duck isn't intuitive to me.
• It might help to have a different animation for throwing the cards in a more upwards direction -- the animation seems a bit disconnected from the throw when I throw upwards.
• Also, an animation for throwing backwards, for when I run one way and throw the other ... or, actually, perhaps a 'running backwards' animation would be even better in this case.
• On that note, when I stand still and throw, if I've been running and the cursor was behind me I don't turn around to face where I'm throwing.
• The timing on card throws seems slightly off -- the second card seems to sometimes come out too quickly, sometimes too slowly, and then after that it's at a regular pace.  I can see this getting confusing as people tough enemies where the number of cards hitting them is really important, so even though it's really small it would be good to fix.
• Not sure if this is something you're planning already or not, but anyway it might help to make a more vibrant world if you put small animations (not too much -- just a few frames) on background elements like the flowers and grass.  Just (for example) swaying in the wind, that kind of thing.  For kicks you could also have more elaborate animations, but they should be randomly triggered (don't want the background to become too distracting).
• You absolutely want sound effects, but I'm sure you know that already!

[Terry]

Agh, the link doesn't work for me. 

Check your PMs, Oracle!

[___]

Damn.  You tempt me with these awesome screenshots, but then the download link doesnt work.  You are truly a master of suspense... :I

[Oracle]

Xerus: You can thank Terry for giving me a proper hosting, heres a new link for those that couldnt test it.

Terry: Thank again for the hosting and the interest, please do try it, and tell me what you think.

Zaphos: Thats a really nice in depth critique, ill adress your points personally as soon as i get the chance (im on the middle of finals in university), and respond properly to you.
Thanks a lot!

Update: Silly me, forgot the link

http://distractionware.com/oracle/Magic%20Kid%20Engine.zip

[Terry]

Well, I've tried it - it's looking pretty good so far! I'd definitely have a look at some of Zaphos suggestions though, particularly the ones about dead zones and hat toggling.

I can see it's early days yet, but I'm looking forward to this.

[Melly]

Well, I guess Zaphos addressed most of the points as far as the controls go. It is a bit counter intuitive to not have 'up' get you off the hat, but you seem to want people to be able to jump into tight spaces that you can only do inside the hat. An interesting alternative, I imagine, would be to have the player need to keep 'down' pressed in order to duck, getting on his feet if the button is released, and this could be done in mid-air as well. That way you could still jump into small crevices without needing an extra button and in turn making it more intuitive. Just a suggestion.

and yes, get rid of the dead zones. Make us a smooooooth platformer.

[Zaphos]

I imagine, would be to have the player need to keep 'down' pressed in order to duck, getting on his feet if the button is released, and this could be done in mid-air as well.

Not sure if that's a bad or good idea, but one thing to keep in mind when you develop games for a PC is that modern keyboards only reliably recognize two to three simultaneous key-presses.  Whenever you ask a user to hold down a key you risk other keys being unresponsive -- and to make matters more painful, the specific key combinations which work or don't work depend on the keyboard being used.  So for example, in the case of Magic Kid's controls, if I hold down S and then press W to jump, both A and D are unresponsive until I let go W (or S).

Just something to keep in mind if you're tweaking the control scheme ...

[Melly]

I guess that could be an issue. Aren't there keyboards without that kind of restriction out there?