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Okay then, changed the idea totally, that pun was just way too bad. Or maybe even worse.
(http://img7.imageshack.us/img7/2217/hoho.png)
(Yes, I'll work on the graphics later ;D)

So, the idea is quite basic: You have control to 3-5 robots, and each of them can do only one thing. One of them can see, another one can hear things (or maybe see where there is electricity or something; being able to hear isn't probably that useful), and one can pick up and touch things. You're inside a "motherbot" and control these smaller bots, and they try to free you from wherever you are imprisoned in. I guess this has been done before, but I quite like the idea.

So, the cockpit part consists of moving the little bots with those cool joystick-things, swapping between bots and probably using some bonus buttons to activate the abilities of the robots. I will have quite a job to fill that table with buttons.

Fearures:
-puzzles
-probably not fights
-different areas
-different bots
-DungeonMasterish look (when you're handling the bot with eyes)
-otherwise the screen will show some appropriate maps/diagrams.

CHANGE/IMPROVEMENT LIST:
-Added wall sensors (There're now 22 of them)
-Added support for things that are on a wall. The images don't somehow want to resize correctly, but there's nothing too bad there.
(http://www.hempuli.com/cock.PNG)
-Added support for objects that can lay on your way.

 :epileptic:

Looks like the compo hasn't yet even began. I hope it is allowed to post already a concept thread though. :droop:

:wtf:

Please tell me this giant pink thing at the top is not what I think it is.

Also, reminds me a lot of Return Fire. Minus the cock that is.

I'll probably put in a possibility to change it to a wall of spikes or something. If I ever make this one, that is.

On first glance, it's obviously just the skyline. However, the more you look at it... the more...

:epileptic:

I'm like, "hey, that looks fun"!
And then I thought.
And then I'm like, "Ohhhhhhhhhhhhhh".

This is interesting.
:giggle:

I also thought it was the skyline until I read the description  :biglaff:

I thought a little of an alternative cockpit game idea. expect this bad pun to disappear soonish. :)

 :o

Oh man, Dungeon Master is one of my favourite games of all time! And this has a similar theme to Captive (http://www.mobygames.com/game/amiga/captive), which was a first-person RPG like Dungeon Master that put you in charge of a team of robots which you controlled remotely, in order to rescue yourself! The idea of the different robots each having a single function is a nice touch, though. Consider me interested!

Off topic: Captive's cover art is hilarious! Those are some of the stiffest-looking robots I've ever seen.

What just happened, this was definitely a completely different game a couple minutes ago... :wtf:

I'm not sure you want to know.   :handforkL: :crazy:

I could have sworn that I read about some C64 (or some such console) game that had a similar premise. Sounds interesting all the same.

Yeah, I'm quite sure there's a game like this already, or at least very similar. However I can't think of any currently, so that doesn't matter. x)

The cock was slain. I'm sorry.

Sounds like "Suspended", an Infocom text adventure.

Checked from wikipedia; yeah, seems quite the same.

(http://www.hempuli.com/kock.PNG)
I've been working a bit to get the engine to be able to show things that are on the walls, like that awful-looking wire there. It's surprisingly hard; I've used 20 different sensors for wall detecting this far. :laughter:

(http://www.hempuli.com/cock.PNG)

Yay! I can now put things on the wall! Also other objects work already fine. I'll start now designing the robots.

And for you who wonder: I used pictures from Gone with the wind for testing purposes.

Hello! I'm doing the music for this entry. Well, I say 'music', but I mean 'noise'. I'm planning on doing a background ambient track that's about 15-20 minutes long, encoded at 32kbps to give a nice lo-fi sound. It will mostly consist of whooshes of white noise and electronic bleeping, with occasional bursts of static and radio interference. It's going to be quite a departure for me! I may post a short sample when I've got something.

Hooray, Synnah! That does sound like something you haven't tried before.

I'm curious if there will only be music for one of the three robots (since the premise was to make the game a bit of a "one has eyes, one has ears, and the other has something else), or if the music will be different/drowned out for each robot.

Like a kitten in a catnip store- ohboyohboy!

Hmm, now you mention it, that's something worth considering. It depends mostly on the number of robots there will be in the end, and what their functions will be. Also, I'm not sure what Hempuli is coding this in; We could either layer MP3s based on which robot is active, or perhaps just apply a filter. Thus the non-hearing bots would get muffled versions of the audio.

Although, thinking about it, I think the premise of the game is that you're controlling the robots externally, so the ambient audio could be said to be what you're hearing, and not the robots. It's worth thinking about, anyway.

At first I planned there to be 4 bots: One with ears, one with arms, one with eyes and one that can't even move, but can sense electrical power. The music would've probably been the same for everyone, but the eary one could've also heard things like water rushing and doors opening and such. Lately I've been thinking if the 'eary' robot fits the game well enough though, I can't think of any clever puzzles that require ears (AND are doable with this engine)!  :'(

Since I use MMF 2, I'll probably convert any song I get to an OGG; otherwise they must be as external files. This means that this 'muffled' version should be a totally separate OGG file. However getting that thing to work wont be hard; very easy actually.

How about some kind of control panel on a wall with a speaker, and if you're using the hearing robot you'll hear a 4-digit code being repeated from it, which is used to open a door. Standard key/door scenario. I'm having trouble envisioning any other audio puzzles, though..

Other ideas: In Dungeon Master, sound was a pretty important part of gameplay, as it often gave you an early warning when there were monsters nearby, or when the switch you'd just pressed had opened a door, or when a timed door was closing, that kind of thing. If there are enemies, you could make them quite vocal, so that the hearing robot becomes useful for detecting them. Although... it can't see, can it? Hmm.

This is what made me think of not having it. Since changing quickly from bot to bot isn't probably what players want to do.

Hmmm. How about this then: The bots that can't 'see' will at least have a basic view of the environment, in the form of a wireframe display, and perhaps blobs to represent enemies and other bots. They wouldn't be able to see details on walls, though, and other features, which is where the seeing bot comes in.

Would a wireframe display be easy enough to implement?

It would, but I'm not exactly sure if I'm happy with that idea, since it would affect quite a lot some puzzle concepts. It could be maybe easier to just integrate the 'ear' -ability to one of the existing bots, like the one that can see.

There are a lot of interesting puzzles I can think of due to my extensive and useless knowledge of riddles and cliché "adventurer's intuition moments" knowledge.

For example, to detect doors, you could listen for the wind blowing through the edges/a crack or something.

There's also the possibility of overhearing conversation between guards (assuming there are any) to receive hints or simply to add to the atmosphere. Clanks and such could help aid in detecting approaching enemies and moving away from them. If you have any way to manipulate stereo/surround sound, you could implement something like that, as well.

But maybe that's all too farfetched... I dunno.

Anyway, right, class time. Off I go!

I can affect to from which speaker the sound comes from, what is the balance and how loud the noise is.

Hmm, I should probably try this out. Let's see.

I just want to throw my support behind the "slightly different music for each bot" thing.  Dynamic music is one of my most favorite things ever, even if it's just slight variations on a theme for each bot (see: your different advisors in Alien Legacy).  It's done best of all if you can switch from track to track in the middle.  Heck, that would practically be an automatic vote from me, because it improves the experience -so much- IMO.

So, it's up to Synnah if he can compose 4 songs from the same theme. x)

[ Synnah Endorsement]
Oh I'm sure he'll come up with something incredible that will totally make your game, he's always come through with greatness for me!
 :beer:
[/Synnah Endorsement]

Oh man, geez  :-[. Thanks mrfredman!

I should be able to do it, yes. I'll PM you soon with the specifics, Hempuli, but it shouldn't be too much extra work to create 4 versions of the same ambient track, each with different tonalities and with certain sounds specific to them (Like the electricity-sensing bot, which could have most of the sounds muted and added... electric-y noises). If you can get MMF2 to switch between OGGs, and still keep the track position, then we're cool. Even better would be a cross-fade.

> Lead Ye Bots.
You can't lead ye bots!

And then you're left to wonder why on earth you can't lead ye bots...

Sorry, couldn't resist (http://www.hrwiki.org/index.php/Ye_Flask).

Eh Heh HEH ;D

I worked a little more on the control panel. I'll start creating the different robots after this. I've also planned a bit the puzzles/room layouts.

(http://www.hempuli.com/boink.PNG)

Those arms are the best thing ever

I must try to resist to not spoil everything in the game; but I just HAD to post this one. I've created the different robots, the next thing will be pickable/pushable objects, along with the robots themselves.

The screenshot show's how the game area is different for different robots.

(http://img7.imageshack.us/img7/2217/hoho.png)

Looking nice! And I do really like the arms.

I made the "objects" viewable today, so now you can see the other robots and pickable objects. Next thing is to create the arm robot to be able to pickup stuff. Currently there's a very annoying bug that causes the objects to go behind the wall textures. I'll try to fix that too.

whoa, that dudes got a strechy sweater. :wtf:

Ok, I'm pretty sure this doesn't make it. The engine is very clumsy, and I think the game wouldn't be fun to play at all. Sorry guys. :concerned:

*sighs* :(

Aww, poo! I was quite enjoying making noises, too. Never mind!