Hi all!

I would like to present a core puzzle mechanic that I've been toying with for a puzzle platformer.

The CORE IDEA: you can record up to 5 seconds of yourself doing stuff. This way you can interact with your own recording, and do awesome things hopefully!

The SKINNY: It's a puzzle platformer; UP arrow jumps, LEFT AND RIGHT move. Pressing ENTER starts the recording from the beginning, holding SPACE records. That's all you really need to know!

The REQUEST: I have created a very short set of levels so you can get an idea of how it works. The download link is at the bottom of this post. I am looking for IDEAS of versatile mechanics that could employ the recording mechanic, like the switches and other things I'm showing off. Please post those ideas here, I'll take anything, no matter how crazy!

The APOLOGY: This is an incredibly bare-bones thing, and so I'm sorry if there was a better section for this since it is by no means representative of the full idea. I'm hoping to have a relatively quick turn-around time on this project though, so in the end expect something like the super sexy Kyle Pulver's Offspring Fling.

The PROMISE: I solemnly swear this project will not turn into one of those weird hipster art games that has a bunch of pseudo-philosophical text akin to Kingdom Hearts CGI screens mixed with knock-off Limbo aesthetics and a story that tries way too hard to be Braid. Not that I have anything against those types of games of course, just that they're trying too hard to do something they'll never do as well as their inspirations (getting off the soap box now)

THE DOWNLOAD LINK: http://www.mediafire.com/?g1d5bh2deyrqeyo


I want to seriously thank you for all the help you can give me. I'd rather this project be an awesome puzzle game than a reflection of my ability (or inability) to come up with all the best ideas, so that's why I'm asking for anything you've got! If you don't want to just post here, feel free to email me at djdewitt[at]u[dot]northwestern[dot]edu or just send me a message on the forum!

-DJ

Ah damn I would've been so down for some game meetup drinking! Unfortunately I leave Sunday to go back to Chicago. I'll definitely be hitting up a drink sesh if the stars ever align and I'm back in NY at the right time though, thanks Dave!

And thanks everyone else, because of you I was able to meet Tim Schafer tonight and have him sign a jenky game document I had in my back pocket! I also (foolishly? idunno!) asked him if he'd ever consider making Amnesia Fortnite a more open game jam thing that could include people outside of Double Fine, and he seemed to ruminate on the idea for a moment! So that's pretty cool and it's cause of all of you that I got to do that!

Hey everyone!

I just want to say thanks so much for all the responses! I had contacted nyugamecenter on twitter about getting on the wait list and they said they're packed, but I figure I might head over there now and see if I can at least meet some people (which is a lot more fun than sitting in this room programming!)

I appreciate the other recommendations too; I'm only in town until Sunday (April 1st) but hopefully I'll be back soon and get a chance to plan a little further ahead and incorporate some of these ideas.

Once again, thanks everyone for the tips; my adventures here are a hell of a lot less solitary because of them! 

It's not exactly gravity switching per-say, but changing perspective/dimensions was pretty cool in

from Ocarina of Time. It was cool how you experienced walking on the hallway as it shifted, and straightening out the hallway would actually change the side of the wall you were walking on in the following room.

This sort of thing was also pretty cool in the

in Alice in Wonderland's world in Kingdom Hearts...you'd enter the same room from different doors and that would allow you to walk on each wall and ceiling and stuff!

I also think it's pretty cool to imagine spaces (urban spaces?) where people have built with localized gravity in mind, so the concept of walls and ceiling don't really exist and people have built with a knowledge of space where every surface is floor...

Since it looks like you're making a platformer I'll point to two random examples of scariness in platformer games (apologize if either of these have been mentioned already!)

SA-X from Metroid Fusion (GBA): This main antagonist is basically a creepy clone of you, except it's at full power and you're in a weakened state. In a game where acquiring powers/having weapons, etc is important, having an enemy that is monumentally stronger than you is scary.
In

video you're first introduced to the SA-X, it was pretty scary to see how creepy/powerful it was. Before this the SA-X was hinted at by showing a room where it had totally destroyed the environment. Hinting that something is out there, something terrifying and powerful, but that you don't know what exactly it is, can be really scary.
In

video you basically hide out on top, I always found it really scary and (unlike the player in the video) didn't want to move or make noise in case it heard me (you'll notice the SA-X doesn't respond when the player shoots, which kinda breaks the fear. Force the player into a situation where there are consequences for not being as silent and still and scared as possible)

Big Baby Bowser from Yoshi's Island (SNES): This was probably one of the scariest gaming moments from my childhood...cut to around the 1-minute mark in this video. This may be more tense than outright scary, but seeing this giant glowing-eyed monster getting closer and closer in the background, the ground breaking out, the nervousness that comes with missing a shot and seeing baby bowser get closer...it added up (seeing him so small and then so big when he got up close was terrifying to me as a child...)

So yeah, these aren't demented scary like Amnesia, but hopefully they can provide some more platformer-specific ideas. Playing with sense of scale, depth, powerlessness, how enemies are introduced through how they alter/distort/destroy the environment...that sort of stuff! Good luck!

Hi Everyone,

First: I apologize if it isn't kosher to post this topic here! I just noticed that despite being an ultra artsy mega city there didn't appear to be any New York Indie Games collective so I'm not sure where else I can try to find people in the New York area who are into making games.

Second: I'm not from New York, but I leave for New York tomorrow (Thursday, the 15th) and I'm going to be in New York with virtually nothing to do (aside from make games) until at least the 22nd. I would LOVE to meet anyone and everyone who is from the area who would like to jam together, get drinks, get food, get a coffee, talk about game design, go do a cool thing in a big city - WHATEVER SUITS YOUR FANCY! I don't get to New York often and I'd love to take the opportunity to make more indie game friends!

I won't reiterate everything here, but you can read my "introduce yourself" post here to get a sense of who I am and my background with game design and stuff. Basically, I'm a 21 year old undergraduate at Northwestern University who's been working with Game Maker for like the last decade or so and has very little to show for it, other than an extreme passion for game design and the people that do it!

Once again, sorry if this isn't the place for this and if there's a more appropriate avenue please direct me there! Looking forward to meeting some awesome new people!!

Deej

Hi Everyone!

My name is DJ DeWitt; I'm 21 years old, an undergraduate at Northwestern University, an ex Physics major who is now utterly focused on making all of the games...go big or go home?

So, backstory: I've been making games for a really long time now, I think I hopped onto Game Maker around version 2 and have been using it extensively ever sense. Now you're thinking, where are all the awesome games you've built over the years then? Well, after completing a single game and submitting it to the Game Maker Showcase (Rest in Peace) I've been trying to make the next Cave Story for the last, god, 10 years of my life? More? It's ridiculous really, someday I'll just put literally hundreds of those half-complete game maker files up on my site to see if anyone can use anything from them. Anyway, I'm clearly a grade-A example of "finish your shit"-itis that plagues creative people/indie game designers.

THINGS ARE CHANGING THOUGH: As I've come to accept that video games should no longer remain a hobby in my life and should take its rightful place as my central focus, I've started to get a better sense of all the things that's changed since my early Game Maker days. Vlambeer's "bringing arcade back" mentality and a lot of Adam Saltsman's thoughts have given me a new perspective on game design; I need to stop trying to make the next Cave Story and focus on producing smaller stuff that I can finish, namely things like arcade games. Thus...ROBOSHAFT. I hope you guys like it when we release it, and if you don't please rip it apart so I can improve!

You can check out my stuff at djdewitt.com, but right now I'm redesigning the site so it's just got a half complete pixely background and a bunch of way-too-wordy ambiguous ideas about interactive entertainment; There will eventually be access to my games and blog posts ranging from technical aspects of game design to more heady ideas on what interactive entertianment is, what it does, why it's the medium of the 21st century and all that jazz.

You can keep updated on my primary focus right now, a little game called ROBOSHAFT, at roboshaft.com...It's an action arcade platformer that I'm working on with the crazy talented pixel artist Jake Wiesen , who happens to be my best friend forever and is the guy I've been trying to make Cave Story with for the past decade about. Seriously, check his shit out if you don't already recognize the name; I like to brag for him that he's one of the best and he's too humble to ever say it so I'll say it for him because he's an ultra inspiring and talented dude!

Anyway, that's about enough for me. I'm pretty sure the only face I recognize here from my GMS days is ChevyRay, but you can rest assured that I have thoroughly stalked so many of you through twitter and am super excited about becoming more involved in the indie games community and want to be all of your friends. <3

Caked in Love,
DJ DeWitt

PS: Some fun facts, Game Maker Showcase (which no longer exists) was the first site dedicated to games made in Game Maker, but it was ultimately unable to compete with GMC and GMG and eventually imploded after many years of awesomeness. That's where I was most active in my indie game old days, as I was a moderator and eventually administrator there, and that's where I met most of my indie games friends. So if you remember it, or were from there, I MISS YOU GUYS! I'm pretty sure the only name I still recognize from back then is ChevyRay (Harry RPG <3) but if there are others out there I'm glad you survived the implosion!

If you're going to have puzzle-based areas you could have a whole bunch of sections that involve a boomerang upgrade where it either always aims towards the mouse after throwing it. This way you can have a 'maze' where you have to guide the boomerang through a network of tunnels to, say, a switch, without it hitting the walls. You can make this more challenging by making it so that the boomerang will return to the player if it gets to the mouse, so you constantly have to lead it but can't let it get too close to the actual mouse otherwise you have to start over. A variation of this would be a boomerang that "reacted" (justify it as radio waves or sumfin) to "sounds" made by clicking the mouse; you'd lead it through the aforementioned maze by clicking on different points to direct it, and then it would fly towards that point (and past it) until you clicked a new spot and sent out a new signal.

I think the idea of forced cooperation could be pretty interesting, so long as each player was presented with enough scenarios where you could help each other out. I imagine it would play out a lot like

where Han and Luke are both in their respective gunners on the M Falcon and are collaborating within their perspective to take down the *same* TIE fighters.

I think the most important thing about planning the cooperative element is to make sure each player has the opportunity to make the game 'easier' for the other player. For example, if there was an enemy wave that flew in across one screen first, so that player has an opportunity to take a few guys out and make life easier for P2. Another idea would be to have an enemy alternate screens, so the more skilled player has the opportunity to help the less skilled player out. Basically it shouldn't be about telling the other player "this thing I see but can't actually do anything with is coming at you try and avoid it" but rather "There's some guys coming your way! I'm gonna help you out buddy by blowing a few of em up!" That way you're helping each other out in the context of the game, as opposed to just helping them out by communicating knowledge the game prevents them from knowing, which I think would ultimately just be very very frustrating.

You can do some interesting things with difficulty here too, like over time the game will get a better sense of who gets hit more, etc. so you can have the game throw more challenging situations at one player and allow the 'worse' player to have an easier difficulty curve by giving them situations that they might be able to manage better. I think the ultimate goal with difficulty in a game like this would be to have, by the end of the game, both players equally skilled at completing the challenges. This could be solidified by finally bringing the players together to face the same challenge at the end, but that might undermine everything the cooperative element worked towards prior so maybe not.

Hi everyone!

My name is DJ DeWitt and I am working on an arcade action platformer with the extremely sexy pixel artist Jake Wiesen (Scruffs elsewhere). Like Super Crate Box and that Mario Bros. Arcade game, it is a frenetic survive-til-you-drop in a steampunk/cyberpunk world where synthetic humans exist alongside their natural-born counterparts.

The game is well on its way and we are close to releasing a public demo, and we are now looking for someone who would like to make some mad cool tracks for ROBOSHAFT. I have attached an application form at the top of our website: roboshaft.com

If you have any further questions or need more info don't hesitate to contact us at roboshaft[at]gmail.com!

NOTE: I am putting this in the [UNPAID] section because Jake and I's primary focus is to finish the game and make it as best as it can be.