Hello, TIGSource!

Myself and a couple of other talented gentlemen are working on a game we'd like to show you a piece of called "Swaplins."

Swaplins are Goblins that have a strong affinity for... swapping things! Swaplins!
This is our first project ever and we're totally excited about it.
 

<Still very WIP, but we wanted to show off the atmosphere>

The idea is that your buddies have ransacked a town, plundered a village, stormed a castle; and are sending their findings back home. It's your job to organize the loot and send the items where they go! You control the Swaplins in the center to run up and down the belts to trade out items to make sure they're on the correct belts.



We're early in development but are trying to keep our scope relatively small to gauge our success as a team. I'm working on programming, Cody Williams is working on art, and Jean-Marc Brown is working on concept and level design.

We're not 100% sure which platforms we'll be releasing on entirely, but there's lots of talk!



No playable yet, but stay tuned! I'll leave you all with some fun concept art.

Tell me about how it exports...

Will I be able to make a customer Game Maker extension for it, via XML or what's the format looking like?

Looks fun. There's a lot of personality going on here!

Man, I want to love this, and I do, but anything that keeps you away from Dinosword is pure evil

 

No fear! This is definitely a small project, but it's been a blast working on it! The game's been coming together really quickly.

Feels good, good atmosphere!

Something I noticed:
When you FIRST START, jump, then mid-air press left and hold against the wall. When you land, you'll hear a *POP* sound effect.

Bug?

Cloudface just got a job but his contract blew into the wind. He's gotta get it back.

...FROM ZOMBIES.

He needs to be able to do at least one of these:

- Lightning fart.
- Get so scared at the sight of a boss he begins to rain himself.

Original Plot Idea:
A girl is just chilling outside on a nice day when a poncho comes floating from the sky and lands right on her. She recognizes it as her significant other's favorite poncho so she goes to look for him.

As you go through the lands, the animals and people you encounter tell stories about your husband/boyfriend/undecided, claiming that he is the greatest warrior the land has ever known and has earned their eternal gratitude for whatever reason. After telling you their story, they lend their soul to the poncho to help protect you in your quest to find out what happened to your man.

I imagine the poncho quickly opening up, and a ghost-bear paw materializes and quickly swipes, then retreats back into the poncho after a bear lends you this power since your significant other helped her find her missing cubs. Lots of things like this.

Whatchu think?

The demo movement felt pretty polished and, oddly enough, I found myself wanting to play more. Don't quit on this!

I'll be putting up more soon. It's a bit more stripped down as it's going into a generic engine, but there are far more features! Mainly platforming stuff. Thanks!

Well, duh. Gamer cred downgraded. Good work nonetheless

HAhaha sometimes I feel like the only one who really, really liked Zelda 2... =(

It's really good! Feels like a polished game. One thing I had trouble with was wall-climbing: After dropping down to the zone with the old man, I couldn't make it all the way back up. But it's very fun. Nice particle effect on hitting a defensive object, cool death, and neat sound effects. Got any big plans to go along with the demo/prototype?

To go forward with the Zelda stuff? Unfortunately not. I mean I'd love to, but at the end of the day it's copyrighted material and my efforts would be spent better elsewhere...! Thanks for the feedback, I tend to not move onto the next feature until everything "feels right."

Do us all a favor. Be a game maker.

Blush.

It feels really good. Great job on the animation so far. Knockback/stun from striking inanimate objects isn't too common; Ducktails inspired, perhaps?

Zelda 2 inspired, or really a lot of those era games...

Your not an Indie Wannabe, your an Indie! Don't make an engine, make a game! Make stuff that your excited about. If you have trouble finishing projects, it's probably because you get bored of them so make stuff that's meaningful and exciting for you.

I think it's cool that you did zelda themed temp art but there's no time like the present to come up with your own characters and stories that are special for you, great work so far, hope you keep it up 

Thank you!!

I still can't get over how cool that dying animation is. Keep it up, man!

I'll jump right into it. I have a door. C&C needed!

I'm 26 years old working retail full-time. I'd like to make games for a living but I can't finish a project for the life of me! I know Game Maker pretty well so it's my tool of choice, and I've also got minor spriting skills. I'm a total Indie Wannabe!

Now that I've been nice and honest with you, here's the lame fan-game my engine has produced so far:
http://www.masharcade.com/LOZ

Use A to jump, S to sword, and spacebar to simulate getting hit. Press R once you're dead to restart.
NOTE: I AM NOT MAKING A ZELDA GAME. This is purely to give the engine a theme as I work. I'll be replacing it with original characters soon, but I thought this would be fun.

Screenie:


I'll update this thread with any new advancements I have... art, programming, anything!

Let me know how it feels!

EDIT:
Trying to sprite "for real" lately. Here's a progress pic of how that's going!

DERP! Of course.

You've been a colossal help, thank you!

Got it workin'.

Ohh, yeah it's running every step, because I wanted a quick scenario for testing.

The way I have it, is a long plank is constantly bouncing back and forth between 0 and 45 degrees with a "player" object just placed in the room. I wanted to see if the player would stay proportionate to the plank's angle and position, but that code DOES run every step.

http://www.masharcade.com/AnglePlatform

In this scenario, the platform is moved every step automatically. This code should be ran whenever the platform moves to accommodate the player movement, yes?

So what I've found, during implementation, is that the player rapidly orbits the point of origin...

Code:

var d;
d = point_distance(player.x,player.y,x,y);

player.x = x + d*cos(image_angle);
player.y = y - d*sin(image_angle);

image_angle += 1 * dir;

if image_angle > 45
or image_angle < 0
    dir *= -1;

I'm assuming I'm implementing this wrong...

John, thanks a million, I'll update with progress!

Trig was... many moons ago, I think it's time I brush up.

Both should have the same effect; If I moved a platform in the engine as is, the player may get stuck in the platform as it angles UPWARDS, it may create an overlap between the player's mask and the platform.

I wonder if there's some sort of formula that will calculate a player's position on a line, then re-calculate it after the line has been angled so that the player or any entities on that line will move to a proportionate point on the line... hmm..

I've got a pretty solid platformer engine set up.
It works on preventative collision, to the effect of this:

Code:

y_speed += y_speed_gravity;
y_speed = clamp(y_speed, -y_speed_max, y_speed_max);

repeat(abs(y_speed))
{
    if !place_meeting(x, y + sign(y_speed), obj_solid)
    {
        y += sign(y_speed);
    }
}

So I want to be able to complicate this a bit more. Let's say I land on a see-saw. I want to be able to have the see-saw move, and have my character rise and fall on the platform as its angle changes.

Another example of this would be the first boss of Super Mario World.
http://youtu.be/Q9b0658O2-k?t=4m10s

Anyone have any ideas how this is best implemented? Please advise.

Thanks,
-Sam!