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[The Hug]

Well, I couldn't get fully into Ludum Dare this weekend, as I was at work at night and had to sleep in to stay sane. However, I was inspired and got a few hours of work in on what I am calling "Deep Dark". Which is a game where you are deep in the ocean, and it's real dark.

I'm thinking it'll be sort of a metroidvania/platformer. So far I just have a player, a very phallic giant squid, and neat lighting, as well as a pickup that lets you jump higher. I want it to be more sort of moody/ambient than combat-oriented. The squids eat you, sure, but they are really just going to be a way to keep areas sealed off until you get the spear gun.

I need to come up with cool areas to make exploration worthwhile. Probably start with doing cool riffs on the standard undersea places: haunted shipwreck, coral reef area, open, sandy bottom, maybe some kind of creepy abandoned installation or submersible?

Anyway, this is clearly in its infancy. Planning on using Flixel, or at least that's what I've started in. All ideas/input/soul-crushing criticism will be welcome as I continue.

Screenie:

[The Hug]

Added "Oxygen Pumps"!

I've decided your oxygen level is going to be an important gameplay element, effectively acting as a timer to keep you racing towards the next Oxygen Pump, which, of course, refills your oxygen. I've got these working now, along with a super sexy UI element telling you how close you are to suffocation.

These are also save points. If you die, you go back to the last Oxygen Pump.

[blundis]

Looks really sweet so far, can't wait to play it! If you're looking for suggestions I personally would change the oxygen pump to something more obviously related to air, like maybe a scuba tank?

This needs an abandoned submarine to explore! 

[The Hug]

Thanks! Will keep that in mind. Still in very early stages, so all graphics/names of things can and will change quite a bit.

Speaking of that, I was too lazy to do any *real* game work this afternoon, so instead of programming I worked on the player sprite, because I was sick of looking at the really ugly one above:


I am also thinking about scaling the game. Flixel makes it easy to scale everything to 2x to get that great pixel-art old-timey feel we all love, and that's what I have been doing so far. I am thinking about doing away with scaling though and leaving all the graphics at actual size. I think it makes the world seem a little larger and more menacing when the player is just a tiny thing on a big dark screen, but you lose the nice, chunky detail.
Would love to know what y'all think about it:


I think my design process from here is going to be based around cool items/powerups to collect, and fabricating a level based on those. So far there is the obvious jump-pack thing that lets you jump higher, and I am pretty much set on a harpoon-gun which will let yo pass giant squids. An item that increases your oxygen capacity is pretty much a given as well. Am also thinking about giving the player a number of floating "lamps" that he can use to illuminate the darkness, and mark off explored areas.

Would love to hear what anyone thinks, and suggestions for cool underwater items!

[Inanimate]

I am also thinking about scaling the game. Flixel makes it easy to scale everything to 2x to get that great pixel-art old-timey feel we all love, and that's what I have been doing so far. I am thinking about doing away with scaling though and leaving all the graphics at actual size. I think it makes the world seem a little larger and more menacing when the player is just a tiny thing on a big dark screen, but you lose the nice, chunky detail.
Would love to know what y'all think about it:

The problem there is that it is hard to actually see the player! Perhaps make his suit a more rust orange, or a brighter green? That would solve that problem, and make it keep the (very nice) imposing size and vastness of the deep. You could also just cut a bit off the edges, that would help greatly.

I think my design process from here is going to be based around cool items/powerups to collect, and fabricating a level based on those. So far there is the obvious jump-pack thing that lets you jump higher, and I am pretty much set on a harpoon-gun which will let yo pass giant squids. An item that increases your oxygen capacity is pretty much a given as well. Am also thinking about giving the player a number of floating "lamps" that he can use to illuminate the darkness, and mark off explored areas.

I like the idea of floating lamps, and designing levels based on power-ups! Perhaps you could have an 'air dasher', which lets you launch yourself in a direction via a stream of bubbles, and a 'oxygen destroyer', which is like

I need to come up with cool areas to make exploration worthwhile. Probably start with doing cool riffs on the standard undersea places: haunted shipwreck, coral reef area, open, sandy bottom, maybe some kind of creepy abandoned installation or submersible?

Coral reef, sandy bottom, shipwreck, abandoned installation, submarine graveyard covered in mines and torpedoes, a huge skeleton of some ancient whale, an undersea cavern system, a volcanic area covered in mineral plumes and lava, a part of the sea covered in ice floes and glaciers... lots of amazing ideas, under the sea!

[The Hug]

Got a little more enthusiastic post-coffee, and added the lamps! Right now, the play state has an array of light sources. Each dark tile checks for the closest light source, and adjusts its alpha value accordingly. In case you wanted to know.

[The Hug]

Wow, thanks Inanimate!

Looks like you got a sentence cut off, but if your "oxygen destroyer" is the invention from the end of Gojira, you are my hero. I just got a great mental image of a screen convered in bubbles, with all the fish sprites converted into little floating fish skeleton sprites. Awesome.

[Inanimate]

Wow, thanks Inanimate!

Looks like you got a sentence cut off, but if your "oxygen destroyer" is the invention from the end of Gojira, you are my hero. I just got a great mental image of a screen convered in bubbles, with all the fish sprites converted into little floating fish skeleton sprites. Awesome.

Yes. That is EXACTLY what I was going to say... it was actually named after it, and I was imagining it like a blast of a

. It wouldn't destroy the WHOLE screen, but shoot a devastating blast.

[The Hug]

Well, it's been a couple weeks, and I haven't posted anything because I really haven't been doing much what with holidays, work, etc.

However,I did revamp the lighting system, to allow light sources to have different intensities.

Also, underwater mines!


I hazards in this game are going to just deplete your oxygen, instead of having a separate health stat. That's what the mine does now when you touch it and the 'sploding happens.

The mines look pretty cool in action. The little red lights blink on and off, so they create an intermittently lit area as they bob up and down.