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[Noel Berry]

Heya. A few days ago I decided to make a mockup because I was in the mood to draw something, and why draw anything except stuff that can be used in games? So, my mockup turned out like the image below. The next day, I thought it would be fun to see if I was able to program levels in AS3 that have a similar graphical style to the mockup below. It wasn't too hard, and I quickly had levels loading quite nicely and easily.

It's about that time that I thought it would definitely be worth while turning this into some sort of game. So, I started working on a level editor, and making a player run around and such.

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PLAY:              V0.1
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So, I'm pretty happy with the direction, and once I add in a bit more scenery and weird things (plants and all that good stuff) I figure the world will be really interesting to simply walk around it.

However, simply walking around, isn't what I want to do with this game. I want to add more: some kind of plot, some kind of challenge, and make this an interesting game.

I was thinking that I could add some kind of hazard to the game (such as spikes) to make it more challenging. But at this point in time, I'm really not sure if spikes sticking up all over the place will fit the style and mood of the game at all.
That said, I haven't tried adding those kinds of hazards (to add challenge) so it might fit the game really well, if I make it look right. Either way, I'm trying to figure out some way to make the game more interesting than just wandering around (and to me, that means adding some difficulty/challenge over time) without ruining the mood the game currently sets.

Hopefully I come up with an idea soon.

Any suggestions/comments/constructive criticism on what I have so far?

[droqen]

Things:

1. The text pattern should vary! I like it, though.
2. In the second bit of text "it's" should be "it was".

Other stuff:

Gorgeous. I really like the style.
The controls feel a little jumpy to me, for the style; perhaps a little bit of acceleration/smoothing would make it feel nicer (even if top speed is the same).

Not much else to say yet though :x Keep it up? :D

[AndrewFM]

The art style is looking nice. It's unique, and fits the esoteric theme you have for the game.

Only criticism I have so far is that the whole text/inner monologue thing shouldn't take you out of the game. It worked okay for the intro, but it killed immersion when used during the game at the water part. If anything, still use the text, but layer it on top of the game world, instead of bringing you to a black screen.

By the way, after the room with the pool of water, trying to go to the next room caused my entire browser to freeze up. Not sure if that's a glitch, or if that's the end of the demo, and the game just reacting badly to it... but you might want to look into that

[mokesmoe]

2. In the second bit of text "it's" should be "it was".

This sentence also applies to his post. Hehe.

I think the walls would be nice with some anti-aliasing, although I don't know how easy or hard that is to do, and if it's worth doing it this early.

[Noel Berry]

Thanks guys.

Things:

1. The text pattern should vary! I like it, though.
2. In the second bit of text "it's" should be "it was".

Other stuff:

Gorgeous. I really like the style.
The controls feel a little jumpy to me, for the style; perhaps a little bit of acceleration/smoothing would make it feel nicer (even if top speed is the same).

Not much else to say yet though :x Keep it up? :D

1. Yeah, I can work a bit with that..
2. Oops. Will fix - thanks, haha!

Yeah, I also felt the speed may be a bit too fast, so I might slow him down and try to make his movement feel smoother and "dreamy-er"...

The art style is looking nice. It's unique, and fits the esoteric theme you have for the game.

Only criticism I have so far is that the whole text/inner monologue thing shouldn't take you out of the game. It worked okay for the intro, but it killed immersion when used during the game at the water part. If anything, still use the text, but layer it on top of the game world, instead of bringing you to a black screen.

Hmm, I see what you mean. I could maybe try making something happen to the player while the inner monologue is happening, so it feels more visual and interactive. I was thinking of having the player pulled out of the water at that point, so maybe I'll show that while the player is talking to himself.

By the way, after the room with the pool of water, trying to go to the next room caused my entire browser to freeze up. Not sure if that's a glitch, or if that's the end of the demo, and the game just reacting badly to it... but you might want to look into that

It's because I was too lazy to make a proper "end". It currently just tries to load the next room, but when it can't find one, throws an error... I'm surprised it froze up your browser though - I'll remove stuff like that from now on to avoid that happening again.

I think the walls would be nice with some anti-aliasing, although I don't know how easy or hard that is to do, and if it's worth doing it this early.

In one of my earlier versions I was doing this, however, I removed it when I began to add shadows and some more complicated code to get it to look right. I think I can add it back in pretty easily now, so I might go and do that - because I agree, it looks better with anti-aliasing.

So, I've come up with some more ideas for the plot and how the game will work to some extent... I'm thinking I'll go with an exploration platformer, though I'm still not sure about difficulty and how that should develop.

Cheers

[Captain_404]

At first I thought the tree was some kind of giant alien lung, heh.

I like the style you have started here, but I would work on your colors a bit.

You'll note that the color of the trunk and the darker part of the background are nearly the same color:



Your foreground is the lightest element here, which would seem to imply that as things move away from the viewer they become darker. Since there are parts of the background behind the tree which are lighter than the tree, it makes the whole scene more confusing and harder to read in terms of object depth.

I don't know if you know this or not, but it's possible to move the character while the text is onscreen. (which led the game to freezing when I blindly loaded the non-existent level, but I guess you already know that)

Anyway, this is a nice start, keep experimenting with it!

[Noel Berry]

oooh, good catch! I hadn't really thought of that when I added in the tree. I experimented a bit, and I think this works better:


However, I think I will now need to change the character design as he's too hard to see against the dark background, but that's OK with me - I'll change him around later today.

Will also pause the game when the text is being displayed, to avoid weird issues like that

[JLJac]

Wow, this looks great! I like the style, though I think the character's movement could be tweaked a bit. The jumps and accelerations/deccelerations seems a bit jerky, when you jump it's almost as if you teleport upwards a small distance. Smoother movements! And make the jump height adjustable please! Also, if you made the character rotate a bit towards the surface he's currently standing on it would look more dynamic. Like this:

characterRotation = ((characterRotation*3) + currentSurfaceAngle) / 4

One thing that hit me is that maybe it would be cool if the cave walls also pulsated slightly, like the tree? Nothing much, just a few pixels back and forth in a sine pattern.

[Daniel Eddeland]

I seem to be experiencing the same problem with the freezing (roughly). The browser didn't freeze right away, but rather ~30 seconds after I'd ended the game (still leaving it open in a tab).

The game has got a very nice feel, with the movement of the character, the art style and the "breathing" of the tree. If you want to add some content without removing the mystique feeling, maybe add some hidden optional elements? (hollow walls, stuff hidden behind plants / objects, etc)

The tree is awesome, and more pulsating plants are needed. I demand a shrubbery!