next »

[idoru]

Chroma is a temporary title for a game I've been working on for the past few months. Progress has been slow because I'm doing this in what little spare time I have, but slow progress is better than no progress, I suppose. It's basically a platformer with some action, exploration, and puzzle elements. Yes, I know, not original. But I like those types of games and I figure I'll be more likely to finish something I like to play.

The core mechanic is that there are six different "elements", each associated with colors. Touching certain objects of a color pass that color on to the player. The different colors provide different powers to the player which allows overcoming obstacles, etc. The drawback is the player can be only one color at any one time. There is no player death, only changing to a color that may be undesirable in the current situation.

Anyway, here is a short gameplay video and a couple screenshots.

Chroma - Gameplay Demo 01:

[penguins]

Interesting concept, I like it :D.

I really like the style of the graphics.

The platforming seems very natural as well.

Can't wait to see more.

[lasttea999]

This looks. SO cool. Looking forward to a demo!

[flavio]

It's so cool! The animation of the man's eyes is very nice! I don't understand why the color of the water is green while you use blue for some background elements.

[NFour]

Ive had this same exact element sorta gameplay stuck in my head for years and now i might actually get to play it
looking forward to seeing it done!

[BoxedLunch]

Glad to see you made a devlog!

The concept sounds like it will work pretty well, and with how you described it, i assume there is a lot of room for fun puzzles. So far you're going in the right direction with everything, especially the door burning, i liked how realistic it was, in the sense that it wasn't instant. Looking forward to this, and i'll definitely keep checking back.

[idoru]

Area style mockup with a new tileset I'm working on:

[Sakar]

I absolutely adore those clouds!

[idoru]

I don't understand why the color of the water is green while you use blue for some background elements.

That area is a sewer. As shown in the video, getting into the water makes the player smell bad.

I absolutely adore those clouds!

Thanks! I went through about five looks before settling on that one. The others were mostly horrible.


Updates:

I've deviated slightly from the standard Spectrum palette of 255/192 bright/dark. I'm now using 255/160 to create more separation between tones.

Here's a slightly updated version of the area style mockup shown above:



And another area style mockup:



I think I've settled on a general, cohesive style for the tilesets and will be completely redoing the "castle" shown in the screenshot above. It doesn't fit with the direction I've decided to go and was basically placeholder for testing, anyway.

So two more area styles to go and then I can get on to overall game flow and objectives along with general level layout.

[flavio]

That area is a sewer.

Oh, it makes sense!

[Halcyon]

Awesome, I love the graphic style and the gameplay, looking forward to seeing more. 

[tesselode]

From the video, I can't really tell what the goal of the game is. Also, the idea seems kind of Kirby-esque, but it has the potential for some really fun gameplay.

[idoru]

From the video, I can't really tell what the goal of the game is. Also, the idea seems kind of Kirby-esque, but it has the potential for some really fun gameplay.

I have a rough idea of the overarching goal and story, but haven't yet fleshed it out. Basically, from high-level goals to low-level goals, the game plays like this:

• Locate the main "boss" to finish the game
• Locate several power-ups to make progression through the game less difficult
• Solve puzzles to allow further exploration of the game world

Now that you mention it, the mechanic is very Kirby-like. I didn't really think of it that way because the player will be interacting more with the environment to gain powers instead of with enemies. When it comes down to it, I suppose both are essentially the same.

[idoru]

If you're not sick of screenshots... I'm making some progress on area tilesets. The first is the caves and the second is the ruins. The sewers make up the lower portion of the ruins and thus share a similar style. There is a lot more work to be done on the caves but once finished, I'll have the majority of environmental pixeling done. Perhaps I can then move the DevLog progress bar up to 20%.

[Sakar]

Looking good so far!

What are you making this in?

[idoru]

What are you making this in?

Game Maker 8, using the excellent Grandma Engine by Matt Thorson.