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[andrewjb]

Oh hi, this is our game's thread.

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The game's focus is on environmental puzzle solving, atmosphere, and exploration. The goal is to make the game's world interesting enough to entice players to want to explore, so we plan on having quite a few paths, secret areas and unlockable abilities. It will play similar to a 2d metroidvania game.

Our developer blog can be found here: http://www.thothinteractive.com
Although most information there I will probably end up posting in this thread as well.

THOTH is a small 2 man development team. I'm the artist on the team and Greg does all the code, we're both in charge of general design. I'm sure my partner will chime into this thread eventually as well. We've been working on it for about 4 months now and are hoping to release a public alpha around mid April (hopefully ). The game is being developed using Unity 3D and Maya 2009.

Anyhoo, we're looking forward to feedback as well as updating this thread with new content!

[andrewjb]

MEDIA

PUBLIC DEMOS:

Token Demo - PC
Token Demo - Mac

ANIMATIONS:



*NEW*



Animation test: Token Teleport
Animation test: Token Teleport part 2
Animation test: Core animations
Hazard: Slow Plate
Music Sample & Title

STILLS:

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this one is already pretty large

[andrewjb]

ABILITIES

While we get closer to having a playable release, I think I might detail some of the unlockable abilities in the game, mostly because I'm mentally exhausted and can't seem to sleep. Each of the following abilities is unlocked by collecting the 5 letters that make up each of their names, the letters are re-imagined in a sort of cryptic script that creates the shape of the powerup once all the letters have been found. Here are some of the primary ones required for navigating the game's world:

VAULT:

Vault allows the player to rebound off of walls and control the direction of their leap from said wall. It also has the ability to take the distance you've traveled through the air and inject that into a more powerful jump once you cling to something. It makes for some pretty fun launches once you get yourself going.

Performed by pressing action 1 + (up, down, or neutral) once you have clung to a wall.

TOKEN:

Token allows the player to mark their location anywhere they can get solid footing, so as long as you're sitting still and crouching, you are able to place a token. Once placed, you can the recall to that location under similar circumstances.

Peformed by pressing down + action 1 while standing still to save or up + action 1 to recall.

SPIKE:

Spike is an ability that allows the player to spend all energy to quickly dash through the air. Once done so, they cannot perform any other abilities for a while. This is primarily used to destroy breakable environment pieces or get that last bit of oomph needed to land a jump. The ability can also be used while clinging to some movable walls to either push them in or pull them out.

Performed by pressing action 2 in mid air or clung to a wall.

FOCUS:

Focus will allow the player to plant an anchor point anywhere in midair to swing around that point and shift direction. If used properly, it can also increase airtime substantially, although there is a cooldown on it.

Performed by pressing the action 1 while in mid-air.

[andrewjb]

Updated media section with some in-game screenshots. 

[Kramlack]

How come no one has posted here? This is amazing. The animation is smooth, and the look as a whole definitely appears like a lot of thought and polish was put into it, which sets it apart from just another silhouette game.

Gonna keep a close eye on this thread.

[flavio]

Gonna keep a close eye on this thread.

+1, definitely.

[andrewjb]

Thanks all.

Added a new video to the media section showing some

, as well as another screenshot.

As far as development progress goes, we've been crunching a bit this week in order to finish our public demo and playable alpha. We're presenting to our local IGDA chapter on the 24th, so we're doing our best to strut our stuff there. Wish us luck!  

[JasonPKaplan]

This looks amazing.

I've got raging art jealousy.

[Zerker Commander]

Hey everyone. I'm Greg. The man behind the curtain on the Thoth Interactive game, Impulse. I'm here to announce that we will be aiming for a public demo release about APRIL 15th. We'll keep you updated on progress or any changes about the demo.

-Cheers

[andrewjb]

Holy crap. I will definitely be keeping track of this.

How are you doing the animations anyway? They look amazing.

Our dev blog has a little blurb that explains it:
http://thothinteractive.blogspot.com/2011/03/simplicity-and-magic.html

Also I'll add, pertaining to what Greg said, that we decided on setting a date for the demo only for the purposes of motivating us to work much harder than we have been. Hopefully we'll be able to stick to the deadline, but you guys know how things can get.

[AlexDJones]

Jesus, those animations are good! Looking forward to the 15th!

[andrewjb]

Just a quick update, we're more or less on schedule for the public bug/balance test demo.

To explain it a bit more, the demo won't take place in a proper game level, but rather be a large debug chamber that pretty much allows every action possible in the game with some basic puzzle elements thrown in.

[Jared C]

This looks fantastic, you guys! I am looking forward to the 15th.

[Kramlack]

This looks fantastic, you guys! I am looking forward to the 15th.

[Zerker Commander]

I'll apologize now for this news in regards to the date of the demo. Long story short the past week I've been combating a bout of the flu, which has caused a delay in completion of some of the necessary features we want in for the demo. These extra few days we'll be taking to make sure that the demo is of a standard that we are comfortable with for public release. Again I apologize for the slight delay from this.

[Zerker Commander]

New post over on our blog. Have a read! http://www.thothinteractive.com/

[andrewjb]

Aaaaand we're back...  

Okay so, it's been a while since we've updated, life has reared it ugly head and made work time hard to find, but I can assure you we're in full force and have been making progress consistently again. We are hoping to release some regular small demos of each of the game's abilities as we work on them, starting with Token's work in progress:

TOKEN DEMO PC DOWNLOAD
TOKEN DEMO MAC DOWNLOAD

-------------------------	-------------------------
W A S D	- Directional Controls
Space	- Action
-------------------------	-------------------------
Left/Right	- Walk
Down	- Crouch
Down + Left/Right	- Roll/Crawl
Hold Down + Action	- Place Token
Hold Up + Action	- Recall to Token
-------------------------	-------------------------

The Token that is already there is a static checkpoint that will nullify a placed Token when it's touched.

[Jared C]

The demo plays very smooth. Great work on this so far, I can't wait to see where it goes!

[screwtape]

Those animations are seriously incredible. I really like the limited field of view idea, self-imposed restrictions like that can be really interesting. Love the demo!

[Flying Roosters]

Really digging the art! We are doing a side project/game with similar style.

Gameplay wise, I don't quite grasp what we are suppose to do in the demo