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[melisoftgames]

INTRODUCTION

Hullo! MeliSoft Games here, reporting on my first ever indie video game, which will hopefully come to fruition later in 2011, but most likely in early 2012. I'm plugging away at it, spending 4-6 hours a day programming my life away. This has become sort of my baby, and I'm very proud of how it's turning out so far, so I thought I'd share it with this community.

THE STORY

Skunk'd: Live Your Dreams is the story of a teenage "emo" boy, Thommy Summers (nicknamed  "Skunk" due to the albino stripe running down the middle of his pitch-black head of hair),  who has quite a bit on his plate. His father is a deadbeat, drug-dealing loser who leaves  him home alone most of the time, and he is tortured at school by a stereotype-defying  bully who is actually much smarter than he is. And yet life goes on; Skunk keeps himself  chugging along with daydreams of his classmate and love interest, the plucky, nerdy writer  Lilly Hartwell.

One fateful day, however, Skunk opens his eyes to find himself in the land of dreams he  used to escape to as a child, a magical world called Lucidia. Here, he comes across a  ghostly figure greatly resembling Lilly, who urges him to wake himself up and save her, as  she has been brutally attacked and left to die somewhere in their town. Upon trying to  wake himself, however, he is told it is not possible by his childhood imaginary friend,  the sadomasochistic and self-mutilating teddy bear Kid Snuggles. After an emotional  reunion for the two old friends, Snuggles reveals that he is now Skunk's guardian angel,  and that the only way to awaken from his slumber is to defeat the "imagination killer" who  has taken over the Spire of Dreams. Skunk is shocked and horrified to find out that the  "imagination killer" is actually Japanese-American boy genius Satoshi Kuragame, who is his  real-life bully!

Determined to confront his fears, Skunk, joined by the restless soul of Lilly and his  self-abusive teddy bear-made-angel, decides to traverse the seven realms of Lucidia, climb  the Spire of Dreams, and put an end to the imagination-killing bully once and for all.  Then and only then will he be able to wake up and save Lilly from her otherwise inevitable death.

THE GAMEPLAY

Skunk'd: Live Your Dreams is a platformer that takes place across 7 puzzle-filled realms, each with its own mechanic to alter your surroundings and solve mysteries. Each level is named after a specific type of dream:

I. Sweet Dream (candy and dessert themed level)
II. Pipe Dream (level in a giant hookah complete with altered states of mind based on which 'clouds' Skunk walks through)
III. Wet Dream (ahem, it's a water themed level a la Water Temple in OoT)
IV. Day Dream (day-night mechanics)
V. Bad Dream (horror-themed level with darkness, flashlight required)
VI. Double Dream (level in a castle with one entire side made of a giant mirror, introducing playing as two Skunks at once)
VII. American Dream (level in a New York-style city, weather plays the biggest role here)

Once all seven realms are completed, you must climb the challenging Spire of Dreams and confront Satoshi in a sure-to-be-epic battle!

CONCEPT ART


The main cast of Skunk'd, improved version. Art by Clement Swennes.

SCREENSHOTS

Screens are not available at the moment; here is some temporary pixelart of the characters:


Pixelart by Clement Swennes.

BOTTOM LINE

This game is being programmed in Scirra's Construct Classic, an alternative to Clickteam products that works similarly but ultimately produces much prettier and efficient results, in my opinion. I'm currently looking for feedback and, actually, a musician to write the score for the game (a paid position). Thanks for reading, lol, if you got through all this you're a better man than I. <3

[Inanimate]

Huh! Interesting idea. Have you played Psychonauts? Its a good example of how to take mental worlds, hallucinations, and such, and incorporate them into level design.

I like how each dream has mechanical differences, too (and good job on the puns).

[melisoftgames]

Huh! Interesting idea. Have you played Psychonauts? Its a good example of how to take mental worlds, hallucinations, and such, and incorporate them into level design.

I like how each dream has mechanical differences, too (and good job on the puns).

Psychonauts was a major influence on this game. I've always found it a real shame the game didn't make it big... it deserved way more public attention than it got. Oh well. My goal with this game is to twist the player's perception more with each level thrown at you... and I don't just want the gameplay to twist it, I'm also hoping the many sharp turns of the plot will throw them for a loop as well.

[-Rob-D.]

Definitely keeping an eye on this thread. I already love the look of your protagonist with the albino stripe and how it ties in with the Skunk nickname. Is he going to have any specific abilities or is the gameplay just centered around the dream mechanics? Either way I'm stoked to see more of this.

[melisoftgames]

Definitely keeping an eye on this thread. I already love the look of your protagonist with the albino stripe and how it ties in with the Skunk nickname. Is he going to have any specific abilities or is the gameplay just centered around the dream mechanics? Either way I'm stoked to see more of this.

Thank you very much! Outside of a powerup each level which grants Skunk the world-altering abilities, and a set of basic platform movement characteristics (walk, run, jump, double jump, climb, slide kick), there will be no special moves and such. I'm glad you're interested

[BattleBeard]

 Sounds fun, looking forward to see more! I love the mind-exploration games, I just wish there were more confusing, cryptic, creepy, and trippy ones.

[melisoftgames]

Sounds fun, looking forward to see more! I love the mind-exploration games, I just wish there were more confusing, cryptic, creepy, and trippy ones.

Well hopefully I and the project's artist (and musician, whenever I find one xD) will be able to pull off the sorta Tim Burton-y feel we're going for. Obviously the early screens don't look particularly creepy or trippy, but as the game goes on and poor Skunk retreats further and further into his desperately unraveling mind, things get interesting for sure.

[BattleBeard]

 The art looks great, I love it! I wish I had an artist, although I'm happy that Bones is good at making the placeholder sprites that look great.

[melisoftgames]

And so, after a very interesting discussion regarding what the price of the final game should be on another forum, I have decided that despite the game's budget (which already exceeds one thousand US dollars, pretty pricey for a first indie project IMO haha ) and the fact that it is only about 20% complete, I'm going to set the final price at just $5 USD. Call me crazy, but I want this game to reach a broad audience and be affordable for everyone.

In addition, I think I'm going to use Steam as the game's distribution platform, pending Valve's needed approval, obviously.

Finally, aside from that housekeeping mumbo-jumbo, I'm pleased to say that the game is coming along great, with the basic engine complete (including character animations and all abilities accessible) and the level design beginning today. The artist behind the game, my good man Clement Swennes, is preparing a promotional poster/boxart-type image for the title, which I hope to share with you in the coming weeks! Also coming relatively soon will be your first opportunity to see the game in motion through an initial video demonstration on MeliSoft Games' YouTube channel.

Part of me fears that perhaps I'm plugging the game a bit too much, but I'm so pumped about this project that you'll have to pardon my excessive enthusiasm. ^_^;; Haha.

[Kramlack]

WOW! It's great to see Atnas showing off his art again, it's been wayyyy too long. With that said though, it's also unfortunate the pixel work for the game also belongs to him. This is just my opinion here (so don't get your panties in a knot people), but it's nowhere near the level of awesome of his previous works. I'll give him the benefit of the doubt for now though, since you mentioned it's all work in progress. I'll be keeping an eye on this thread.

[melisoftgames]

it's also unfortunate the pixel work for the game also belongs to him. This is just my opinion here (so don't get your panties in a knot people), but it's nowhere near the level of awesome of his previous works.

HOW DARE YOU. Lol, jk. That's cool that you've seen his work before, he's extremely talented and so easy to work with. I do have to ask, however, what makes you question the quality of Clement/Atnas's pixelart on this project though, compared to previous projects he's worked on. O:

[leonelc29]

i have a question about the bully Satoshi Kuragame. He is Japanese, yet he doesn't look like one. is that intended? or maybe his parent are playing prank at him so they gave him japanese name?

anyway, nice stuff you have here, and the character sketch are nice too! goodluck to you!
(wet dream, ehh? watery...)

[Kramlack]

I figured you'd ask, but I wanted to wait and see what he'd do with it first. There's a few reasons I don't like his work on this game, but I'll just focus on one area for now. Before I begin though, I can't stress enough, that everything I say here is just my opinion. I don't consider myself to be an art god, and I don't feel like my opinion trumps anyone's, so if you disagree with what I'm saying, that's fine, I don't want to start any fights over the art in here.

Moving ahead, the way he uses 'pixel clusters' (or rather, doesn't) on Skunk just feels like it's not as clean as some of his other works, and that's my biggest gripe probably. The enemy in your avatar seems to be fairly clean and well done in this aspect, but the overall shapes (lineart and shading) seem pretty rough, and for me, it feels like the whole enemy is ruined because of that.

The Lilly sprite I found on your site seems to be a much better example of Atnas' skill in the whole 'use of pixel clusters' area, and feels really well done compared to Skunk and others, so I feel like I should mention that.

Overall, it's not bad per say, but it's not the mind-blowing comeback I was hoping to see from him, so perhaps I'm just looking at his older pieces through rose coloured glasses...

[melisoftgames]

i have a question about the bully Satoshi Kuragame. He is Japanese, yet he doesn't look like one. is that intended? or maybe his parent are playing prank at him so they gave him japanese name?

My actual written-down character description:

Satoshi is a Japanese-American boy genius with an IQ of 160. Though he is several decades from his direct Japanese ancestry, his parents Shigeru and Sakurai continue the Kuragame tradition of naming their child with a Japanese name in hopes that he will one day restore the academic and career-based excellence the Kuragame family was known for before immigrating to America. (The rest of the description is not included because of spoilers and general irrelevance.)

Fun fact: The three members of the Kuragame family, 17-year-old Satoshi, his cowardly and goofy father Shigeru and witch of a mother Sakurai, are all named after famous video game designers who have worked on Nintendo projects: Satoshi Tajiri, creator of the Pokemon franchise and current CEO of Game Freak, Shigeru Miyamoto, creator of almost every flagship Nintendo series, including Super Mario and Zelda, and Masahiro Sakurai, who is now best known for his work on Super Smash Bros. Brawl. The surname of the Kuragame family, though pronounced in the Japanese style [koo-rah-GAH-may] is simply a series of four random letters (A, K, R, U) picked from the dictionary and rearranged in front of the word "GAME" to make it look like a traditional Japanese surname. (:

@Kramlack: I'm sorry you feel that way about the artwork! Your opinion does matter greatly to me, as I want this game to be of the utmost quality upon release, and as the aforementioned artist is being compensated for his work. Again, of course, the sprites are a WIP, and were labeled as such by Atnas when delivered to me, so I believe firmly that they will be improved before the full game is released in early 2012. I do appreciate your concerns, and will bring these concerns to him for not only the reasons earlier stated, but also the fact that I want him to feel like he's doing his absolute best work on the project. He is extremely talented, and it would be a shame for him to release work onto a project that he and fans of his work feel are not up to par.

I do also want to point out though that he is a member of this site and may very well see this topic, so I think it would be best to cease and desist on the criticism of his work for now until he can respond. He may not actually mind, but I just feel it is unfair for him to not be present for a discussion directly about the quality of his work.

[Atnas]

HAHA what i didnt know there were devlogs and stuff.

Anyway yeah. Everything is a WIP and the filenames are labelled as such. I work by producing lots of stuff in a rough form and then when I go back to them later I refine them. I wasn't aware there'd be screenshots floating around lol. Also the sweet dream level still has tiles and stuff coming, the blandness and repetitiveness was something that also needed to be fixed.

dont worry the crits are cool and I agree, I wasnt aware these'd be under the scrutinizing gaze of other artists before they were finished is all haha

hi joey

[Atnas]

@Kramlack: I'm flattered by the way you talk about me. there's no real comeback, I've been doing things as much as I've ever done, i'm just not too social. I'll be preparing "press release" lolol images from now on so the world doesnt have to suffer my WIPs

have a carrot:

and a fucking donut:

[melisoftgames]

Cue the "Price is Right" failure tuba: this was a simple mistake of over-eagerness on my part. I really respect Atnas as an artist, and jumped the gun to show our work (well, mostly his, lol) off to the various game development communities I am a part of, not realizing that in the process I was revealing the not-so-flattering "sloppy copies" he created.

...Consider me baffled by my own ignorance, haha.

So all that aside, I guess the bottom line is that from now on I will ask my artists, musicians and other teammates for permission to reveal WIP work before posting it. Problem solved, haha.

[leonelc29]

hmm...nice background story, but it still confuse me that a japanese will look like an american after some decade of staying in america. ohh! is he mix blood? that make sense

and by the way, i don't really know of any female named as Sakurai, mostly heard it from male. don't really know of japanese culture and naming stuff though.

@Atnas
did he just change into donut? or maybe that carrot too? that gonna be interesting

[melisoftgames]

'Ey, people! Atnas (the artist for this game) has been working his butt off to vastly improve the graphics for the game, which is why the screenies have suddenly vanished. In addition, while the story remains intact, it's just there to serve as a general idea of what the game's about until I can write a better summary, which will most likely be right after I finish this post. A new major character has been introduced to the story, and some major plot details have been changed or removed entirely due to a general inability to suspend disbelief at the absurdity of it all, haha.

In other news, the engine has been completely finished and spit-shined, save for importing in the new sprites and tiles Atnas made. Rest assured, the next time you see Skunk'd, it will not only be looking like a glorious remake of itself, it will also be in motion. As soon as Atnas is satisfied with the quality of his work, I will be uploading both screenshots AND a video teasing the first level. ^_^

Once again, if you have any criticisms, comments or praise, do NOT hold back. Feel free to tell me "this thing is awesome," or "that something totally blows and should be removed or changed." I can't guarantee I'll use your suggestions, but I can guarantee I value your opinions and hold them as very important to the project. So, with that said, I'm off to edit the first post. :D

EDIT: First post edited and story summary refined. Take a look! ^_^