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[barley]

Okay, so I posted about this in the LD21 thread but didn't really say much about it. DMSLL is a game where you have to maneuver Stubbs (name pending change because I apparently forgot all about the zombie of the same name) out of a tower that is quickly filling with water. Because Stubbs has stubby little legs he can't run and jump up the platforms in the tower as per your usual escaping hero, so his last resort is to ride the wave upwards, avoiding what would have been conveniently-placed platforms but are now awkwardly-placed obstacles.

The aspect of the game that makes this all a little bit more interesting is that if you hit one of those obstacles you don't ~magically die~ or lose in some way, you instead get pushed under the water and have to struggle to catch up with the wave before you drown. It ends up being very frantic at times and can be brutally difficult if you make a wrong move, something I'd like to temper with difficulty settings (though I'd still like to keep a brutal mode in there!).

This was my entry to Ludum Dare 21 and it's gotten fairly positive feedback so far. It was my first attempt at something like that and it's super-motivating to have people actually play my game, much less actually like it. Here's a link to the bug-fixed version of the LD21 entry. I have a more recent version that I've done quite a bit of work on, but it's not really ready to be played.

What I want to do
At the moment, the game is kind of fun to play and everything mechanic-wise is there already. What I've done in the development version is add a Win/Lose rating, a readout for how far you've climbed this game and a total of how far you've climbed overall since your first game. It's just silly little things that make it feel like you're actually accomplishing something.

I'd like to improve the title screen and perhaps add some graphics to the win/lose screens so that they're not just text on a grey background. I also plan on adding the Flashpunk splash screen when I can figure out why it's not working right with my scaled view.

The music is also something I'd like to work on because it's sort of repetitive and kind of boring. I did it in about 10 minutes when I was starting to run out of time in the competition and it could really use a lot more time than that.

Stubbs could maybe do with some swimming animations. Even just him kicking his legs a little would be better than nothing. Some little bubbles when he's underwater would be cool, too.

So yeah, that's it!
It's a little game that I don't foresee taking up a ton of my time, though I'm not going to rush it. I want to try releasing it on some flash portals and trying it out on the Android/iOS markets and seeing if people like it there.

I'll update soon with a much improved version and you guys can try that out if you'd like!