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[W3REWOLF]

RUMMAGE

I've been working on games off and on for a little over year. I haven't yet been able to finish a project, but I feel good enough about this one to start communicating about it.

Rummage started as a Binding of Isaac clone, and even though it is still going to be very similar into overall gameplay, it has evolved into a lot more of a personal game. Though, a lot of my ideas are still pretty up in the air as I just work on the base engine for the game for now.

[W3REWOLF]

It doesn't look like much yet, but I've gotten a lot done since I started a couple days ago.

• Randomly generated dungeons.
• Basic enemy with simple AI
• Early room transitions

[W3REWOLF]

The game looks pretty much the same still at this point, but I did get some stuff added.

• Started working on the art for walls around the room
• Started a basic map system
• Did some stress testing

If anyone has any advice on how I could set up the map system it would be really helpful.
Im doing the dungeon generation by having the start room choose how many exits it has and then placing doors along the four walls in random positions. When you walk through a door another room is created and chooses how many exits it will have, not counting the one you just came in.

All of the rooms are stored using gamemaker's ds_grid function (basicaly just a 2d array).

I can draw a mini map by running a loop that checks the entire grid and draws a square for every grid slot that contains a value (a room), and a different colored square by checking if the x and y coordinates of the current room match with an occupied grid space.

This was all pretty easy, but It ends up just being a big mass of squares that don't give any direction, and I can't for the life of me think of a good way to draw connectors for the doorways.

any tips?

[W3REWOLF]

• Using a WIP of the wall background to make rooms less boring
• Created a Pillar object and have it generating at random
• Created a chest item that is generated at random
• rooms have a 30% of spawning between 1-5 enemies
• still messing about with the mini map

most of this stuff is for testing, much cleaner versions of the random generation will be put into place later once i get some of the behaviors and collisions cleaned up.

[W3REWOLF]

• Got the mini map working correctly
• Fixed a room generation bug that i noticed because of the mini map
• Finished the wall and floor art
• drew up some floor detail tiles and have them scatter randomly on room creation
• put a shadow on the treasure chest
• thought about stuff to do next

[happymonster]

It's improving rapidly! Keep up the good work.

[W3REWOLF]

It's improving rapidly! Keep up the good work.

Thanks! This is the farthest and most polish I've gotten into a game since I started doing this stuff. I know I'm largely ripping off Binding of Isaac, but this project is more for learning purposes and to hopefully actually finish something.

[W3REWOLF]

• Pixeled up a rough of the first real enemy
• Added a shop to the dungeon generator. Though its no different than a normal room yet.
• Brainstormed some options for a "class" system

I think I've decided that, unlike Binding of Isaac, Im going to implement melee into the game. I've also mostly decided at this point to basically randomize what type of character you will start a run with.

When you start the game you will be given some form of base melee or ranged character. Probably broken down to fighter, rogue, mage, ranger style archetypes. But like BOI I do plan on this game being equipment/item driven, so you can still hopefully end up evolving your character into something unique every time you play.

[saint11]

This looks promissing!
And that bat looks cute

[Franklin's Ghost]

Games looking nice and like those bats 

Thanks! This is the farthest and most polish I've gotten into a game since I started doing this stuff. I know I'm largely ripping off Binding of Isaac, but this project is more for learning purposes and to hopefully actually finish something.

Also think this is a great idea. I've been working on my first game and it's pretty much a rip of Canabalt. But for first game attempt I think it's a great learning experience and have already learnt so much to make a more original game next.

[W3REWOLF]

Thanks for the feedback! keep it comming 

The enemy is SUPPOSED to be an more of an Imp/Demon type thing, but its a little hard to read at normal scale. Its meant to be scaled up in game.

@Saint11 - Thank you! I'm not much of an artist, but I'm pretty proud of my programmer art.

@Franklins Ghost - Thats definitely what this is for me. At first I felt weird for basically carbon copying another game, but now that I have an "engine" in place and a lot of my own art, its finally starting to become my own game. But i never would have gotten this far if i was still trying to work on some super original concept. I've already fell into that trap too many times.

[Happy Shabby Games]

Looking cool so far man. The perspective on the pillars makes them look like they're laying on the ground. I did a quick paint over. I hope this helps as a reference.



It would look nice if the shading on the player sprite's skin was a darker purple to add contrast. Also, I can hardly notice the shading on the beard. It might look good to use just one color for the beard or up the contrast somehow. Great character design though!

[Windybeard]

Looking good, "ripping" a game is a good idea if your trying to learn, it helps to have a solid reference to aim for.

The walls look really good, this may sound strange but im loving the floor in the screenshot.

[W3REWOLF]

Looking cool so far man. The perspective on the pillars makes them look like they're laying on the ground. I did a quick paint over. I hope this helps as a reference.

[edited screenshot]

It would look nice if the shading on the player sprite's skin was a darker purple to add contrast. Also, I can hardly notice the shading on the beard. It might look good to use just one color for the beard or up the contrast somehow. Great character design though!

Thats freakin amazing! I've really grown to hate those pillars but havn't taken the time to fix them. Your version is waaaaay closer to what I had in mind when I tried to draw them

Also I keep forgetting to mention it, but the player character is actually just placeholder art from a previous project. You might as well just completley ignore it because I'm going to be getting rid of it eventually.

@Windybeard - Im glad the walls are ok, I was really worried that they were to "busy". And im pretty proud of the floors, once I take the time to draw up even more detail tile variations I think they'll be even better looking.

[W3REWOLF]

• Fixed the pillars. Thanks too Seasons for the help!
• Changed the movement. Gave a slightly more floaty feel to the controls.
• Broke the player collisions by changing the movement :/
• Brainstormed some ideas for a boss

Also I wanted to run an idea past anyone that wants to give me some feedback. I thought more about the "class" system for the game. I figured I can do 4 archetypes. 2 ranged types: ranger and mage, and 2 melee types: fighter and rogue. My idea was to have them all play different but for ALL the items in the game to effect all of them in a similar way.

Im thinking specifically with range up and range down items I could work out some kind of system where if a ranged character gets its range stat decreased enough it actually switches to a melee/close quarters attack, and the opposite goes for the melee characters, if their range gets bumped high enough they will actually be forced into a range character.

This could have obvious drawbacks, but also some positive things. Like a fighter being pushed into range could have less damage than a ranger but a larger knockback because of his extra "strength"

thoughts?

[W3REWOLF]

sketchy preview of one of the bosses. My technique is a little strange, I really have no sense of anatomy so I start with 32x32 and then scale up and add detail and repeat until i reach the size i want.

Its going to be a flesh golem, so it will over time become much more sewn together and gross.

ignore the face...

[W3REWOLF]

Havnt updated in a while, been to busy actually working stuff 

Anyways first some arts I made.



The first is the boss that I was working on. Nearly finished, but I've decided to take a break for now to not get too frustrated.

The other muscle dude is the player character. Though I'm pretty sure that this is temporary, it doesn't really fit with the style of the rest of the game.

The eye and bird are both some items im working on, and the runestone will be the main way to aquire these 2 and other items (many of the items will be grouped under nordic influence and will be aquired mainly through finding these runestones in secret rooms).





The actual change list is here:

• Worked on new items.
• Added working melee to the game.
• Added bombs and explosions, which also create scorch marks on the floor
• Enemies now spread blood around when damaged.
• Added a few placeholder sound effects.
• Partially fixed the art for holes in the floor.
• Added item pickup animation.
• Various little tweaks and bug fixes.

[W3REWOLF]

• ADDED DOORS!!!!
• more various fixes and tweaks
• drew one of the bosses and one of its attack animations

With having a boss nearly complete, this is almost a real game. Once the boss is in I basically have at least one rough version of all the basic features in the game and i can call it a game. Then it just comes down to tweaks, balancing and adding the additional content.

oh and here

[imaginationac]

Gross. (Which is awesome.)