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[Franklin's Ghost]

Sounds like a smart approach and makes sense that you don't get to see the full force when it's such a destructive element to the world. Also forgot to mention that I like the new name

[JLJac]

I haven't really decided on what kills the creature, if it's unable to breath if wet, or the slightly more over-the-top idea that the rain can actually pound a small animal to death... Maybe I won't have to specify.

Update 39
Today I did a little work on the level editor. Not the level renderer, but the editor! Created a function that you can set up an axis for horizontal mirroring of your actions, which makes it considerably easier to paint a symmetrical level.

I made a level, which will be the first or the second one in the campaign. I also started to think about how the campaign will be set up, and how the format of the levels will look like.

I use the word "campaign" here instead of "single player game", because I have no intention of stopping two or more players from going through the campaign together. Maybe you'll have to be alone to progress and unlock new levels though, we'll see how hard it is to balance.

And, I made an important decision. From now on I'll stop working on random art assets, as I can't really motivate this by having to test the tile renderer any more. I got stuck in a pattern where I drew a lot of random tiles, thinking that I'd probably need them when creating levels later. This is a horribly unefficient method, as I in the end would likely have ended up with a lot of art assets that were never used.

The new approach is this; I create levels, and then I create the art assets needed for them. This will give me a slowly increasing library of tiles, and I will probably often find that the levels are faster and faster to make, as I can reuse old tiles. If art evolution occurs I can always go back to old levels and mix in some newer tiles to create consistency.

My thoughts on the level editor has also changed slightly. I no longer view it as a game feature, but a development tool. A development tool that I plan to release, but still a development tool. The difference here is that I don't need to focus on making the level editor look all slick, which would be wasted time anyways since half of the audience won't even open it, and those that are interested in making their own levels are probably more towards the nerdy end, and won't mind a little programming grit. What I'm saying is that I'll make the level editor mainly for myself to use, which means it's going to suck, but I still plan to release it.

In other other news I've started to set up some stats for two different types of lizards, the easiest one and the hardest one. My idea right now is that there'll be five types, one being the easiest, three being about equal but in different ways, making them depend on different terrains, and one being the hardest. This one won't be better than the three specialized ones in their specialized stat, but will have a higher over-all performance and a very persistent hunting technique, making it a fearsome hunter.

[JLJac]

I'm thinking about releasing an alpha, so that a few first time players can try the game and provide some feedback.

Please let me know if you want to contribute by playtesting.

The alpha will be stripped of all art, it'll just be a couple of levels that you can try running around in, and some settings that you can change, to let me know what you think is a reasonable difficulty. I will only send away a maximum of five games, as I don't want to release an ugly, unfinished product to the public.

If you contact me and I send you a copy I will want some effort in return, probably a small sheet of questions answered, of course along with any free-form feedback you want to provide. The final product will of course be free, and if you want to do a little free work for me in return it'll be greatly appreciated.

The alpha won't be very cool, it'll probably suck, but by playing it you can contribute in making the final product something much cooler!

[mokesmoe]

Your face won't be very cool. I mean I'd like to test it.

[Franklin's Ghost]

I'm definitely up for testing and happy to help with feedback.

[Qqwy]

I would absolutely love to test this! ^_^

[SirNiko]

I love the ancient industrial vibe going on in the concept art. Squeezing around ruined steel girders and old machinery sounds lovely!

I will assist with some playtesting if you like. I'm looking for some more action games these days.

[Xion]

I also. This seems like an excellent thing to be.

[Joshua]

If you are still recruiting testers, sign me up!

[JLJac]

Cool! Let's hold it here.

I'll whip up a few levels, and hope to have a version released within the week. Once again, I don't want you to be dissapointed, so let me stress that it won't be all fun and games. The alpha will look awful, and don't expect a main menu or anything... (You'll have to select level by editing a text file and restarting the game I guess... it's going to be exciting!)

[JLJac]

Update 40
Did some thinking on the layout of the game. At first I thought I wanted the campaign to be completely linear, but I changed my mind. If you are free to move a little between levels that adds two values. Firstly most people like to be able to move freely. Second, it means that the same levels will be passed several times, increasing the gameplay time/development time ratio. The idea is that during a "level" the player is supposed to get to a hunting ground with flies, hunt, and then get back within a limited time. More on this later.

I did some easy but important stuff with the Croc's thinking, again. For example there was a bug that if it saw you enter a shortcut it wouldn't always understand where you'd end up.

Did I mention that the croc does a little simulation of the player's movement in its head if it's unable to see a player? I made the physics of that simulation better, for example I added gravity. The simulated player also has a minimal amount of "AI", which will simulate the movement of a player character a slight bit better than just an object that continues in the direction of the tangent. This means that if the croc sees you passing by and dissapear into a corridor it'll have a slightly better hunch of where you might have gone once you left its field of vision.

Now, when a croc catches up with a player, it picks it up in its (yet nonexistent) mouth and quickly carries it back to its hole.

[JLJac]

A video! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZnthCU1P1Ow&feature=youtu.be

This shows how some crocs fight over the body of a bear.

[Oddball]

I must admit I've not really been paying attention to this project, but I was passing through and thought I'd give the vid a bit of a watch. I'm glad I did. The player and enemy movement has a freaky vibe to it, and the game in general has a disturbing edge to it. If you added in more creepy graphics/music/atmosphere then I can see this game weirding a lot of people out. I hope you do take it in that direction.

[Franklin's Ghost]

That croc attack looks great, darker feeling then I'd imagined but works perfectly. Looking forward to trying to dodge those guys  

[Scut Fabulous]

That motion is so creepy.  I love it!

[Lexonite]

I loled when it got caught.. i love how those things fight over it.

[JLJac]

Haha it's funny that you say it's dark and creepy, because I actually didn't have that in mind. I just thought that it'd be reasonable for creatures of the same size to fight over their prey, and things ended up moving like this because of a combination of technical stuff and art choices. When I looked at the video again though, I totally saw what you mean o.0 They're ripping the little guy apart! 

I'm usually hesistant to talk about art stuff (if it can be said with words, why the art?) but I guess I should explain what's going on here. I'm not making a horror game, but I'm trying to portray a world that is very harsh, and where survival has to be fought for. There is a twist though, that instead of realistic harshness I want it to be harsh, but in a slightly twisted, cartoony way.

Weird little creatures that you don't really know what's going on in their heads fit the game medium, because things will inevitably move a little jerky, behave a little uncanny. Better to play with this than fight against it.

Rain World is not a horror game, there won't be excessive amounts of blood or violence for the sake of it. I will however do my best to convey a very different world, where strange creatures live and hunt, and if aspects of this are creepy, I'll go with that.

So, to actually provide an answer, I won't try to make the game creepy, but there'll be more of this. If you find this creepy, I hope you'll find the final thing even creepier!

[Lexonite]

you know... watching the video again.. it has a strange similarity to pac-man. just thought I'd mention this unexpected connection I had. it's like a beefed up creepier version..

[JLJac]

HAHAHA! That's amazing, I never thought of it, but when you say it it's so clear! Yeah, the game will basically play like pac-man! Maybe with the difference that in pac-man the ghosts are always aware of where you are, here there'll be more focus on sneaking. I think pac-man is a great game though, it's a simple and very self-contained design, so I don't mind at all!

Update 41

Started to clean some stuff up as a first step towards the alpha version. Implemented death by falling, both for Bears and Crocs.



In a level like this the crocs will quite often end up fighting out above the open air, and end up falling. I made it so that if a single croc catches the player when climbing on the beams it doesn't shake him like it usually does, but when two of them are out there fighting there's really no keeping them from tumbling to their death.

In this level one interesting thing happened. You see the little left-facing dead end at the very bottom of the structure? That's a shortcut that leads to the upper-left island, through that ugly pipe-thingy sticking out to the left.

The blue lizard is a wall climber. When the red lizard caught me he was seen by the blue one, and the blue one started chasing him. He tried to take the route through the short cut, but the blue lizard actually didn't follow him, but rather climbed up to the exit he was going to appear out of, intercepting him and snatching the poor bear.

This shows the pros and cons of the shortcuts, through them you can quickly escape a site, but you're suddenly very predictable. Everything moves with the same speed in the shortcuts, and you always reach the same destination.

[JLJac]

I had a fat deadline for school today, and have sadly not been able to work on the game. Now in the afternoon I've started to play a little with the level editor, to put some levels together for the alpha. Maybe it won't be released within the week as promised, but within a week it should be out.