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[joeyspacerocks]

I like the idea of changing the gameplay as the player collects organs.
The idea is pretty ingenious. It both unlocks new areas and locks off old ones.

Yes, it could hopefully lead to some interesting level design.

Recently I've been finally addressing my lazy approach to the timestep. Because I'm initially targeting iOS devices and tuning the game accordingly I've just been relying on the fact that the game is fixed to 60fps and all my physics code has been tuned accordingly.

So I've been through all the code and changed all the time-dependent functions (physics, squishiness, etc) to be correctly calculated from delta-time.

The primary reason is so that the game runs at a consistent speed even in the frame-rate drops. As a side-effect though I can now artificially speed up and slow down time.

As an experiment I've used this to enhance pausing the game by slowing down very quickly and speeding up on resume. Pretty subtle effect, but I'm hoping it's things like this that lead to a more polished end-product.

Not easy to see in the GIF - bit cleared in the lovely 60fps YouTube video (

)



Now that the code base is a bit cleaner I'm really going to stop procrastinating now and actually try and progress the game for real. Yeah sure.

I'm going to create a little collection of demo levels, maybe five or so, to prototype the gameplay. Hopefully if I can get that together then I can maybe get some beta play worked out so that anyone with an iOS device that fancies giving it a play can have a go. That's probably the worst thing about developing an iOS game is that it's not as immediate to get people playing, although Apple's new use of TestFlight makes that a lot easier than it used to be.

[joeyspacerocks]

Had a little play around to see what the hero might look like before he's pookified ...



(EDIT: refined the character a bit)

I overlaid flesh over the skeleton and he just ... emerged.

Seriously, I should work in pixel forensics.

[joeyspacerocks]

Quick update - been working on an intro level where you play as the hero, Horatio prior to being transformed.

It's only a small level and you lack certain abilities (such as not being able to jump very high, and slowish walk). Eventually you're corralled into ... The Machine:



Not quite finished yet - organs need refining and I want to add some distortion effects over the whole thing using some shader magic, but it's getting there ...

[James Edward Smith]

Hahaha, nice, his transformation looks like Dr. Manhattan.

[s-spooky g-g-ghosts]

Woah, dude that transformation is awesome! :D

[joeyspacerocks]

Hahaha, nice, his transformation looks like Dr. Manhattan.

I had to go and look it up - ha, there are similarities aren't there Maybe it was buried in my subconsciousness?

Woah, dude that transformation is awesome! :D

Thanks

[aamatniekss]

Been lurking this one for a while! The game looks fantastic. And the water effects look even better! Good job on that last transformation thingy.

[joeyspacerocks]

Thanks - I'm quite pleased with the way it's going, although whether it ends up being a good game or not is all down to the level design. Hopefully I'm getting all the elements in place to get some interesting designs built.

I've been stalking Caveman too - love the pixel art you've got going on there especially as you're doing proper animation as opposed to the cheating particle stuff I use to mask my artistic shortcomings

[HopelessComposer]

You're not cheating. Just using the tools you have, hahah. I'm really impressed by some of these shaders you're using, and your art is actually good too. Nice work all around. =)

[Ticebilla]

Aaaaaaaaaaand following.

I'm definitely digging this.

[joeyspacerocks]

Dear diary. Progress has been slow over the last few weeks due to various ailments. Winter, huh.

Still, I've been fleshing out the intro level where you begin as Horatio and end with the transformation.

Basic premise is that Horatio stumbles into a disused lab area that he shouldn't be in - at the end the player ends up in the machine.







Added some transitions between levels to show little captions, and cleaned up the state management code a bit.

So next up is to build some real levels and finally get some sample gameplay with enemies nailed down.

[joeyspacerocks]

Well that's torn it. Committed myself to targeting Mac and PC as well as iOS for the initial release.

Might need to break out the SDL and figure out how I'm going to manage the source code for cross-compilation ... been a while since I've done this kind of thing, especially for desktop.

High hopes though! So ... Happy Christmas and here's hoping 2015 is a little more productive!

[danieru]

SDL is pretty awesome. I'm not sure if you've mentioned using SDL 2.0's 2d api but if so you should be able to use SDL on both mobile and desktop.

Also, if you're willing I'd love to port and package Linux for you in exchange for a reasonable percentage of linux sales. Honestly supporting Linux with SDL isn't a big hassle. The biggest issues you'll run into are stricter compilers and case-sensitive file systems. In either case the codebase benefits from the work. Are you using git?

[joeyspacerocks]

Thanks @danieru. The code base is pretty clean, in the sense that it's very simple and well separated from the more systemy bits.

I'll need to think on using any external help for porting, but thanks for the offer and I'll definitely bear it in mind.

Looking forward to the challenge

[danieru]

Ah in that case you might not even need any porting help. Still, keep me in mind if you don't feel like working on a linux port. I am of course very biased being a linux user but I would like to play Spooky Pooky.

[Siegfried Croes]

This games looks great Really like the limited color look

I'm working on a retro-styled platform game too, also with a 16 color palette! My game is still early in development though but would still appreciate your feedback: http://forums.tigsource.com/index.php?topic=45379.0

Btw, I think we are actually using the same 16 colors You're using DawnBringer's palette, aren't you?

[Quicksand-T]

This looks so damn cool.

I kinda like the slightly larger-headed version of the dude from way back in your first post, maybe you should have that as some kind of doppleganger enemy. Like the weird Kirby look-alike "Batamon" in Kirby's Dreamland 3:

[joeyspacerocks]

This games looks great Really like the limited color look

I'm working on a retro-styled platform game too, also with a 16 color palette! My game is still early in development though but would still appreciate your feedback: http://forums.tigsource.com/index.php?topic=45379.0

Btw, I think we are actually using the same 16 colors You're using DawnBringer's palette, aren't you?

Thanks - yes it is indeed DawnBringers 16 col palette. I do cheat a bit in the sense that I'm using opacity and a bit of programmatic mixing for things like the water, so the final image may contain more shades, but the art is all pixelled using the original 16 colours.

Liking the look you've gone for too - I'll stop by your devlog and take a proper look.

This looks so damn cool.

I kinda like the slightly larger-headed version of the dude from way back in your first post, maybe you should have that as some kind of doppleganger enemy. Like the weird Kirby look-alike "Batamon" in Kirby's Dreamland 3:

Heh - nice idea! I quite liked him too, but it was just a bit too restrictive and I had to scale back the size of the pixels to accommodate enough play area, so he ended up evolving a bit. But yes I quite like the idea that there are other transformed characters wandering the lab too so maybe he'll make a return ...

[Siegfried Croes]

Thanks - yes it is indeed DawnBringers 16 col palette. I do cheat a bit in the sense that I'm using opacity and a bit of programmatic mixing for things like the water, so the final image may contain more shades, but the art is all pixelled using the original 16 colours.

Liking the look you've gone for too - I'll stop by your devlog and take a proper look.

Yeah I saw The water's distortion effect really cool I went for dithering for my water cause I'm too perfectionist to break the color limit ^^' Also I wouldn't be able to make such a cool effect anyways

[joeyspacerocks]

Despite appearances I am making progress ... loosely in the right direction.

I've finally started building 'real' levels, hopefully for a demo build containing some random number of levels to beat. Not sure how many yet; probably around 5-10, but enough to show off gameplay and get the kinks worked out.

Level 1 ends with Horatio and his organs separated into jar containers and shipped off to different parts of the lab. So it makes sense for level 2 to start with our hero in a spot of bother ...



Currently Horatio's escape from the jar is just time based so I may need to make that user-controlled using a simple movement wiggle or something. Or not.

Once freed level 2 is designed to teach the user blood collection and basic jumping / object avoidance ...



The funny thing about actually building levels is that you almost immediately realise how little your game code will support it. For example, I've got some collision code for sprite based enemies, but the first thing I go and do is put the electricity barrier in that he has to jump over. Obviously I then realise that I've got no support for collisions with path based entities like that. So, stop the level build and back to the code.

It's good in a way as it means that I'll add features as I go but it will make for a slowish start to the build process for the next few days as I knock the code into shape to support whatever ideas I come up with for the level.

I've also got some gameplay decisions to make, such as exactly what happens when he hits an enemy (e.g. health loss or life loss), and where you re-spawn after losing a life.

I'm toying with the idea of double-jump or extended jump as well but not sure if that's going to be a default ability or something you get from an organ pick-up.

All quite fun though. I really want to get some audio in soon as well as the whole thing is a bit lifeless at the moment.