next »

[Ryuza]

-Tumblr Devlog-

Arctic Escape is a puzzle platformer where you play as a fire elemental making their way through a world of ice and snow. As you make your way through the frozen landscape you'll be able to melt blocks and start fires to clear a path. With the threat of melting ice, the ocean and your slowly dwindling fire you have to be quick to make it through the stages in time.

Features
- An interactive environment where nearly everything is affected by your fire.
- Mini-games like surviving falling icicles or clearing away ice as quickly as possible.
- Quick gameplay with stages that literally melt away beneath your feet and a constantly draining fuel gauge.

I'm working on preparing a demo with some mini-games and a few simple areas to test out so keep an eye out for it! :D

[Kyle O]

I LOVE this! Great concept, it's super cute and clever!

[Lux]

Cute art! I love the snow effect.

[SolarLune]

Yeah, this is indeed pretty cool. I like the simple graphics. A yellow coloring might make the red pop more for the main character, but otherwise, everything looks pretty nice. Good work so far.

[dspencer]

Is that guy Flambo?

[Ryuza]

Thanks for all the compliments! :D

Is that guy Flambo?

Haha, I heard a few other people mention that too, the tail idea actually came more Charmander. XD

A yellow coloring might make the red pop more for the main character, but otherwise, everything looks pretty nice. Good work so far.

Yeah, I actually tried it out a bit while working on different designs, I think the third one probably looks best out of the elementals designs.


I made a phoenix design too that I think looks pretty good but some people seemed to prefer the elemental so I haven't really decided which to use yet.

[Siilk]

Is that guy Flambo?

Lol yeah, that was my first thought too.

[Ruxar]

Looks good. I can see some nice little puzzles coming out of that mechanic. What platforms are you targeting?

[Ryuza]

Looks good. I can see some nice little puzzles coming out of that mechanic. What platforms are you targeting?

Thanks, I've already got a lot of interesting stuff planned! :D

When it comes to platforms I'm planning on Windows first and then Mac/Linux if I'm able. I'm hoping to get it on Steam eventually but I figure I should wait till I'm a bit further along to worry about that.

I'm also planning on using HTML5 for demos and such since it makes it easier for people to try it out, I'll probably be doing something with that within the next month if all goes well.

[James Edward Smith]

The timed life + pickups to refill aspect of this reminds me of the old Adventure Island games on the NES (I think they were called Wonder Boy outside of North America).

[Oleg Klishin]

Great idea, man, good luck with this!

[Recluse]

Cool game concept. Can't wait to play it.

[Ryuza]

The timed life + pickups to refill aspect of this reminds me of the old Adventure Island games on the NES (I think they were called Wonder Boy outside of North America).

Yep I actually started off with an energy bar that drained over time but it was hard to tell how much you would gain or lose from picking up fuel or getting hit. So while I was changing it I realized it was like Adventure Island and decided to do something similar.



Anyway, I'm working on some menus right now and was wondering if I could get some opinions on them.


It's a bit rough since I'm mostly working on the layout right now but I'm wondering if the screen size options make sense. When you have the option selected you can press left and right to change the size and pressing the accept button toggles between windowed and full screen mode. Once you exit back to the title screen the options would take effect.

[SolarLune]

^ Yeah, I'd say that makes sense. I'd say the F in the monitor could be bigger to imply "fullscreen" a bit more, but that's just personal opinion. It looks nice already!

[Ryuza]

Mini-Update for the options menu:


A few small changes, I moved the controls over to make more space and I made a new font to replace the placeholder one I was using before. I also added in the Sounds options, they control the same way as the screen options do, left and right adjusts the bar and you can press accept to easily toggle a mute.

Shouldn't be too long before I get into more gameplay stuff, figured it'd be nice to get all the option stuff out of the way.

[Ryuza]

Hopefully bumping with an update is alright considering it's been a few days. Anyway, I'm in the process of working up on a few new mechanics that focus on weather. Once I get things working in game I'll be posting some gifs of them. They might change but here are the general ideas:

• Rain: Pretty simple, standing in the rain drains your fuel quickly so you have to take cover under platforms and other objects to avoid it. (This should be easy to add.)
• Blizzard: A snow storm with occasional strong gusts that push you backward and drain your fuel faster. You would avoid it by hiding behind objects.
• Wind: Strong winds that would push you back and send embers flying off of you that can start fires and burn/melt objects. (I'm still thinking this one over a bit.)

Let me know what you guys think of these ideas! I've been a bit busy lately so I don't really have anything to show at the moment but I do have some music to keep this post from being too boring. :D

My friend JeanOfmArc has been helping me out with music for the game, if you're interested you can check out the first song here!