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[ericmbernier]

A Wicked Curse
A Wicked Curse is a top-down adventure game set in a small procedurally generated open-world, with roguelike elements, and strong fairytale inspirations. Alongside upgradeable stats and equipment, it features a "curse" system, making each play through unique!

As mentioned above, the game includes a curse system in which you eat a cursed apple at the beginning of each run. These curses will alter your current witch, such as making anything she 'kills' turn into a frog, alter a stat or two, etc.

Additionally, there should be a full-fledged upgrade system. You will be able to upgrade stats, health, and purchase new equipment which should make each subsequent run a bit easier, and different than the last.

Artist
I'm working with Fervir, who is also working on his own game, Elysis.

Tech
Haxe / OpenFL / HaxeFlixel

Platforms
Looking to target PC / Mac / Linux

Random GIFs








Any feedback, ideas, and especially criticism are all greatly appreciated!

[Ohmnivore]

I really like the fluidity and bounciness of the animations

[ericmbernier]

@Ohmnivore Welcome to the devlog, and thanks! Fervir is really good at creating pretty fluid animations.

[ericmbernier]

Here are a few mockups of the game's three other dungeon entrances (castle, giant whale, pigs' house), in addition to the forest dungeon:







The pigs' house is a quick mockup. It should be off to the right more, only partially showing, similar to the whale.

[Pixel Noise]

Wow guys, really like the art style - it fits your description of the game perfectly. Sounds like a great game in the making

Following!

[ericmbernier]

@Pixel Noise Welcome to the devlog, and thanks for the kind words!

I spent some time optimizing a lot of things tonight, as some of the enemies (spiders, crows) were causing some lag. Things seem to be fixed:



Lastly, here is a rough mockup of the first dungeon's boss, the wolf in Granny's clothing:

[Tanner Fruit Fly]

Really digging the combination of concept and art direction here, I think you've really got those two things working together! That giant whale is especially awesome haha

In terms of critique, I just have a few small suggestions:

- Humpty Dumpty's art feels outside of the same art style as the rest of your monsters. It's especially obvious when comparing him to the giant muffin (which I love). I'd take another pass at that. The coins also feel a little too separated style wise from everything else.
- The text that appear when you pick up the coin is really tiny, and I could barely make out that it said "gold." I'd just keep a consistent gold counter in the corner of the screen to avoid cluttering your main play area with extra graphics, as the game already seems like it's pretty busy with all the character fighting. I could see myself getting lost in the swarm of stuff happening.

Other than that, I'm really liking what you've got so far! Looking forward to seeing what's next! 

[Mixer]

This looks interesting for sure. I've seen a few gifs you posted on twitter (I asked about if the screen showed the only setting, pics of settings look nice by the way!). This looks great and original though! I'm interesting in seeing how the fairy tail elements permeate through the game.

Following :D

[ericmbernier]

Welcome to the devlog @Tanner Fruit Fly and @Mixer!

@Tanner Fruit Fly Thanks for the criticism. Humpty's sprite isn't quite yet finalized, but should be soon. As far as the coins and text go, those are currently placeholder, and yea, they sure do look ugly compared to the rest.

@Mixer Feel free to make fairy tale suggestions that you'd think be cool in the game, especially in a specific dungeon.

[ericmbernier]

Here's another mockup, with a bit more detail, of the pigs' house entrance:



Also, a work-in-progress font for the game, just ignore that typo in Robin Hood's name :


Fervir worked on some particles, hoping to add those next, and have a few GIFs to show off. 

[Pixel Noise]

Really like the font/text boxes! And I almost -never- like fonts.

[ericmbernier]

@Pixel Noise Thanks, just have to get the font in-game now. That screen is just a mockup.

Here's a pic of progress made on the whale dungeon entrance:

[ericmbernier]

Here's another pass at the Pig's House dungeon entrance:

[ericmbernier]

Here's a quick GIF of a bunch of the forest enemies in the actual forest for once:



Don't mind the witch blinking from taking damage, and thus disappearing in the GIF

And here is what happens when you remove the rate-of-fire constraint...for fun:



Just a quick note, the gold/health pickup text is still placeholder, as well as the forest map HUD.

[Pixel Noise]

Omg that big angry muffin that spawns tiny muffins... 

[ericmbernier]

@Pixel Noise Glad you enjoy the muffins! I worked out a small tweak to their AI tonight, which makes them scatter a bit more, attempting to cut off any escape routes.

Here's a couple of mockups of the game's two shopkeepers, Merlin and Rumpelstiltskin:





Merlin sells you new spells, obviously and Rumpelstiltskin sells you new clothes / equipment, given his skills with a spinning wheel.

I don't have much else to show right now, as I have been tweaking enemy AI, and the dungeon generation. I'll just leave this random GIF I made while debugging some issues with the gnome enemy:



After seeing that GIF I do notice that the arc on the gold isn't exaggerated enough. All of the loot drops have a nice arc-in effect, but it looks like the death explosion hides it a bit. I'll have to adjust that arc, and embellish it more.

[ericmbernier]

I started dipping my toes into post-processed effects in HaxeFlixel. This isn't much to look at, but I'm curious to see what type of effects I can create as I learn a bit more:

[Cipheres]

I love the art style, and adventure time is probably my all time favorite show, so I'm definitely following this!

[Davi Vasc]

Awesome colors and animations. You can count me in on anything even remotely 2d Zelda inspired 

[ericmbernier]

@Davi Thanks, and welcome to the devlog!

I've been mostly fixing bugs, and tidying up a bunch of stuff as far as mechanics go. Here's a quick look of the muffins in action, and the game's current, but very unpolished death sequence:

The whale, pigs' house, and castle entrances have also been added to the game, but you can't enter these dungeons as of now.