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[tjuven]

Concept
Set in the dark ages, you play as a Messenger delivering letters to different people through various terrain and landscapes filled with obstacles and traps.


Gameplay Revised
Two button action - Jump, Power Jump, Slide and Backflip kick implemented. Since I aim to release this game on mobile devices I want the controls to be super easy to use.
I'm not really fond of the endless runner concept so all levels will have a start and an end. I'm planning to have several different locations (castle, forrest, cave) with 4 levels in each kinda like the early super mario games. It would also be really neat to have a boss battle at the end of each location.
Obstacles/traps and enemys designed specifically for each location.
Made with GameMaker.


Platform
iOS/Android


This is all new to me as this is my first attempt at making a game so feel free to drop a line if you have feedback or suggestions to improve gameplay!  :D

Latest footage - November 11

Spiders!


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Some images from the game:

Level title and some new enemies


Checkpoints!


Level end screen, and kicking bats


Level selection screen


Enemy concepts

[portponky]

The animations are very well done, and very charming. I like the bounce of the crates when they pop. The spikes are very hard to spot, I didn't notice them until the third loop of the gif. Is that intentional?

[tjuven]

Thank you for the kind words! Yes you are correct the spikes are a bit small, good catch!

[bitbulldotcom]

The animations are great - I particularly like the sleeping dog, loads of character!

[Vilanat]

Neat! i like the art and the goofyness of the messenger.

A nice twist to the concept could be a memory game where the player doesn't carry written letters, but that he gets a short message at the beginning and he needs to communicate it at the end of the stage and then get scored according to the accuracy of the message. could be composed of simple stuff like at start - "Send me archers to defend the northern tower from the red brigade" and then at the end he gets a few options to construct the message: Archers/Fighters/Magicians, Defend/Attack/Conquer/Abandon, Tower/Gate/Square/River, Red/White/Blue/Green brigade.

[tjuven]

@bitbull thanks! I'm using after effects for animations but Spine looks interesting as well, might give that a try.

@burningpet that is a great idea! You could end up with some pretty funny messages depending on what the alternatives are :D

[tjuven]

Hi all! Here is a concept for the first boss, he's located in the castle and the player will face him in the last level of that location. You can beat this guy by Power Jumping on him when he advances to the left side of the screen. His attack scheme will change some over time (after each succefull player attack hit?) to give the battle a more dynamic feel.

[tjuven]

Some of the animations for the castle level boss. This guy is so fun to animate, all that rage bottled up in that cauldron :D

[Louard]

I am LOVING the look of the game! Great personality and animation!

[tjuven]

Idle animation for enemy_skeleton_#4 and new run cycle for player character :D

[Davi Vasc]

Awesome work so far! You mentioned the possibility of implementing boss battles. Do you have any ideas in mind about the gameplay mechanics of these boss battles? I'm curious to know what you will come up with since this is a one button game. Judging by your art though, I believe creativity won't be a problem.

[Jasmine]

Man, I am loving the fluidity of these animations! Is this... vector art? Excuse my limited knowledge of art medium!

[tjuven]

@Davi thanks! The bosses can be beaten by using the two abilities the player has, power jump and slide (still one button though). Jumping on stuff in the environment will activate certain objects/triggers that can be used against the boss. Jumping on the boss itself is also possible, but since the player always auto runs I will have to come up with ways to move the boss to the player, without it feeling weird. An interesting idea would be to use the boss attacks against the boss itself. Let's say the boss shoots a bullet, the player can then activate something in the environment (with the right timing) that deflects the bullet and sends it back to the attacker.

@M4uesviecr thanks :D all the art is drawn in adobe illustrator and then animated in after effects, so yes it's vector up until the moment I export it out to a png sequence.

[jaharley94]

Art and animations look really nice.  Not just fluid, but unique and "cute". 
I definitely see this aesthetic moving in an iOS direction.

Also, love the idea of a game being made about a simple messenger, not a heroic knight-type.

Going to follow this one for sure!

[tjuven]

@jaharley94 thanks man :D


I've started working on the first boss fight, here's a small preview:

[ElkiwyDev]

I like the style of it but I think that just two moves (slide and jump) are too few to make it really interesting to play.. Maybe you should try think a third and maybe even a fourth? Try get a look at Bittrip runner, it has many different moves for diffident obstacles and it is very fun to play 

[TheArtistJiii]

I like it so far, might i recommend that you check out the mario games for interesting mechanic ideas. You can honestly do alot with running and jumping as long as the world can provide unique and varying challenges to test your running and jumping abilities.(think dynamic environments) You should also watch this video:

. I'm not saying that you follow everything in this video to a T(if thats the phrase), but this could be a good source of inspiration!!!


EDIT: I just noticed this is somewhat of an endless runner so all of my suggestions could be entirely overlooked....

[lobstersteve]

The graphics are great indeed
I'll follow this 

[tjuven]

@ElkiwyDev they do some cool stuff in Bittrip runner for sure, having different moves for different obstacles gives the game a nice dynamic feel. In bittrip runner 2 when you run into an obstacle they don't show you a game over screen but transports the player back to the start whitin the same view, this a great way of getting that "just one more time" feeling and I will definitely look closer at this feature.

@mesh I've seen that part of gamemaker toolkit before and I'm actually designing the levels with that philosophy in mind. This is not an endless runner so your feedback is valid. I like the idea with dynamic environments, the tricky part is as you say finding unique and varying challanges for the player to overcome.

@lobstersteve @Louard thanks! :D

[miguli]

Looks very charming!
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