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[DantronLesotho]

Was finally able to add a new type of fog generator: one that you can place on a chain so that if you don't put them all to sleep, they just come back to life. I think this will be the last of the fog generator "enemies" that I post about publicly because I want the others to be a surprise when people play through it. But I have written down a bevy of different types to challenge the player that play off of the production pinball mechanics. Hopefully they are as engaging as I anticipate them being!



On another note, I am debating on courting publishers for the game. I recognize that it's nowhere near complete but it's in a place now where I could really get some serious work done on it and it could get a bunch of eyeballs if the art and sound were good/better/existent. It's kind of a weird position because I'm not trying to do it full-time like most devs, but I'm also not asking for a huge sum of money either. I just want enough to cover the assets. If I can't find one though I'll just make the whole game myself and then just practice my assetmaking.

[DantronLesotho]

I've been hard at work getting the overworld laid out for consistency and with the fog generators. I actually finally finished the first pass of the overworld development after banging it out over the weekend. I really like the philosophy of "You can always edit a bad page. You can't edit a blank page." by Jodi Picoult to get myself motivated to do something when I don't have anything finished. I have yet to actually run through the world, but I'm glad I finally got that done.

I also have been changing and improving the controls. For example, you can use an Xbox 360 controller with the game now, instead of using the keyboard. I've been tweaking with the controls to get them to make sense, so it's a work-in-progress. The control scheme is serviceable now, but I know it can be better.

I changed the nomerad generation/selection so that you can bring up a pause menu and select them from there. This way, you can have an unlimited amount of them to place in the area while still being able to pick them up and move them around if you want. I haven't put in a way to delete them yet, but that's way low on the priority list.



Next, and I am glad I finally got this to work in a way that's pretty solid, is that I can validate the shapes that people build in the area for puzzle completion. I'm pretty proud of the way that I put it together, so I'll describe my process.

Basically I iterate all through x and y locations in the room grid of objects and set the value of the green blocks and non green blocks and concatenate it all into one big string. So a 10 x 10 size room will be a string of 100 characters (like a bitmap, basically), and some of them will be 1's and some 0's. I then go through the string to get the first instance of a green block, count through until I find the string index of the last one, add two rows to the end of that (to prevent cheating), and that's my substring. Basically this is a "word" within the total string of the room that represents the shape of the object. I then compare it against the goal shape (using the same process) and if the "words" match, then the puzzle goal is satisfied. It works surprisingly well!



You can see the two grid comparisons in the upper left. The bar of 4 blocks in the top grid is higher in location than the one in the bottom grid, to make sure that you can solve the puzzle anywhere in the room and have it count. I've been envisioning different element types to make up these block shapes, so basically the puzzles in this game will be a kind of "reverse picross" zachlike and the more I think about it in those terms, the easier it is to come up with puzzles. Everyone loves picross!

Next steps will be to put all the puzzles together that I've drawn out and put them in the game to see if they are fun to solve. I've tried a few manually (by just comparing my excel pixel drawing against what I am building on screen) and *I* have been enjoying it, but I like these kinds of games. It remains to be seen if other people will like it as well, although my buddy that I have had test it has enjoyed it quite a bit.

PAXEast is this weekend, and I was going to try and get a demo and gameplay video together to pitch to a publisher, but it didn't come together in time. That's okay though. I will be able to reach out to them whenever and can see them at any number of other industry shows. I have a good day job so I'm not hurting for money, and I don't know if I'd be brave enough to go full-time on this anyway without a huge cash stash in reserve. I've heard metrics that it's a good idea to have at least a year's worth of salary saved up if you plan to go indie, and that is not the case at the moment, so I will stay in my current day career. But as the development of this goes on, it gets more and more exciting!

I can't wait to get a demo together to have people try it out. Anyway, until next post!

[Rarykos]

I love this!
Makes me feel like it's a it's a more puzzle-based stardew valley.
But from gifs I didn't think it was pinball, looked like one of these rube goldberg machines

[DantronLesotho]

Thanks! It started out as a puzzle-based Stardew Valley, but then sort of morphed into a puzzle-based Zelda, but now I think it may be leaning back into Valley territory. It's changed a bit since its inception.

I may take out the "pinball" description eventually, but that's been the best thing I've used to describe to people how the resources move around.

[DantronLesotho]

Been a while since I last posted, but rest assured I am still working on the game. I was mostly working on some new puzzle mechanics for it and have been doing a lot of deep design planning, but now I have gone back and am working on gameplay and quality of life improvements. I just finished dialog boxes and I have them working the way I want them. Note that longer words don't get typed out on the line and shuffled to the next line, heh. I'm going to focus on getting a demo together to help show people what the game is about, and I am debating on approaching publishers. But I won't do so until I am confident that I can let someone play the game through without having to explain anything. I'm going to get a lot of feedback from my peers before sending it to anyone I don't know. Anyway, here's the dialog boxes working (ignore my programmer art please!):

https://imgur.com/gallery/47oFmLj

The next update I'll post will probably show a video of the beginning of the game, unless I think of something else better first.

[DantronLesotho]

Just developed some zelda-like pause menu screens that came out pretty well. I'm super new to programming UI that is worth a damn, so this is going to be quite a journey.

https://imgur.com/gallery/PrcOEnF

[DantronLesotho]

Put in a ton of work on the game all week. I was pushing hard to get a (very) rough demo finished, but since in order to make an apple pie you first have to make the universe, I ended up building out:

- The inventory system
- The map mechanics and progression
- The element puzzle progression
- Some extra graphical enhancements
- More definitive Narrative elements

I also put in some narrative elements to begin your hero on their journey and, barring some bugfixing, is currently enough to set you on your way. I want to put in some more flavor just to make it more obvious what to do but it's very close.

I still need to put in audio (lol), some more graphical flourishes, and a serious art pass, but it's coming together quite nicely. I hope to have some more screenshots and gifs soon.

[DantronLesotho]

Worked hard over the weekend and got the demo playable from start to finish. It's VERY rough so it's not to a state where I would release it publicly yet, but it's getting there! My goal for the demo is to be able to send it to someone and have them play through it without any guidance needed.

What was really pleasant about it was that when I went to solve the final puzzle, I did a lot of careful planning, and executed it once and got it right. I didn't expect to, and it wasn't an accident, but it just speaks to how good the systems are in the game. It's hard to communicate through words alone how the game plays and how you solve the puzzles, but the demo will be available soon enough.

I had to redo some of the puzzle mechanics to work without killing the CPU, but it works much better in the context of the lore of the game. Basically, you have to assemble shapes based on a puzzle's pattern. But detecting that in a room in any position within the room is very costly. So I made it so that there are tiles on the ground that represent the shape that the puzzle needs to be. This made it so that I only had to do calculations for each of the tiles rather than detecting them (and the elements that will inhabit them) across the whole room. The performance went back to normal, which was very pleasing.

The remaining things need to be done before I start to have my friends check it out. And then if that pans out, I'll make it available to download from here. But this is what I have left:

1. Fix remaining bugs, all minor
2. Do an art pass. Currently the art in it makes sense to just me and anyone I spend time explaining it to, but I want it to be self explanatory. I have a lot of effects supporting this, but it just needs to be better.
3. Do an audio pass. Currently there is no audio in the game (I know, not great) but it's because I mostly play games without audio while I'm watching something else, so that's why it didn't stick out to me more during development. But I've done this stuff before and know what I need to do. I like to stick to the principle of "everything that you interact with should respond with a graphic and a sound", so with that in mind it's going to be a lot of work to get it to a shape that feels alive.

There is still a bunch of work to do, but IMO the hardest parts have been accomplished. I went back and forth so much in deciding what I want the game's core mechanics to be, and then whittle that down into a demo that I am pleased with.

[DantronLesotho]

So I'm still plugging away at it but I'm currently away from my home desktop, which is my primary dev machine. So to exercise my design chops in my downtime, I made a Puzzlescript version of Nomerads, in case anyone is curious as to how it's going to play for most of the puzzles. Obviously the gamemaker full version is going to have a ton more stuff in it, but this probably explains the gameplay a lot better than writing about it does.

Here's the link. I hope you enjoy it! I'll also update the first post with the link so people can play it right away to see if they like the idea or not.

https://www.puzzlescript.net/play.html?p=264abe8ccec1099ce8100b9827cf6a48

[DantronLesotho]

Added a radial menu and mini-map so it's easier to parse. The demo is coming along really well! I am hoping to have it finished by the end of the month, in which case I'll start looking for funding. The Puzzlescript demo I made for it went over really well, and I am very hopeful that people will like this game. Just gotta keep on truckin'.

[DantronLesotho]

Upgraded the art for the titular Nomerads based on some feedback from peers, and I must admit, they look tons better. I need to fix the faces and make them all more 3d-ish (rather than just one 3d sprite rotated), but they are way more distinct and it adds a lot to the understanding of the game now I think. It's becoming a real game!

[DantronLesotho]

Got room transitions working finally, so it looks way less awkward when entering and exiting a building. I need to tweak it a bit more to make it more palatable (and I might add extra effects), but it works well for now.

[Mark Mayers]

 

[DantronLesotho]

Been working on temp music all day for my demo. I'm planning on finishing a demo that I can send to peers by the end of today, and am going to submit it to the IGF to see if that goes anywhere. I don't know if it will because of the sheer number of high quality games that get submitted every year, but you never know! I've gotten increasingly proud of what I'm making, and I can't wait to get it out to people. Hopefully I can get some funding so I can get the kind of higher quality stuff into this game that I want. If not, oh well! It's still a fun thing.

Also I am curious. Has anyone who can read this played my Puzzlescript demo of this? I'd like to know your feedback on the basic premise.

[Mark Mayers]

Also I am curious. Has anyone who can read this played my Puzzlescript demo of this? I'd like to know your feedback on the basic premise.

I played through the majority of the Puzzlescript demo.
I think it's too easy, and the player has too much freedom.

For example:



Why do you include all 4 different types of 'reflectors' (for lack of a better word) when the player only needs 2?
For this specific puzzle, it's just a wide open field. There's no restrictions, no cleverness.

I want to play a puzzle and go "holy **** I didn't think that was possible" and my brain reconfigures itself to adapt to the new knowledge of mechanics.
Part of that is restricting the player's probability space, to guide them into an epiphany.
I'm not sure if any of the puzzles I experienced were indicative of that.

For example, I have this screenshot saved from 'VEXT EDIT' called 'this****ingpuzzle.png'



It's just so smart in the way it introduces a new concept.
It's so easy once you think about it.
I go 'oh damn why didn't I think of that, it's so obvious.'

I think that's what makes a good puzzle. That's what to strive for.

[Mark Mayers]

* Also let me clarify that I liked the demo and thought it was pretty solid.
It wasn't bad by any means, just that you could take it even further!

[michaelplzno]

Hi! I played the IGF demo cold and posted my thoughts on twitter: https://twitter.com/michaelplzno/status/1178763554805166081?s=20

Basically due to some awkward button pressing I got stuck. I'm gonna try it again soon!

[DantronLesotho]

While Nomerads has been sitting in review for IGF, I decided to take some of the mechanics from it and make a standalone puzzle game. So I bring to you, Pictassembler! I made it in a month and it came out pretty well! It is actually going to be my first commercial release even though I have worked on other things for longer. But I just got a bee in my bonnet about making it so I did. I plan to give it some features like a level editor and achievements later, but for now I'm just glad I could release it. It's coming soon on Steam and you can already get it on itch.io. Here are the links!

https://activeupgames.itch.io/pictassembler

https://store.steampowered.com/app/1204540/Pictassembler/

After this gets out on Steam, I'll work on it here and there, but my goal is to still make Nomerads a reality. And now that I have worked a ton more with slightly different mechanics with the block assembly, I realize that I have a very compelling thing to drive Nomerads through. So it's been a pretty good month!

[a-k-]

Pictassembler looks great mechanic-wise, and the name is perfect! I also like that you have varied metrics to optimize for. Do you plan to bring the graphics on par with your larger game? I think it can make a difference, especially that you seem to "already have it".

[DantronLesotho]

I hadn't planned on doing anything with the graphics in Pictassembler since I kind of like the lo-fi kind of look for it, but if I get hooked up with a good artist that can make them both better I'm open to it.