next »

[JasonPickering]

alright here is what I have got.




I have been doing many 1 to 2 week prototypes. I have finally found something I like and think it could be a fun game. so here is how it goes.

you are the dark orange guardian at the bottom. waves of enemies come marching at you and you must kill them by hitting them with the boulder thats flying around. without losing the boulder out the bottom of the screen. Hitting an enemy will do two damage and one damage to the guys to the left, right, above, and below. right now the orange guys are just grunts and only have two life so they are easily killed, but there will be many more types further down the line. you start a level and must defeat a wave, after that a new wave is dropped, after several waves the level is beaten and then you move on to the next level (there will be a map with possibly different paths).

my question is what else would you guys like to see. I have ideas for power ups, plus penalties. I like what I have now, but I am looking into adding a score for each level, and then probably a combo thing for killing guys in quick succession. I am having trouble with the HUD though. Its hard to get something that meshes with what I have here.

demo
http://www.mediafire.com/?sharekey=cc29a219109512de08f8df73f2072ed6c171290fac71f283a4648785df63f216

still needs a lot of work, but its a good start.

[Fauxfox]

the art style looks great. ill give it ago when i get back from works

[Dom2D]

the art style looks great. ill give it ago when i get back from works

Same here! This looks really great and original, with the characters and the ground instead of abstract shapes in an abstract background.

As for the UI, I think animated/modernized 8-bit Fonts would work well for the score and the menus.

[JasonPickering]

thanks guys. I have been looking at a lot of games and I am definetly being influenced by pixel junk monsters and also patapon. I have been doing a lot of thinking and a score mechanic seems to just complicate things and doesnt really add much. right now I am looking into making it a little more streamlined. behind the gaurdian will be a row of huts now, so you need to protect your villagers while at the same time destroying the incoming army. so you will start with 6 huts. if you let all 6 die you will lose. after you defeat the 10 - 15 waves you move on to the next level. which may have 6 huts or maybe less. the player will move along a path to get to the end, but I may make branching pathways. i am thinking perhaps the village chief may be in one hut. if the hut he is in survives the player goes to the alternate path. so my question is does basically having 6 lives seem way to easy?

[Dom2D]

I think it's a great idea, the six huts thing. I'm sure you can threaten the huts enough that the game won't be too easy.


Take a look at my old game, it might be some inspiration for you.
http://dom2d.squarespace.com/download/dom2ds-games/CellDefenderv01.exe

There's a mechanic like what you just described, where you need to defend things behind you.

[JasonPickering]

you have a missing page there sir.

[Dom2D]

Oops try that again now?
http://dom2d.squarespace.com/download/dom2ds-games/CellDefenderv01.exe

[JasonPickering]

there we go. I will give it a try tonight.

[st33d]

We have a three hits rule at work generally.

It creates a constant feel of tension. You can have health pickups lying around all over the shop, but people will still be cautious. When you just load people off with tons of health from the word go you're just encouraging them to be sloppy.

[JasonPickering]

I agree. Right now I have 9 huts down bottom and it just seems like far to many. So it's back to the drawing board.I like the protecting idea so now it just comes to how to limit it. Some ideas so far

1. Large wall gaurding village 3 hits it shatters.
2. One building has chief in it. Protect that hut. He moves to undamaged huts randomly after wave. If the house holding him gets hit you lose. Can add more chiefs later. Perhaps two you need to protect.

Also the enemies walk forward. I need to figure out what to do when they get down far enough ( lose automtacally?)I

[JasonPickering]

new update:

http://www.mediafire.com/?sharekey=cc29a219109512de08f8df73f2072ed60cac13e019df89e8a543906a5faff527

so there are nine huts down bottom, the red ones contains the chief. try to keep the chief alive. if a hut is hit by a rock it becomes broken, and the chief will not be able to hide there. after each wave he hides somewhere different. (i dont have the lose code if the chief gets hit, just pretend) after the 4th wave the game goes looney, because its looking for the next wave. next I will be doing a bunch of research for story and name. also hopefully finishing any animations needed.

[Dom2D]

So there's no consequence to a ball hitting a house that's already crumbled down? I feel the chief thing is a little complicated. Also, the game becomes really easy when there's only one hut left...

The animations are sweet, controls and ball movement are spot-on.
I love how the enemies die, too.  :D

[JasonPickering]

Yeah this was my test. I had either this or a large wall that takes three hits. This was the hardest one so I coded these first. If I get some hate it's on to the wall idea.

[JasonPickering]

UPDATE!!!!
http://willhostforfood.com/users/J/jasonpickering/Rockout4.zip


okay chief huts out, new wall in. 3 hits and its gone I have all 10 waves in for the first level. so give it a go. I still need to add a way to keep track of how many hits the wall has taken. I have tried placing guys behind it holding it up, and they fly away when hit. adding cracks, and breaking parts of it and it all just looks weird.

next up is:
1. figure out how to do the fence.
2. add fail and win screens (fail screen in, but it still needs words.)
3. start making all the many extra guys I have.
4. think of a name.
5. design a level select system.
6. find someone doing music. (do we have a place to post for that?)

[mokesmoe]

You could just have there walls that get destroyed one by one.

[Wander]

looks great man.  i don't have the minimum requirements to run it. (this computer is VERY old) but i'll get one eventually. Until then, all I have to go off of are the pics and that pic looks coool. 

[JasonPickering]

So did some more work. I am dropping the wooden fence idea. I figured I could replace it with a large wall like guy, who works with your guy. This gives me one thing at the bottom. And I can animate it to give it a little more life to the scene. Plus it makes the world a little weirder.

Okay so here is a question I have. If I want good music,but can't make it my self. Where should I get it?

[JasonPickering]

well, did a lot of work, sadly most of it was under the hood. I have redone the level loading code to make it faster to load the waves. I have also worked on the wall. so now its down at the bottom and after three hits its done for. I need to redo the sprites and then I should be able to start adding new guys.

[JasonPickering]

alright, been a long time since I worked on this. been spending a lot of time working overtime and also with the holidays, but i am back to this. I will probably be doing a full art overhaul. right now the art is far to time consuming and i really need to speed this up if i ever want to see me actually finish this game. so well see what I can come up with.