As the title suggests I'm making a platform game. Its in flash, and its pretty simple in terms of technology behind it. I can make it look really good, but I'm trying to give it more depth than the average jump and run. I've been watching and listening to a load of commentary on all the orange box games and I'm trying to incorporate a few of the techniques to keep players interested. For example, at the end of area 1 you get to actually see where your heading. Its obvious that you cant get there just yet and will have to go the long way round but its a good way of giving the game a goal without just spelling it out for them. Its Christmas themed so Its all snow and ice tunnels. You have the basic ability of being able to run, jump and crouch, also an energy bar that allows you to power a shield until the bar drains. So far, you start outside on the surface. You run along this level which will early on force the player to use all the available skills. Then at the end of this level you drop down into an ice tunnel and make your way along until you hit a dead end, the ice will give way and you will fall down a chasm. You end up in a big cavern and have to make your way to the other side. The idea of this area is so that people who want to win can explore and jump about, whereas the people who just want a quick bit of fun can just charge across and get to the next area. The next area is a workshop (can you see where this is headed? ) lots of pistons and conveyor belts. You have to climb up to the top past all the enemies and get into Santa's office where the evil Snowman king has taken Santa hostage in order to stop time and keep the world frozen so that he doesn't melt. The snowman enemies are pretty simple. There are 4 levels. level 1 enemies patrol and if they spot you will chase you. Upon contact they freeze you. Level 2 is the same, but they are faster and freeze you longer. The freeze also removes some of your shield bar. Level 3 enemies are flying snowman heads. They are as fast as level 2 but can go anywhere. They freeze for the same amount of time as level 2 but cannot drain your shield. Level 4 are the same as level 3, but faster and can freeze for even longer, they also take 2 hits before they die and take a big chunk of your shield bar. As you progress they will start as different levels. The first level for example will only have level 1 and a few level 3 enemies. Level 1 enemies when jumped on will become level 3. Level 3 when jumped up into (head butt) will die. In the middle levels a level 1 enemy will go through all stages apart from level 4 before dying. By the end of the game, all enemies will either be level 2 or level 4. If level 2 are jumped on they become level 4 instead of becoming level 3. The game will be timed. As you run along, you pick up points. These points go toward your score as well as refilling your shield bar. A good player will have to balance collecting the points and making it as fast as possible to get the best score. If someone just runs the whole thing they might get an awesome time, but no points. The first 2 areas are fine for this as they will be very linear. Area 3 however will require a good line to get the most points without taking too long. Does that all sound fun? Any ideas for interesting traps/puzzles/gauntlets? I'll stick up a screenshot of the artwork I'm doing for it in a bit. (Grr, damn post icons. Forget to choose one and you have to wait 30 seconds)
Definitely not just talk. Its for a client. I do plan on thieving the engine from work and doing my own little project at some point though.
Sounds well thought out and quite fun. I've never been a fan of platformers so can't really help with traps etc beyond whats in the first few levels of Mario.
The Christmas theme puts me off and it'd be nice to see something done more seriously, but it sounds good to me. Try looking at the HL Platformer for tips and consider adding a password based cheat or load ability. Those things always help get return hits. If there's an unlockable thing at the end then it'll really help people want to play to the end.
Unfortunately it has to stay Christmas themed. It's also got to be a quick, no more than 10 minutes game. Ideally its something that someone could do in about 5 minutes with pretty much no real challenge if they don't want to. Which is why I'm making it so that you can play it super fast, or spend some time and explore. At the end your score is tallied up and if your high enough up the list you are in with a chance of winning something like an iPhone or iPod Touch. The 50 runner up players will get a £5 voucher or something. I do like the idea of making something unlockable at the end though. Nothing that would effect gameplay though, or you'd get and uneven score advantage. Perhaps a new bobble hat My project will be where you will see some more serious gameplay though. As I wont have to cater for such a wide audience.
Have the unlockable thing be Reindeer Mode or something - all enemies and so on change to look like crazed reindeer and shoot red noses randomly.
A quick preview of the overall style. The top one is area 1, on the surface of the north pole. and the bottom one is area 2 - the ice caves leading up to the evil snowman's secret hideout. So far it runs really nice and smooth in browser which I am pretty amazed by. I haven't bothered optimising anything at all yet! So it should run even better once that is done. Just bear in mind, those are screenshots of a large chunk of the level. When playing you only get to see a much smaller area at a time.
So! Its done! Live today! What have I learned? Need more time for everything. Deadlines rush at you like a ****ing bull with a rocket up its arse! Sound needs to be planned more than 5 min's before it goes live. So, its buggy and not really finished I know. But I'm going to keep tinkering with it (and force our actionscript guy to as well). I was planning on making my own game using this engine, but I don't really like the way it works so I'll be making my own and learning some actionscript on the way I think. /boast Looks sweet though! oops.. almost forgot: Linky - linky
That was fun. Althought after a few mins of that Jingle Bells I had to turn my speakers off before I kill myself Ran into a problem though, or is this supposed to happen? Can't seem to move hehe. I assume he's the last boss... argh so close
Yea.. quite a few people are... its going to be fixed at some point on monday I hope. Its annoying because I did a lot of really cool animations for the boss and none of them got used at all. I'm going to get designing my own game now. Anyone got any ideas?
Do something really abstract and lame where you just direct something about the screen and pretty things happen. Then call it fl0w...
Well, I got to the last guy... but the script messed up, I tried to abort it, and now the last boss is stuck in an infinite loop of animations while my guy is dancing. Fun game though, good job.
It's so cute! I wish you'd done a gameboy and put re-access codes on each section, though, so I could come back to it. I got to lv6 but had other things to do