Gamers Rejoice TOTB 3

GamersRejoice

So I was away during the weekend but managed to sneak a peak at the theme while I was away on vacation. I'll be updating you guys with info about my game here.

I've finally settled on a theme and game concept. Still not sure about how gameplay is going to be working out so I'm still in the paper and pen/pencil stage. But to give a clue about my theme I'm thinking inside the box in order to think outside the box.

Stay tuned for more info.

DreamLab

aaah more competition now. I was wondering where you had been since I knew you were competing. I look forward to seeing your stuff! I have loved your first two games so I'm waiting for the next!

GamersRejoice

Here is a concept for my main character I drew up with a pen. Keep in mind the style of this game is going to look very unique and different from this. But I'm just working things out on paper still.

GamersRejoice

Screenshot or, gasp, a video of the menu revealing my game's art style later tonight. I was up late last night trying to get the layering to work right so it has a good depth of field. Turns out I was pushing it too hard and it chopped the frame rate down to 30fps. This is just the menu mind you. So I optimized it a little and removed some layering, sad but it still looks good, and now it's running like a champ.

I have built out some of the core mechanics too for the gameplay. It's turning out good and I can't wait to see what that starts to look like with the art implemented. I'm attempting to run this bad boy all on one scene to remove load times all together, except for the initial load obviously.

Lots more to do. The artwork is taking longer than I would like but I think you'll understand why when you see it. I'm kind of going crazy during the day at work because all I can think about is my game yet I can't work on it! AAHHHHHH!

GamersRejoice

As promised here is the update to what I'm up to. My Theme for the game is a hand made diorama (made in photoshop, not actually by hand.). Here is a screenshot and some video of how it's coming together. All you menu haters out there don't worry, I'm working on the gameplay too. Videos of that are sure to show themselves eventually.




The logo for the game will hang from the top left. Let me know what you think.

Xpandemic

WOW O_o....those graphics are just plain awesome, you do your own graphics?

GamersRejoice

Xpandemic said:
WOW O_o....those graphics are just plain awesome, you do your own graphics?

Yes I do, thank you!

Jamwithno

Dude I think I know who won the graphical award. And maybe even the whole contest. GREAT JOB!

AppsRacK

Wow. I really like it man. Good job.
-drahc

RH

Loving the graphics. I've been going down a similar route with mine, at least i've been trying to...

UtopianGames

Love the art style in this one

Darren.

GamersRejoice

Thanks guys, this diorama style is too fun! I might make multiple games look like this haha.

I've added some nice beach music now and it just fills me with joy, I'm glad to see others enjoying the look too. I've got to make some wicked animations for the gameplay and I'm a little intimidated by it, so we'll see how that goes.

GamersRejoice

Lots of sketching going on here. I guess I should've posted this first but I'm constantly drawing out ideas and I saw a pile of papers on the floor and figured why not share?



The gameplay is shaping up nicely. I'm not entirely sure what I'm going to do for transitions from scene to scene. I made an animation for the game that turned out great! Lot's more to do! So far though it looks like I'm right on schedule to finish in time for the due date.

Anyone know where the rules ended up on making an html 5 version as your submission? It would be nice to know because I'd have to rework a lot of images since it's currently retina display.

m456arcus

WOW that looks so cool, great job!

FjantInc

Looks awesome, very Little Big Planetish
A few friendly suggestions though..

Perhaps do some cutouts in the cardboardbox where the waves and clouds enter and exit?

The clouds could do with a bit of "bobbing" up and down, like if they were moved by hand (which I presume is what you want to convey).

It would be a nice touch if the stick with "Play" and "Extras" came up a little tilted. Preferably slightly randomized every time Perhaps even make it animate while on the screen... tilting from one side to the other.

Maybe try buttons as coconuts?

Anyhow, great work so far!

GamersRejoice

FjantInc said:
Looks awesome, very Little Big Planetish
A few friendly suggestions though..

Perhaps do some cutouts in the cardboardbox where the waves and clouds enter and exit?

The clouds could do with a bit of "bobbing" up and down, like if they were moved by hand (which I presume is what you want to convey).

It would be a nice touch if the stick with "Play" and "Extras" came up a little tilted. Preferably slightly randomized every time Perhaps even make it animate while on the screen... tilting from one side to the other.

Maybe try buttons as coconuts?

Anyhow, great work so far!

Great! Thanks for the suggestions. I'll play around with that.

Jamwithno

That looks really cool!

GamersRejoice

Argh! Spent quite a well playing around with using interpolate on a bunch of actors instead of move. Turns out after all of that headache it really didn't change the performance of my game for the better, it was pretty much the same. So either I'm going crazy and did something wrong, Or move behavior doesn't seem to be as resource heavy as it used to be. Regardless, after that waste of time my game is back on track and running like a champ. I had to ditch the idea of making the entire game in one scene in order to give it champ-like status. But this is a small inconvenience as the load times all seem to be very short so far. Plus it is a kind of obsession of mine to try and psychologically make load times seem shorter than they really are.

The gameplay is coming along quite nicely. It's kind of a fun twist on an old school game mechanic for boss levels. It has a certain element of, I'm going to die and the bad guy is right on my tail kind of intensity. Don't screw up or you're dead! I'm not revealing it yet because well, I don't know, I guess I could show you but I'm not going to right now.

Anyway, thanks for reading my brain dump.

kapser

Oh wow. Awesome cardboard style. Love how the menu is inside a box, when you're asked to think out of it

GamersRejoice

kapser said:
Oh wow. Awesome cardboard style. Love how the menu is inside a box, when you're asked to think out of it

Thanks! I never really was one for doing what I'm told.

I was up late last night and I just made the main character. I also made the "hurt" version of him/her. So now when you run into stuff he/she flinches. It turned out great!

I created one animation already and I'm really happy with it. It has a fluid yet kind of out of control look which is just what I wanted. I used a stick figure animation program and now all I need to do is create the artwork and map over the stick figure as a guide. I can't wait until we can use sprites since I am such a fan of animations. It should really help make animations less heavy on the resources. I need to start building out the options, extras, game over screen etc...

I also worked on some of my parallax images. I'm lovin' it! (No I was not paid by McDonalds to say that unfortunately) Up until now I've just had placeholders. I love it so much in fact that I want to use more, We'll see how many I can use without killing the fps. So far I've been very surprised with how well it's running with what I'm doing. I was expecting to not be able to use as many parallax effects as I am.

Still lots of work to do but plenty of time to do it. GameSalad is amazing!

Jamwithno

Yes GS is amazing but can you put up some pics of the main character I want to see what it looks like.

outasite

I second the motion, on seeing the main character. Loving the menu by the way...

jonmulcahy

Menu looks awesome.love the graphics

GamersRejoice

Jamwithno said:
Yes GS is amazing but can you put up some pics of the main character I want to see what it looks like.

outasite said:
I second the motion, on seeing the main character. Loving the menu by the way...

Ok fine!

jonmulcahy said:
Menu looks awesome.love the graphics

Thank you!

Yesterday I made the animation for my turtle. He now runs and jumps and flinches from being hit. It looks great and really adds to the game. A huge upgrade from the green square that it once was. I've planned out all of the menu pages and I'm hoping to even have some achievements and unlocks. I'm considering combining them in a way so you have to unlock certain achievements to unlock certain goodies.

JamieOneil

i was planning on doing a cardboard effect but in the end i didn't.
But this looks AMAZING!

icanmake

did you use textures for the fabric? if so where did you get them? P.S. cant wait to see the game in full action. it looks awesome already

8BitAvrin

Looks very neat. Like FjantInc said, the art style reminds me of something in LittleBigPlanet which is a great gaming franchise. Keep up the great work GamersRejoice!

GamersRejoice

Thanks guys, last night I worked more on the menu. I'm doing some cool tricks to make the menu super smooth and fast (all in one scene). I'm also using repositioning rules of actors to make each menu scene look different but still run smooth by using the same actors. It's fun to click on a selection and have box flaps close for a second and re-open to an entirely different page. It's like magic! haha.

I'm going to make achievements that unlock new turtles for you to use. So there will be like 4 or 5 achievements, do those and unlock the first turtle. Then you get more achievements to work on and then you can unlock the next turtle... and so on. I think this system will work perfectly for the type of game.

I'm getting close to feeling comfortable showing gameplay. Right now I need to build in a retry system so I can test the game on the device better. It's pretty annoying to die and have to start gamesalad viewer all over again. You gotta start somewhere I guess.

I also need to make a little story intro that takes place before the menu. Depending on how the menu performs, once I'm done, I might just add it to the same scene. Otherwise, I'll just put it in it's own scene.

I had my wife play it last night and she was screaming because she was afraid. It's not really a horror game but I was happy to see that the sense of urgency and intensity I wanted was there.

I hope these little logs are interesting for you to read, and that it makes sense and isn't too scattered, but hey, that's my brain for you!

GamersRejoice

Quick log before I go to sleep. Long day... I got the whole retry system working in the same scene so no loading in between retries. I made the bad guy laugh at you when you lose which is always a nice thing. I think back to mike tyson's punch out and how the bad guys laugh and taunt you when you lose and you're like, "I'll get you next time inspector gadget!"

I made the first version of the logo for my game too. Oh and the options page is all done. I also added a nice little font that says rearranging things... while the game has to load. It's a small thing but does a couple of things, one it makes the user understand that something is happening or loading. Two it supports and adds to the the theme of my game.

I'm getting tired of these blue squares, It looks like I need to spend more time on the artwork. I also need to start thinking about sound, I'm not really sure where to go with it, any ideas?

Until next time...

GamersRejoice

So I'm finally unveiling my gameplay. Obviously the game is about baby sea turtles and their treacherous journey to the ocean. It's a mixture of a runner game and a chase game. Hit sea shells and it slows down the baby sea turtle. Dash forward and you get ahead of the Crab. If he gets too close, boom it's over!



I'm going to be adding birds that swoop down and try to nab you. The only way to dodge the birds is to dash, so you'll have to strategize when to use your dash. Do you use it to get further ahead of the crab? Or save it in case a bird tries to nab you?

I'm actually going to be changing the gameplay once (or if) you actually reach the ocean. So in the ocean you'll be swimming up and down. To Avoid obstacles and I'm thinking a shark will be the one chasing you at that point.

Anyway, I hope you like it. I'm going to get back to work. Still a lot to do...

ORBZ

you have inspired me to see photoshop differently