The Futurist

frd

I'm finding it hard to stick at the game I've been working on for the last year as things seem to get more and more complicated the further I go on.

So I'm working on something less complicated in my spare time for now.

The Futurist is a chemically damaged lone survivor tasked with wiping out an invading species from his decaying concrete island. The aim is for a mix of platforming and top-down space shooting, where you fly over the city to find infected buildings, then scale the building battling invaders and searching for survivors.

Here's what I have so far -

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MentalDonkeyGames

Looks great! Your art style is very unique.

birdboy

Looks beautiful!
I know that feeling of drowning in a project, desperately needing some distraction and yearning for the satisfaction of completing something. Of course I don't know your full vision for your getaway project but just from your description it sounds really interesting but also quite big.

frd

Thanks @MentalDonkeyGames!

Thanks @Hoodloc, I though the art for Rainbow Infinity looked spot on. And well done for seeing it through! I have no idea if this or any other game I've worked on will make it that far, I think I enjoy the process more than the important finishing bit. Are you working on other games?

Socks

Looks great . . .

"So I'm working on something less complicated in my spare time for now."

Famous last words Side projects grow until they eclipse the project you were taking a break from, so you move onto a side project from the side project, until you end up cascading down a tower of infinite side projects

frd

@Socks said:
Looks great . . .

"So I'm working on something less complicated in my spare time for now."

Famous last words Side projects grow until they eclipse the project you were taking a break from, so you move onto a side project from the side project, until you end up cascading down a tower of infinite side projects

Hehehe... That's the truth. Once upon a time I had a laptop-free studio practice. Now I lose weeks to the side project that is Gamesalad.

Icebox

Ah I was waiting for MEV update ! I hope you plan on finishing that game, this looks interesting as well so good luck with both.

frd

@Icebox said:
Ah I was waiting for MEV update ! I hope you plan on finishing that game, this looks interesting as well so good luck with both.

Thanks Icebox! Your examples on the forum recently have been very impressive.

I put some gameplay of MEV up on it's development pages a few days ago, here it is again if you missed it (apologies for the lag and low resolution)

Icebox

@frd Yea I saw it while I was looking for the name its awesome , you have a unique style and your games are always fun to play , I love Luxury slime vortex and MEV is looking great so i hope you get back to it soon but i understand how its hard to stick to a big project. Wish you the best

UncloudedStudio

@frd Finish MEV, looks awesome, really want to play it.

frd

@Icebox
@UncloudedStudio

Thanks for the support! I do want to finish it, just need to take a breather and get a bit of distance from it again before working out a new plan of attack. At the moment there's about 20-30mins of gameplay over one world with a few bugs left to sort. I think it's pretty unlikely that I will complete the other four worlds without some kind of support, so I might try to publish world one as a way to learn the publishing process and use it as a sort of demo to try to drum up interest.

RossmanBrothersGames

@frd said:
@Icebox
@UncloudedStudio

Thanks for the support! I do want to finish it, just need to take a breather and get a bit of distance from it again before working out a new plan of attack. At the moment there's about 20-30mins of gameplay over one world with a few bugs left to sort. I think it's pretty unlikely that I will complete the other four worlds without some kind of support, so I might try to publish world one as a way to learn the publishing process and use it as a sort of demo to try to drum up interest.

Finish it! It looks great. I wouldn't call it a demo. Tons of games release in Episodes!

8bitninja

Looking sweet! Great art style, as always.

Toque

Large projects are a bear. A small project break is a great idea.

frd

Thanks @RossmanBrothersGames, I hadn't thought of releasing it in episodes, but I really like that idea. Hope all's going well with your excellent looking game.

@8bitninja Thanks very much, you're the master of streamlined games!

Today I introduced doors, a bit of decorative vegetation and three of the six planned enemies.

frd

Here's how The Futurist is shaping up.

A fair amount of the platforming mechanics and animations are in place, although I haven't laid out any levels yet. Here's a quick gameplay video -

And the spaceship mechanic is getting there, still looks a bit glitchy but it seems like it will work -

Icebox

Smooth animation and fun gameplay , i feel the jump needs more animation but it still looks great.

frd

Thanks @Icebox, I agree about the jump but I haven't come up with a satisfactory solution yet. The jump time can vary a lot so I went with a simple animation which always looks a bit wrong, rather than something specific which sometimes looks really wrong. Definitely needs more work to sort it. Also the animation should probably restart when you jump on an enemy, which I haven't set up yet.