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I've hinted in the forum that we're working on a new game. I've now announced it on my blog and will continue to post updates with videos as substantial progress have been made. Hopefully i get to release the first iteration on hub later this year if Spell of Play let's me Well it's called Sense: Survival Prelude and is a 2D cooperative survival action top-down game based on the three senses touch, seeing and hearing. |
Submitted by SolidBenny
Wed, 07/15/2009 - 09:05
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Looks interesting, I'm also
Looks interesting, I'm also a fan of top down games. I'm curious as to how the senses will work, will they simply be weapons? Will different enemies "chase" different senses?
I'm guessing a light weapon (laser perhaps) would not make any sound, a touch weapon would be a shotgun and make sound, and a sound weapon would obviously make a lot of sound. Then sound doesn't give any light, shotgun gives a short flash and laser gives a lot of light etc. Making different enemies chase you depending on how much your weapon attracts them. But that's just my guess, let me know how far off track I am. =)
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There's no kill like an overkill!
I'm open for suggestions
As is the culture at spell of play i'm definitely open to suggestions. Thanks for taking interest
In the first iteration i've worked at a kind of rock-paper-scissors approach. Only from the player towards the enemies though. It's interesting that you suggest the other way around.
My initial plan is to have one weapon for each sense and one enemy gradually weak towards the different weapons. So that a sonic weapon hurts a hearing sensitive enemy most while barely doing any damage to a light sensitive.
The setting is kind of sci-fi colorful fantasy so there won't be any regular AK47s or Pump-action shotguns (if you want that, there's counterstrike 2d
). The current weapon lineup is rock gun (charges to mold giant boulders, force->touch), bolt rifle (repeating light bolts, light->seeing) and sonic blaster (area explosion, sonic->hearing).
The senses also affect how enemy types track you as they only have one sense to use each.
I will definitely think more about how enemies react to your weapon usage.
Oh and I hope everyone is staying tuned, i know that video sucked. Next video will be incredibly more interesting because some gameplay will be up and running.
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Solid Core Entertainment
Developer of Roadclub
Show me the zombies! I think
Show me the zombies!
I think all the weapons should feature the charge up ability. Mostly because those were the most fun weapons in the Mega Man games..
Rock Gun could use a better name, I nominate Mass Driver!
It would make sense that sound sensitive zombies (are they zombies? I'll just call them that for now) would avoid the Sonic Blaster, be oblivious to the Bolt Rifle (light makes no sound IMO), and be attracted to the Mass Driver.
Then you would have to expand on this for the other 2 weapons of course, but it would be interested that the weapons attract one enemy and scare off another and do nothing to a third. Not exactly rock, scissors and paper, but I think it would make the game play more interesting.
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There's no kill like an overkill!
Actually i want a cleaner
Actually i want a cleaner world (i love mirror's edge and portal style settings too much) so it won't be the standard dark, gory, zombie alien type of enemies. I'm kind of sick of that. Also, you could just play left4dead instead
At the moment it is just simpler shape type of monsters but that may change if i find a graphics artist. i also love zelda 3 so that's an inspiration on how enemies, environment and colors might evolve 
Heh great idea. Man hobbe was right all along. Taking your game early to the community quickly rewards you
It definitely makes the concept more interesting. I wonder what happens if all three players shoot with all three different weapons at once.. everyone would kind of freeze if the settings aren't prioritized in some way 
maybe that's what you get for helping each other out...
As there's only three weapons i'm trying to give them unique characteristics so they have different appeals, therefore only one has the charge. If the others are boring i should at least try to make the chargable then as that seems to help
I didn't really like rock gun myself but i was really low on ideas. Thanks, Mass Driver sounds awesome!
Just a sidenote: As this will be the first iteration I will keep as many things as simple as possible (so something will get done) so as to minimize wasted time on bad features but you can always discuss the details and they might be included eventually
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Solid Core Entertainment
Developer of Roadclub
Hey! Looks really neat, I
Hey!
Looks really neat, I like also like top downers (Crimsonland for example) and your ideas seam neat and I really like how things seem to be evolving
I'd love to see a working demo on hUb asap, then there will be some "real" feedback
Keep it up!
Great to hear! I hope you
Great to hear! I hope you notice that i've tried to adopt your way of developing
I'm happy to hear if i'm doing something wrong. I know iterations should be short and concise but I want to have SOME kind of gameplay before i release the first version 
I've written quite a lot on a google doc about the game which i'm willing to share and discuss when it's cleaned up a bit. I'll wait until the game gets a forum though so it can be discussed properly.
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Solid Core Entertainment
Developer of Roadclub
Getting some sort of
Getting some sort of gameplay in there is probably a good idea
Though it does have to be much more than moving around i.e. test the basic controls.
The idea is to test the things the player does the most as early as possible. Also it's not a bad idea to get some basic compatibility testing done asap.
I'm looking forward to this one!
I'm almost done. I focused
I'm almost done. I focused on getting the core running (input,video,audio) and some of the basic gameplay elements. player movement, aiming and shooting plus a simple tilemap and a few spawning enemies with almost no AI. Plus i had to have some fun with effects and images. I just can't help it
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Solid Core Entertainment
Developer of Roadclub
I agree.
Your strategy is sound, there's not much point in making something available before the most basic gameplay elements are working. I hope to be able to test this game soon. How will you solve the multiplayer aspect? A central server where you can find hosted games? Or will it only be multiplayer by hotseat? (I.E. everyone at the same computer)
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There's no kill like an overkill!
I have a dilemma here. I'd
I have a dilemma here. I'd rather have networked multiplayer but i want to start with same-computer multiplayer as i've never made any kind of multiplayer games before. however from experience i've heard from others that tried to force networked in later that you're in for a big mess. my initial plan is for local teams to upload scores to an online leaderboard and compete that way. i'm curious to make a simple networked pong-like game later to get a feel for what is needed and maybe build on that but that's all loose thoughts for now. I will focus on the local multiplayer and online leaderboards as i feel confident that i can make that good in reasonable time.
Multiplayer architectures
I've done a lot of work on multiplayer architectures, perhaps you could find some useful information in a book that I'm working on.
Sections 2 through 4 pertain in various ways to robust architectures that support both singleplayer and multiplayer at the same time. This stuff is still work in progress so it jumps around a bit, but I hope it is helpful.
With these ideas I insist that adding multiplayer later is indeed very possible and in many cases preferable, as you can first concentrate on the actual gameplay aspects first.
/johno
"you can't stop the change"
wow cool thanks, ill
wow cool thanks, ill definitely have a look. i hope the work ive done is somewhat compatible. i dont have time to look right now.
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Solid Core Entertainment
Developer of Roadclub
heh it was way too
heh it was way too interesting. i was up way past my planned bedtime reading your book. you have some very good points and i have actually thought for a while now that how i've learnt to use OO is a big time waster and complicates things unnecessarily and you prove that. funny how you take entities as an example as i've just implemented my "entitylist" and i'm just starting to find exactly the problems you mention where you kinda have go around and force solutions that would be a breeze to code if objects were more accessible.
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Solid Core Entertainment
Developer of Roadclub
Glad you liked it!
Your post about your "dilemma" actually got me to do another pass on some of the material. Other work has been getting in the way, but I really want to finalize all of this and try to get a book out. Someday...
/johno
"you can't stop the change"
Cool hope it turned to the
Cool hope it turned to the better
I really like that you're writing it so personal and really show that you draw from experience and that you try to be objective regarding the approaches you prefer.
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Solid Core Entertainment
Developer of Roadclub
oh great!
I was hoping for that response to all the anecdotes, will continue in that vein.
/johno
"you can't stop the change"
Oh cool, I look forward to
Oh cool, I look forward to testing this game when you release it on the hUb!
Daniel