henke on 16/3/2015 at 20:22
Inspiration hit and I made 3 new levels tonight. Here's two of them, "Frozen Lake" and "That one scene in LOTR".
[video=youtube;76UOmwvHjEk]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=76UOmwvHjEk[/video]
Pyrian on 16/3/2015 at 20:29
Is that how you're supposed to win those levels? :laff: The crotch-slam splits and the falling off the world?
Yakoob on 16/3/2015 at 23:09
Quote Posted by henke
The second, unlockable character, unintentionally ended up being easier to control exactly because he has something like this. Feet at the bottom of his stilts, which makes it harder to tip over forwards. I'm considering making some optional training wheels for the main character. Or maybe a 4 legged character like you suggested. Hmm... Stilt Dog?
Then again I'm wary of making it too easy. Just like any good physics game(GIRP, Surgeon Sim, Tricky Truck) mastering the controls and the physics IS the whole game.
I don't think that's necessarily a concern if you lay out different rewards for completing the level using harder characters. Think how many mobile games give you a star rating. You could have achievements, unlocks, bonus points or rank awards depending on which character you use. If anything, it could even bring more life to the game as people who master the easy char switch to the harder and go back to redo the earlier levels.
nicked on 17/3/2015 at 06:49
Especially if you have a whole range of characters and clothing options that unlock based on high scores. Hell you could get really silly with it if they're all optional characters - jetpack stilts, a guy on a bicycle where the wheels are the stilts, a stilt character with another character holding onto his back, so if you flip too hard, he'll fall off, hyper-bouncy rubber stilt guy, glass stilts that will break if you smack them down too hard forcing you to take small steps, etc....
henke on 17/3/2015 at 07:44
Quote Posted by nicked
jetpack stilts
Have you been looking at my design notes? :sly:
I'm adding one more character at most. These are all good suggestions but I gotta wrap this bad boy up at some point. This is my first game and I intend to keep the scope limited to something I can finish in a reasonable amount of time. Preferably before this month is over!
These are my plans/goals for this game:
-actually finish the damn thing.
-release for free on itch.io.
-promote it in a few places and try to get a little bit of notoriety. Make a name for myself, y'know. (I think it might lend itself well to LPs. And if it got featured in RPS' Freeware Garden I'd be over the moon!)
Then take a break. Play Bloodborne. Start work on the next game. I've got a half dozen other ideas I'm itching to make, and if I keep going at this rate I can bang out 4 games this year alone!
demagogue on 17/3/2015 at 08:52
As for the learning curve, you could have training wheels or stubs just for a tutorial level that are taken off for the first real level. But the wheels would be elevated a bit, or otherwise set up so that you could walk "normally", as if they weren't there. Only if you start to tip over, they bump the tip so you recover. So you keep refining it until you aren't getting the bumps.
I think that's a reasonable compromise just to learn how the walking works, then they're taken off for the next level. But you can redo the first level as much as you need to get the walking down.
Yakoob on 18/3/2015 at 04:19
Quote Posted by nicked
hyper-bouncy rubber tits guy
please tell me im not the only one who saw that :(
Quote Posted by henke
I gotta wrap this bad boy up at some point. This is my first game and I intend to keep the scope limited to something I can finish in a reasonable amount of time. ... get a little bit of notoriety.
Good plan, sounds like you're taking the right route! That's exactly what my goal for Postmortem was too but then I lost my scope and aimed too high with the second one...
nicked on 18/3/2015 at 06:57
I think the best bet for player training is to just add UI elements, optional, onscreen, to the first couple of levels. Detect when the player is overbalanced and likely to fall over, and then display onscreen which stick to push in which direction. Of course, that's probably a lot of work pulling out physics variables if it's not already set up to track that sort of thing.
demagogue on 18/3/2015 at 07:30
A related option is to give UI prompts like that that the player just blindly follows, possibly with a AI walker walking in tandem beside the player so they can see what basic walking is supposed to look like. I.e., the flashing UI are for the AI's movements, and the player is free to try to follow along or not. But at least they can see the connection. It doesn't have to track the player's actual responses and can still work.
nicked on 18/3/2015 at 10:34
Yeah - like a robot that does it perfectly and tells you what it's doing, so you can copy it.
Also you should definitely now name your game studio Hyper Bouncy Rubber Tits Studios.