Mysticism Pageant - God's Tower [DONE!]

[Chrixeleon]

It's done! :) Let me know if you find any game-breaking bugs. :D

PLAY HERE!

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Old stuff:

A little bit of a late start, but a start nonetheless. This is my first pageant, but not my first time making a game. I'm planning on creating a small platformer in flixel where you can move a character like usual platformers but you use the mouse to build the level while you're playing it. Kind of like Terraria but with a focus on platforming rather than RPG elements and item collecting. I don't anticipate the core mechanics being too hard, but we'll see. (I'm an artist and not a programmer.) :D

For the theme, I'm focusing on this quote from Wikipedia: "...the pursuit of communion with, identity with, or conscious awareness of an ultimate reality, divinity, spiritual truth, or God through direct experience, intuition, instinct or insight." (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mystical) The idea is that by playing the game, the player will be metaphorically experiencing "God," which is a game designer/level builder.

[Chrixeleon]

After getting unnecessarily frustrated with basic platforming mechanics (which I shouldn't have, I've done it before; it's all good now), I realized that the tilemap demo on the flixel site (http://flixel.org/features.html#tilemaps) is pretty much the core mechanic I was looking to create in my game.

So I guess I'm using some of this code in the project I've already started and expanding it into a full-fledged game. :D

[Chrixeleon]

Okay, I finally have a pretty stable demo: http://dl.dropbox.com/u/1981214/bin_god ... sTower.swf

A & D or Left & Right to move
W or Up to jump
Click to place tiles
Shift + Click to remove tiles
1, 2, and 3 to select a type of block to place

The code is actually really simple in retrospect. I just lack some basic flixel knowledge is all. :D Moving forward I'm going to add some standard platforming blocks (ladders, springs, spikes?, etc.) and some basic art.

*Edit: I've been putting the most recent version in the same place, so the link should direct to my current progress.

[Chrixeleon]

I've been slowly making progress. I have a screenshot!



It looks a little busy right now but I'll be polishing the art when more code is done. As mentioned before, the most recent build is here: http://dl.dropbox.com/u/1981214/bin_godstower/GodsTower.swf (Numbers 1-6 select various types of blocks now. User interface coming soon!)

[zovirl]

This game is awesome! Good job! I love the core mechanic of building the level as you run through it.

I like the blueprint-style drawings and notes scribbled in.

I like games that do a tutorial as notes written on the level (braid and realm of the mad god both do this too). On problem: I started on level 7 and couldn't figure out how to use the door to get to level 1. Maybe put the "S or <down arrow>" note next to that door? Or just start the player on level 1.

Instead of killing bugs I just trapped them by building platforms around them. I feel like I should get some points for that :)

The decorative elements didn't seem to serve much purpose except for points. Any way you could work them into the gameplay? (I have to admit that I can't think of a way to do this).

[Chrixeleon]

This game is awesome! Good job! I love the core mechanic of building the level as you run through it.

I like the blueprint-style drawings and notes scribbled in.

I like games that do a tutorial as notes written on the level (braid and realm of the mad god both do this too). On problem: I started on level 7 and couldn't figure out how to use the door to get to level 1. Maybe put the "S or <down arrow>" note next to that door? Or just start the player on level 1.

Instead of killing bugs I just trapped them by building platforms around them. I feel like I should get some points for that :)

The decorative elements didn't seem to serve much purpose except for points. Any way you could work them into the gameplay? (I have to admit that I can't think of a way to do this).

Thanks! :) I just noticed that the version that was up had the player start at the end for testing purposes, so that's why there wasn't any door-entering notes on level 7. :D The most recent version is up now though. Sorry about that!

I'll have to try out trapping bugs as an alternate way of killing them. I think that's a great idea! As for decorations, I agree that they're semi-useless right now. I assigned higher point values to them to encourage decorating, but I'll have to think of something interesting to add to them.

Thanks again for the feedback!

[Stephen L (inactive)]

Hey there :)

Tried it out. Movement seemed a bit slippy/slidey. I never spawned any bugs, and - and this was probably my biggest issue - I never really wanted to decorate. So I sort of hopped up the floors until I got to the top.
I didn't know how to kill bugs.

It's pretty good for a first game - congrats : )

[Chrixeleon]

Hey there :)

Tried it out. Movement seemed a bit slippy/slidey. I never spawned any bugs, and - and this was probably my biggest issue - I never really wanted to decorate. So I sort of hopped up the floors until I got to the top.
I didn't know how to kill bugs.

It's pretty good for a first game - congrats : )

Thanks for playing!

I haven't really touched the player code for a while, so I'll look into tweaking that. I'm also still playing around with the bug spawn rate since I think it's too low. As for decorations, I've been working on a way to make them less useless, so maybe what I've added will make them slightly more purposeful. The plan is to finish up today so it'll be ready for this weekend!

Thanks again!

[mildmojo]

This plays really well. I really like the way the instructions (in the menu and in-game) uses so few words, keeping the game open to people of different languages. I leaned on the jump pads pretty heavily when playing, though I wished I could draw them in mid-air.

I spawned a number of bugs by drawing a lot of platforms. They didn't seem so threatening. At one point, I nudged one off a ledge and chuckled as it bounced up a progression of jump pads I'd drawn until it hit the ceiling. I think the bugs would be a stronger threat if they interfered with your ability to build.

I didn't find the decorating nearly so interesting as the vertical level progression--I'd like to see what you have in mind to make that mechanic more important to the gameplay or the setting.

[Chrixeleon]

This plays really well. I really like the way the instructions (in the menu and in-game) uses so few words, keeping the game open to people of different languages. I leaned on the jump pads pretty heavily when playing, though I wished I could draw them in mid-air.

I spawned a number of bugs by drawing a lot of platforms. They didn't seem so threatening. At one point, I nudged one off a ledge and chuckled as it bounced up a progression of jump pads I'd drawn until it hit the ceiling. I think the bugs would be a stronger threat if they interfered with your ability to build.

I didn't find the decorating nearly so interesting as the vertical level progression--I'd like to see what you have in mind to make that mechanic more important to the gameplay or the setting.

Thank you! I hadn't thought about making the instructions universal, so I guess that was subconscious. :D Originally the springs were able to be drawn in mid air, but I restricted them to be on the ground thinking they might get abused or might be overused/overpowered.

The bugs were meant to be pretty harmless with the exception of taking a lot off your score the more they spawned. I found it pretty amusing that they bounced around randomly off the walls (and player) and just had to add in collisions with springs. Having them hamper building ability is a good idea!

As for decorations, I struggled a lot trying to find a use for them. The idea was that decorating was "finishing" what you've built so that you would have a "completed" structure. In retrospect I could have just eliminated them completely and focused on the vertical level progression. I do like the core mechanic of this game and I'm thinking about reworking it into a new game at some point. :)

[Radiatoryang]

I only got 8 / 15, never figured out what that "hidden coin" stuff was really about.

Wish the character had more friction, found it a bit too slippery as well.

Great game though! Really fun idea. I'd build on top of it and keep trying out new stuff / level designs / puzzles.

[Chrixeleon]

I only got 8 / 15, never figured out what that "hidden coin" stuff was really about.

Wish the character had more friction, found it a bit too slippery as well.

Great game though! Really fun idea. I'd build on top of it and keep trying out new stuff / level designs / puzzles.

Yeah, the hidden coins were added last-minute and I couldn't think of a concise, comprehensible way to explain them. I definitely could have tweaked the player movement more and I definitely will in a future version/sequel.

Thanks for the feedback! I'm looking forward to building upon everyone's comments and making a new, better game.