Xeneth

Phaedrus' Street Crew
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Posts posted by Xeneth

  1. Posted

    [Day Eleven] (lost this post somehow, but this is a fair recreation of it)

    My sleeping and waking schedule, (and thus updates/progress) have become pretty random...

     

    The more writing I get done on this thing, the more obvious it becomes that the Idle Thumbs episode title "seed" of the project has had a lot less impact on it than the other media I've been steeped in since starting...

    I've been listening to a lot of ambient experimental electronica like Halley Labs' Aurastys, and catching up on the Friends at the Table campaign COUNTER/Weight, so the dystopian sci-fi vibes just sort of took over I guess.

     

    Not that I'm complaining, the thing obviously just is what it is at this point and that's fine, I'm just learning stuff about how I create that should have been more obvious in hindsight.

     

    Note to self regarding post jam topics that still need to be covered here: Tone as it relates to the order I did work in, and an epiphany about trying to solve design problems with content.

     

    Work Done:

    • All questions and answers are now first draft copy complete
    • Added a credits screen with some external links

  3. Posted

    Great to hear that you're "designing around" the issues, it's totally a cool martial-arts-like skill we have to hone. It's tempting to build your weird house out of big sturdy bricks of carved stone for strength and stability, but you've discovered the secret of the weird igloo and have begun freezing your own custom bricks of ice that are way easier to make and can be melted away as needed!

     

    That's right, I can torture this metaphor all day... what?

  4. Posted

    This is looking REALLY interesting!

     

    I recently started replaying Zelda: Skyward Sword for some reason and thought of your game when I encountered the hilariously chaste "Eldin Roller" flavor text.

     

    (Basically there are catchable dung beetles in that game but they refuse to call them that and the game goes on to declare that they are rolling "something" like a huge coy Nintendo shaped parent that is afraid kids will become TOO EXCITED if they make a poop joke too obvious.)

  5. Posted

    Oh GOD yes...

     

    So much design space to work with there compared to "make the big ball get bigger because bigger is better" (fun fact, most players never really think about the context of Katamari Damacy as commentary on consumer culture as it relates to gaming, and I'm pretty sure Takahashi gets a little sad that no one ever really talks about that aspect)

     

    Design space brain dump just from looking at the gif:

    • Getting stacks of rats past/under low overhangs (watch your head!)
    • Compressing the stack with a command/control/powerup to make it easier to squeeze?
    • "Spending" the bottom rat of the stack in order to bounce/jump the king with the rest in tow?
    • Rats enjoying being part of the stack...
      • Making happy emotes/animations/sounds because the stack is fun for them
      • Being knocked off the stack being bad/scary
      • Scampering about in panic and needing to be collected again/restacked
    • The king ascending the teetering stack in order to reach a high up exit or something

  8. Posted

    From the Slack:

    I'm kind of annoyed that I've had to scale back the scope of my game to 'it's a Pac-Man clone'.

    It was originally intended to be an isometric adventure game, like Head Over Heels or Cadaver, telling the story of Dot Gobbler's Halloween.
    I figured that I wouldn't have the time to model all of the separate areas I'd need, though. The game was always going to end up with a Pac-Man clone, so I figured I'd just make that.
    And if I had time at the end, I'd try and get the story stuff in.
    When I say 'end up with a Pac-Man clone', I mean that the story was going to end with you entering an abandoned LaserQuest, at which point it would switch to Pac-Man gameplay.
     
    Totally feeling this, gonna toss out a bunch of mediocre ideas in the hopes that something triggers greater ones... Firmly believe in trying to design around any and all limitations to reach a satisfying goal!
     
    Maybe it's possible to have your narrative cake and eat it too somehow:
    • What if gobbler finds themselves trapped in the LaserQuest surrounded by dots, with no clue how they got there...
    • There's dots to gobble, but instead of points they represent memories; gobbling all the dots in a stage recovers a memory of the lost Halloween night, lost clues to how this came to pass.
    • No idea how to deliver these little memory vignettes, but think about text or sprites, things that won't push you into scope creep land as quickly as full 3D adventure segments.

    Man, Dot Gobbler's map is way bigger and more intricate than Pac-Man's, and not in an interesting way.

     

    If some part of the above were true perhaps this would help with that:

    • You could start with a small level, no ghosts, just to ease the player into the controls and deliver a narrative fragment "teaser" to whet the appetite.
    • Then consider ramping up the level sizes, complexities, and enemy counts with each narrative drop for a sense of progression that most pac-clones lack.
    • Look for ways to re-use assets, like perhaps the simpler levels are just copies of the larger ones with areas cordoned off?
    • No idea what checkpointing or saves should look like, but remember that our player target is now a merry band of thumbs streamers looking to blaze through a bunch of jam games in a single sitting!

  9. Posted

    Definitely reach out to the Slack if you haven't already.

     

    I'm not gamemaker fluent enough to help solve physics systems misbehaving, but I've totally got your back insofar as development experience from a design perspective...

     

    The giant salt lick to take my advice with is thus; I don't have a clear mental picture of the design you're attempting to implement... So I'm going to go VERY broad in an attempt to be encouraging or useful, and the second you find what I'm saying the opposite of either of those things, disregard the whole shebang and do what feels right!

     

    Alright? Advice time!

    Consider branching your project at this juncture:

    • Keep this version of your progress separate so you can return to it after the jam or even at the tail end if the current blockers evaporate.
    • That new copy of the project is a sandbox you can use to potentially design around the current physics issues, should they prove impassable within the time frame.

    Find the fun (the doable/achievable fun):

    • Instead of tunneling on what isn't functioning the way you expect, think about and test the boundaries of what IS working.
    • Try to design around the limitations of the problematic mechanic; If maximum chaos isn't in the cards, is there a more controlled gameplay pattern that would also be fun?
    • Maybe the order you have to suck things in needs to be dictated by some sort of logic; Objects could become physics reactive in response to things on top of them being stripped away perhaps...
    • Maybe by dragging one type of target object through other, softer ones the player can break them or something...

    I'm just tossing random stuff out there, bad ideas that hopefully could spark better ones for you. Ideally someone manages to help you stay true to your original design vision, but be flexible and prepared to limbo your way to alternate goals if need be.

     

    Most importantly, prioritize shipping SOMETHING interactive over all else given the schedule!

  11. Posted

    Oh man, these Crazy Taxi vibes! Make sure you tweet at Danielle when this is finished, she's gonna get a kick out of it for sure.

     

    Have you considered:

    • Boozein'
    • Choosin'
    • Fusin'
    • Abusin'
    • Accusin'
    • Confusin'
    • Defusin'
    • Infusin'
    • Misusin'
    • Perusin'
    • Recusin'
    • Refusin'
    • Reusin'
    • Suffusin'
    • Overusin'

    Cull as needed and target the ones you find the most amusin', or I guess build a crazy table of picks that share the most characters so you can "build" them out of individual letter pickups or something? Dope design space, man. (SPACEMAN!)

     

    Oh, make sure you do NOT use "bruisin'", the "proper" intended rhyme. I feel like it's paramount that be part of the joke!

  12. Posted

    [Day Nine]

    I'd say there's light at the end of the tunnel.

    Writing proceeds as planned, but I can't help but feel as if a creative writer by trade would have handily "solved" all these little narrative hooks in such a way that the painting of the world is complete, like, a week ago.

     

    Of course the reality of creative writing is that it's far from a concrete series of problems to be solved, and the reader/player does not magically "get it" once you've quantified all of your adjectives or whatever. 

     

    Narrative design is going to have to be something I practice at some point in the future; This project has uncovered a weakness that I should have known was there... All my experience is with systems and content design, (and not the type of content that takes the form of evocative copy).

     

    Work Done:

    • All questions and answers have at the very least rough placeholder copy
    • Proofreading tools researched for the inevitable editing phase

  13. Posted

    [Day Eight]

    HOLY SHIT Jake described the game on the cast... this is the sort of thing I typically handle extremely poorly, but talking about anxiety issues won't really solve them the way finishing this thing will, so that's enough of that.

     

    Was very pleased to hear that the Thumbs are planning to stream playthroughs of the jam games! This is great news for everyone involved, and should help further cement Wizard Jam as a "thing".

     

    Now that it's almost all content creation and iteration, the systems designer in me is getting antsy. I didn't really create this thing with streaming in mind, so it's going to have a more muted impact than it could.

     

    Putting a pin in that too; promise I'll talk more about tone and the process at the tail end of this thing.

     

    Work Done:

    • Question writing/editing continues
    • Tweaked function formatting of line breaks to give answers a little more breathing room

  17. Posted

    [Day Seven]

    Day six ended up not containing any meaningful progress. I guess that was like a "weekend" where the project was concerned, even though my schedule is basically random at this point.

     

    The meat of the actual question writing is underway, but the format and the design are quite restrictive from a writing standpoint. It's taking a surprising amount of effort to sort of "paint within the lines" of the intended piece.

     

    I must make an effort to prevent further dev logs from primarily devolving into, "oh jeez writing copy is harder than writing design documentation".

     

    Work Done:

    • First draft written for most early pre-branching questions
    • Found three points for some light randomized encouraging text to further break up the Q&A pattern

    post-8533-0-16401200-1463065111_thumb.png

  19. Posted

    That CHIP looks amazing, but the pocket hardware itself appears to lack a decent D-Pad... looks like just one type of button used on everything from the keyboard to the game controls.

     

    This is the sort of thing that makes me wish I were better at fabrication and soldering; the CHIP obviously suggests that if I am unsatisfied with the hardware then I should craft my own, heh.

  20. Posted

    Oh no, the screenie above broke apparently!

     

    Here are the results of some of my recent archive dives for ya: (feel free to not use any you don't like, I have a weird sense of humor sometimes)

    • Idle Thumbs 67: Dot gobbler (
      )
      • Right at the beginning Sean says "This podcast is not going to be fresh." and consider pulling from his bizarre chain of "I like the mouthfeel" stuff soon after the laughter about "freshies" dies down.
    • Idle Thumbs 70: An Angry God (
      )
      • Jake saying "Also, punch your friend in the face with your iPhone or podcast playing device and say 'Idle Thumbs' when you do it..." no idea where to cut this off but extreme violence Jake seemed like a rare gem of sorts.

  23. Posted

    Oh man, with the background!

     

    Huge king is scary and awesome. If you have general king size design concerns, just leave the "superking" in as a rare 2% chance to spawn or something, so the possibility of giggle preservation is still in there and occurs every now and then as a "holy shit" moment.