[Dev Log] Imagine The Man

[Problem Machine]

April 13: I just came up with this idea a couple of hours ago and it's still pretty rough around the edges. Pretty much everything about this concept is still in flux, but here's the basic idea: Platformer (probably 2d) where you play as a little kid and are unable to navigate the environment on your own. To navigate the environment, you imagine a guy to help you. At first, all you can imagine is a guy who's bigger than you and can pick you up and set you down: As you explore, and see more of the world, you gain more symbols that you can use to imagine your man. So, for instance, you might see a horse and imagine a man who can run as fast as a horse, or see a tree and imagine a man as tall as a tree.

 

I'll probably do this in Flash/AIR since that's my most familiar platform, and it's a non-trivial idea to implement technically. The biggest challenge I can foresee at this moment is making the man sprite able to be all the different shapes he'll need to be to fit the imagination and still animate decently. For instance, the man as tall as a tree would ideally be slender with incredibly long legs rather than just whatever man sprite scaled up 10x. Even though I normally avoid Flash's vector animation stuff, I may actually want to try to use it for this project due to its suitability to that problem.

 

I'm not really looking for a team, but if anyone would like to get in on this I'm certainly open to the idea.

 

Tomorrow I'm hoping to nail down all the specifics of implementation and have a rough idea of the scope of the game, and maybe throw together a very rough prototype.

[elvaq]

Sounds cool, almost a little bit like Boxboy meets A Boy and His Blob! :tup:

[Problem Machine]

April 14th: Immediately scoped project way too fucking big because I'm an idiot. Got overwhelmed. Became sleepy.

 

I basically just copied all of the code for my main project into another directory for use in this one. Fixed all of the major bugs that resulted, but since I need to redo the collision system with a simpler one (only square blocks, rectangular collision) it's not quite ready to build test levels in. I'll create that collision tomorrow, along with most of the basic controls and stuff.

 

Mostly what I actually accomplished today was figuring out what all of the symbols the child can learn are and what they'll do. I was originally kind of thinking that you could slot each symbol into a different place for different effects (as tough as a tree, as tall as a tree, strong enough to lift a tree, etc) but decided that was both more cumbersome and less interesting than just giving each one its own set trait and description. As you go through the game, there are 12 different symbols to discover and a few secondary powerups, the most important of which is the ampersand. There are two of these in the game, and each one lets you add another symbol onto your imagined man. So, not only can you imagine a man as tall as a tree or as big as a house or as strong as a truck, but all three.

 

In order to reflect these in the appearance of the character, I won't be doing vector animation like I was thinking but combining a few sprites for the character which can be swapped out. So the man has a leg sprite, a body sprite, and hand and feet sprites which can be swapped out or resized. I may also give him a randomly generated hat each time he's created, kind of like the random baby faces in The Binding of Isaac.

 

This is obviously stupidly overscoped and I doubt I'll finish, but eh whatever let's see where it goes.

[zerofiftyone]

April 14th: Immediately scoped project way too fucking big because I'm an idiot. Got overwhelmed. Became sleepy.

 

This perfectly describes my experience of every game jam I've participated in.

[Problem Machine]

Dammit I hate my stupid brain. Today I've been largely paralyzed by anxiety. I'm sure I could get this project done if I could just work on it for a week, but I don't think I can, because I can't focus or think about it properly or decide what thing to do before and after each other thing. If anyone wants to collab on this so that I don't have to spend 100% of the time on this in my own head yelling at myself then hit me up. Otherwise I guess I'm cancelling it, which I already feel shitty about but less shitty about than doing the same thing after wasting a week on weird anxious procrastination.

 

Someday I'll learn how to be a real person.

 

I am incredibly frustrated.

[gerbilsinspace]

If real life gets in the way of making a game for a game jam, please don't beat yourself up over it. You are more important than a game jam. 

 

Your game idea sounds good though. If you end up needing more time than the game jam allows, I would be interested in helping out after the jam. At the moment I'm stuck with my own game, but as soon as i am free, I'll help. 

 

Until then, I'll be a cheerleader.

[Problem Machine]

Yeah, I'd just feel way better if it was actual obligations that were getting in the way, and not just my inability to focus on a new thing without my discipline immediately folding in on itself. I just can't think about this right now without being immediately exhausted and overwhelmed by all of the things I'd need to do, and antipathy towards doing any one of them. This is a problem I ran into last time I tried to do a jam as well, so I need to put some thought into how I'm going to get past this in the future.

 

Oh well. This is all part of learning how to be a person who makes things. I can never really put anything down. If you end up finishing early though, yeah, maybe we can do a chopped down version for the last few days or something.I'll try to at least keep poking at it day by day and see if anything clicks, but for now any further progress is definitely a maybe.