Travis Posted December 2, 2015 Why, hello there! This time of year always make me think back on a story my mama told me when I was just a little thing. About how Old Scratch decided he was gonna put a stop to all of these Christmas shenanigans. That Devil, he's a clever fella, and he knew he could keep Christmas from ever even gettin’ started if he could just stop the Christmas Star in its tracks. So, he up and started growing the tallest mushroom you ever saw. That mushroom tower was so big, he just had to put his house up there to look down on everyone forgettin' about Christmas. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Travis Posted December 4, 2015 I am really trying to squeeze in any work on my game, so I am going to keep these dev logs brief. Last time, I just posted a quick gif of the random tower/level generator. I now have a rudimentary version of one of the characters that will be trying to attack the devil's mushroom tower. I made a dummy version of the ball that will be used to hit the tower just fall from the sky and bounce at a 45 degree angle towards the tower. Next on the agenda is to do the actual math to get the "physics" I want and have the ball spawn like it is supposed to... out of the devil's front door, of course. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Ahr Ech Posted December 5, 2015 Looks cool! What kind of gameplay do you have in mind? Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Travis Posted December 5, 2015 The plan is to be like breakout and pong combined... We'll have to see how that works. Although the breakout side (which you can see in the GIF) relies on angling your paddle in addition to moving it left and right. Once you break through to the right side, the pong-like paddle will take over to bounce it back through. The goal is to cut a swath X-tiles high to finish the level, not to clear all of the tiles. This might be an ambidextrous nightmare once I get both halves up and running. Worked a little on the physics tonight and need to get it refined quite a bit. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Spenny Posted December 5, 2015 Cool, will be cool to see how this works out, your gifs a certainly intriguing. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Ben X Posted December 5, 2015 Cool, will be cool Groan. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Travis Posted December 14, 2015 Well, I had hoped to update this a lot more often, but I decided I needed to spend my very limited time on the actual game. I got it submitted with five minutes to spare! I'll try to write up some things once I recover for a day or two, but maybe it won't be that interesting. Please give my game a shot: Devil's Snuff Box Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Ben X Posted December 15, 2015 This is a fun twist on arkanoid/pong, with the pivoting of the left paddle and the separate controls. I'd be interested to see how it played at a higher speed. I never really seemed to get much interplay between the left and right contraptions, though - I generally completed a level before that started happening! Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Travis Posted December 15, 2015 This is a fun twist on arkanoid/pong, with the pivoting of the left paddle and the separate controls. I'd be interested to see how it played at a higher speed. I never really seemed to get much interplay between the left and right contraptions, though - I generally completed a level before that started happening! Yeah, the right paddle just sort of hangs out for a long while and ended up just being a way to pass the ball back across. That's one reason why I added the bonus deduction for having the right paddle on the ground -- just to keep you actively messing with it. I'm not sure if speeding up is the answer as pong balls are normally pretty slow, but maybe it is. I agree there needs to be more interaction over there, for sure. Thanks for playing and for the good feedback! Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Spenny Posted December 18, 2015 Yeah very interesting mash up of games you made. It seemed sometimes the ball randomly had gravity, was a little confused by that. Also, I love the pixel art and lack of music, really makes me think of the atari game you find at the bottom of a box. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Travis Posted December 18, 2015 Yeah very interesting mash up of games you made. It seemed sometimes the ball randomly had gravity, was a little confused by that. Also, I love the pixel art and lack of music, really makes me think of the atari game you find at the bottom of a box. Thanks! Yeah, the gravity takes hold if it starts to *bounce* up when the ball hits a block. This was my early solution to having the whole thing be turned sideways and ensure the ball would travel down, but also go up high enough when you hit it or it got deflected. The physics version here is the first version that sort of worked and I wanted to do more... but game jam. Turning the whole thing sideways introduces some interesting problems that have better solutions than this, but this somewhat works. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Travis Posted January 5, 2016 Thanks for playing, videoing, and posting! I really got a kick out of the whole video. Sorry about the story flashing back and forth so quickly... I literally made the title screen in less than an hour before the deadline. You were right on about the Southern influence and the crossroads legends. I kept it intentionally vague and a little nonsensical to make it more folktale-esque. Something definitely should have happened if you hit the devil's house... a great idea! Didn't have time for that though since I didn't even get to make a background or a million other things. I'm still chuckling about your rendition of "Mary Did You Know?" that was interrupted by a very passionate "SHIIIIT!" Thanks again for doing this! Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
