phill

[Release] Life as a Dung Beetle

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[Now good to go at https://titanfist.itch.io/life-as-a-dung-beetle]

 

Software: GameMaker: Studio, Aseprite.

 

Holy shit, looking at the rest of these threads, you guys are good! Feeling slightly intimidated, but screw it, let's do this!

 

Anyway, random title generator didn't disappoint and I ended up with a Terminal7 cracker. I'm tackling this game jam very casually, so I've aimed pretty simple with the mechanics and I'm going to try and make a slightly more polished final product.

 

Spent the first day coming up with an idea, and what I settled on was a semi-clone of the (somewhat obscure) NDS game Dragon Quest Heroes: Rocket Slime. As a lone survivor of a dung beetle clan massacre, players will have a limited time collect dung (that replenishes from the, uhh, 'heavens') and load it into their little dirt cave, competing with other A.I. dung beetles for the best bits of dung. After the timer runs out, it'll be over to a separate screen where your dung bombs get fired at an opposing dung beetle clan's tower. Rinse repeat until you've destroyed their tower (or they've destroyed yours).

 

Anyway, as of now I've gotten the basic movement and dung falling/collecting going on (dash to be tweaked):

 

BfOhpSx.gif

 

I'll update when I have some more progress!

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What do you use for GIF capture, out of interest? I use a program that works really quite well but the FPS gets hammered during conversion.

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What do you use for GIF capture, out of interest? I use a program that works really quite well but the FPS gets hammered during conversion.

 

I use a little program called GifCam at 33FPS. Works a charm!

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Okay! I've been a little busy at work lately so not as much progress as I'd like, but I've got all the basic mechanics down! First, here's a slightly more zoomed out version of the 'arena' portion of the game:

 

DpDP1hH.gif

 

I made the dung fall in slightly more interesting patterns, and added special dung pick-ups that will give your dung ammo some extra properties. AI still to come, but I've got a pretty good steering behaviour system that I can plonk in there.

 

RbyqO4o.gif

 

This is the 'tower fight' portion of the game. Players will be able to select areas of the enemy tower to attack with the dung balls they picked up in the arena portion. The opponent will be doing the same thing though, so players can choose to use a dung ball to shore up the tower defences rather than firing it.

Obviously all this is place holder art (I highly recommend using old book illustrations, they class the place up) but I'm currently in contracts with my fiancée for her to do a kind of brush-stroke/wall-art style for the sprites.

 

Alright, better get back to it. Really want to get at least a semi-functional demo for people to play by the time this ends!

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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.)

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It might be rude to say that I like the art after it's been described as placeholder-art, but I like the look. I'll probably like the new one too.

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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.)

 

Ahhh, Nan-tendo. Never change. Also thanks, I hope it'll be fun to play. :)

 

It might be rude to say that I like the art after it's been described as placeholder-art, but I like the look. I'll probably like the new one too.

 

Not at all rude. I really want to do a game sometime in the future using entirely old cc0 woodcut images. I think it's a wonderful style and could really lend itself well if the images were chosen properly. And hey, if my partner doesn't deliver it'll probably be pretty close to what it is now so you may get lucky!

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Quick image to show the new sprite style. My partner had stuff on, so I've had a go.

 

post-35862-0-42149500-1463572262_thumb.png

 

Main thing left to do is a little bit more on the cannon mechanic (and some sprites) and the AI. I have a feeling I'm under-estimating the latter a little, but we'll see how we go. Woo!

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It's done! Download the game over here if you want to.
 
Also here's a video of me sounding tired and slightly out of it explaining the premise of the game. I don't know how to embed YouTube clips or I'd do that. Thanks Ben for letting me know how to do that!

 

 

Thanks for the challenge all, I learned a lot as a relatively inexperienced game maker person. :)

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I haven't currently got the internet speed to do it for you, but search the forums for embed YouTube and you'll find instructions :)

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I haven't currently got the internet speed to do it for you, but search the forums for embed YouTube and you'll find instructions :)

 

Thanks, I can't believe I didn't think to just paste the link. :S

 

Congrats phill! Looking forward to playing this.

 

Cheers! Also my apologies but I referred to you as zeroonefifty in my video. I was a bit tired, sorry. But thanks again for organising this and being such an enthusiastic supporter of everyone doing it!

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I really liked the aesthetics, concept and scope of this game. I found it quite difficult and confusing, though - I think some stuff could have done with simplifying down (e.g. why have the J and K buttons at all?) and labelling (I had no idea what was going on in the battle mode even with the instructions screen - having the enemy cannon/tower green and yours purple is one thing that might have helped).

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This is a really interesting mashup of systems. Great work pulling this together as a first timer!

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Unfortunately the controls did not want to cooperate on my computer, but perhaps being confused and without agency is the true life as a dung beetle.

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I really liked the aesthetics, concept and scope of this game. I found it quite difficult and confusing, though - I think some stuff could have done with simplifying down (e.g. why have the J and K buttons at all?) and labelling (I had no idea what was going on in the battle mode even with the instructions screen - having the enemy cannon/tower green and yours purple is one thing that might have helped).

 

I am going to work on a Ben_X version of the game this week, as you're completely right. The J and K buttons were left in there from an earlier idea I had relating to being able to 'throw' dung balls and steal them from other beetles. They don't serve a great purpose at the moment. Also I want to put in a tutorial level/s to really illustrate the way the systems work together. Thanks heaps for playing it and giving that feedback, makes total sense.

 

This is a really interesting mashup of systems. Great work pulling this together as a first timer!

 

Thanks! This was my first game completed as a solo dev, so it really opened my eyes to the benefits of keeping code tidy (I didn't) and reducing scope multiple times.

 

Unfortunately the controls did not want to cooperate on my computer, but perhaps being confused and without agency is the true life as a dung beetle.

 

Oh, really? Shit. By any chance did you have a controller connected? I think I may have left some fragments of code that read controller presses. I'll have to go back and clean that out. Sorry about that :(

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Yes had a controller connected.

 

Bugger! Well, thanks for having a go anyway I'll clear that out tonight.

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Ah, I think I had that control issue too. Good to hear a Ben X edition is on the way - every game ever should have one imo

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Alright, just uploaded a new version that should fix the control issues and also got rid of the redundant buttons. Should be a slightly smoother experience now. Thanks heaps for the feedback guys.

 

Before the stream I'd love to get some sounds done so that the guys aren't playing in silence, so I'm going to work on that next. But given I don't have any musical skill, it's likely going to be me beatboxing to weird dung-related lyrics.

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Before the stream I'd love to get some sounds done so that the guys aren't playing in silence, so I'm going to work on that next. But given I don't have any musical skill, it's likely going to be me beatboxing to weird dung-related lyrics.

 

That sounds like the best music!

 

I was very confused, but i'll try the new build when i get a chance.

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Oh, i liked your poop outlines. What brush are they?

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Oh, i liked your poop outlines.

 

This is the best compliment I've ever received. They were just one of the basic brushes from Photoshop CS2 (since it's free and I love it). From memory something like dry media? But yeah, just one of the preloaded ones.

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I really liked the music and general feeling of wandering the screen as a dutiful little beetle collecting dung. I didn't quite understand how tower mode played into things, but seemed to lose hitpoints a lot. The art style worked pretty well I think :)

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I really liked the music and general feeling of wandering the screen as a dutiful little beetle collecting dung. I didn't quite understand how tower mode played into things, but seemed to lose hitpoints a lot. The art style worked pretty well I think :)

 

Thanks! I am no musician but I made the music just last night using beepbox.co, you should try it out! 

 

I should really have explained things a bit better for the interactions between collecting dung and firing that dung from your tower. That and, y'know, any kind of positive feedback from collecting dung and firing it, other than eventually winning the game. I may spend some time juicing this one up as an exercise though. Since the mechanics are so simple it might be a good example! Anyway, thanks for playing I really appreciate it :)

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