[Released] Our Weird Monstrosity

[Teljoor]

UPDATE: The game has been released. You can play it at https://teljoor.itch.io/our-weird-monstrosity

 

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For this jam I plan on making a kind of creature creator game based on the episode title 'Our Weird Monstrosity' (Idle Thumbs 300). I really enjoyed mixing facial features to create randomized faces in the game I made during wizard jam 4. This idea will hopefully let me do some more complex stuff in that direction.

 

I am working in Unity and will be using the Doodle Studio 95 plugin to do the graphics. With the plugin I can draw animated textures directly in Unity, so I should be able to quickly get a prototype going.

 

Below is an initial mockup of what the game would look like. You can drag body parts over from the menu on the right and attach them to the base body shape at preset anchor points, kind of like in dress-up games. This should be easy to do using Unity prefabs.

It would be great if I could also add a show mode where you can have your monster run around after creating it. Perhaps there could also be some goals in that mode, like earning new monster parts or fighting computer-controlled monsters. I won't really consider that until the base editor is finished, though.

Edited June 24, 2018 by Teljoor
changed status to 'released'

[infamous space turtle]

Ha! I like this, looking forward to it. 

[nkornek]

Heck yeah. I love the idea of doing the whole thing in Doodle Studio.

[coughlinjon]

I am very excited to see what you make  I am also going to buy Doodle Studio right now!

[Teljoor]

I've got the anchor joints and some basic menus working now. Once I've implemented proper rotation, size adjustment, and mirroring I'll start making some more monster parts so I can figure out what kind of line width and relative sizes I'll use. I think I'll definitely reduce the size of the parts relative to the body. It's pretty hard to make a proper face with the current set.

The button in the middle will be used to switch to different body presets. The other two are intended to choose the monster's base color and manually add anchor joints, but I'll have to see if have time to add those.

 

8 hours ago, coughlinjon said:

I am very excited to see what you make  I am also going to buy Doodle Studio right now!

I hope Doodle Studio will be useful for you! I actually hadn't used it much since I purchased it, but it seems well suited to game jams since it cuts out a lot of manual sprite management.

[phill]

This sounds like the creature creator part of Spore which was the best apart of that game, so I'm totally on board

[Teljoor]

On 6/15/2018 at 12:37 PM, phill said:

This sounds like the creature creator part of Spore which was the best apart of that game, so I'm totally on board

Yeah, it's kind of turning out that way. I guess it was kind of a half-subconscious influence? I probably spent as much time with the creature creator as in the 'actual' game when I played it.

 

Here's a screenshot of the what I've got right now. All the manipulation tools are implemented, including the color picker (I ended up downloading a plugin for that). I'm now filling out the different part categories, which I hope to finish by friday, so I can spend the weekend doing stuff like music, a menu screen, credits, etc. that I've neglected so far.

I'd like to add some kind of 'show mode' where you can have the creature walk around when you're finished, but I don't know if I'll have enough time.

[brendonsmall]

This looks pretty weird and cool!

[Teljoor]

 

I think I'm pretty much done with the creator part of the game. I've got a reasonable amount of body parts and four base bodies. The main features I want to add at this point are the main menu/credits, music/sound, and a 'show' mode where you can place your creation  in various backgrounds when you're done with it. I'd also like to make it a bit easier to select parts you've already placed, since it can be a bit difficult to tell whether you're hovering over the right spot. Changing the outline color when a part is selectable should probably help.

[Teljoor]

The game has been released! You can play it in-browser or dowload a standalone version here: https://teljoor.itch.io/our-weird-monstrosity

 

The final version has pretty much everything I was planning to definitely include, so I can't complain. I thought I might have had more time at the end to add more features to 'show mode', but creating all the monster parts ended up taking more time than I thought. Maybe I should have been less finicky about the details in all the sprites.

 

I'm looking forward to playing a bunch of other entries during the showcase next weekend. I'll try to leave some feedback too, since I didn't have much time to do so during development.

 

[atte]

This was really versatile and easy to learn and use! Here's a monstrosity I made while I was just figuring out what it could do, will definitely try again. 

[Teljoor]

On 6/25/2018 at 2:05 AM, atte said:

This was really versatile and easy to learn and use! Here's a monstrosity I made while I was just figuring out what it could do, will definitely try again. 

Thanks for giving it a try! It's great to hear that it was easy to use without knowing how everything works beforehand, since I didn't have anyone else test the game before the deadline.

[pdotjpg]

I personally don't get much of a kick out of these sorts of things, but I agree with atte about the ease of use and flexibility. I like the MS Paint visuals and goofy music too - very cute. Overall, quite a cool little toy!

[brendonsmall]

This is a really fun little thing! The feature set is larger and more robust than I was expecting (like adding more "hardpoints" for adding new bits!). The backgrounds in the "Show" screens are super.

 

Here's my monster:

 

 

FYI, I noticed the credits screen "back" button doesn't appear unless you hover over it. I thought I was stuck, and just wiggled the mouse a bit until I happened to see it.

 

If you have the means to publish this on an iPad or something, I could see this being a very fun "make a weird monster guy and share it from my phone on twitter or whatever" type game. Very fun!

 

Update I was not ready for this:

 

Spoiler

 

Edited June 28, 2018 by brendonsmall
The horror...

[eRonin]

This is really cool! 

 

I made an andalite because that's just who I am right now

 

[Atlantic]

This is a fun little thing. I made Devil Gobbler, the Shadow the Hedgehog to Dot Gobbler's Sonic:

 

[fabian]

I don't know what I made, but I sure as hell enjoyed the process of creating it!

 

I

[Zirrrus]

 

I always love when a game has a great cohesive style, you absolutely nailed that. The wriggly lines make it perfect.

Just super fun to play around with.

[Nappi]

I love the simple paint-ish graphics and especially the vibrating outlines! The character editor works very nicely as well.

[RubixsQube]

This game was Very Fun. I had to play it across two parts, although part 2 is just my attempt at creating The Dot Gobbler from the quick shot at the beginning of the game. (And I failed spectacularly.)

 

 

(I got a very important phone call ending this part)

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Teljoor]

Thanks for trying it out, everyone! It's fun to see what creations you all came up with .

 

Looking at the feedback and @RubixsQube 's video footage, I think one the UI could definitely have been clearer. In particular, I should have included on-screen hint text to explain the left- and right-click functions for each of the cursor modes. Also, the 'back' button in the credits screen and the 'show mode' disappears unless the cursor is over the lower part of the screen, which was confusing for multiple players. I did this so it wouldn't distract from the screen itself, but in retrospect it would have been better to just keep it visible at all times.

 

@brendonsmall Unfortunately, I don't own an iPad or similar device, so I don't really have the means to publish it there. I also tend to kind of consider my game jam projects 'done' after the submission period ends, so I'm not really keen to keep developing the game. Maybe I'll reuse parts of it in future projects, though.

Finally, after using it during this project, I can definitely recommend Doodle Studio 95. It seems like it's practically made for game jam projects where you quickly need to get a lot of 2d drawings into the game and don't really care about every pixel being in the right place. The toolset is pretty limited though, so if you're going for a specific style or need things like transparency it might not be as suited.