View Full Version : Zticky Zlime: a demo
Nandrew
29-12-2007, 09:15 PM
http://img145.imageshack.us/img145/9531/logo320zi2.png
VERSION 0.01
---------------
http://gamedev.openhazel.co.za/filecloset/data/files/304/Zlime_v0_01.zip
Harr! So yeah, this is the first game I've made in a *while*, and I got a little bit excited about it. But that's good in a way, too, because I worked on this carefully before showing you, and made a pretty little thread and everything.
Basically, I grabbed a bunch of commentary from various sources about Gary the Christmas Slime so that I could actually present you with a reasonably polished and improved demo -- maybe not graphically, but hey, it's still just an initial alpha-proto-thing, officially, and I've done my best to make some of the stuff *reasonably* pretty and such.
People will be happy to know that there's a healthy amount of gameplay in this demo, too. During testing I blitz it in about 15 minutes, so it should keep the average player occupied for a respectable amount of time.
Basically:
I'm trying to say that you're downloading a fully-functional, (hopefully) bug- and glitch-free demo that is intended to be a strong show of what I would do with this game. If you download this, prepare for a project that has had a reasonable amount of work and tweaking put into it already.
Bring your sternest criticisms to the table. I need to make this game fun. If you don't know what else to say, just give me the most fun and most boring parts of the demo you experience. Point out the small glitches (though preferably nothing about the crappy graphics, I know about those already :P). Tell me what you think of the sounds, tell me how difficult or how easy you found the demo to be.
Let me know what sort of direction you'd like to see taken with this game if I decide to continue with it. I'm uber-keen right now and quite receptive to all sorts of feedback and ideas.
But yeah, most of all, have fun. Ooohs and aaahs aside, I'm keen to make a game that people will be compelled to keep playing ... fueled by more than simple obligation. ;)
Swing on pegs. Dodge grenades. Deal with recycled Christmas elf sprites
http://img168.imageshack.us/img168/1786/screenshot112wh9.png
Dispensing heavy, spikey justice with the Wrecker form
http://img140.imageshack.us/img140/4084/screenshot121jp2.png
Note the Zlime's charmingly consistent oh-dear-what-have-I-got-myself-into-now expression
http://img177.imageshack.us/img177/2581/screenshot114bq5.png
|-|1Pp13
29-12-2007, 10:01 PM
i like the way the ball covers the entire peg
i got stuck in one room, accidently got blasted into the hole where the the santa's elves throw grenades from and couldn't get out (ill try replay and find the room)
EDIT:http://i220.photobucket.com/albums/dd224/HiPp13/problem.jpg
if this was intended a load button would be nice please, it was irritating having to start the game up again
nice sound effects! ;)
oh yes and i accidently clicked through an explanation of the self-preservation form and i had no clue what it did untill i saw it in the menu
the energy meter-where is it? is it the colour of the blob where your health is?
ill add onto this post as i play further
The bouncy things are major ouchies by the way
are the elves meant to be active before you can see them? there is one room it almost always hits me with a grenade before i can do anything
Nandrew
29-12-2007, 10:23 PM
Oh shucks, played through and found that room, thanks. I'll be more careful from now on, although I don't think there's any other places where your character can get similarly stuck.
Receiving lots of feedback quite quickly, it seems. Your other points have been noted and will be worked upon.
Thanks.
(edit)
Oh yeah, and the energy meter is indeed the blob colour. I'll try make that clearer in the tutorial.
dislekcia
30-12-2007, 12:57 AM
Is... Is that a Dalek?
Awesome game :) Two quick crits: Can you make the form selection work on a pie-slice basis, so that you don't have to mouse over the exact spot that appears? It would be way nicer to simply push the mouse in the right rough direction and let go (the actual spot feels a little far for me); Secondly, I found myself bouncing straight up and wanting to move in the air more once or twice, it just felt like I was moving the mouse but it wouldn't change my direction until I was on the floor, slightly frustrating. Any chance of getting a "jump" behaviour? Perhaps by firing at the spot you're standing on on the floor?
I shall try to finish it during my second holiday ;)
-D
Thaumaturge
30-12-2007, 01:47 AM
First a caveat: I haven't yet finished playing the game, and thus may have more comments to give (and perhaps some to retract) once I have played further into the game.
That aside, my thoughts thus far:
I really like the neuropod notes - I love the cute, humorous style in which they're written. ^_^
The "slime-rope" feels much better than did the one found in Gary the Christmas Slime, I believe! It seems to me to have just the right degree of elasticity, and and inclusion of control in the vertical (which may in part be responsible for the increased feeling of elasticity) makes a noticeable positive difference.
However, it doesn't seem to hinge at quite the right spot, specifically hinging a little outside of the corner of the block, and can result in the trail visibly "jumping" a little:
http://img180.imageshack.us/img180/6257/slime1qo6.png http://img176.imageshack.us/img176/5412/slime2qz7.png http://img262.imageshack.us/img262/8994/slime3ei2.png
I like the map, and the list of Perks - being able to see how many are still undiscovered can add to the player's motivation, I feel. ^_^
I love the sound effects, most especially (thus far, at least), those of the little purple jumping robot - with those voice clips, it reminds me of the turrets in Portal. ^_^
[edit]
Having now completed the demo (based on the message to that effect :P), I have one or two more comments:
First of all, the game is pretty cool thus far. The "Zalek" in particular. ;)
However, I do agree with dislekcia on the selection in the radial menu - I would suggest making it more forgiving than it currently is (albeit that failing to select the "normal" form actually helped me once ^^; ).
Finally, I'm not sure of how I feel about the use of save points... one the one hand, spaced close enough together, they're not too bad, and discourage the player's saving too often (and should hopefully reduce the potential loss of immersion that might follow from a trip to a game menu), but on the other hand, spaced too far apart, the repetition of sections can get a little annoying... be careful with your placement of save points, I recommend - and please don't use their spacing as a contributor to the game's difficulty level.
FuzzYspo0N
01-01-2008, 01:56 AM
haha nandrew. i like this game a lot, its fun to play...reminds me of a cool version of liero, without the slaughter
Gazza_N
03-01-2008, 11:55 AM
Prognosis: Made of intense fun and extreme awesome. That is all (for now). ;)
luenardi
05-01-2008, 11:31 PM
it's almost like worms.. gfx need work
i like the rope
dislekcia
06-01-2008, 02:44 PM
Update? Before you go back to uni, pretty please?
A couple of things that cropped up while I was driving yesterday: The interface needs a bit of a rethink, the length of slime = health thing is great, but it's obvious that the fading energy indicator was a late-night addition ;) Try putting a radial indicator behind the main slime blob to show energy charge and give us a picture of the current mode in the main body of the slime blob, perhaps it flashes when the mode is about to run out... Also (and you'll like this because it's quick and easy) checking the interpolate colours between pixels checkbox in the game options screen is your friend.
-D
Nandrew
06-01-2008, 04:18 PM
I haven't been forum crawling for the past few days, but sweet, sweet and sweet! Bolded words are for those who suffer from tl;dr syndrome.
I'm glad that people are responding well to the gameplay, after the tweaks are all implemented, it should be awesomeness.
On the graphics front, I'd really, really like to get an artist on board. Those pure white backgrounds aren't going to fill themselves, and I certainly don't feel up for the task myself. As long as I'm lacking a willing artist, the game will continue to require work in that department, I'm afraid. Even if I made an attempt to flesh out the graphics myself, I doubt it would turn out well or be worth the time I could otherwise be spending on gameplay and other content generation. ;)
Regarding the next update ... I've literally taken every single suggestion that people have made to me (here and elsewhere) and written it all in a little notes section of my design doc. When I start work again (took a break of about a week to screw around and play them thar vidyagaems), I'm going to go through that list and either yea or nay each of those suggestions. So an update will be released taking into account all of these suggestions.
HOWEVER, IMPORTANT, ETC:
I need to know what to put into the next update. Would you like an update that polishes and refines the content already present, to get a better assessment of the game? Or would you like me to take the suggestions and then move on to more raw content, with more of the map to explore and additional enemy concepts to encounter? Would you like me to wait for an artist to give the game a makeover before the next version is released?
I'll work on the guidelines given to me and release a new version based on how much you'd like to see done.
|-|1Pp13
06-01-2008, 05:04 PM
I need to know what to put into the next update. Would you like an update that polishes and refines the content already present, to get a better assessment of the game? Or would you like me to take the suggestions and then move on to more raw content, with more of the map to explore and additional enemy concepts to encounter? Would you like me to wait for an artist to give the game a makeover before the next version is released?
i would enjoy a little bit of the first two concentrating more on the polish side, the artist can wait for now =P
Thaumaturge
09-01-2008, 02:47 AM
As to the question of the type of update, I think that I'd like to see the more important gameplay polishings performed first, followed by further enemy and slime form concepts to play with. As |-|1Pp13 said, the artistic side can wait. ^_^
As to the graphics, I've been tempted to offer (presuming that the sorts of graphics that I tend to produce are of sufficient quality for your purposes, of course), but I don't know how much you want, and thus whether it would be wise for me to take it on on top of other tasks. ^^;
Nandrew
12-01-2008, 02:41 PM
Thaumaturge -- regarding graphics ... well, I'm not going to demand too much, if that's the way you need it. Of course, that also depends on what sort of graphics you like more.
I'd be willing to keep up the sprite art myself for now -- I generally find sprites to be more of the pain, because of the finicky animation / stuff / blargh. What I really need right now, if I have to prioritise on art resources, is somebody to do some backgrounds and doodads for me, which could be quite fun and would just alleviate the massive white /grey / black thing I've got going right now. -_-
If you're interested in doing static art, I'd be interested in accepting it. It wouldn't be difficult for me to add that sort of stuff to the game if someone else drew it. ;)
Thaumaturge
13-01-2008, 01:25 AM
That seems fair enough. ^_^
Well, what style do you want for your "backgrounds and doodads", (including please your preference of 3D-rendered, pixel art, CG-drawn, etc,), and what particular items and backdrops would you like at this point?
Nandrew
13-01-2008, 02:09 PM
Well, then!
First off, if we really want to discuss things in detail, an IM addy of some kind may be helpful if you use that sort of thing. Otherwise we can just throw stuff around either here and through PM.
Aaaanyways. What I'm basically looking for at the moment are three sets of scenery: a laboratory environment, a light industrial environment and a military / barracks environment. Priorities being in the order that they're mentioned here.
My style of choice would be pixel art, because I want the game to be quirky and cartoony and I think the best way to put that across would be to steer away from CG/3D stuff. The rooms we're working with will be 800x600 in size, or direct multiples thereof (800x1200, 3200x1800, etc). I'm flexible with how you choose to represent backgrounds (with a preference towards larger individual pics), but if you choose to make tiled backgrounds, please note that the individual tiles in my game are 40x40 in size.
If you want me to be more specific about what doodads I want in each environment, I'm sure we can communicate about that somewhere else. ;)
4N7HR4X
14-01-2008, 09:43 PM
Ooh! I love this! The slime trail reminds me a lot of the Worms Ninja Rope... and the sounds are awesome. The slime expression is my favourite though!
Thaumaturge
15-01-2008, 08:08 AM
Hmm...
I don't think that I've attempted pixel art on the scale of 800x600 (at least, not what I consider to be true "pixel art"), although I may be wrong... perhaps it would be a good idea for me to have a shot at it first, before we decide to go forward.
As to other means of communication, I intend to send a PM after posting this message (and which I imagine that you will have read by the time that you read this :P).
xyber
24-01-2008, 11:52 AM
This is relly nice idea. Love the slime trail and the sound it makes.. drove one of the guys in the office insane with that sound ;) Played it for a while and you have some cool ideas in there. Add some nice tiles to get rid of the boring grey ones.
Powered by vBulletin® Version 4.2.4 Copyright © 2019 vBulletin Solutions, Inc. All rights reserved.