Vial: A puzzle game
08-20-2012, 02:00 AM
(This post was last modified: 08-20-2012, 02:39 AM by Dragon Fogel.)
A number of you have probably heard me babbling about this in IRC. I've actually made slight progress on it now, so I decided I'd make a thread for it. (Nobody's ever done that before!)
So let's get this started.
Gameplay:
Vial is going to be a "get-through-the-room" style of puzzle game with an overhead view. The gimmick to the game is that you have a magic vial with a potion in it. Whenever you use the potion, the vial magically refills - but it has a different potion in it with different effects.
At the start of the game, the vial has only two potions in it and the puzzles are fairly simple. At the end of every stage, you gain a new potion, and then you'll be faced with more complex puzzles that require it. (There may be a few other upgrades that don't just give you a new potion, but they'll still be potion-oriented. For instance, towards the end you get a second vial.)
The basic idea for this game comes from, of all things, my [url=https://mspaforums.com/showthread.php?25013-The-Further-Pointless-Adventures-of-Nopor-Puss%21&p=4176468&viewfull=1#post4176468]Nopor Puss adventure[/b]. I introduced a bottle that kept refilling with different potions for the sake of a gag, and then a little later on I thought "hey, I could actually do something with that."
Story:
(Currently suffering from a lack of proper nouns, but I'll come up with something before long.)
There are two warring kingdoms. One is built around magic, the other is built around science and technology. They've been at war for a while now.
The magic kingdom is powered by sources of magical energy, which I am generically calling the Elements. When the game opens, the other kingdom has stolen most of the Elements. You're the princess of the magical kingdom, and you've decided to sneak into enemy territory and get the Elements back.
This is where the vial comes in. It's able to store the Elements, giving our as-yet-unnamed heroine a way to bring them back. Whenever you retrieve an Element, the vial stores its power and uses it to create a new potion.
I do plan to have this plot be more than an excuse, but ultimately it's meant to be a supplement for the gameplay. Because of this, all cutscenes will be skippable; my current plan is a straightforward "Level Select" screen, and when you reach a cutscene on that screen, it's marked as one and you can just go straight to the next level if you don't want to see it. I'll probably code in a way to cancel out of a cutscene, too.
Current Progress:
Not much right now, but what I do have is pretty important to actually working on it. I've been messing around with Game Maker for a few days now, and with some help (and sample code) from Mehg and Norivia, I now have the most basic functions down.
At present, I have a tile-based map where the player always moves a whole number of tiles, stops if they hit an obstacle, and can press a button to examine an obstacle. Examining an obstacle changes the color of the vial. (Everything is currently using placeholder sprites while I figure out the key coding details.) This took quite a bit of work to figure out, but now I understand it, and that means I know what I need to do to make a puzzle.
My current plan is:
-Get some actual graphics, even if they just end up being placeholders
-Put together some basic puzzles
-Start working on enemy behavior
And then figure things out from there.
I do not currently have anything for graphics or music; if anyone's willing to help out with that, awesome. If not, that's fine, I'll look through pre-existing resources instead. The main point of this is to make puzzles; if I end up making puzzles with non-original graphics and music, that's not a big issue for me.
Anyways, that's what I have so far; feel free to ask questions, make comments, or do whatever else it is you do in these sorts of threads.
So let's get this started.
Gameplay:
Vial is going to be a "get-through-the-room" style of puzzle game with an overhead view. The gimmick to the game is that you have a magic vial with a potion in it. Whenever you use the potion, the vial magically refills - but it has a different potion in it with different effects.
At the start of the game, the vial has only two potions in it and the puzzles are fairly simple. At the end of every stage, you gain a new potion, and then you'll be faced with more complex puzzles that require it. (There may be a few other upgrades that don't just give you a new potion, but they'll still be potion-oriented. For instance, towards the end you get a second vial.)
The basic idea for this game comes from, of all things, my [url=https://mspaforums.com/showthread.php?25013-The-Further-Pointless-Adventures-of-Nopor-Puss%21&p=4176468&viewfull=1#post4176468]Nopor Puss adventure[/b]. I introduced a bottle that kept refilling with different potions for the sake of a gag, and then a little later on I thought "hey, I could actually do something with that."
Story:
(Currently suffering from a lack of proper nouns, but I'll come up with something before long.)
There are two warring kingdoms. One is built around magic, the other is built around science and technology. They've been at war for a while now.
The magic kingdom is powered by sources of magical energy, which I am generically calling the Elements. When the game opens, the other kingdom has stolen most of the Elements. You're the princess of the magical kingdom, and you've decided to sneak into enemy territory and get the Elements back.
This is where the vial comes in. It's able to store the Elements, giving our as-yet-unnamed heroine a way to bring them back. Whenever you retrieve an Element, the vial stores its power and uses it to create a new potion.
I do plan to have this plot be more than an excuse, but ultimately it's meant to be a supplement for the gameplay. Because of this, all cutscenes will be skippable; my current plan is a straightforward "Level Select" screen, and when you reach a cutscene on that screen, it's marked as one and you can just go straight to the next level if you don't want to see it. I'll probably code in a way to cancel out of a cutscene, too.
Current Progress:
Not much right now, but what I do have is pretty important to actually working on it. I've been messing around with Game Maker for a few days now, and with some help (and sample code) from Mehg and Norivia, I now have the most basic functions down.
At present, I have a tile-based map where the player always moves a whole number of tiles, stops if they hit an obstacle, and can press a button to examine an obstacle. Examining an obstacle changes the color of the vial. (Everything is currently using placeholder sprites while I figure out the key coding details.) This took quite a bit of work to figure out, but now I understand it, and that means I know what I need to do to make a puzzle.
My current plan is:
-Get some actual graphics, even if they just end up being placeholders
-Put together some basic puzzles
-Start working on enemy behavior
And then figure things out from there.
I do not currently have anything for graphics or music; if anyone's willing to help out with that, awesome. If not, that's fine, I'll look through pre-existing resources instead. The main point of this is to make puzzles; if I end up making puzzles with non-original graphics and music, that's not a big issue for me.
Anyways, that's what I have so far; feel free to ask questions, make comments, or do whatever else it is you do in these sorts of threads.