Opacus Rising

Well, done a little update! Got some more (unfinished) art assets in the game. As you can see the controls are not quite there yet. It flips you round when you jump, shouldn't be to hard to fix. When I have the controls properly implemented I can start working on the actual gameplay side of things. Tablet/phone: Touch the left and right side of the screen to jump and touch both sides of the screen together to jump - http://dl.dropbox.com/u/8598467/Test_7/index.html
You can run in browser, but the may be some scaling issues. Use the WASD keys to move.

Inspiration #2

Koji Kondo is a Japanese composer known for his work with Nintendo. His music is a great inspiration for me and many others. He has created some of the most unique and instantly recognizable themes and soundtracks to date. His greatest talent lies in being able to craft melodies that are catchy and pleasant to listen to, but remain enjoyable over a long period of time of being looped. He is considered as being "as integral to the Nintendo style as the game design of Shigeru Miyamoto.

Kondō's work is also highly influenced by Eastern Asian music. His songs are predominantly melody-based with little supporting harmony, which is in keeping with the Asian tradition. This makes him unique among the most popular video game composers, as his counterparts such as Nobuo Uematsu and Koichi Sugiyama produce more Western-sounding compositions for their games.

Inspiration #1

In Limbo like most platform games, you can run left or right, jump, climb onto short ledges or up and down ladders and ropes, and push or pull objects. These are the only mechanics present in the game. Yet the game is very engaging and fun to play. The puzzles can become very complex and hard to complete even though the mechanics to begin with are so simple.

I want to draw from this and set myself a handful of mechanics that the player can do and create engaging puzzles from this. My game will be different than Limbo not only in its style and puzzles, but I shall incorporate a combat mechanic in to my game.

Control Schemes

Control Schemes

Platform games for the iPad have a bit off bad press when it comes to there controls. On screen d-pads to me feel a little clumsy and quite an eye sore. The plan for my game is to create a control scheme which has as little on screen icons as possible and still be simple and engaging to use.

Here is one example on how this will work. This has been designed for the iPad, however you can test this on iPhones and other touch phones too. (W7 Phones don't seem to work)

Control Scheme test 1

Animations

A little test to see the animations at work. These are not final and need a lot of work.

If you are playing on an iPad or simialr tablet device it should work fine. However if you are playing from a PC or Mac then use the WASD keys to move.

Animation Tests

Character

You play as a young man named Rhed, (pronounced Red). Rhed lives in a small wood cutting community deep in the Euchlorus Forest.

Rhed

Rhed lives with his mother in a small village named Albuson. His father was killed when he was just a young boy fighting in The War of Opacus.

The War of Opacus was a dark time, many brave men and women died fighting against a dark wizard named Piceus. Piceus's hatred of the world and everybody in it led him to create one of the largest armies ever seen. He set a dark spell over the land and took siege to the capital city Argenteus.

However, good prevailed and light was once again shed upon the land. Piceus was defeated and he retreated back to The Mountain Atrum.

Honours Project

For my honours I will be creating a 2D Platformer for the iPad. I will create the game in Construct 2, a HTML 5 based 2D games engine. 

My game will be a nice simple platformer with fun puzzles, combat and nice visuals.

My inspiration comes from games like Beyond Good & Evil, Zelda, Okami. 

This blog is intended to document the development process of my game.