I've just completed the first draft for the main character for my 2.5d puzzle game. The title of the game is pending. Here's an animation of Charisma the (Space) Chameleon:
Here's a screen cap of the gameplay (I don't know how to post bigger gifs): https://twitter.com/andrewray/status/724678437160386560
I'm working as fast as I can to releasing a publicly available demo of this game! It's all built on Javascript/ReactJS/ThreeJS and it runs in the browser.
Just finished a big refactor of the game loop to move some game state up the render tree. Now Charisma can talk!
Nice job on the speech bubbles. I like the character overall. Kind of a medium poly look. The gameplay concept you linked to is crazy. Satisfies a childhood itch of wanting to explore everything. I'll be watching this one!
Thanks! There's definitely a big exploration component of the game. If you *really* want to watch it, you can sign up for the announcement when it's available online to play at http://charismachameleon.com . Just finished the homepage!
Screenshot Saturday! Working on level backgrounds to show scale. The first background is nebula-ish, and the second one is a galaxy. Gameplay cap:
What do you think? The background is applied to a pyramid to give a sort of mini fake parallax effect.
Here's the galaxy shader standalone:
All of these shaders are open source on ShaderFrog! http://shaderfrog.com/app/view/776
That's really pretty. ^_^
On a more practical note, I like the idea that there's an appropriately-scaled background for every size that the player could take--I imagine that the result would be likely to be rather less immersion-breaking than having the background simply become larger and more blurry, without the additional detail that one might expect.
I'm not sure of how I feel about the use of pyramidal geometry to produce a parallax effect--to my eye it results in the background looking... well, much as it is: like some sort of vortex heading off into space. Perhaps it might be worth looking into a means of implementing a flatter sort of parallax? If not, however, I do think that this works, at least.
In short, however, I like what you've done. ^_^
Indeed, overall I rather like the glittery, spacey look that you've given your game.
That's really pretty. ^_^
In short, however, I like what you've done. ^_^
Thanks! I really appreciate the encouragement.
I'm not sure of how I feel about the use of pyramidal geometry to produce a parallax effect--to my eye it results in the background looking... well, much as it is: like some sort of vortex heading off into space. Perhaps it might be worth looking into a means of implementing a flatter sort of parallax? If not, however, I do think that this works, at least.
Yeah I agree the effect looks pretty obvious. I'll try looking into some sort of actual clipping plane, which would mean I could make an actual far away background and let the 3d engine handle the depth effect. It's a technical unknown for me so far.
PS, another game screen cap. I'm working on adding more entities to the game to make level design easier. What do you think of the button and "cutscene" style?
As to the visual style, I'm not sure--I don't feel that I've seen enough to really comment there. My first instinct is that the mechanical-looking buttons are somewhat different to the "spacey" elements, but you have a similar style in your previously-shown tubes, so it might work--and I might be in the minority in this objection anyway.
As to the "cutscene" mechanic, I'm a little concerned about it arresting the flow of gameplay--but if such cutscenes are fairly infrequent, and don't repeat on every use of the button (or if the character is still visible and controllable as they play out), then it might not be a problem. I do like that it shows the effect of the player's actions--that, I think, is rather useful.
