Comments on Lost Garden: Shade: A game prototyping challenge

Hello there! This week I participated on a Flash L...

2009-02-20T07:17:00.000-07:00

Hello there! This week I participated on a Flash Lite 2.0 game dev course, and by the end of it my partner and I have implemented a shade-inpired prototype! We changed the theme and platform (went for 2D) but the basic mechanics are there. Just click on the image on this blog post:

http://maracatustudios.wordpress.com/2009/02/20/prototipo-flower-picker/

:-)

For anyone watching this thread, the Shade awards ...

2008-08-26T09:24:00.000-06:00

For anyone watching this thread, the Shade awards are now up for this challenge. Good work everyone!

http://lostgarden.com/2008/08/shade-prototyping-challenge-results.html

take care
Danc.

I would like to ask two questions here:1 - Is it n...

2008-08-20T07:29:00.000-06:00

I would like to ask two questions here:

1 - Is it not too late to join? I have just found it and even though the deadline is already far behind, it could be interesting to dabble in this project a little. If I send some working example, will you spare a second or two to have a look at it?

2 - What if someone uses your idea to build a commercial indie game? I am not thinking about myself (don't have time nor skills), but you are giving away a pretty cool idea here.

Cheers,

Barts

I've packaged up a second version of my Shade impl...

2008-08-01T09:01:00.000-06:00

I've packaged up a second version of my Shade implementation -- this one adds some sound effects (among other things), which I always think count for more than most people give them credit for.

Download link is here:
http://www.thewasabiproject.com/shade-and-shrooms/

Hey, whole July already passed... I wonder why the...

2008-07-31T13:18:00.000-06:00

Hey, whole July already passed... I wonder why the time goes so fast, and why I have done pretty much nothing on the game prototype... :(

Anyway, posted a small update here: aras-p.info/projShaduShrooms.html. Will hopefully work on it more in next few days.

Unfortunately I'm busy with two other projects at ...

2008-07-27T12:45:00.000-06:00

Unfortunately I'm busy with two other projects at the moment, but this is an ingenious game design, so I'm planning on giving this a go when I've got time.

I love seeing all the work people are doing already on it.

Thanks for posting these. I keep meaning to start...

2008-07-25T20:05:00.000-06:00

Thanks for posting these. I keep meaning to start on a side project but wind up not following through. These challenges have been helpful in getting me to actually sit down and write code. So far I've started on this and Play With Your Peas. You can download the installers from the links below. Just unzip them and run setup.exe. I'm currently working on a small project for my wife for work; I'll start on SpaceCute or whatever new challenge you come up with as soon as that's done.

The Shade prototype doesn't actually do anything with shadows, but I think I found some of the fun in running around collecting mushrooms and trying to avoid/whomp evil red mushrooms. WASD or arrows to control your little dude. Touch mushrooms and lead them back to the basket for points. More points for big mushrooms. Red mushrooms eventually get up and start eating your good mushrooms. Run over the red ones to kill them.

Play With Your Peas

Shade

I had a chance to work on this a bit; screenshots ...

2008-07-18T09:24:00.000-06:00

I had a chance to work on this a bit; screenshots and a download are here:
http://www.thewasabiproject.com/shade-and-shrooms/

I've gone 2D (or maybe "failed to go 3D", I don't know exactly), and used the PlanetCute graphics.

There's plenty still to do, but there's something playable now and I'm always glad for anybody's feedback!

(Thanks Danc, as always, for the great ideas and cripplingly cute graphics!)

Oops! Just a typo in the URL :( Here is my entry: ...

2008-07-17T09:12:00.000-06:00

Oops! Just a typo in the URL :( Here is my entry: Mushroom's Ride. Download it from SourceForge (1.3 Mb)

Finally, I have published my entry: Mushroom's Rid...

2008-07-17T09:08:00.000-06:00

Finally, I have published my entry: Mushroom's Ride. Download it from SourceForge (1.3 Mb)
Move the fairy through the stone blocks to collect as many mushrooms as possible. This is only a demo, just to get the bronze award, in fact the gameplay is not complete. For example, the most important request of the design is not accomplished: the shadows does not affect the mushrooms' behavior.
However the sources are included so users can easily modify and extend the demo at will. In fact, as usually happen in my demos, the script is written in a "*.lua" file, that one can modify with a simple text editor, while the data is included in a "*.dat" file, that is nothing else than a ZIP renamed.
Many thanks to Danc for his great resources, in particular the "Circle" textures!
Screenshot1
Screenshot1
APOCALYX 3D Engine Blog

Finally I can show a few screenshots of my Shade i...

2008-07-16T06:29:00.000-06:00

Finally I can show a few screenshots of my Shade implementation: I hope to release something playable before the end of the month.
To see the shots of Mushroom's Ride visit the following links
http://www.flickr.com/photos/apocalyx/2674249612/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/apocalyx/2674249614/

or the APOCALYX blog to follow further developments
http://apocalyx.blogspot.com

Running tally of public participants for this love...

2008-07-04T17:01:00.000-06:00

Running tally of public participants for this lovely July 4th. 3 weeks left before I tally the results.

- Lubos
- mobeamer
- aras

They are all looking interesting and are showing some of the early dynamics of the system.

Some other balancing ideas

Limiting the number of mushrooms you can carry
Gathering a long string of mushrooms often means that tail end of the chain is hard to control. This leads to a bit of panic and the urge to rush to the exit as soon as possible.

What if instead you could only pick up one mushroom at a time? As you advanced there could be powerups that allow you to pick up more. However, learning to manage one mushroom is good experience mastering the skill of walking in shadows.

The joy of finding the big mushroom
Right now all mushrooms are about equal and are easily spotted. There are no scarce resources to acquire.

If you limited how many mushrooms you could carry and increased the size of the maps so that you couldn't see all the mushrooms at once, it becomes more important to find the one big mushroom and then carefully safeguard it.

You could augment this by having some rare mushrooms grow faster than others and have mushrooms be generally much rarer. Scarcity and variation are your friends for generating value.

take care
Danc.

If there really is a need for textures, you can fi...

2008-07-03T21:50:00.000-06:00

If there really is a need for textures, you can find some resources in this list of free game related stuff.

Hello! I'm working on shade too.Got this so far:ht...

2008-07-03T14:30:00.000-06:00

Hello! I'm working on shade too.
Got this so far:
http://img110.imageshack.us/img110/7751/img0001ma5.jpg
http://img110.imageshack.us/img110/2492/img0003hf0.jpg

I'm using my 2D engine built on c# and opengl.
See you ;)

Sometimes a fella just can't sleep while something...

2008-07-02T21:24:00.000-06:00

Sometimes a fella just can't sleep while something is messy.

I cleaned it up a bit. Total time spent 8 hrs.

Hey Folks,I'm a browser based game developer, so I...

2008-07-02T15:10:00.000-06:00

Hey Folks,

I'm a browser based game developer, so I did some work in Javascript:

Shrooms, the game!
http://battleforcesonline.com/shrooms.php

I definitely did not follow all the rules, but I found it interesting to work through. I'm not sure how much further I'm going to take it. I will clean up the graphics though.

Sorry, no "shadow" engine for javascript available *grin*

I'll clean it up and make a blog entry about the code later.

mobeamer

Updated my prototype at aras-p.info/projShaduShroo...

2008-07-02T10:28:00.000-06:00

Updated my prototype at aras-p.info/projShaduShrooms.html: level is more complex, mushrooms automatically go to base when you touch it, reduced speed a bit, camera slightly further away.

Still haven't tweaked the gameplay. The speed does not feel right; I think next up is making mushroom shrinking much faster (right now the game is too easy).

Further plan:
- Tweak speeds (movement, mushroom growth/shrinking).
- Don't pile up mushrooms at end of line as they're picked up; instead a mushrooms "waits" until end of line comes to it.
- Day cycle of shadows.
- More complex level, and make level buildings be slightly transparent when player is behind/beneath them.
- Tweak it, tweak it, tweak it!
- Some of more advanced game elements.

Hi Danc, can't you give us a couple of textures to...

2008-07-02T09:48:00.000-06:00

Hi Danc, can't you give us a couple of textures to use in tools like Blender or our 3D tool of choice? You're art style is so fresh and pastel it's hard to duplicate!

Someone said:> I notice a design flaw, what> will ...

2008-07-02T05:38:00.000-06:00

Someone said:
> I notice a design flaw, what
> will happen when midday comes?
> there will be no shadows at all!!!

Do you live on the equator? Consider that now at the south pole at midday there is no sun at all :)))

Thank you Danc for your usual great idea. I'll try to develop something. Finally, this time I can use my 3D engine http://apocalyx.sourceforge.net and I hope to reach a higher level than in my previous attemps.

For those with Java skills that want to give it a ...

2008-07-01T20:15:00.000-06:00

For those with Java skills that want to give it a try, there's JMonkeyEngine which provides for good learning curve (for programmers) and off-the-shelf cheap real-time shadows.

Would not post this, but you mentioned XNA danc, which is (except for the XBox thing) less rich in features...:)

Cheers

I notice a design flaw, what will happen when midd...

2008-07-01T15:09:00.000-06:00

I notice a design flaw, what will happen when midday comes? there will be no shadows at all!!!

Also I dont find fun the concept, maybe the prototypes will show im wrong. I hope so.

And the challenge is on!Go Aras...you've captured ...

2008-07-01T00:16:00.000-06:00

And the challenge is on!

Go Aras...you've captured the first Bronze award. Thanks for sharing your early prototype. This is already showing some very interesting dynamics that I wasn't expecting. You can push this to a silver with some more effort.

Some thoughts for future experimentation:

- Mushrooms creating shadows which in turn grow more mushrooms. When you combine this with slowly moving shadows, I think you could come up with some very entertaining patterns.

- I suspect that taking mushrooms to the home base will feel better if they automatically travel into the home base as long as you just touch it once. It's a subtle thing, but it give the final collection more of an oomph instead it being spread out depending on how you move.

- The pace seems a bit fast.
This is likely due to several things. The screen is relatively small. Movement is quick. Play with larger landscapes, slower motion (or growth.

- Interaction with the shadows is somewhat simplistic at the moment. 'Tree-like' structures of different heights that are small at the base and large at the top will create a more complex shadow-scape for the user to navigate.

Things that are proving to work well
- The following mechanic is working nicely. (especially once you fix your bug) It's like Snake!
- Mushrooms growing in the shade. Evocative.
- Using size to show the worth of a mushroom. It might be interesting to try a punctuated loss of size instead of gradually losing size. For example, if you say in the sun .5 seconds, you lose 2 points of size, but if you get back in the shade at .4 seconds, you lose nothing. That may add a bit more tension.
- The basic collecting mechanism seems to work okay.

Can't wait to see future prototypes!

take care
Danc.

Yaarrrggghhhh...I bet you lay awake at night think...

2008-06-30T21:23:00.000-06:00

Yaarrrggghhhh...

I bet you lay awake at night thinking about what kind of technology my engine doesn't have. And then, when you wake up in the morning you post these challenges.

I'm honored, but right now I'm too short on time to even really give this one a go.

That's a lie, I dug into it for about 2 hours tonight, but it was total lossage.

I get the point though, arbitrary drawing is cool.

I'll be back!

-Harold

Great challenge!I did think of one real-world game...

2008-06-30T17:04:00.000-06:00

Great challenge!

I did think of one real-world game that plays with *exactly* this dynamic: Splinter Cell. Basically the whole goal of Splinter Cell is to hop from shadow to shadow and not be seen.

Ok, I totally failed to finish my last attempt at ...

2008-06-30T12:42:00.000-06:00

Ok, I totally failed to finish my last attempt at pea ninjas...

Anyway. This one seems to be easier... Here's my progress with some screenshots and a playable (well, almost unplayable) build: http://aras-p.info/projShaduShrooms.html