Emily's Curious Adventure


SONY said:
Thanks for the daily updates, mate. By the way, I can't be bothered Googling...but what are biomes? Same as environments?
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Sorta kinda, but more like the combination of an environment and the organisms one finds there. Like sub-Saharan desert, tropical rainforest, etc.
 
I'm not sure how people feel about thread necromancy, but seeing as I'm resurrecting a project here, maybe it's permissible?

I finally picked this back up again, and I have something playable enough to be posted as a demo, so here you go: http://illegal-instruction.org/games/emily-prealpha.pnd

What's changed since I last posted a public demo:

  • Ambient sounds actually work this time.
  • Monster combat actually feels like combat.
  • Spikes actually cause damage (to Emily, monsters don't interact with them yet).
  • The savegame mechanism actually remembers Emily's x, y coordinates, not just what room she was in.
  • Better lighting (slightly nicer looking -and- faster).
  • A pause menu (complete with a cool monochrome blur effect).
  • Emily can run out of air while swimming (remaining lung air is displayed in the lower right corner).
  • Bosses actually work this time (sort of - monsters still can't jump), and areas that can only be gotten to after a boss is defeated work now, too.
  • The player can't save during boss battles anymore.
  • There's now a special song that only plays after a boss has been defeated.
  • Healing crystals work as intended now.
  • Context-sensitive button callouts/labels are now displayed in the lower right-hand corner.
  • If the player tries to quit without saving, or starts a new game (which would ruin the existing savegame), the app will ask them to confirm that choice.
  • The app no longer forces its own FIR filter, and instead respects the one the user has set already.
The link above may go dead if it becomes too popular (I have a limited bandwidth allotment), but if it does, I'll find some other home for the file.
 
illegal_instruction said:
I'm not sure how people feel about thread necromancy, but seeing as I'm resurrecting a project here, maybe it's permissible?
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I've just had a quick little go (and I mean little), but worked fine, and it certainly looks like something I'd play. I'll give it a proper play tonight (hopefully)
 
I was a little uncomfortable about posting something so obviously unfinished to the repo; I think I did this before with this game and it was frowned upon, so it'll probably live here until it's had time to mature some. 

Progress might be slow with exams coming up...
 
illegal_instruction said:
I was a little uncomfortable about posting something so obviously unfinished to the repo; I think I did this before with this game and it was frowned upon, so it'll probably live here until it's had time to mature some.
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Okay, I didn't get to play it last night, but I've played it this morning. Here's my thoughts

1. The intro video - isn't very descriptive. I have no idea what that building is or what it relates to in the game? Not sure if it's something you'll reveal through the game, but just seems a bit weird at the minute.

2. Brightness - On the second screen, there's water at the top, but it's too dark to really tell, so I was drowning and didn't really know what was going on. It didn't take me too long to figure out, so it's not a bit deal.

3. Controls - I don't know why, but I keep pressing the wrong buttons, it'd be great if (A) and (Y) would also repeat ( B) and (X), or have custom layout in the options. That said, a bit of practice, and I'm sure that'll disappear

4. Graphics - Love them! Think they look great. Your backgrounds are nice, and the comets look good. Everything feels like it belongs in the same game, even the intro (despite it being, or at least looking, 3D rendered)

5. Gameplay - I levelled up, but I didn't really know what that does or did to my character?

6. Audio - Music fit really well, and the SFX were okay. I think Emily's jump/land sound might get a bit annoying after some time, but not sure.

7. Glitch - In the Test Boss room, with the spikes all round and the three central pillars, I killed the boss, and jumped from the right hand side towards the blocked exit on the left. I then somehow found myself inside the wall getting spiked, and there was no way out.

All in all though, I think it's fantastic, and I hope you keep up with the project. I look forward to playing it some more
 
I've tried it and it looks good, some interesting effects. Was a bit confused about how the gravity works, when there are arrows it's clear, but without them I sometimes had trouble to be pulled to the wall I want. I've found some repeating sound effects annoying, it seems all the blob enemies on screen emit a sound, perhaps their volume could be reduced until Emily gets closer to them, or something.
 
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Hi, sorry for not responding for several days; I've found that my dayjob and schoolwork seem to be conspiring to strangle this project (again...thank God summer's coming).

pmprog said:
1. The intro video - isn't very descriptive.
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It's a placeholder, ripped from an unfinished GP2X project.  It was mostly there to see whether Allegro could play .FLI files reliably on an OpenPandora (it can).  I'll probably remove that until the real intro movie is done...


pmprog said:
2. Brightness - On the second screen, there's water at the top
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...yeah, I'm finding out the gamma curve on the development machine is nowhere near the Pandora's; I'll probably force a higher minimum lighting value on all passable tiles, and an even higher minimum value on water tiles (which can sometimes seem darker because they divide the red and green channels of any pixels inside them by 2).


5. Gameplay - I levelled up, but I didn't really know what that does or did to my character?
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All lost hit points are restored, and the minimum and maximum damage Emily can hit for are increased, as well as her chance to hit.  The game needs to do a better job of communicating this...


notaz said:
but without them I sometimes had trouble to be pulled to the wall I want
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The direction in which plants grow, snow is draped, etc. is supposed to provide a visual cue about which way gravity goes in that area; maybe this is too subtle? 

notaz said:
I've found some repeating sound effects annoying
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...understandable - especially since there are only slime-type monsters in the game at this point, and they all have the same sound.  This will get better as I get some more monster types done, and I just might take your suggestion about reducing the noise radius (or adjusting the falloff) a bit.

As for the noises Emily makes, the game can tell the different ground types apart so there should be a little more variation in footsteps at some future point; the swimming noises are all placeholder ones slapped together in SFXR, so they sound really, really out of place.  (I think someone a long time ago pointed out that Emily's jump noise sounded like it had been sampled from a porn movie (it wasn't, but it does kind of suck).  I have someone local in mind I think I can bribe into doing a little voice acting...)

pmprog said:
7. Glitch - In the Test Boss room, with the spikes all round and the three central pillars, I killed the boss, and jumped from the right hand side towards the blocked exit on the left. I then somehow found myself inside the wall getting spiked, and there was no way out.
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Most likely, the cause of this is some incorrectly-set gravity directions in the affected tiles.  I'm still learning how to design maps for this thing - the gravity makes level design trickier than it would ordinarily be, I think.

It'll probably be a while before I can give this project the TLC it deserves, but at least I'm not going to let it die (again).
 
Hi all :)

@ illegal_instruction: very nice pre-alpha release, please keep up the good work !

Cheers, Magic Sam
 
It's very nice indeed.

I agree with main previous remark: a bit too dark and sounds can be a bit repetitive, but nice game play, with a lot of potentiel!
 
Nope, the project didn't die; I've just been keeping quiet about it for a bit.  Here's what's done since I last posted a demo:

  • Rescuable/talkable NPCs are (finally) fully implemented
  • Story triggers are (finally) mostly implemented; the game now has some basic knowledge of what chapter the player should be on
  • Story dialogue has been finalised
  • The test cinematic has been replaced with something relevant to the story (it's just a pencil test at the moment; I've got a lot of unhappy hours in Inkscape ahead of me :) )
I probably won't post any more demos for a while, unless someone specifically requests one - at this point, I should really just quit screwing around and ship you lot a finished product...

Also, please have this thing:

https://youtu.be/_83ZxhClwE0

In playing, I've found a few fun glitches/exploits with the gravity that let you get across rooms really fast; I think I'm not going to fix them - I'll leave them for future speedrunners (there aren't a lot of Pandora games on SDA - the community should fix this)...
 
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illegal_instruction said:
I was a little uncomfortable about posting something so obviously unfinished to the repo; I think I did this before with this game and it was frowned upon, so it'll probably live here until it's had time to mature some.


Progress might be slow with exams coming up...
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Keep it this way. If you put things to the repository too early it is hard to get people retesting it later.
 
No, I didn't give up on this; as I said, it's just not ready for the public eye yet.  That said, here's what's gone on with it since I last blabbed/tried to generate 'buzz'/whatever normies and marketing people call it:

  • Better handling of gravity in inner corners
  • Support for flying and/or swimming enemies that behave as if they're on a rail (got planned months ago, finally works as intended)
  • More than just slimes (finally!)
  • The 'yer-gonna-drown' indicator has been moved closer to the centre of the display
  • All of the maps are being remade (slow process - level design is hard)
  • NPCs work (finally)
So close to having something to be proud of done; I hope you guys and gals like it.
 
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