Rainy Day - Game Project

[foxblock]

Sounds good, I like it, should improve gameplay by a lot

 

[Caine]

The colour idea sounds great.


You could incorporate that into the level design such that you can increase your score by gathering the proper colours from further on in the level and then backtrack to slay weak enemies early in the level. Stronger enemies can be used to require players to traverse a level in a certain order.

 

[SiegfriedCroes]

Thanks guys And yes, lots of things are possible with the colours

 

[bzar]

One thing you could consider is using color blind -friendly colors. A friend of mine is somewhat color blind which has made me consider the colors I use in contexts like this. For example the colors in Wars (the web strategy game) are picked with people like him in mind. The most common form is seen in 6% of all males.


Anyway, enough public service announcement . The idea seems solid. You could add something like switches that only react to certain colored shots or puzzles where you need to color code a lock to get by and so on.


EDIT: thought about it some more, using color blind friendly colors only would probably hamper the color mixing system, so I guess it's not feasible

 

[Archibald]

Done some more work on level art components this evening, but will be working on the new color-gameplay monsters very soon

 

[SiegfriedCroes]

Well I don't know what colours are "colourblind friendly"... But I need all 3 primary colors + The 3 you get when mixing those, so I don't think it's possible to be colourblind friendly...


(And just saw your EDIT... )


And yeah, a colour code lock, that sounds cool


@Archibald: I want to see And I'll make a list of what is needed for those two new monsters (already got an idea for the Red ones behaviour but the final design is up to you, I just made something up for that image).

 

[Caine]

You might want to adjust the projectile shape to address colourblindness. E.g. you could put a geometric shape inside the projectile and somehow have that shape return inside the monsters. For an example, take a look at how the balls in puzzle bobble can be distinguished without looking at their colour.

 

[SiegfriedCroes]

That would work but it's all up to Archibald He does all the designs

 

[Archibald]

I'm not a big fan of altering the design/style just for the (relatively small group) of colour blind people out there. That may sound harsh, but the changes would be far to far reaching and intensive in my art designs. I mean, how many games are out there using color-coded keycards and doors (Doom? Duke Nukem?)


But here's the beauty of this game being open source: any one else can take the game and simply swap the .png's of the sprites to create an alternate version enabled for colour-blind people!

 

[Blue Protoman]

You'd be able to do that anyway, assuming that the image files aren't encrypted or in some crazy format. You only have to know where the images are in the PND, and what they're named.

 

[Archibald]

You'd be able to do that anyway, assuming that the image files aren't encrypted or in some crazy format. You only have to know where the images are in the PND, and what they're named.

I don't know the exact file structure of a .pnd, but I guess it's not much different from the Windows version, in which we have an Images folder containing all sprites, level pieces, etc... as .png images. Really simple to identify and tweak.

 

[Blue Protoman]

Yes, actually. The file structure is what you make of it. The only mandate is that the PXML (the XML identifying all the important stuff about the PND) must be in the root of the PND. PNDs can be opened in 7zip, by the way.

 

[milkshake]

The only mandate is that the PXML (the XML identifying all the important stuff about the PND) must be in the root of the PND. PNDs can be opened in 7zip, by the way.

No this is not true, it is recommended that you keep a copy inside the PND incase someone else wants to extract it all, the Pandora OS doesn't use the one inside the PND at all, it uses the one appended to the PND archive.

 

[Blue Protoman]

Ah right. But when a PXML (and an icon) is appended, it appears in 7zip.

 

[grimfang4]

Yeah, the new color mechanic sounds good.


Just be sure to differentiate your colored bacteria from Dr. Mario viruses.


I'd like to see the colors correspond to specific abilities of the enemies. E.g. one color has spiky enemies, another has hopping enemies, another has floating enemies, etc. This would also go a little way for the colorblindness issue.


I look forward to seeing how this goes. Here's another small idea: Special colored platforms which only support you if you have the right color collected. Functionally, they could be similar to colored doors, but you could also think of platforming puzzles involving mixed colors and multicolored platforms.

 

[SiegfriedCroes]

Yeah, the new color mechanic sounds good.


Just be sure to differentiate your colored bacteria from Dr. Mario viruses.


I'd like to see the colors correspond to specific abilities of the enemies. E.g. one color has spiky enemies, another has hopping enemies, another has floating enemies, etc. This would also go a little way for the colorblindness issue.


I look forward to seeing how this goes. Here's another small idea: Special colored platforms which only support you if you have the right color collected. Functionally, they could be similar to colored doors, but you could also think of platforming puzzles involving mixed colors and multicolored platforms.

Thanks for the feedback, Jonny D


When I finished the picture and looked at the 3 enemies I thought of Doctor Mario too And yes, the 3 monsters will be different. The blue one just walks/hops around, yellow one is a flying jellyfish like creature that will chase you if you come near and the red one is a jumping enemy (design not final) Bigger and stronger enemies of the same colour will be like evolved versions of these simple enemies, and we'll see what we do for the 3 mixed colours.


Interesting idea maybe we will use it, we'll see

 

[bzar]

^ I can also see with my mind's eye a labyrinth of colored walls and floors, for which you need to change your color several times inside it to progress through

 

[SiegfriedCroes]

Seems it's been some time since I posted an update so here's what we're working on right now:


- I have done some optimisation in code (with help from foxblock )


- I have added "Containers" (Crates, Barrels, Pots,...) that you can break by hitting them with your umbrella.

Now working on the Enemy code and Archibald is working on the second (yellow) enemy (a flying jellyfish):

Work on Rainy Day is going a bit slower at the moment as I have some other (school related) work to do... You can expect a new video when I have added the colour steal ability (I could actually make a video now but I don't think breaking containers is that interesting...)

 

[Nintendo]

Cute, I like the little Octopus character there.

 

[Archibald]

Finishing up the yellow "jellyfish", probably needs an extra frame for when it's hit by the umbrella. Will be working on the third "basic" enemy next: the red spikey one.


Doing the animations in Flash now (still painting them in Photoshop), so that's a bit easier and quicker. To round off the work on the color mechanic, I'll need to do some


additional animations for the character sprite (extracting colour and shooting) as well as colored projectiles, and some sort of gui element that indicates which color is


currently "stored".