Insomnia Progress Report 11/27/2013

Alright, the game is still coming along nicely.  I have a few more things to do, but a playable demo should be ready to go soon.  One more map has to be made, and at least one more puzzle.  Then, of course, I'll have to give what I have done so far a complete run through myself to look for bugs and see just  how long it takes to complete from beginning to end.

The main challenges of the game are based around puzzles and exploration, and the player has zero combat ability.  As such, my run through will probably be much faster than people who've had no exposure to it.

I've also been experimenting with a save system, and trust me, you'll want to get the downloaded version of the game.  None of the sites I put it on keep track of saved data if you play it through the site's quick play feature.

Hopefully the game goes over well, I certainly enjoy it.

Still Working

Work on the survival horror game continues, and progress is definitely being made.  I don't have a whole lot of experience with more story driven games yet, but I think things are coming along fine.

As a result, though, Fungicide is getting a bit neglected at the moment.  I'd like to get some small release for it done, just to show that I'm still alive and doing stuff.

Really, I could release a demo for the survival horror game quite soon.  It's a bit different than most, and is much more an adventure game than an action game.  Puzzles can be quite rough to design.  Sure, they don't require all that artwork, but it takes some thought to make them feel unique and challenging.

The survival horror game is also the best looking that I've made.  Between the real-time lighting engine and my improving pixel art skills, it actually looks quite good.  At least, from my incredibly biased perspective.

Depending on how much I manage to get done on that, I may release a teaser page for it on Game Jolt.  Maybe.

However, since you're looking at my blog (lucky you), I'll offer a few screenshots of my upcoming survival horror game: Insomnia.

Fungicide Progress Report

Campaign Progress

 Finally, the campaign game type is open.  Right now, both the prologue and chapter one are playable from beginning to end. Chapter 1 starts off locked, so you'll have to beat the prologue before it opens up.


Soldier's New Skill

The soldier got his fouth and final skill in this update: Bombadier.  It rains bombs down on a selected area.  If you can manage to corral the zombies, it can do significant area of effect damage.


Important Bug Fixes

 There were a couple of important bugs fixed in this update.  For one, Survival mode now records high scores properly.  For another, each map is playable once again in Killing Spree and Survival.  Errors kept a couple from being accessible.Lots of other, smaller changes were made in this update as well.

More New Screenshots





Detailed Release Notes

*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*
V 0.2.0.0 Changes
*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*
========
Campaign
========
- The prologue level is now playable
- Chapter 1 is now playable
=============
Killing Spree
=============
----
Hive
----
-Fixed a bug that made the map unplayable
========
Survival
========
-High Scores are now properly maintained within a session
-Ending the game still resets all survival scores to zero
=======
Classes
=======
-------
Soldier
-------
-Reduced skill shot cooldown from 30 seconds to 10
***********
New Ability
***********
Bombadier
Area: 100
Damage: 35 per Bomb
15 Bombs per use
Cooldown: 1 Minute
Instantly used on mouse
------
Runner
------
-Reduced starting HP from 100 to 75
-Added Pistol holding sprites
-Added SMG holding sprites
=======
Enemies
=======
-Reduced Zombie alert sound volume
-Zombies no longer lose agro after the player has been hit
-------
Spitter
-------
-Fixed a bug that caused him to attack without being alerted
-Greatly improved accuracy
=================
Difficulty Levels
=================
-----
WHY?!
-----
-No Health Spawns
-Mercy Invincibility reduced from 3 to .5 seconds
---------------
Nothing Special
---------------
-Mercy Invincibility reduced from 3 to 2 seconds
----------
No Problem
----------
-Zombies lose agro after hit
====
Misc
====
-New songs added
-Fixed a lot of problems with the main menu
-Added a "paused" sprite to the pause menu
-Added clear button indicators to the skills
-Added mouseover tips for skills
-Slight redesign on the HUD

Rockin' Out in The City

With the preparations for Fungicide's campaign coming along quite nicely, I thought sharing a bit of that progress would be a good idea.

My ability to make music has improved quite greatly since the early days, here's a little taste of Fungicide's soundtrack for those of you unfamiliar with it.


In the Streets - Indie DB

Handling Death

In games, that is!

Player characters can almost always die in games.  It's a way to keep the tension up and give them a persistent goal to work towards (don't die).  Different games, though, handle this mechanic in different ways.  Sometimes it's just a slap on the wrist, other times it comes with major consequences.

Dying usually sets you back a certain amount of gameplay.  You get tossed back to your last save, or the last checkpoint, or if you're particularly unlucky, to the main menu.  These consequences can, of course, be a major frustration to the player and cause them to stop playing.  At the same time, they raise the stakes and give the player motivation to keep going.

How do you like your games to handle death?  Minimal consequences?  Or a major hazard?

What about some sort of middle ground?