I was working all day long, finishing up my next game coz why not.
I already began some weeks ago on this little one and thought ok today i finish it.
So i present you this time, another sequal to one of my older games:
Stiff Digging II
Whats new? - I pretty much tried to keed the style "very similar" to the 8 bit classic Boulder Dash WILE trying to keep also the gameplay AND music similar to the first game (So C64 style, upbeat "lalala" music", etc)
- I made it bigger and easier to "pick up and play". Over all it runs way smoother (or it SHOULD be...)
- Its now more a real meshup between bomberman + Boulder Dash
Wile the rules are following:
You control your Robot with the Arrow Keys
And you place a bomb (which runs on a VERY SHORT FUSE!) with the Space bar (if its ready to use!)
As for the ingame rules, they are similar from the original game since it was a "endless runner" game - but this time, i made real levels:
You have to collect a number of Gems to open the EXIT which also spawns (like EVERYTHING else...) random somewhere around the place. It will open as soon as you get the number you need (in the HUD "NEEDS" - its about 2/3 + Butterflies of all Gems in the stage...)
IF you go to collect -ALL- Gems, you get a smll Bonus from 10 Gems and Some time.
You can also use your Bombs to bomb away the enemys (3 different ones, i dont tell you this time what they are able to do~ :> im sure you will find out lot) and boulders but becareful that you DONT BOMB YOURSELF!
If youre LUCKY (hint~), Boulders are able to drop powerups which help you on the way in the caves like:
- Health - Faster Bomb recharge - Shield - 10 Pack of Gems - Some Time
In the Shop, you can buy some PERMA upgrates which will help you playing & enjoying the game longer - which means EVERY GEM YOU COLLECT IS WORTH SOMETHING!
Said that, Blue gems are worth 1, Green gems (which are more rare~) 3.
Hope you enjoy the game and please leave a feedback. I tried really my best with it, comming close to Boulder Dash and a Bomberman Mix. :D
The vocals in the beginning had me raise an eyebrow, I actually stopped to mute the tab before writing further. (sorry)
I was kinda expecting grid movement for the nostalgia feel, but alright.. the rock collision is a bit odd .. mixed theme, some parts are pixels, while the rest isn't.
There is the common topic about motivation for playing a score based game vs goal based ones.
How long time do you think it takes for a player to die in this game? You might want to consider scaling up the enemy amount the further you get and perhaps with how much one have bought in the shop, keeping it small in the beginning. Enemy pattern with sudden direction changes makes it scary to get close to them.
Player is also not aware of the attack button if one don't read to the middle of the description, the game itself does not make one aware of it, so I was letting loose a lot of enemies before I noticed that I could do something about it.
The timer that carries over makes it so that you pretty much have to rush to get the most out of the score, bombing groups of rocks in hope to find some bonus time, that's fine. Got into the game for a while, reached the 5-6th map, not really sure, the game doesn't keep track, and I got a really high number which I have no clue how the game calculated.
Not a bad game, but you could focus more on the reward feeling ..
Like, drop the shop, tell the player that permanent rewards are in the levels, have a hidden global score of total collected gems + stages cleared + points from kill, that slowly lowers which stage the permanent powerup can spawn at .. and make it an obvious treasure.
Or even an achievement system where the repeatable achievements grows ..
But .. would be silly not have a shop when you can collect gems, so what if the story is that he is alone and need money to build friends, when you have build enough you get the chance to build a factory to mass produce them, then a "he was never alone again" story end screen?
The vocals in the beginning had me raise an eyebrow, I actually stopped to mute the tab before writi
and yea i will talk to some parts: About the grid movement, the problem here -is- i would like to use it, somewhat somehow, but i duno how i can create that and "fit it in". You might saw already that the game is sure based on the classic c64 Boulder Dash game and this had grid movement. i also tried (already in the other game) to add physics (you know, falling rocks n stuff...) but it didnt work out "the right way".
as for the enemy amount + gem amount, it is all random and has a lock at a %. As for the enemy pattern, yes, SOME are suppost to be random.
As for the attack button, yea i thought about to add a manual (or something like) in the game but i also tried to keep the savespace limit of 10MB (coz the pages i uploaded it have mostly a 10MB flash limit...) and if i would have add a manual, i was worried it would not only take a bit to much space (i AM close already if i was right), i think it might take away the nostalgia effect from the game its based on - and tbh, its not really hard to click space...
Yea i might should add a "Level counter" somewhere but i was pretty much out of space in the hud as you might can see ^^;
As for the score calculation, yes, i want to try to keep it secret, at least i dont wanna add it into the game self. i might write them down in the discription someday but i dont wanna ruin it by telling what you do and what you shouldnt, if you know what i mean.
As for the rest, it all sounds easy but its harder to do then you think ^^;. i sure could drop the shop in total but then the collecting gems part makes no sense. i tried to reward the player actually -by- collecting the gems coz those -can- you use to get stronger permanently. the smaller powerups you find in the levels are just to help you out right now right there but are not permanently.
As for the Story, i sure had one in mind but droped it to keep again the savespace in place. Its really hard to create a "BIG" game with a small limit of 10MB, mate.
I still thank you for the feedback and i hope you enjoy(ed) the little game never the less :D
so far nice feedback ^^ and yea i will talk to some parts: About the grid movement, the problem her
