Atlantia: teaming up with Cheat Master

Recently, Atlantia has gone through some game design changes. I have been thinking about what I want the game to be. I have come to the conclusion that, taking place in the underwater city of Atlantia, I should make a more tranquile game. Less focus on action, more on setting.

I want Atlantia to be a game about discovering this mystical city. About being alone, being lonely. Darkness, being trapped in a lost city. Hope. Ancient gods, long lost treasures.

That being said, I want to make a game with less emphasis on actual action, and more on telling a beautiful story in an awe-inspiring enviroment. As my graphic skills are less than inadequate, I was chuffed to bits when Cheat Master agreed to team up with me.

He will be doing the entire graphic side of the game. We have shallowly discussed my plans for the game (as far as I have any), but I'm sure we'll work on creating a stunning setting together.

Percy

GMW #27 (the 27th dutch gamemaker competition) is about robots and building a game in only five days. I had several ideas that did not work out, and started only today (or technically yesterday) with my new 'semi-hardcore' platformer "Percy". The contest ends today at 23:59, leaving me with less than 23 hours to complete it. But I must say, I came pretty far in the couple of hours I spent on it, so my hopes are up.

Percy is a very simplistic platformer. It is however rather difficult. It's completely grayscale, and most of the graphics are squares or circles. The background is temporary.

Content:

• Working engine
• Death, respawn
• Checkpoints
• Coins
• "Leap of Faith" level
• Tutorial
• Menu
• Saved progress
• Saved time records

Go to the Download Page.

New Website

I am in the process of creating a new website. This will allow me to post numerous pages, wikis, Q&A's, "report bug"-forms and whatever I please.

It can be found at http://sliv-wip.webs.com/, though it still lacks a lot of content. I have moved the download pages to this new location as well.

Also, I am planning on finishing TerraScape sometime soon, and have already begun working on Moonlit a tiny bit.

Atlantia Polis Hudrow

Lately, due to lack of working pc's*, I have been bored to death. But, with great boredom comes great inspiration. Not only in the form of memo's for Moonlit, but also as a new game idea.

The University of Utrecht (NL) has started an annual contest for GameMaker users (such as myself), called the Creative Game Challenge (dutch website). Last year the theme was Beasts, this year it's all about Water.

Which got me thinking. Almost immediately, I figured that I want to do something with this water. Some kind of (semi-)real water effects would be great. But not just fancy effects, but water incorporated into the game itself. As ideas tend to, this simple gimmick has turned into an actual concept for a game.

This game - which I have already given a name: Atlantia Polis Hudrow - is going to be somewhat of a puzzle-platformer; as the player, you must travers your way through each level, filled with doors, cranks, traps, steep drops, slow moving gears and of course water. Lots and lots of water. In fact, the game sets place entirely under water. Well, if neither the name nor the fact that there is civilisation under water have been sufficient: yes. The game is set in what is, frankly, Atlantis.

What I can tell of the story isn't much, because, well, it's just an idea; but this I do know: you are a deep see investigator annex treasure seeker (I'm thinking "Nathan Croft"), who happens to find Atlantis and gets trapped. The Atlantian civilisation has ended, leaving you in huge, deserted chambers, that are constantly on the brink of collapse.

Also, it will feature some texts in Atlanteski, the languages the Atlantians speak that I'm going to create. It will be somewhat of a dialect of Lurion. The game title is also atlanteski; it means "Atlantis, the City of Water."

I have until April 2011, so I'll be working on this game on a very low pitch. I am first going to finish TerraScape, before continuing work on Moonlit.

(* While I am typing this, I find a letter from Packard Bell, saying I can get my pc back. As far as I can tell, they did nothing but undust the fans, which probably means it'll start all over again within one or two months. I guess it's better than nothing, though you might have noticed this whole mess is really getting on my nerves.)

R41LS TD renamed to "TerraScape"

I am dropping the rails from the game R41LS TD, because I found them to be obstructive to many other gameplay elements. As a consequence, I'll rename it, and I have chosen for the utterly meaningless TerraScape, a word I found and misread in an advertisement for a "terrascape" (or 'terrace-cape' in English). Completely ridiculous, ofcourse, but that's what I like about it.

New Project "R41LS TD"

The Dutch Game Maker Community organises every so often a contest, and for the first time, I'm going to participate in one. 'GameMaker Wedstrijd #24' is all about games that can be played with only the mouse and the Left Mouse Button.

It is currently called 'R41LS Turret Defense', simply because the enemies move on rails (and because it is a TD). Here's screenshot taken after only couple of hours work:

I hope you're liking it so far, more information and ofcourse a beta download will follow.

Moonlit - Promises

Here is a screenshot I editted to show off some of the features Moonlit is going to have:

And here's an additional list of features:

• Zombies (lots of 'm)
• Runners, Demons, Boomers, Bosses and other creatures
• Custom created AI
• Online Server
• Campaign (Single Player and Coop)
• Challenges, Stats, Achievements, Cheats
• Horde (SP and online)
• War (Free For All, Team Deathmatch, Last Man Standing, King of the Hill)
• Lots of different weapons (50 planned, more coming)
• Grenades, Molotovs, Claymores etc
• War Ranks
• Braaains...

And to finish this introduction, here's a poster I created:

That's all for now.

Work in Progress

Here I will add stuff as I progress in the development of my games created with Mark Overmars' GameMaker.

I hope you enjoy it.