CGC: Atlantia by Hecticware and ReFlux

Long time no post! But work has not stopped, of course.

After a couple of nights working very hard and sleeping very little, Atlantia is done. Well, sorta.

It has become a nice little adventure platformer, with the emphasis off of instant action and instead on story and setting.

You are trapped in a sunken city, filled with lot's of treasures. Also, there is a sort of mystical power present, able to transform reality.

You can download it here:

Download Atlantia.exe [10MB] via Dropbox

Normally I would reference you to the download page, but after founding a small company, I am in the process of moving my site. Or, well, I have yet to begin. This blog will also see some changes in the near future.

Truth be told, Atlantia is a bit buggy. The platforming doesn't run as smoothly as I had hoped, and people have had some rather bizarre errors occuring. I am not quite sure what to do about this, as there isn't an obvious cause for these problems.

I hope you have fun nonetheless.

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.

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.)