snowflake hurry

hey fellows, normally i wouldn’t dig into more than one project at the same time but there is a little game idea i’d like to share because i can’t evaluate if this idea is worth working on generally.

beside that i am totally aware of the fact that i still have to learn basics about building mechanics with the BGE and therefore i wouldn’t start a new project on the short run without asking you to participate.

http://jelly.haifashion.eu/dl/game/sfhurry.png

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working title: snowflake hurry!

genre: puzzle plattformer

players: 1-4

background story: santa crashed into a mountain and is stuck at the snow. the magic of christmas enchanted a snowman to help santa to collect the presents which where spread on the mountain during the crash and safe christmas.

game description: the snowman catches snowflakes to gain amounts of snow-/iceblocks to drop. the snowblocks stick/glue to each other and give the player the ability to build their way through the levels, find santas presents and finally bring the presents back to santa.

game mechanics: simple plattformer with basic block building feature

level layout: 90’s arcade plattformer layout, 2 - 5 screens per stage
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what there is so far:

  • rigged game character with basic controls
  • spawn mechanics with snowflakes
  • simple textured level layout for 1st stage

blendfile: sfhurry.blend

problems:

  • collision/property recognition
  • camera parenting to character, camera movement with two or more players

Hello jester elly, I like the idea of this game ; I gave it a quick go and such a game would be easy to make.
Have you ever played the game Waking Mars, I loved that game ; This game project could use a similar graphic style ?
I believe that Waking Mars is some sort of a 2D/3D game in orthographic perspective, with sprites and several backdrops…
And Krampus could be the one who is trying to ruin Christmas for everyone ! just an idea…

hey thanks for your reply! haven’t played Waking Mars yet but looks interesting - and yes, nice idea! are you able to setup a template for a game like that? would be cool because i am running constantly into trouble trying and end up with no convenient results…

its a bit frustrating at the moment, as building game mechanics isn’t this intuitive and easy with the BGE and just a little knowledge of programming. right now working with the BGE is more like studying than having fun.

maybe its a winter depression or just a low. even the results in doing artwork are very poor currently - i’ve been trying to do some assets for your astroid game but also no luck just crap so i feel like putting away the pen for few days and doing something else…

Got a bit of inspiration whilst building a snowman. Vague ideas:
-Rolling a snowball to increase the size
-Plenty of destruction. Like this but with snow. And perhaps a bit more… subtle?
https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/19279604/static/minigames/senseless_2d_shooter.zip

Right now I’m knee-deep in another project and can’t really do much else. But I’m kinda tempted to explore this concept more.
Maybe when the BGMC rolls around? Hmm…

Anyway I’m gonna head back out there before it gets too dark xD
Good luck!

Hello pqftgs ! :slight_smile:

No sousai ! Do not let your self down jester elly…
For me, my most productive moments start with a pen and a piece of paper…
That is where it all begins :wink:

…sounds cool and reminds me of “katamari”, nice game from namco.

no, just relaxing. how can you let your self down, is this even possible?

pushed the sketch of this game a bit. the transition from 2d to 3d is indeed interesting, so i would try to combine both as you see in the actual .blend. and aim for a simple but smooth comic look.

made another approach to setup the mechanics, but still no luck. do you have ideas how to solve the following issues:

  • align all objects and the character along y - axis in order to have every new block in exact lines
  • collision behavior of the blocks (did a setup with armatures but won’t work either)
  • buggy behavior of the character recognizing property “platform” and toggle jump, inaccurate turning/moving

and finally, is there a simple solution for a sticky ice block?

Nice update ! and that mountain backdrop looks nice…

To align all objects and the character along the X axis, Apply this game logic to the objects that you want to constrain:

Always + And + Constraint > Location Constraint > Limit X

And it is best to use a “Boolean” game property to define objects such as a “Floor”, “Wall”, “Door”…

many thanks buddy, this solved a bunch of issues except property recognition. added some textures evolving the layout for stage 1 and updated first post with game description pointing to actual issues:

  • collision/property recognition
  • camera parenting to character, camera movement with two or more players

if there are any ideas, give a holler.

Download the blend file here : GE_Snowflakes


The file “GE_Snowflakes.blend” is an example of how the snowflake images can be used with the BGE.

The logic bricks used for each individual snowflake (below).


…nice flakes right?

meanwhile the game reached version 1.0 so here’s the official release.
any comments, suggestions, bugfixes, tips and whatever are welcome.

Download the game - .blend here (zipped with 7zip): sfhurry.7z

“Snowflake Hurry!” is best enjoyed playing with friends…

Title Screen:
http://www.haifashion.de/tmp/title_1.png

Ingame Screenshot:
http://www.haifashion.de/tmp/ingame.png

Love the visuals. And oooooooh that sax
Gameplay started off rough, but it grew on me after awhile. I can picture this being a fun group experience.

Score to beat: 9300 + 12 gifts

Nice Job ! A very soothing game :slight_smile:
And you managed to get this game made very quickly ! I wish my game projects would move as fast…

What could be improved (personal opinion) :

The player doesn’t jump very high, he could jump higher.
The blocks could be bigger.
Rethink the game keys, spacebar key is good for jumping.