Soulsoup is an Adventure Puzzle game project I’m making in my free time, wearing the designer’s, coder’s and artist’s hats. I’ve challenged myself in completing it in 12 weeks (not gonna happen!) using Gamemaker. The following post is an update on it’s development.
Hey all! This week was quite slow on development, there was so many thing going on that had to take priority, like a broken car for example… but I got to start arting up the interior of the first area of the game, one that is actually playable. Slow progress is progress nonetheless! Here’s the level in question:
Obviously, doing the first pass of an area is long. Doing the other 100 levels that will use the same tileset is going to be much faster. While I’m doing the tiles I find conflicts with the look and gameplay. For example with sizes of interactive components and such. It’s not a big deal, I just have to take some decision and fix them.
There are also a few moving parts in this level such as the fountain and switches. Animating it will be a lot of fun.
I’m hoping that next week is going to be less busy and that I’ll be able to complete this scene. Fingers crossed!
Thank you for reading and taking interest in my project! Don’t hesitate to reach me at any of the following for a chat:
Soulsoup is an Adventure Puzzle game project I’m making in my free time, wearing the designer’s, coder’s and artist’s hats. I’ve challenged myself in completing it in 12 weeks using Gamemaker. The following post is an update on it’s development.
Hey all! As promised I took a couple of weeks off this project, realizing that it was a bit foolish to think I could end it in 12 weeks haha. To be honest, challenging myself with a deadline like this makes no sense as I work an average of an hour a day on it…like TOP. Finishing a game in 12 weeks would work if I could pour more hours a week.
Anyhow, for the time being I work with the clock off which is more fun anyways = better creativity. I’m still thinking of having deadlines to push myself to accomplish something. We’ll see about a plan later. 🙂
CAULDRON TEMPLE
I started sketching up one of the first area visited in the game. This is far from finished but it gives an idea on the type of mood I’m looking for. WIP WIP WIP WIP!!
Thank you for reading and taking interest in my project! Don’t hesitate to reach me at any of the following for a chat:
Hi everyone! Here’s what I’ve been up too in this 3rd week of development on Souloup.
First Playtest
The first portion of the week was all about polishing, bug fixing and refining some rules and mechanics to make sure it was solid enough for a first playtest. Small things such as highlighting the token the player is currently selecting, fixing collisions and such.
Working in a pub. Changing places helps the creative juices.
The playtest was short but worked well. I feel more confident that the mechanics are easy to understand and that people (well at least that friend) was interested by the discovery element of the game. The next playtests are going to be chunkier with actual progression.
Recipes
Some thoughts were put into the combinations that lead to recipes. I almost completelly redesigned this portion of the game as I thought it was lacking. The new system has less ingredients and combination posibilities but most components offer MULTIPLE gameplay choices. I find this to be a very important rule in puzzle design. Components used to make the puzzle should be at least 2-sided by which I mean the same object can be used in different situations. For example, an explosive red barrel in an action game can be used to blow up enemies, blow up a hole in a wall for navigation or be used as a platform on which to jump to reach higher places.
The following image was taken BEFORE the re-design, but it is still interesting as it shows a bit of the process.
Process on finding basic recipes for Soulsoup
Mock Up
Finding the perfect resolution is always a bitch. I’m still unsure where Soulsoup will live but I know it would do well on mobile devices as well as on PC or even console. With that in mind, I have about 46 millions different resolutions to work with. That’s just the way it is now. Resolution is critical for game components, layout and size of the assets. For my projects I have 2 sizes I like to work with, like in the images below you can imagine how the very different sizes of the characters affects how everything else is built.
Miranda from another WIP project. Smaller Character.Big Boss from MGSV. Bigger Character.
Because of the tilebased controls of Soulsoup, I think the smaller version is more interesting, it has this old-school charm that screams puzzle game and that is why I selected that size.
By the way, if you are interested in seeing how this big boss sprite was made, you can look at the timelapse on my (…very empty) youtube channel 😉 Here’s the link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nQKWqumwycg
After many attempts and redraws, I managed to settle the visual style and sizes for sprites and tiles I’ll be using for Soulsoup. Now that this is decided, it should be much faster to create the various assets I’ll need. I am super excited about starting to make sprites and animate them!
The next images show the progress from an early draft to a potential level. The last image does not show the final product, I’m still working on it, but it shows the kind of details I want to have in the game world such as moving water and clouds. It is still rather empty since the game sprites are not present.
AI
As a final task this week, I got to start the basic AI system of Soulsoup. It is very basic as the critters of the forest have very strict movements and no decision making. It is a puzzle game and reactions to the player’s moves must be predictable! For example, the “deer” runs in the oposite direction of the hero when the hero stands next to it.
I have about 20 personalities like this to code which will then be mixed and matched to create all the various characters of the game.
Hi everyone! Already 2 weeks out of 12 down! This week have seen great advancement in the project as my work got propelled by the voice of the legendary David Bowie.
Current state of the Game. Still not pretty but more functional!
Prototypes & Tests
The goal of the week was to refine the games’ rules to find a pleasant balance between randomly mixing ingredient and attempting to create the perfect combination to maximise points. My goal was to get an easy progression in the recipes. I want players to have fun matching practically any ingredients together and get a final recipe out of it instead of forcing strict combinations. The game is primarily about discovery.
I tested a lot of different movement schemes and decided to go with my original plan of dragging tokens around with the mouse or touch screen. I spent a couple of hours polishing this mechanic so it is solid and fluid. It’s almost there. There is also an indicator now that shows when a combination of tokens creates something. This makes for a more fluid and easygoing game experience.
Blackboard items are almost all crossed out now.
I’ve also prototyped and tested the end conditions and pressure mechanics of the game. I’ve tried turn based, time based and error based. The best option for me at this moment for the score mode is time based. Nevertheless, I don’t want the player to feel too much rush, I want them to be relaxed and have enough time to experiment.
The mechanic is simple, as time goes by the Glutton gets hungrier. You need to make sure that enough food is given to him to lower his hunger or else you’re the one who gets eaten! The monster’s hunger is further satisfied when you give him what he wants. When you give him enough, you move to the next level.
A new Glutton
Talking about the Glutton, I’ve started sketching him on Friday. He was originally supposed to be just a head icon moving around the board. I’ve just recently decided to have a sprite of its full body at its “real” scale instead. Its hulking appearance will be very cool on the board compared to other tokens. Now I just need to figure out how to make it move around properly.
Sketching the Glutton (blue monster) standing and sitting.
NEXT WEEK
Next week is a big milestone as I will playtest the game with friends and colleagues to see where it needs refinements. If you are making a game yourself, know that planning and committing to do playtests is not only crucial to get feedback but is also a great way to motivate yourself. Working under a deadline do marvels!
For this playtest, I need to make sure there is enough recipes available in score mode for it to last more than 5 minutes. I also should make sure that 1 to 3 puzzle levels are available. I want to test both game modes. Talking about level design, I leave you with some sort of a spoiler 😉 The following are old level design I found this week. I’ll probably rebuild those levels in the game just for the kicks.
The following images show a bit of how I work. I always design on paper before doing anything in the engine. I find doing these analog designs a much easier task. Working with a pen, eraser and paper helps me think and focus.
The Bosstopus 