Grelox: Adding Fluff

Progress continues at a slow but steady pace:

All levels are built.
All levels are populated.

Here's a bit of extended gameplay from one of the first levels (each area consists of 2 selectable levels, both of which must be completed to progress).

I am currently adding 'fluff' elements to the levels. These are basically background features like cobwebs, hanging vines, stalagmites, crumbling rocks...non essential but little visual touches that add to the atmosphere.

One thing I have abandoned are boss levels. I went through various concepts for these. The first was just a fixed screen with standard gameplay and a big nasty to kill.

Next, I was thinking of a 3D into-the-screen section (like the tunnel sequence in Konami's ALIENS coin-op).

But in the end it was starting no feel like feature creep, and also would extend development time too much. With the current 7 levels, the game already feels like a good length and making it too long would just cause player fatigue. So boss battles are ditched. Maybe in a sequel?

The main thing left on the 'to do' list is the ending and the music. It does feel like the last stretch is ahead, so a release next year is looking almost definite now.

Grelox: Populating Levels

I've had a burst of activity on Grelox in the last week.

Levels 1-3 are now fully mapped, level 4 is part way through the mapping stage. The tileset for level 5 is complete, so I need to work out the overall structure of the level before starting to map it out.

The main progress has been enemies - I've coded a new bunch of enemies and have now populated the first 3 levels entirely. This gives me the first real glimpse of how the game truly plays and it's now a matter or balancing.

Difficulty is a hard thing to judge, especially when you're the author of a game. But for the most part I can see where the especially challenging (or potentially unfair) bits are, and also get a feel of how many hit points the player should have. I've still not locked down the overall structure...my current plans are to have each level quite challenging, but also implement an autosave feature meaning you don't have to wade through the same stages every time you play.

This is a fair option if I can add a sufficiently large number of levels to stop the game feeling too short. If not, I may have to return to the more traditional style, but maybe with a lot (or even infinite) continues with every play. Limiting continues is only something I would do with an overall easier game, but it does make the balance a lot harder to reach.

Alternatively, I could just add levels of difficulty based on player health. That may be the best route, although I have considered a hard setting that has additional enemies, for those who really want to push themselves.

Another thing I implemented is a simple player death animation which pushes you back to the map screen. I have come across a bug on occasion which I'm not sure if I've fixed, so it may be time soon to get external playtesters. There's also a minor jumping bug that happens rarely, but is easily reproducible. This one has me a bit stumped. Bugs like this are especially difficult when you're someone like me who isn't really a dedicated programmer, but I'm sure it will all sort itself out in the end.

Grelox: Creating explosions and animating Space Sharks

Drawing an interesting explosions take a bit of forethought. Most are just blobs of red, orange and yellow but I wanted something a bit different for the bigger enemies.

Firstly, I sketched out something very roughly. I've always liked the enemy explosions in Shadow Dancer on the Mega Drive, so I took that 'pillar of flame' look as the central idea, but surrounded it with chunks of standard exploding bits.

The circle in the centre was just for positioning, but when it came to the second pass, where I drew everything neater and clearer in one colour, I kinda liked it as it could represent some concentration of energy, or a small black hole or somesuch. The wispyness also reminds me of the Onibi Yokai which appeals to me.

The colouring was pretty simple. The red surround with blue interior should contrast against most background art. It's only a few frames, but they are over so quickly that the effect works well enough.

I've also updated the 'hit enemy' flash with some animation, changing the colour to pink to match the player sprite and not clash with the explosions.

The Space Sharks now have a walking animation, rather than sliding around. This was constructed with my usual method - I draw out everything in monochrome first. I find this is pretty important as it allows you to refine the look and positions because once you've shaded the whole set it's a royal pain to fix (saying that I did adjust a few minor areas after the fact).

All in all, they look nice and smooth. I maybe could have put more wobble in some areas, but I'm trying not to go too over the top with animation frames as I want to keep the feel of a certain era of gaming.