Pixel Boy (for now) - A game for ComputerCraft

Pixel Boy (hopefully I can think of a better name by the time I finish it)

this is a game I have been working REALLY slowly on for the past like 2 months and have eventually finished the gameplay element, though I still need to finish the story (or start the story for that matter)

It is a puzzle/maze style game in which the objective is still unclear to me, but there are multiple levels, keys and doors and text boxes (so speech).

So far I have finished all of that and it is completely functional and am now going to work on a little storyline type thing because, to be honest, I like making stories so it will be a fun project for me. I made this post essentially so that the community could tell me what they think and hope to give me some pointers on how I could improve the gameplay whilst I'm doing the other stuff.

Now the game, the controls are:
Q/W to scroll down/up the textbox
E to close a textbox
arrow keys to move about

What the stuff means:
white blocks are obviously open space, blue Astrix's (*) are keys/switches, blue hashes (#) are switch doors, brown colons ( :)/> are doors to other levels.

The test shows off everything, though possibly not super obviously. Note that there is a basic lighting engine in place. I might do something with this in the future (like torches which constantly stay lit up)

Screenshots:

Spoiler

Download (pastebin):
http://pastebin.com/KiiAVLv7
Map maker:
http://pastebin.com/7WmLGhw4

Thanks for testing :P/>

Nice!!

I like the Idea! :D/>

This presently feels like a medium for storytelling rather than a game, which is cool- being trapped in a maze with an ambiguous narrator is an interesting theme, and I'm looking forward to see how this goes.

Constructive criticism to follow:
- The lighting is a little confusing and doesn't feel consistent. I had initially thought you were using a LOS system but it looks more like a radius around the player that is visible. I'd recommend using grey shades at the periphery of the players vision to help them know what is in their field of view and what isn't.
- The game play feels a bit spartan, and having little puzzles, even in the form of minigames would help to engage a bit. Inventory puzzles would be a good way to flesh out the world and give context to the surroundings.

Just my two cents. Looks good so far- keep us posted of your progress :)/>

Cool!

nitrogenfingers, on 01 June 2013 - 04:46 AM said:

- The lighting is a little confusing and doesn't feel consistent. I had initially thought you were using a LOS system but it looks more like a radius around the player that is visible. I'd recommend using grey shades at the periphery of the players vision to help them know what is in their field of view and what isn't.

I was originally going to make (and even started) a more complicated system but for not working (kinda too complicated and might not have worked that well in this resolution) and also speed, the current lighting system is pretty fast. I'm not sure what you mean by the periphery though… everything you see is lit up, so your vision shows you areas of the map you can reach with a maximum of 4 steps. It's a really simple system which just calculates areas which you can reach with 4 steps and lights them up.

The game play feels a bit spartan, and having little puzzles, even in the form of minigames would help to engage a bit. Inventory puzzles would be a good way to flesh out the world and give context to the surroundings.

I want to add some more puzzles in to it, but I want to think of something which would be viable for a child. As you are playing from a child's perspective I don't really want things like hacking (which wouldn't fit the theme of the story in the first place) or lockpicking. Possibly something like deciphering a piece of text (your a child so you don't understand some of the words) to find passwords, and maybe using items I guess.

Thanks for the feedback everyone :)/>

billysback, on 01 June 2013 - 11:04 AM said:

I'm not sure what you mean by the periphery though… everything you see is lit up, so your vision shows you areas of the map you can reach with a maximum of 4 steps. It's a really simple system which just calculates areas which you can reach with 4 steps and lights them up.

To clarify, for any light source with distance x, at x-1 steps maybe use light grey instead of white, and at x steps use grey instead of light grey. That way the player has a clear idea of where the edges of their vision are- I found it a bit disorienting being just monochrome.

I just tried it, and I have to agree with Nitro, it was kind of confusing…
Otherwise, realy nice!

Well, it's 3.30am now so I'm off to bed but here's a little progress report

I have drafted my basic story idea (though it is super basic), added fading to the lighting system (white -> lightgray -> gray -> black and detail (such as switched and doors) darken with it), begun on the item system (I can now add items in to the game, but they do nothing. I also need to add some way to get a description of the item) and that's about it.

Before I go too much further I want to make some sort of map editor to make making maps a bit easier… but that might take a bit of time.

EDIT:
also, if anyone looked through my code they may have noticed some unused "Mob" functions and variables, I had originally planned to make this game a sort of zombie shoot'em up but decided that the shooting part wasn't going to work too well at this resolution. Regardless, all of the code for generating mobs is still there and all I would have to do is make the AI pathing system (which when paired with my lighting system is not too hard to do, only a simple one) and I could have some sort of mobs in. I would prefer no method of combat so these would simply teleport-you-back-to-the-start type mobs.

Ok, another update.
I made the map editor and I'm actually really pleased with it.

http://pastebin.com/7WmLGhw4

to run it do: programname [mapname] [width] [height]
e.g: pixel_boy_mapmaker my_map 30 30

it can be any width/height.
the controls are :
click to paint, rightclick to edit the tile's properties (press the number responding the the choice, or control to quit the menu)
control quits the editor
the button left of the "1" key (with ` and ¬ on it) saves the map (a file)
tab scrolls through the viewing options (black/white text, coloured and details only (keys, text tiles, etc.)
wasd moves around the map
q and e scrolls through the brushes.

the file it outputs will be called whatever you called the map and contains a table in Lua format, this is just so I can copy/paste the map in to the main game and use it. If I left the game as it is now then this map editor would be enough to finish the game. YAY!

looks great

Looks awesome. Interesting to see all the games people are comming up with!

Here's the starting speech for anyone who's interested, a % in front of it means it's text from the future you, # is text from the man ("the butler") and * are your own thoughts/storytelling

Spoiler

%Let me tell you my story…
*I woke up dazed, I could immediately tell that my surroundings were unusual
*Eventually I remembered how to move, I grabbed the lantern that was hanging over my adopted bed. I could see the room clearly enough.
*I walked through the door to see a man… I got used to this mans company swiftly.
#Hello child. I'm glad to see you've woken up! Please do walk around, though I would prefer you didn't venture too far.
*The man followed me everywhere.
#Ah, this is a door child. I presume you are familiar with them? You just go in to them…
#and come out the other side! Well done.
*I don't think I ever truly knew him
#It appears someone left this gate locked… I'm sure there's a switch somewhere near by. Look for it won't you child? It looks like a small star…
#Yes! That's the one! I believe that should do it…
*his advice helped me at the start…
#Ah! Another door! I'll let you handle this one by yourself!
*but I in the end all it did was hinder me
#Now child, you must know that this house is not yours, you cannot go everywhere. There are limitations.

Moved to Programs.

Oh man i really have to make my own game as well :P/>