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Game Development Showcase
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| The Adventures of Blocky Man |
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| Developer | Stompy9999 |
| Genre | Action |
| Platform | Windows |
| Downloads | 545 |
About:
After defending Blocky World from the Round World Invasion, Blocky Man must travel across the galaxy to hit the Round Menace where they live. "The Adventures of Blocky Man" is a 2D Jump and Run Platformer with 10 levels and a level editor for creating custom levels.
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Please offer only constructive criticism. The intent of the GD Showcase is to help the developer create the best game they possibly can. Show them you support their efforts when posting.
 |   CarlosNYM
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Posted - 7/24/2007 3:01:09 PM | Heh, pretty fun game. It runs smoothly. Title game interface is simple yet effective. Single player is fun but maybe could use a total score stat to give some incentive to acctually kill the enemies. Custum level builder is very cool and innovative. The only bug I saw is that when you go to load a level the cursor block goes beyond the bottom of the box. You could use more detailed textures and backgrounds but that would probably ruin the simple yet beautiful franchise of Blocky Man
Good Job!
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| Stompy9999
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Posted - 7/24/2007 4:54:42 PM | Thanks for trying it!
I'm afraid my art skills are lacking, even for programmer art . I'm getting better though, and hopefully my future games will look better(either that or I get an artist to do the art for me).
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| TheKrust
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Posted - 7/25/2007 4:30:31 PM | THIS SUCKS.... no i'm just kidding, It's actually really fun. I like how you made those flying saucer things too. Mario would be proud. It's amazing how the old side scrollers still hold their playability today. 2 suggestions (and I say this as a semi-experienced programmer.
1. installing a few more mechanics (projectiles, physics alterations, bonuses, special powers, puzzles) will increase the games replayability by an infinite amount. I know how hard it is to implement some of those, but installing a bullet system and maybe some anti-grav would be easy and pretty amusing. As a reference, go by the old "duke nukem" games (the side scrollers). They have tons of crap in there that really kept things intersting.
2. Yes, I agree, the art was your typical "programmer art". But don't feel bad, I'm guitly of it too :D . I suppose that's what artists are for though. Art doesn't effect the gameplay as much as most people think, but it can quickly suck the player in and make immersion much easier. So I recommend just painting the grass a little, and give the characters (very important here) fake lighting. Just shade one side of them darker than the other. This EASILY creates and illusion of the sun.
Other than that, you're definitley dedicated to making games (which I would take over talent any day). Not to mention this is WAY better than the games I first made. Of course I mostly make engines. They never really get put to practical use. Good luck ^^
btw, the level editor was a cool touch.
EDIT: after actually going to the level editor, I see there's a lot more than I origionally thought, you may just want to implement them earlier into the game as this is viewed as very casual. Exposing players to more sooner will get them into the game quickly.
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| Stompy9999
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Posted - 7/25/2007 4:59:21 PM | You scared me there for a moment . Thanks for trying out the game!
I would like to make a new platformer somewhere down the line with many more features, such as Physics and scripting. I'm planning one day to make a platformer like one of my favorite games, megaman. The game engine for Blocky Man is pretty basic, but I learned alot from making it, and got some ideas for how I can do a better engine in the future.
I also learned alot about sprite art while working on it, but none of this progress is shown in the game. Considering I started the game using the MS Paint shape tools to draw everything, it would have looked strange to have nice sprites toward the end. I see what you're saying though, details such as fake lighting can make sprites look alot nicer. For instance, like the sprites in Super Mario World, which have shading to give them a 3D look. I'll keep working to improve my programmer art(or get someone else to do it for me).
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| TheKrust
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Posted - 7/25/2007 5:23:19 PM | The only problem when you do fake lighting is that when you get into REAL lighting, it can make your engine look really fake. I'm currently working on an advanced 2D engine called Hazard that focuses on dynamic lighting and shadows. One question though, are you using sprites, or polygons to draw your characters. If it's polygons, basic 2d lighting is REALLY easy to implement and you can have the levels dynamicly lit.
You're obviously using C (I could tell from the console) so speed won't be an issue (2d lighting obviously requres a lot of distance and vertx measurments on the cpu's part).
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| Stompy9999
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Posted - 7/25/2007 5:32:04 PM | I'm using C++ and SDL, so sprites rather than polygons. I have yet to use SDL & OpenGL for a 2D game, but I would like to try that.
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 | Aardvajk GDNet+
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Posted - 7/28/2007 11:16:01 AM | Love it. Great stuff.
Does run too fast on my machine though, but I know you've responded to this point in your journal.
Well done on getting such a lot of polish into the finished project. Real example-setting stuff.
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| Stompy9999
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Posted - 7/28/2007 1:03:08 PM | Thanks for playing!
Yeah, I just set the timer in the game according to what ran well on my computer, which apparently was not a good idea.
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| Jazonxyz
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Posted - 7/30/2007 12:40:08 AM | Pretty good
I love your games but I still think that "Stompy's Revenge" was the best one
this one ran too fast on my computer so it got really hard.
My favorite part is the simple graphics because they proove that fun is about the game not the graphics.
Keep it up and don't get an artist, your graphics are fun the way they are.
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| Stompy9999
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Posted - 7/30/2007 1:57:20 AM | Thanks!
Even though it is programmer art, I think it fits well with this game(and with most of my games for that matter), because it looks cartoony. I'm trying to get better at sprite art, though.
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