2014 January Tournament: Darkness

Game Editor comments and discussion.

Re: 2014 January Tournament: Darkness

Postby lcl » Tue Jan 21, 2014 10:17 pm

NightOfHorror wrote:I wish you luck, and as I said the other day, you technically have til' 3 of Tomorrow for me because of school, so you have about 25 hours actually.

Thanks for wishing me luck :D
knucklecrunchgames wrote:Dam I should of entered, but it's to late now :x :x

Good luck Hares and lcl

Next time, kcg :D And thanks to you as well!

The first level begins to take shape. I've had to leave a lot of ideas unused for now, because
I want to get this done and uploaded as soon as possible. I'll add those things later when I finish the game. :)
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Re: 2014 January Tournament: Darkness

Postby lcl » Wed Jan 22, 2014 12:19 am

Umm.. here's my.. err... entry.
First I have to say, I'm not satisfied with it. I had a lot more plans for it
and things I wanted to include to the first level, but I just couldn't make it.
But you'll get to see those things when I complete the game and actually publish it. :)

Pretty much anything about this version isn't ready.
Graphics aren't ready, there's no intro, no menu, and you can't actually even finish the first level xD
(I hope I don't get disqualified for that O.o)

So, while playing, bear in mind that this is just a demo version, the actual product will differ from this thing greatly. :lol:

Anyway, controls are:

W - walk forward
S - walk backward
Q - strafe left
E - strafe right
A - turn left
D - turn right
Space (and left mouse button) - switch the light on / off
Right mouse button - pick up objects (you have to point the object with the light to be able to pick it up)
(currently there isn't anything else to pick up than a flashlight.. xD)
F1 - pause menu
Hold left shift down to run

In this demo, you can complete only the first objective, as I had no time for making the second one.
Also, in the full version you'll be able to define your own controls, but for now, I had no time to set that up.

DOWNLOAD:
(Link removed, as that version of the game sucks. If you want to play it, you'll have to wait for the official release of the game, or to pm me.)
(ATTENTION! If the game seems too dark to you, adjust the brightness from the options-menu accessible with F1. Also tell me if you think it's too dark.)

Oh, almost forgot, the game is currently named "From the Darkness into the Light",
but as everything else about this game, the name is also going to change. :D
Last edited by lcl on Thu Jan 23, 2014 11:34 pm, edited 2 times in total.
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Re: 2014 January Tournament: Darkness

Postby CrackedP0t » Wed Jan 22, 2014 1:24 am

LCL:
Wow, SABRE. Nice.
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Re: 2014 January Tournament: Darkness

Postby NightOfHorror » Wed Jan 22, 2014 2:24 am

I am going to finally get to play it now!!! :D
viewtopic.php?f=2&t=12136
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Re: 2014 January Tournament: Darkness

Postby NightOfHorror » Wed Jan 22, 2014 2:28 am

And now that I am playing it, I am already scared, I am a wimp. :lol: I can feel the screamers coming.
viewtopic.php?f=2&t=12136
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Re: 2014 January Tournament: Darkness

Postby NightOfHorror » Wed Jan 22, 2014 4:10 am

Alright lcl, I guess I forgot the mentioning of, can't complete first level, as I just spent like half an hour, I think maybe more trying to complete it as I went around in circles, and finally decided to ask if I misinterpreted the object of the game, so I am relieved to know I am not completely stupid. Now here is my impressions of it:

The engine to this is amazing, and it really works well with the theme of darkness. I had no problem running around and just noticing the greatness of it, as I was amazed throughout. At the beginning, I really was expecting screamers to pop out like me, as this reminds me a bit of Slender with no music, but really eerie, but I am not going to lie, I was a bit disappointed to find nothing like a screamer or a stalker, or even some type of enemy, as I said earlier, the engine really works well with the feel of creepiness, especially with the tight corridors, sharp turns that you couldn't peep around due to the controls forcing you to look all the way at it to make me suspenseful at the beginning. Suspense just felt like it could have really worked well and I feel like the game is missing that. As I said earlier, the lack of music reminds me of slenderman's feel, but since my rubric requires music, I can unfortunately give you no points for that, so that is a flaw in the rubric, but the eeriness will increase the overall. Sounds, there wasn't much of it, but they did do the same thing as the lack of music did. Originality, well maybe one of the low-points there, as I have played plenty of games with the flashlight, first person, and a maze-like scenario, but the engine itself does give it originality in the fact that the walls really do bring out suspense in me. The creativity is there definitely. Graphics is good considering the engine's quality, and the flashlight effect is well, like a flashlight. Unfortunately, for me at least, game-play is another pretty low-point of the game. There was a lot of promise, but two things really just didn't work for me. For one, there is no end to the level, and that basically means all you can do is walk, and walk, and walk some more, and as fun as walking through the maze was because don't get me wrong, the engine really was amazing, walking just doesn't add much. Without an end/objective because games like pacman challenge you to beat your high score, there feels like there is no purpose. Even having a stalker and seeing how long you could run away from him would have been fine with me. Now the second thing that doesn't work for me, say there was an end to it all, well, part of the fun is being at point A and being at Point B, but most of the fun comes with what happens to get you from Point A to Point B, and in the case of this game, as mentioned earlier, you just walk. With the style of the engine, something scary felt like it should have been added to add an effect to the game. Imagine the game Slender without slenderman itself, basically all you would have to do from getting from Point A to Point B is walking around the woods getting notes, and while suspense is created at first, when a person realizes nothing is there that should create suspense for them, they stop getting scared, and half the fun is gone now. After all this, there is one thing I liked a lot, the controls. At the beginning and even throughout the game, I had this feeling something would pop out at me, and no matter how much I wanted to peep around the corner, the controls prevented me from doing this, and I mentioned this before, but I felt like emphasizing on it again. Oh one additional thing, it would have been nice to have a penalty for keeping your flashlight on. Another last thing, there isn't many times we get to experience first person, so it was awesome to see that in it, as that is original in itself compared to other GE games.

At the end, the game, I can't wait to see the finished product. The thing that didn't work for me is, the game mislead me to think the level would be scary when it was just a darkened maze, perhaps you meant for it to be scary, but had no time, but at the end, a big chunk just felt missing. Lastly though, the engine is awesome, and maybe my favorite part of the game.

Please don't feel I am bullying your game too much; I just noticed a lot to say about it, and I really can't wait to see the finished product, and I understand that this tournament's deadline is shorter then what it appears, and in the long-run, this game will be one of the best of this genre in GE.

Thanks for entering! :D
viewtopic.php?f=2&t=12136
"I have not failed. I just found 10,000 ways that wont work." quoted by Thomas Edison.
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Re: 2014 January Tournament: Darkness

Postby DeltaLeeds » Wed Jan 22, 2014 11:02 am

So, I've played all the games by the 2 competitors, (Sorry if I forgot anyone, please tell me if there is anyone else. xP) and all I can say is, all of them are great (Give a round of applause! :D), but there can only be 1 winner, which will be announced at the end of the month! Can't wait for it then!
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Re: 2014 January Tournament: Darkness

Postby NightOfHorror » Wed Jan 22, 2014 12:30 pm

Happy almost birthday, and when you are ready to grade them, use the rubric posted on the first post, and send your ratings to me. :)
viewtopic.php?f=2&t=12136
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Re: 2014 January Tournament: Darkness

Postby lcl » Wed Jan 22, 2014 2:06 pm

NightOfHorror wrote:...and when you are ready to grade them, use the rubric posted on the first post, and send your ratings to me.

Will the ratings also be visible for everyone else? I'd like to know how my "game" scores.
Too bad I'm not allowed to judge anything, I would have liked that. But maybe some other time.

NightOfHorror wrote:A WALL OF TEXT

Thanks for sharing your feelings and thoughts about the game. Also thanks for being honest. ^_^
Also a huge thank you for complementing the engine, as that is what I spent most of my work hours on.

Now.. here's my defense :lol:

About missing screamers:
I totally understand why you were disappointed.
This kind of setting really craves for some creepiness. And I do have plans to add some scary and eerie things to the game. However, I'm not going to add screamers because for me they seem like a quite cheap way of making a game scary. This'll be a dark game (except of the ending, as I have that planned out already), but not a horror game. You'll see what I mean when this is ready. :wink:
But yeah, the main point of the actually scary stuff completely missing from the game currently is just that I didn't have time for adding any.

About missing music:
This is also one of those things I just had no time to add. I'm quite ambitious when making games, and I'd like to make my own music, and there was just no way I could have made good music with the time given. But just like you said the lack of music can also be quite powerful and I'm also going to take full advantage of that. This game will use music to guide the players feelings when needed, much like Tomb Raider 1 did. In that game, most of the time you can only hear Lara's footsteps, but that makes it just much more powerful when the music kicks in to alarm the player of a danger or some other event.
But I accept getting 0 points for the music, it's just logical.

About originality:
As you said, this is a low-point currently, as the setting with darkness and flashlight is quite common. But this'll change, as I get to make this a real game. I have plans for this game, and this is not going to be anything like Slender or those other games. (I haven't actually played that many games with a setting like this, so it's pretty impossible for me to copy them XD). This game will heavily rely on the story and the mission of the player.

About graphics:
Currently they suck. There is actually only two textures that I really worked on, the fences and the concrete walls. Other textures are just something I made quickly to get this done by the deadline. You can expect quite nice improvements on this part of the game when I finish the completed game :wink:

About game-play:
I totally agree with what you said about the game-play.
The lack of things to do is really present and I knew it when I uploaded this. And I don't like that at all.
But I had no choice, as I wanted to get this done by the deadline. This on also will be fixed by the time the full game is released. And thanks for the tip with the flashlight, I will think up something.

That's about it. So everything I just wrote could be shortened down to this:
I had great plans and visions for the game, but didn't have enough time to make them come true by this deadline. But the patient will be rewarded, and I can almost promise that you will love (or at least like) the finished product. :D

Yesterday I took a look at the grading rubric and I came to conclusion that my game will score very badly xD
That's because, well, I spent nearly all my time building the game engine and all the game mechanics and because of that I only had very little time for working on how the game looks, sounds and plays. It's funny to notice that even when one furiously works on a game and writes hundreds of lines of code, the result can only be a system handling the game mechanics and physics but still nothing close to being an actual game. And that's why my game is going to score badly - it barely is a game at this point! :lol:

By no means did I take your comment as bullying the game!
Just the opposite actually. You gave me a very good and thorough report on what you think of the game and what you think it needs, and that will help me to make the actual game much better. Thanks for that and a +1 to you!

Oh, I almost forgot that I wanted to ask you a couple of things about the game.
I'd be very glad if you answered to these few questions.
1) Did you manage to complete the first objective? I mean, did you find and pick up the flashlight?
2) You spoke about walking around in the level.. Did you notice that by holding down left shift you're able to run?
3) Did the game run smoothly?
EDIT:
4) Is it too dark or is the light level okay? Did you adjust the darkness from the options menu?
EDIT_ENDS; XD

I must say that it was a great experience to take part to this tournament!
I'll try my best to get to participate again some other time!
Last edited by lcl on Wed Jan 22, 2014 2:23 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: 2014 January Tournament: Darkness

Postby sonicforvergame » Wed Jan 22, 2014 2:10 pm

Sorry dude i have mid year exam at the end of this month so i can't continue devvelopping my game
All i have is one endless runner level without the power ups :(
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Re: 2014 January Tournament: Darkness

Postby lcl » Wed Jan 22, 2014 2:11 pm

jonathang wrote:Offtopic: My birthday is near, but screw that.

Oh, happy almost birthday to you!
Here, take this present:
Image
So, what do you say? I give this present to you and you give my game full points? Is it a deal? :lol:
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Re: 2014 January Tournament: Darkness

Postby Hares » Wed Jan 22, 2014 7:40 pm

@lcl:
I was expecting you to come up with something big, but you came up with something even bigger :shock:
The first time I opened the game, I didn't use the space bar - then it is real darkness :D

Congrats to you for building the engine in less than 20 days.

@Goettsch
lcl is a experienced programmer

Now I understand what you were saying.
+1 to you dude :)
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Re: 2014 January Tournament: Darkness

Postby NightOfHorror » Wed Jan 22, 2014 11:55 pm

Guys, I am changing the ways tournaments work. For now on, all tournaments will be 2 months long, including the yearly one, as I realize how little time people have and that seems like enough time to allow plenty of tournaments, but also enough to finish demos/levels. This tournament was only a month, but if Hares allows it, as lcl wouldn't mind, we can extend this by a month, giving more time for others and making this the first 2 month tournament. :)
viewtopic.php?f=2&t=12136
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Re: 2014 January Tournament: Darkness

Postby DeltaLeeds » Thu Jan 23, 2014 9:23 am

2 months! Sure, I'd like to rate more games... xD A
lcl wrote:
jonathang wrote:Offtopic: My birthday is near, but screw that.

Oh, happy almost birthday to you!
Here, take this present:
Image
So, what do you say? I give this present to you and you give my game full points? Is it a deal? :lol:

Lol thanks, although I still have to judge fairly. >:P
NightOfHorror wrote:Happy almost birthday, and when you are ready to grade them, use the rubric posted on the first post, and send your ratings to me. :)

Okeedoke, but since the tournament is extended to 2 months, should I still send them ASAP?
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Re: 2014 January Tournament: Darkness

Postby NightOfHorror » Thu Jan 23, 2014 12:24 pm

It hasn't been extended yet, Hares hasn't given me the Okay for it yet, but if it is extended, don't worry about the rubric, as a matter of fact, you can enter the tournament like you wanted to, if you still do. :D
viewtopic.php?f=2&t=12136
"I have not failed. I just found 10,000 ways that wont work." quoted by Thomas Edison.
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