Download here: Link
Hello! Seeing how this is a website primarily made for games, i figured i should hurry up and post about one :D. So, i present to you, The Abyss Of Dreams!
You have been sent into a dream(while the lateral prefrontal cortex(the logical part of the brain) is still active), because the "Abyss of Dreams"(Temp Name) has been destroying all good dreams. The "Dream Seeker"(Temp Name) has summoned you because of your ability to re-awaken your logic during a dream(lucid dreaming). You will have to go through all types of bad dreams and find a solution to them while learning about sleep itself.I am doing this as part of the Science Talent Search, and i have about a month left :D. Most of that time was spent working on a different version of the idea, but i figured i didn't have enough time, so i made this instead :).
Although this has many normal puzzle elements to it, I have a few new ones which i would like your opinion on :).The first one is more of a level type. In the game, when in the third stage of NREM sleep, the character will begin to sleepwalk, and so the screen will split in two showing the real world and the dreamworld, having the real world affect the dreamworld. During this, the puzzles will have to be solved on both ends to progress allowing for some interesting designs :)The Second one is an area swapper. During the second stage of NREM sleep we begin to loose awareness of our surroundings, and so i figured i could show this in the dream world by having areas of the game world swap around, player included. At first this would be automatic, until the player is in full REM sleep, in which they will have the power to control when the areas switch.
I have also been working on a soundtrack, here's the first piece of music I have made for it :).Theme1.wavSo yeah, any feedback would be appreciated, about the art style, level design, music anything :D. I will have a gameplay demo out fairly shortly :D.Edit: Gameplay demo is out :D. The link is in a post below.Edit:Heres a link to the post
did you make those graphics yourself? if so, they're actually pretty good.
but i might suggest to fix the main character's face, haha. or probably don't even give 'em a face at all. :Pand, with this next part, it's just me being extremely nitpicky.. with the ladder, it's pretty obvious as to where both ladders meet up to connect.(I'm talking about the 2 pixel wide black line between them) I feel like it'd look way better if you made their connection just a little more seamless. but again, that's just me being an extremely nitpicky bastard.Other than that, everything looks/sound pretty good, the music as well. while simplistic it sounds like it'd fit this type of game really well.Thanks JID :). I did make those graphics, using a combination of Gimp and Adobe Flash. Its funny though, i was expecting someone to say programmer art lol :D, i feel better now :). Just wondering, what do you mean by fix the characters face? Do you just mean the mouth is too large(That was a common complaint from family members), or something else? :).
I'll definitely fix the ladder, something that i probably should have fixed while making the graphics lol :D. The music was meant to be fairly simple, so thats good that i got that right :D. Just wondering, do you think the build up happens too suddenly, as this will play throughout the game and might confuse players seeing how it sounds rather dramatic. What did you think of the new puzzle elements? Do you think they could work well or just be confusing lol :DThanks though :). The next piece of music is almost done, so ill update the post once it is :D.it could actually have a bit longer of a buildup. i see what you mean, it just seems to instantly start up from the get go - but then again, i have absolutely zero experience in composing music, so, i'll leave that kind of critique to the people here who are actually experienced and good at it. but - it sounded fine to me, just needs a few more seconds before you really start it off.
and what i mean by 'fix his face' is that he has a creepy psychopath-type smile. Like he's about to murder your family. Probably even creepier than how the villager will look in the new Super Smash Brothers.lol, ok ill fix the face :D. I haven't implemented those two puzzle ideas yet, but i can see your point about needed to play with them before making a decision. Thanks for your help so far! :)
dat face….
I'm not sure if this counts as necro bumping due to how fast people post blogs here, but anyway :D. I have finally finished the Demo for it, so here it is :D. Hopefully you enjoy.
Controls:WASD and space for movementE to pick up and drop itemsI haven't made a title yet so it drops you right into the game. Also, it has sound and voiceovers so make sure you have sound on :D.Link:LinkHave fun!Some things I fixed up from my last post:Fixed the smile and ladder graphicsAdded Area Shifters(Not present in Beta although I will update soon)Added Fly ModeAdded Breaking GroundAdded Message EventAdded Sound EventAdded Voice OversAdded 3 New LevelsFixed Lag when fallingFixed Glitchy teleportsFixed Being Unable To Jump From LaddersFixed Lag While Loading Next ScreenEdit: Btw, to teleport around if you want to cheat, just use the Middle Mouse Button, and the player will teleport to it. Also, its 4:20 in the morning right now so hopefully i haven't stuffed anything up and posted it lol :D. I'm going to bed now, I cant even see my keyboard properly lol…I will, i'm just waiting until it's finished. This is just so that people can tell me what sucks and I can fix it :D. I can't find any option in the submit menu to specify it is a demo, so i assume I should wait. Is this right, or can I submit a demo anyway? :)
since no one else is giving feedback on the game:
The game is decent, but needs some work. First off, I went through about 4 levels. At first I thought the platforms in the levels were all invisible because of some weird Windows 8 glitch, then I started thinking it was done on purpose. After level 3 I finally realized that the platforms weren't invisible, and that they were the weird purple mist.(I originally thought the mist was just part of the background image) Please make the mist more visible/more obvious that it's actually a platform for the player to walk on.The next problem I have(a rather small, but noticeable problem) was that when you jumped, the character's animation kept moving mid-air as if he was swimming.Now this next problem is a legitimate issue:With the level where you had to put the boxes on the spikes to get by… Before doing that, you had to climb up a ladder, but a platform was blocking the way, at first I thought I did something wrong(This is still when I thought all the platforms in the game were invisible, mind you), so after pausing and looking around for a second, I noticed that the platform was actually visible, but really hard to notice because it blended in with the background. I then saw that I had to go to the far right of the ladder just to get on top of the platform blocking my way to continue.My problem with that is(despite how hard it was to make out that it was something i could walk on), was that you should make the player be able to go through those types of platforms through the bottom to get up top, to avoid the unnecessary walking-to-the-right to get on top of it routine. Most platform games use this.Also, some slopes are pretty tough to walk on, so you repeatedly have to tap the jump button to scale them. Please fix that so it's not needed for you to press jump to get to the top of them.Lastly, on the fourth and final level that I played, the music started getting obnoxiously loud, while the voice over was instructing me on how to get past the level. Make the music become quieter while the voice over is being played. Do that by using sound_volume(SOUND FILE NAME HERE, VOLUME HERE) 1 being the max volume in that line of code, and anything smaller than 1, makes that sound more quiet.Other than that, it had pretty good music, good graphics(though how they're used can be worked on), and surprisingly solid voicework.It's a game with potential, but needs some overall design work.If this were uploaded to the site as a game, I'd give it around a 5/10