IC Forum Archive

hyouko · Posts: 55

...I should've started posting here a long time ago! But that front-page post got me up off my arse to make a post.

I've done a couple of indie games (well, about one and three quarters). So I figured I'd start out by sharing one of 'em. That'd be Nacht.

That be it right there. It's a really simple, arcade-y-style game; the only objective is to survive as long as possible by shooting strange creepy vine things and get a high-score. Also it's inspired by imagery from Heart of Darkness! And some of the sound effects were made by shuffling paper in my trashcan. Can't go wrong with that. You can get it here: Nacht setup

It's windows only, unfortunately, though if I get really bored some time I may finish moving it into BlitzMax and try to do Mac/Linux versions.

And another thing! I did a lot of work on a somewhat strange RPG sort of thing over the summer called Project Eclipse. It entails trying to lead people off a dying spaceship. Except that you're an AI, so you can only manipulate them by communicating with them and controlling the local environment/robots. It's all very interesting and exciting, but right now it's also buggy and has a horrible exploding interface. And the artwork really kind of sucks, because I'm not much of a pixel artist and also had little time to divert from coding.

It's not really playable right now (though if you really want to look at it, you can find it here). I still feel pretty burned out on it; I made the mistake of trying to finish it for a convention, and then I had to do a three-day coding and mapping marathon to get it to even look like it might be working.

...and... that's about it, I guess! Guess I'd be interested in criticism and thoughts about Nacht. The latter game's not really in any state to be ready for criticism, but if you have suggestions for ways to make the interface suck less, I'd be glad to hear them.

glitch · Posts: 216

is that title dutch or german?

i played Nacht for a bit just now. i think it looks and sounds really nice. the HUD kinda clashes with the rest of the visuals though. otherwise it's all quite effective in conveying the atmosphere it aims for.

the gameplay didn't do much for me though. is it really just trial and error style clicking on black lines to see where they need to be clicked to catch fire or am i missing out on some awesome combo-system here?

i think as it is it would work much better with a lightgun. guns tend to make mindlessness less of an issue (just in games, ok?). guess that's not much of an option though.

maybe a bit more of a puzzle element? black and white bullets for black and white vines, and then some chaining system thrown in (make that dark-green instead of white i guess). dunno. the cool atmosphere just makes me want there to be something more in there than i found so far...

hyouko · Posts: 55

S'german, and I honestly don't know why it's in German. I didn't work on it entirely alone; the HUD was designed by a friend, and lightly touched up by me. Originally I wanted no colors whatsoever.

There's some strategy involved in the gameplay. Randomly moving your mouse about won't really help you hit the vines, since the more you move, the bigger the targetting reticule gets - as in real life, you have to hold fairly steady to get off an accurate shot. Of course, move/fire two slowly and the vines overrun the screen, and things are bad. There's also decisions to be made about where you want to attack the vines; you'll score more for destroying a lot of them at once in a combo, and for destroying them on certain areas of the screen, but when you're pressed for time it may be fastest to blast off the tip and stop them from growing. Finally, for every 500 points you earn, you get an air strike that lowers the little warning bar at the bottom, so earning mucho points becomes more and more important as you go on and get to the really fast-moving and numerous vines.

(takes breath)

The lightgun is a good idea, and if Nintendo ever opens up the Wii for indies like they've occasionally hinted, I'd love to try to port this to it. Among the other things I'd like to try:

* Rotating screen - have the edges of foliage and stars rotate to follow the curves and contours of the river. I didn't really have the math skills to do this back then. Might now.

* Implement the 'fruit mode' - In the original design, the danger/challenge came from nasty toxic 'fruit' that would fall from the vines onto the player character after they'd grown for a long enough time. Never got implemented, obviously; I had to go with something simpler due to time restraints.

* Balance it a bit more. I got off the easy way by making it a score-based game; as it goes on, player survival is more and more a matter of luck.