[WIP] - 3D puzzle game, with cubes and cat

Hi,

I'd like to show here a game i'm -trying- to make!
It's a puzzle game about moving, stacking and teleporting cubes, while using doors with triggers and platforms, all that to build a path for a cat, Canela, to reach her box, from where she will access the next levels.

The cubes are the main pieces of the game, with four variations of different weights and resistances for loading and falls.

Still a lot to do, but please, if you have time to spend, help me with your critics!

Thanks for reading / watching / playing!
François

A video with some phases, just to have an idea what the game is about:

DEMO - [28/06/2016]
webGL demo

 

Great Concept! Im sure that a great variety of puzzles can be made from the simple game mechanic. I would suggest, however, to assign hot-keys to the arrow keys for slightly smother gameplay

 

Hi Ben,
Thanks for the quick feedback !

I want this game to be a mobile one if it's done some day, but as i am developping on my pc right now, i think your right, hotkeys would be great eheh...

I just don't know how to put that in place... I mean, it would be simple if there were only four directions possible for the cubes, but some (the light-brown ones) can be moved in 6 directions ! I have no idea how to make that simple, speaking of hotkeys...

There is also 12 possible directions for the character, but if i'm able to think logically, only 4 will be possible at a time... So it's easier to implement

For the cubes, right now you click one time on anyone and it turns highlighted, then if highlighted in green, meaning you can do something, one more click will put it in "edit mode" (move mode for now...). Then you click on one of the red arrows to move it. I am thinking in go directly in edit mode if able, and the hold pressed the red arrow to move. If not holded enough time, the cube should just start moving and going back quickly to its original position, allowing for cancel if misclicked for example... Not sure if it's understandable eheh.

And i have a simple question...
Does anyone know of a place where i can put a web version of my game, to be tested online..?
Thanks !

- EDIT -
no need to answer that, i've find how with dropbox,..

 

New version updated !
I change the manual camera to be smoother.
The selection is simpler too.
And if we want to move a cube, we have to stay pressed a little, which authorize to cancel the move by unpressing the button...
The link to the game is still in the first post.
Thanks for reading/trying !

 

Hi.

Here is my progress till now...

Hard time resolving the different situations, like when a cube can move to the left, but have another cube on it that can not, and so the first cube can't either... So many possibilities ith thoses cubes !!
I don't know i i will be able to solve all the problems, but till now it's nearly working !
I have to correct the way you move the player (the yellow cube) and a lot of thing yet, but i think i'm on some way...

Here a video of the current version, and a link to the game.
Thanks !

Game link :
http://dl.dropbox.com/u/1719065/towerGame/v2/towerWeb.html

 

Youve got something simple but elegantly done here. Once the graphics are a little more polished and you have some elements in there like timed blocks etc you will be onto something. I have no doubt this project done well will be received well by the public.

 

Gday mate - Nice game; I like it!

A few quick points:
1. Restart button would help!
2. You can get to an unplayable point if a black block lands on you. Suggestion - Either it can push you backwards or kill you (restart level)
3. Button controls for camera: Unsure if it is just my laptop or all laptops but unity games dont like touchpads while pressing a key; very hard to use the camera with touchpad

Overall - Very nice game mate. Good simple concept that can open up lots of gameplay options! Run with it!!!

 

@ hellraizerhhh
That's really encouraging, thanks !
What do you mean by timed cubes ? is it like the unstable one i did, which fall after 1 or 2 seconds ? I'm not sure i've understood, and i want to understand every suggestion i receive !
I pretend to have some kind of interface showing how many left moves each cube have, and i want some kind of "area of influence" for the mage character, for him to have to be near the blocks he want to interact with...
I hope to be successfull in making some more spells too, like teleporting, transmuting cubes, create an destroy cubes, etc.
For the graphics, i'm thinking of some kind of natural tower, with cubes of earth, grass, rocks for the heavy one, perhaps clouds for the lifts, etc. But i won't start this part before having something functional for the gameplay !

@ MickM
Thanks a lot too !
When i started this game, i wasn't sure if it could make a good one, but I was liking it, which is i think the most important eheh... I choose this simple concept to be sure or close to the certitude that i can do it eheh ! I won't make an MMORPG alone !
Here at home i've already made a wasd interface coupled with on screen buttons for the cam, to follow your suggestion.
As i said it's intended to be for IOS (i hope), so i wasn't paying to much attention to that, but it's really better for testing anyway, so thanks !
But to respond to your quesiton, my laptop with touchpad is working great here...
For the unplayable points, there are a lot i think, and yes it will be corrected ! i was thinking to be able to go back 2 or 3 steps when "dying", but i think i haven't the knowledge to do this, so for now, i will stick to making checkpoints and restart options !

Anyway, thanks a lot.
Now, back to coding..!
Can't wait to start texturing/modeling/animating this thing !

 

Quick update, testing collisions for the lift.
Nearly working, but i messed up my code eheh !
I'm barely able to read it now... Next step is cleaning before continuing !
Thanks to whoever taking interest in all this !

 

This is coming along nicely, keep it up!

 

I think this is looking good so far. I know this is a early test build, but you asked for comments and ideas, so..

I think you need to get the controls just right for a touch screen. Players are comfortable swiping and scrolling on touch, so get the camera feeling like they are used too by allowing swiping to rotate and scroll the camera.

Personally I'd like to see a cool cartoon character running and climbing over your blocks. You could add a lot of life to one in this environment with silly climbing and stumbling animations. Perhaps a few scared animations of him/her/it looking over the edge of a high drop as a idle animation. Even a cube with arms and legs could work really well.

One thing that annoyed me in the web build was that the controls where not consistent. You click once on the main character cube, but have to click and hold on the other blocks. I would want them both to be the same, probably just a simple click to move things.

Overall I like it so far, nice simple concept that would do well on a touch device if you nail the controls and the graphic style.

 

Thanks GeneBox !

@ Gnimmel
For the controls, i totally agree ! I'm waiting for a present i did to myself : Iphone... Not received it yet, when i have it in hand, i will invest in the one-year devKit from apple and start playing...

For the animations, this is the part i'm the most impatient to beging ! I'm an animator in my professional life and really want to start playing with this !
I'm still not sure what the avatar will be, but for the environment, i think it will be cube of earth, rocks, clouds, with grass, flowers and simple natural things.
I'm thinking in games like Equinox, Zelda, Minecraft, Golden Sun, Fez when i dream of those cubes eheh.

For the controls not being consistent, i also agree... I'm not happy at all with them... I made the holding style movement for the cubes to be able to "change your mind" or cancel a move quickly, because they will have a limited numbers of movements, but i don't like what i've done til now... Perhaps i could put a confir-move button... I still don't know. But i have a preference for the one-click control, or more generally, the most intuitive control (kind of obvious eheh). I will think better !
For the character, i think i will throw away those arrows, and put some luminous circle or something like this in the places he could go. And of course, he won't teleport himself like this, i want him to climb, jump, walk and die !

So thanks for your comments, they are deeply analized here eheh !

 

Hi
Just to show the progression...
Lot of errors rectified, others not eheh !
The code is a lot cleaner, so i will start implementing and changing things now.

Here is the last version of the web game, with new controls and better selection (i think :s) :
http://dl.dropbox.com/u/1719065/towerGame/v3/towerWeb.html

And another video :

 

Hi again,

This time i tried to make a better camera.
You still can move it with WASD and holding "Q" to orbit a little, or you can use the buttons on screen, but now you can also just rotate clicking and holding the left mouse button (if not clicking on something interactive).

I also made the resolution in iphone dimensions, to better see how i will build my interface later.

I also tried to show what i'm thinking in terms of level design.
I think the player will have to pass levels, and each level will reward him in some way.
Here in this exemple, i've just put some simple cubes, who you can move but are affected by gravity, then when you end the first "level", you find a "power" to move, now, also the heavy blocks.
I think there will be powers for heavy blocks, for floating blocks, for falling or jumping perhaps, and destroying and/or creating blocks, and activate teleporters.
As one can see, i'm long from having decided what i will put in here eheh...

Following a video and the game link :

(EDIT : the particles showing the possible movements for the character are horribles, i know Will change that later !)

webGame : http://dl.dropbox.com/u/1719065/towerGame/towerWeb.html

Thanks for your time.

 

I enjoyed playing what you have so far. Keep up the good work!

One thing I noticed is that the heavy blocks flash like the light blocks, but you can't interact with them until you reach the top of the first level. It was a little confusing at first trying to tell what moves I actually had available. Also, it seems as though you only get a certain number of moves, but there's nothing telling you how many moves you have left with the light blocks. Anyway, cool game - it shows a lot of promise!

 

I just watched the video, and I like the mechanics, it could be turned into something pretty cool, keep up the good work.

 

Hi.
just to show the progress till now.
The interface is really just to start thinking of how i will put it all together...
I was thinking about some icons in the bottom of the screen for the different powers the player will gain, and click and those icon could explain what they do... I don't know yet.

I will try to continue posting always the current video and game version, so here it is.

The web game:
http://dl.dropbox.com/u/1719065/towerGame/towerWeb.html

And the video :

Thanks for watching/playing, C&C always greatly appreciated !
Kerg

@carljohnfred
Thanks !
I tried to correct what you underlined.
The lights cubes had infinites movements, that's why you couln't saw their numbers of moves left !
But that was a bad idea, now they are the same as the heavy block, but will break if falling from too much high !

@MD_Reptile
Thanks too ! That's encouraging

 

Hi,
Back to work for two months now... A lot harder to work on this project !
And as i was starting learning programmation and unity, it's also hard to remember and dive back in my code and unity eheh.

I tried, slowly, to start some visual work.
I first made some tests modeling and texturing the blocks with details (displace, mesh detailing, grass textures with alpha, etc.), but i soon figured that it would be an insane amount of work for so few time available and my only person...

So i decide to try a "minecraft" approach, with 6 polygons cubes and 32X32 pixels by sides textures.
I'm not really happy yet, and i really would like to see how it could be with shadows and more refined effects, but for now, it is (in my opinion !) much more better than it was when it was all grey... And it makes more pleasant the whole process ! (I'm saying that because i said first that i would not go to the graphical part before beeing done with coding and gameplay...)

Anyway, here is a first attempt at texturing :
Please critic !
Thanks,
Kerg

 

Seems like a very interesting concept. I like it! And it will work well with mobile too. Good job, and keep it up.

 

Thanks AustinK !
Good comments are like working code : it helps a lot to stay motivated !

 

Hi !

So, after an entire year doing everything but working on this project (mainly for work reason...), i want to continue updating this thread...

I choose to start from scratch, as i am coding this time in C#, and had some ideas while i wasn't working at it.
For now it will be a cat, trying to catch a bird (which haven't been done yet).
The player must still create a path for the cat to go up a tower made from cubes...

The main changes are in the movable cubes : Now they all respond to gravity, have a weight, a max height for falling without breaking and a maximum "charge threshold" (i don't know how to call it).
There are four types of cube : iron, stone, wood, glass, with respectively weights of 4, 3, 2, 1, max fall heights of 3, 2, 1, 0, and max charge equal to their respective weights...
Yes, it's kind of confusing, that why for now i have an ugly interface showing the numbers when a cube is selected...
But i hope that with a quick tutorial, it will all make sense...
Like : a glass cube can't fall at all, it's really fragile, but we can slide on top of it another glass cube (which weight is 1). If we try to put a wood cube on top of it, it will break.

I've also added teleporters, platforms and doors with triggers (which aren't present in this test version).
I've started to do some texturing/animation/modeling, as i needed a break from coding, but it's all in a big WIP !

I would really like to have as many critics as possible, some please, if you have some time... Be harsh !

One more thing, about the current playable prototype : The way you move the cubes and the cat is with WASD, you just have to click the cat/cube to select it first. It is really badly done, as you can rotate the camera around the level, but the direction won't update from the cam POV, so it's easy to be in a situation where you should click left to go right, etc... I'm not focusing on that for now, as my goal is to build that game for iphone firstly.
The camera is moved by holding the left mouse button and moving, and you can offset the height of the cam with Q and E.
The cubes for now will fall on top of the cat without doing anything, as i don't know yet what sould happened... (should the cat die ? Die an ressurect ? (9 lives...), jump aside to avoid the falling cube (hard to code for me , i don't know yet.

Thank you for the time reading this, and sorry for the length.
Kerg.

Web game :
https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/1719065/towerGame/v7/v7.html

Video :

 

some evolution, just to keep updating this thread...

Thanks for watching.
Kerg.

 

Hi!
Wow, it's ok, only more than 2 years without posting...

I'd like to share again my work on a personnal project i'm making since 2013!
It's been a long road from the begginning, as i tried to learn C# in the midway (the main cause of my long pause here, learning how to use coroutines, delegates, how to implement pathfinding, undo system, and that kind of things...)
I'm still far far away from being proeficient at coding, but at least i discovered a whole new (logical) world, that i wasn't aware of with my artistic background!

But anyway...
I would like here and now to share my progress and put the link of my development page (facebook, i hope it's ok to post external links?), as i put there links to the demo of my game, some videos and some screenshots.

The game changed a lot since the first builds, and i'm really happy having this page to see how it evolved (although i can also see how much i changed my mind, being gameplay-centered or art-centered!!)
The actual version of the game have a tutorial, in three languages (english, french and portuguese), and 11 playable levels, so if you are curious and would like to deliver some critics, please, by all means, play it and do so!
Also, as you will see if by any chance you try the game, some things are still crude, mainly the audio part... Hope to find a way to correct that soon!

I think i've wrote too much, so here the links!
Thanks for your time and happy development to all!
François.

Here the link of the last webGL version:
webGL demo

Here the link of the development page:
facebook game development page

And here a screenshot, from some months ago, but the visual didn't change so much!

 

Just updating a new video with some teleporters!

 

I think it's very commendable that you're still going at it with this project.
As a small indie developer myself I know it can be hard to keep working on a project that only seems to be supported by yourself.
Just wanted to tell you that you deserve some praise for being so persevering.

Your game looks very nice and fun to play. Even more so for a mobile platform.

Don't forget to keep marketing that bad boy! It would be a waste if your hard work wouldn't be noticed simply because nobody knows it's there.
Go get them, tiger!

 

Thank you so much
I need to look at how to market it, really!
I have no idea how to beside posting it on all the dev blogs I've found!!
If you have some directions to get me it is really welcome!
Thanks again for your kind words.

 

It's pretty new to me too. I just started with a twitter and instagram account and I've also started a free website via wix.com.

This guide helped me very well.

I hope it helps!

 

Thanks you, will take a look!

 

Well done, really nice to read the evolution through the thread.
A really nice and fun looking game, elegant
Keep it up!

 

Thank you Obo Shape, really.
It's sad i haven't posted more during those 3 years, i would have loved to see and remember better how it evolved!