For a while now, i've been in between developing and not developing this game of mine (Grimorum).
In these last months, I decided to take a more serious approach to the project (since my college graduation as a doctor).
In this latest iteration, I've added a few new elements to the level editor, such as different platforms (still working on those)
Furthermore, I've added some power ups-which is the main topic of this article.
As far as habilities go - I've added 8 of them.
The thing that's been keeping me busy lately is my observation of some other projects. I've seen some quite good games - from the programming point of view. As I've been making my game using only C++ and Java, on a custom built engine of my own, I consider it an interesting project... at least from the programmer's POV.
(my level editor in action. Written in Java)
All of that kept me thinking. Is my project only appealing from that POV ? If that proves to be so, How could I make it appealing to other people (not just programmers who want to talk about how I am doing it) ? I've added those power ups because I always loved this kind of thing in games such as castlevania and metroid. Also, in the hopes that it would possibly make the whole concept of the game more interesting.
(Yep. you can cast lightning in this game :P )
One aspect I've been trying to consider lately is the metaphorical side of a game. I mean, you could try to understand the whole digital experience of a game in many ways... For instance, a shooting game could be seen as "pointing and clicking" - but it's the metaphor that adds to it... The thought of who you "pretent" to be and what you "pretend" to be doing...
Thus, the metaphorical aspect.
That, perhaps, is one of the core elements in making a game appealing, i am led to believe nowadays.
(also, you can run a lot faster with this speed power up)
(this is my current homescreen, on iOS devices)
In the spirit of adding to the metaphorical aspect of this game, I've attempted to make all powers as different as possible from each other, and -yes, you've seen it in the image. All the power names are in latin. The curious ones may even google them... I hope so, at least.
Well, that's it for the day...
Here is a development video of the gameplay so far, in a test tutorial level :
