Hello, and welcome to Game Of Shapes! Firstly, I will introduce myself as well as my partner. I am Dawson McMillan, the programmer and project manager for Game Of Shapes. My partner is Scott Ventrello, and he is doing all the art for the game, as well as managing the development of our website and launcher. Secondly, I will provide some details about Game Of Shapes. Game Of Shapes is being developed in Love2D, a game engine that doesn't have many big games to it's name, despite being very powerful yet very simple. We are scripting in the only language that Love recognizes, which is Lua, and using Sublime Text Editor as an IDE. Ok, enough of the technical stuff, more info on the actual game! Game Of Shapes is about two best friends, a square and a circle named square and circle, respectively. Together, the two friends need to survive in a world full of rogue shapes, constantly trying to kill them! The world is very large, and is full of puzzles and challenges for the player to rage at!
More info on the game as we come up with a story!
Progress Report
Since this is the first update, the progress report is a bit weak, but we do have good news! First off, we have simple collision detection, as well as gravity implemented. We have the 2 characters as well as a way to control them. So far there is no jumping, or player-player collision, but since Love2D has no out-of-the-box collision system, I have to code the entire collision system myself, and this is quite daunting for me as I haven't had to do this before. No worries though, I know exactly what I want the collision system to accomplish, and will be one of the first things I finish coding.
Art-wise we don't have much progress besides the art for IndieDB, however environment and player art is in the works! We know that a big part of a game is how it looks and this just won't cut it:
The environment will receive a nice background, as well as a grass texture, however the players will stay as they are, considering this is a Game Of Shapes, and not a Game Of HD Character Textures! But just in case you want a closer look at our characters, here you go:
The circle is made up of 12 segments, or sides, and will eventually roll on the ground rather then slide. I'm sure you know how many segments a square consists of, so I won't bother explaining :P
The Future
For the next few updates you will see the implementation of jumping, camera scrolling, physics, enemies, a menu, and possibly some early puzzles! We hope to accomplish all of this before we hit an alpha release, and plan to release an alpha within 2 and a half months. You will also see some background images as well as some terrain/environments being implemented. The collision system and player controls will improve greatly in the next handful of updates, as they are the core of our game.
As for after alpha is released, we don't like to plan that far ahead, in case something goes sour in the process, but we do have a few ideas:
- Sidequests
- Building things
- Survival elements
You may be thinking, "A puzzle platformer with building and SURVIVAL ELEMENTS?!?!" Yes, it sounds crazy, but have you ever heard of such a game? Didn't think so. We are hoping to combine these gameplay elements smooth enough to create HUGE replayability and everlasting gameplay!
As I said before, we don't like to plan ahead to far, but we are always open to suggestion!
Thanks for taking the time to read the first update for Game Of Shapes, I hope you stick around to watch the game grow! From Dawson and Scott, we hope you all have a Shapely day!
