BARO'S SOFTBARO BY BARO!

In the programming part of the game, I haven’t been done nothing relevant lately. Fixing things here and there and rewriting the map creating function only to be rewritten when I do the map creation tool.

Also, demons

I’ve been doing some sprites. Front views of some characters, specially the demons. This is useful because it helps me realize what I should implement.

For example, check he big one. He’s 52×58, so its sprite will be 64×64, which is the maximum size allowed. All the animations will be limited to that square. Not too hard, but, is this the bigger an enemy can get? Answer is no. Bosses will be bigger. Probably other critters can be bigger. It’s easy as pie to associate each character with two different sprites, but I’m debating whether it could be a better idea, at least in some cases, to make enemies that are formed by various enemies. This is common in bosses in most games out there. Then I remembered that first designs of that big demon include a comically big hammer. So I could make an enemy that “carries” another enemy which is his weapon, and doesn’t collide with him (or with anything at all and just “harms”). I could go talking all day but well, the point is that design is going along and each aspect of the design helps in the design of the rest.

Also, story

I’ve been writing the “script” of the game. nothing much to comment here, I’ll drop one of the scenes from the introduction, which will also work as a “tutorial of the basics

-> PLAYER JUMPS THE BOXES AND REACHES THE INNER SIDE OF THE GATE
>>The gate is a double door. Between them there’s a gadget that opens it.

-A lizard follows Pol. Pol looks at it. The lizard stops and then flees

POL: “And now… I am a Trojan Horse”
BARO: “Interact with things by pressing B. Try that gadget on the wall.”

->PLAYER DOES

POL: “Hello there! It’s me! Open Up!”
JULIE: “Pol… come on, don’t act so cool. It was me who wrote the code that is opening the door.”
USUI: “And I built the AkiPad you’ve plugged in the lock.”
BEAR: “You just plugged it in the wall, bro…”
POL: “Come on, guys, Let me enjoy this!”
COMPUTER: “SYSTEM EXCEPTION : UNIDENTIFIED SCRIPT”
POL: “Ouch, I think it broke.”
BEAR: “Y’know what I’d do, matey?”
POL: “Punch it?”
BEAR: “I would sooo punch it!”
USUI: “Nooo! Don’t!”
-pause
USUI: “The poor thing!”
-music stops. longer pause. music resumes
POL: “I love my job!”
BARO: “Pol’s specialty is not punching, but you can give it a try by pressing X”
->PLAYER PUNCHES THE COMPUTER LOCK
- Doors open

Also, that’s all by now folks

Yep.

Since I’ve already talked about the engine in my first, long post, I’ll talk a bit about the story before getting deeper in the engine.
I warn ya, this post will be a bit hard to understand because the story is messy.
Also, if you are a religious fanboy that doesn’t believe in evolution, you may not like points of the plot.

Brief:

You are Pol Keine, a dude who has a tail from a dead anthropomorphic racoon person from another universe, which lets you transformate into a variety of things, namely stone, cannon-hands, frogs, birds, chameleons, bulls, bear-gods…

Story:

In year 2548, the Earth is different from what we know now. One day, a tyrant decided to bomb Middle East, supposedly as a solution to the wars in that are, which got really out of hand. However, the bomb used caused a so big impact the continents moved and rearranged, destroying almost all civilization in the process, as well as many animal species like -it seems- bears. After that, that tyrant took on the world and became the ruler of all survivors, and it was like that for three generations. Now, his grandson, current world dominator, is making a bomb similar to his grandfather’s, for unknown reasons, and a troupe of youngsters from the city of Lowheaven are trying to sabotage it. They are:
Julie Bourge: expert in software
Usui Akiyama: expert in hardware
Bear Sampson: expert in tupperware, and a very strong young man.
Pol Keine: dude. Wears a cap. He’s also you.

But one day, during one of many stealth sabotage mission, something goes wrong: a strange being captures Pol and when he wakes up the next morning, he has a racoon tail. Turns out that the being that captured him is a racoon-person (also called Tanukis) from a universe where instead of apes, racoons evolved to be intelligent. The tail Pol wears was from an old Tanuki hero, and, like Tanukis (and every evolved-to-be-intelligent species with tail), will let him transform into many things, although he has to learnt to use it first. Now, with that Tanuki tail, defeating the tyrant will be easier, but turns out there’s a worse enemy behind them: In other universe, where goats evolved and are now the demons, those demons want to control all the universes (also known as the Polyverse) and steal other’s tails so they can too transform because them, like humans, have been taken the tail because of their evilness.

This needs a bit more background, maybe. (Those may sound more coherent when explained slowly during the game)

On a side note, bears are the actual gods and creators of the original universe. In the beginning, there was only one universe, but, in the age of dinosaurs, a radioactive meteorite fell from the sky killing all the lizards. The radioactive impact also caused the universe to split into a handful of different parallel universes, and in each one of them, a different mammal developed, evolved, and became intelligent like their gods, and were able to transform their body using their tail. But some of these animals turned out to be evil, so the bear gods took their tail away banning them from the transformation.

So that was a neat introduction, what then?

All that is fixed is that at the beginning of the game you will beat the Tyrant’s butt, learn about the actual enemy (demons) and go on a quest to kick their ass too. I’ve also planned some characters and situations, but it’d be impossible to speak about them without more context. Also I have planned things that would be spoilers so I’ll keep them to myself.

Something else about the game itself, gameplay…?

Apart from what I had mentioned in the first post, there’s also some things to know:
Like in the Zelda games where you had to collect the items to use them, you’ll learn your transformations progressively, opening new choices, paths and such.
You will begin (after the tutorial where you’re just Pol and have a lame-ass punch) with a stone transformation. This will let you make giant-stone-hand punches and transform into an statue, for stealth, weight and who knows. This will be explained as an instinctive reaction for self-defense.
The game will develop in Earth, but in different Universes. you’ll travel from universe to universe meeting many different evolved species, and different critters, which may be the typical “monsters” but they’re just wild animals. (For example, in human universe you may find coyotes).
Animals don’t get you money. You get food from them. Food is essential since the transformations will require energy (equivalent to mana, magic, etc in other games), and after spending energy you may want to recover using food. Some foods may also have other effects, and probably I’ll make it so you can also cook your foods to get other (better) effects. Also, you will sell your foods like any other valuable to earn money. So basically you’ll make your living as a hunter/cook.