Icarus Saves The World

Dev diaries
#1

Hi guys.

I’ve got a promise that I owe to my 14 year old self that I’ve kind off put for a few decades. I was certain back then that one day I’d make video games. Thanks for providing the tools to do so…

Wow, this has been really really hard (possibly the hardest thing I’ve ever done. Hey, I’ve lived a charmed life thus far…), but it’s also been very very rewarding. Two things became readily apparent when I started out this adventure. 1. I didn’t know how to program 2. I didn’t know how to draw/animate. I can do both of those only a little better now. I’ve still got a ways to go before I’m happy with my overall skill level. The main thing is that I’ve begun.

Anyways, I wanted to make something very simple to start out with, just so I could get a handle on the game development process. I had recently discovered Jason Rohrer, and in the ultimate act of flattery I stole, um, I mean borrowed his idea for a memento mori type game. His is called Passage, where no matter what you do after 5 minutes you die. In many ways this was a throw back to old school games that just kept getting harder and harder until you met your inevitable demise. I’m in good company.

So, I cobbled together the following little snippet as a guiding concept for the game. I made it with java actually, which seemed like a good idea at the time. I started out the year with the goal of completing one game and began by studying Java Head First which was a really good book, but I don’t know if java is a good first programming language. Thank goodness I discovered defold. Lua is a pleasant breeze compared to what I was doing originally.

Well it’s getting late here. So I’ll leave you with this. A game about Icarus who does end up flying too close to the sun, but has the chance to redeem himself in the process TBC…

11 Likes
#2

This is brilliant!

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#3

any chance for html5 playable soon? Hope this was part of the promise you owe :stuck_out_tongue:

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#4

Looks cool!

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#5

haha indeed a prototype version should be ready within a week or so, cheers

#6

Thanks :grinning:

#7

I was thinking about maybe making this an (non) endless runner which in theory wouldn’t be too hard after completing some of the tutorials here. I didn’t really plan things out too well though and the game evolved in a stream of consciousness kind of way.

The story is that Icarus gets carried away after his dad gives him wings and just keeps flying higher and higher into the sky. He inadvertently gets wrapped up in a cosmic battle where the gods are angry with humans, because people have encroached on their territory. There was this vague idea of the mythic and secular worlds colliding, with space debris (like from the movie gravity) polluting the heavens and Icarus having to clean up in one way or another. I’m still figuring out the details…

The game mechanics ended up with Icarus being able to use his “magical” feathers (and wax, I guess) to freeze the space debris and use them to take on the gods. So this is almost like a very strange Raiden type shooter. As I sit here and type this, I’m not sure if my attempts at originality/novelty will translate to a great gaming experience but it was fun coming up with this stuff. And, if a plumber can imbibe magic mushrooms, invade a fantasy land, rescue princesses and take the world by storm why not let your imagination run wild for a bit?

Anyways, here’s some of the iterations the game’s been through. Next time I’ll put the prototype up. Cheers guys, happy programming!

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#8

Indeed! I’m looking forward to try your game!

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#9

Here’s some screen caps of me experimenting with different ideas over time. I took some inspiration from Undertale, where there are nasty and nice ways to deal with enemies…

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#10

Hmm, just saw that there’s a game jam going. So I’m going to enter. Looks like I’ve got a day to finish this thing. I’ve got a prototype ready to go. Just gonna finish off the alternate endings quickly…

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#11

Heh heh. Looks good, looking forward to playing it in 2 days. Like the greek mythology version of “1942.”

I’m probably gonna miss the jam deadline with my game :frowning: but I’m still gonna play the p**p out of all the entries!

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#12

Thanks Ryan, I’m entering to get a feel for the whole game development process from start to finish/idea to distribution. Does the project have to be all done to enter? What are you working on?

#13

Well, this is my first jam since i am not a dev, artist, designer, etc. My understanding is that you upload whatever you want. It’s just a “showcase,” really, something for fun.

I’m working on a space themed “choplifter” type game. You can see some little bits on the itch jam site under “HMSS: The Void.”

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#14

cool, i’ll check it out

#15

No, submit what you have! Although I’m guessing that it will at least partly be judge based on “completeness”.

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#16

Hi britzl, I’ve tried to bundle this game into an html5 application. Is it the index.html file that’s supposed to allow me to play the game in a browser? Because all that does when I click on it is display the defold logo in a tab. If I build it for html5 instead it works on my browser (I’m using chrome). Sorry I don’t really know how to get this up and running. Cheers

#17

I have the same problem. Chrome doesn’t start the game if you just click index.html (you should upload it to hosting). Try Firefox.

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#18

Thanks den, I’m not sure about uploading for hosting is exactly, so I’ll look it up, but first I’ll give Firefox a try :+1:

#19

The problem is due to Chrome trying to be more secure than you want in this case, and restricts the bundled JavaScript to load the data from disk.

If you have python installed, you should be able to run a python -m SimpleHTTPServer from the bundled directory, then you should be able to try the game in Chrome by navigating to http://localhost:8000.

You could also try it directly in Firefox, since last I checked they weren’t as restrictive as Chrome in this regard.

2 Likes
#20

Thanks Sven. It does seem to be working in firefox. I just wanted to make sure that it runs before I submit it for the corona jam

1 Like