It’s really nice, and a nice touch that you can actually explore the minimap and see it grow as you visit new areas. As Britzl mentioned it’s really hard, I kept messing up the controls as well which is kind of frustrating… I actually had to use the ESC key to rage quit (a feature which I’ve been arguing for removing completely 
).
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I guess you got your wish, looks like esc doesn’t quit in 1.2.83!
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Hey, this looks really cool. I can’t wait to play it on mobile. Also, will there be a multiplayer?
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Unfortunately there probably won’t be multiplayer in the finished product, but I think I should be able to fit mobile support in there which should neat. However, I do have a neat future project in mind that will have multiplayer capabilities - one thing at a time though! It’ll probably have a devlog on here, don’t know when; Labyrinth is the priority for now.
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Woah, it’s been 18 days since the last update! I’m going to try some more formatting stuff, we’ll see how it goes.
Labyrinth devlog, update 14:
UI
Anyone who’s been following this devlog lately saw the beginnings of a minimap in the last update. Lots of aesthetic improvements have been made since then: the minimap now expands into an overlay which helps to make the tiles more visible. Since the beginning of development, I’ve been planning to implement ‘earthquakes’ which rearrange parts of the map to make navigation a little more challenging; earthquakes will most likely clear the minimap to add to the effect.
Boss fights
In the beginning of development I threw together a (sort of) boss enemy as practice to get used to Defold’s scripting system; I made a second pass on that and created the first true boss fight for Labyrinth.
From a physics perspective, the boss is pretty simple; it hovers around the room, drifting towards the player, and occasionally drops down to attack. The boss only does twenty damage on contact, after testing is done that’ll be bumped up to something a little more severe. Its behavior is pretty simple; on its own, the boss would be easy to defeat. To make things more interesting, every once in a while (when the boss loses a certain fraction of its health) the room’s one platform will narrow, and the boss will speed up a little; from personal experience I can say that even with the boss nerfed to only do a little damage on contact, this makes for a challenging fight.
From an aesthetic perspective, the background degrades as the fight progresses to add to the atmosphere. The UI also changes in a bit of an odd way: the status and minimap indicators fade away to leave only the boss’s health bar and your arsenal of weapons to fight it with.
Still not sure what to name this guy.
Tiers
I’ve talked about the gameplay and aesthetics and UI a lot, but in the 89 days this devlog’s been here for, I’ve only briefly touched on the actual “storyline” of Labyrinth. This is for a reason; this game isn’t meant to have a complicated plot, or really any sort of dialog even. Programming has been a little more natural for me than visuals; this game is meant as a chance to focus on the aesthetic side of game development without having to worry about a story or characters with narrative. However, like any game, Labyrinth does have a flow to its gameplay.
The maze is divided into ‘tiers’ which progress towards the bottom of the map. In each tier there are different puzzles to solve and quests, along with a slew of enemies to fight to collect new weapons, potions, (armor?), etc. Eventually the player will get their hands on a key. Tiers are separated by a stretch of lava that runs across the width of the maze - somewhere in the middle lies a way through. A key will get you in, but you’ll need a little more than that to make it to the other side.
Try it out!
This is my first significant project; I’ve never actually gotten this far with a game. Any suggestions, constructive criticism, bug reports, or just general feedback would be much appreciated!
Here are the demo builds:
Labyrinth (OS X)
Labyrinth (Windows)
Labyrinth (Linux)
Keys:
- WASD for movement
- M to open the minimap
- Arrow keys for the inventory (you’ll figure it out)
- Space to use an item
- B to warp to the boss fight, if you’re impatient and really want to try that out
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I think it looks great, love the simplistic art style! Always looking forward to more news, keep up the great work!
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Just a quick update:
The schedule for the next few months is filling up and starting to become overwhelming; amid some other responsibilities, I have chosen to scale down Labyrinth significantly. The final release will include more enemies, an improved inventory system, the usual UI such as a main menu, etc. and more coherent gameplay. Also, sound needs to be addressed. Unfortunately when I began this project I considered it a prototype - even after a recode, the core code was enough of a mess that every additional bit of functionality had to be clumsily stapled on and eventually the code base began to collapse under its own weight. This has been a valuable lesson; in the future more sufficient planning will be done before starting to piece together a project. While Labyrinth may not grow into what I initially hoped it to, it will still be an interesting exploration of some mechanics and UI experiments. I’m planning on continuing work with Defold, so don’t expect me to disappear anytime soon! That being said, I may continue being a little less active until I have some more time to work with. Thanks for following along.
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Devlog, update 15!
It’s a brief one, but kinda neat.
Labyrinth finally has a sort of menu UI:
This UI both serves as the startup ‘main’ menu and the menu shown when the game is paused. A ‘settings’ and ‘about’ module branch off of the main screen, for some simple toggle settings and a brief description of the game and how to play it. It’s nothing too fancy, but it looks alright and integrates well with the game - time gradually halts as the menu’s opened and closed!
A demo build is available here.
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Update 16! This one’s mainly about sound.
Like a good amount of game developers, I started out with a primary focus on programming and a lot less experience in art. After starting to dabble in digital art, simple pixel art and some sketching, I’ve started to also jump a little into work on audio as well. I found a tracker program and got to work; after some time I ended up with this little ambiance track for Labyrinth. It’s nothing too fancy, but I learned a lot making it.
The tracker I use, SunVox, is a really powerful tool but at the same time does nothing for you; it gives you a chance to learn how to make different sounds purely from scratch, using different waveforms, noise (static), modules, all that and eventually get an idea of how to mimic sounds you hear in commercial music:
I also made some simple sound effects for projectile and melee combat - I tried to mimic similar sound effects from other games, and I got close to what I was aiming for.
On a related note, the game will be released soon! I’m aiming for around the middle of August, but this month’s going to be really busy so as much as I want to I can’t make any promises.
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Lukas – as always, great stuff! It’s been great following this project from the start, and even with the downscaling looks like it will turn out to be a great game
Any hopes for an app store release in the future?
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I think so!
There’s of course a cost to distribute through the App Store, but I think it’ll be worth the fee to get the game displayed on an ‘official’ market like that.
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Woohoo, Update 17! Almost ready to release…
Save states
Proper save states are finally implemented in Labyrinth:
The player’s location, health, mana, inventory, and minimap exposure (in recent builds) are saved in a persistent folder and loaded upon startup. Right now saving can only be done manually through the menu; an autosave feature will be available (and maybe on by default) in the settings once I’m able to put the finishing touches on the UI.
Earthquakes
Part of the challenge of Labyrinth is navigating the maze without getting lost; to make this a little more difficult, ‘earthquakes’ happen from time to time which reset the minimap, taking away some information about your whereabouts:
Release
A lot of ‘fun’ behind-the-scenes work has to be done before release; UI revision, bugfixes, asset revision (serious work needs to be done on the ambiance, along with a ‘boss fight’ track), among other things. I’m aiming for a release on August 18 on itch.io, with an App Store release should follow shortly, but like any developer there’s a chance I could end up having to push it back a little. Since the state of the game is so close to release, demo builds won’t be available through Dropbox; they are available upon request, however.
As I’ve said earlier here, this is the first actual game I’ve brought near to release; if you have any feedback, now would be the time to give it! Any comments on the ambiance and sound effects would be really great; if it isn’t obvious, I don’t have much experience in that field and any pointers would be really helpful.
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After a couple long, long nights and several days of work, Labyrinth is finally released! Check it out on itch.io: Labyrinth
An App Store release is planned once I’m coherent enough to go ahead and start the app approval process. For the time being, the game is available on on three platforms via itch!
Thanks to those who supported the development of Labyrinth by offering their feedback and suggestions- since I had to divert focus on core features in order to make the release within some necessary time constraints, there were a few good opportunities for fine-tuning that were left unaddressed; I might continue development of Labyrinth a little longer (albeit at a slower pace) and push out an update.
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Congratulations on releasing! Just bought it and will play!
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Very nice! Congratulations on finishing the game! I just bought it as well. Gonna give it a go tonight!
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Il be buying Friday as thats payday
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This is such an inspiring thread and the game looks great mate! Will have a look later.
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Hey Lukas.
Nice work! Gratulations! …and for the release of cause!
…play play play…
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