"Day 15": Desert Collect level done

I'm done with Day 15 and I'm about a third finished with Day 16, the Desert Escape mission.

Day 15 (Collect)

Day 16 (Escape)

Progress is going by very speedily. I'm getting a mission done about 1-2 days, so I should have extra time at the end to polish and hammer out any bugs. By my calculations, I have about 3.3 days to finish each mission to meet the deadline.

"Days 13 and 14": Desert Biome features new obstacles and game elements

Day 13 and 14 are finished, the first two levels for the Desert Biome. As for every new Biome, new dangers were introduced, the timed spikes and timed arrows. The timed spikes pop up at a set time and pop back down; timed arrows shoot out arrows rhythmically in the direction it's pointing. It's actually really fun to design a level with!

In the Beach Biome, the flying platform (horizontal and vertical) was introduced.

Day 13:

Day 14:

Day 14's Skin Squishing Errand is similar to groundhog bashing, except with Skin and Fuzzlian ninjas. Smash 45 Skin ninjas, but be sure not to hit your own Fuzzlians!

"Day 12": Last Beach Biome level completed

Day 12 has been completed, the last Beach mission. This Errand was dubbed Catcher in the Fruit. I feel it was slightly lazily made, but I don't feel how it can be put together otherwise. I don't want the player buried underneath a hoarde of black blocks, after all.

In this Errand, as blocks fall from the sky, you avoid being crushed to collect 45 fruits in 2 minutes. As time goes along, the blocks will eventually form annoying towers over which there might be fruits.

I'm glad to have finally finished the Beach Biome. Now I can move onto the Desert environment!

"Days 10 and 11": Progress update and Beach Collect and Escape levels finished

Day 10 and Day 11 are finished; Collect and Escape. This means I'm almost finished with the Beach Biome! Wow, this has been going by quickly and smoothly.

I don't feel like posting any pictures, since it pretty much look similar to previous screenshots.

Here's a status update though:

v.0.0.3.2
June 27, 2010
_______________________________________
Overall completion:               [====------] 40%
Level completion:                   [===-------] 36%
Game design progress:          [=========-] 90%
Graphical progress:                [=======---] 71%
Audio progress:                       [===-------] 33%

I also made a few changes to speed up the game by quite a bit. It was occasionally laggy prior to the changes.

Design: All Biome backgrounds finished

All of the backgrounds. Current build of the game and all resources are at 0.0.3.0

Jungle v2

Jungle v1

Beach

Desert v2

Desert v1

Mountainous

Core v2

Core v1

Aether

Hell

EDIT: 6-27-10 New Jungle v2 and edits for Hell

"Day 9": Beach-themed volleyball minigame

What do you do when a fuzzy ball is bashing you over the head? You bash it back to where it came from. Ha..ha..ha?

Anyways, I decided on the minigame for Day 9's Errand, replacing the original plan for making it Free Fall (fall 120 seconds while dodging dangers and collecting fruit). The minigame is called Fuz Beach Volleyball...yes, it's a mouthful. I realized I could just name it Beach Fuzball or Fuz Beachball or just Fuz Volleyball, but too bad. Go away.

Fun fun. Still not finished, despite that it looks like it is. A few bugs in the collision of the ball and AI, but once that's worked out, it's complete!

"Days 7 and 8": Jungle Biome finished; Beach Biome beginning

Day 7 revisited and Day 8 completed! Day 7 Errand: V.I.P. has been changed and fitted with a better destructible terrain engine and Day 8 Imperial is finished. Day 8 is the first Beach mission.

Day 7:

Day 8:

Floaty platforms!

Next on the list is Day 9 Errand. I'm not exactly sure what I should do for this errand--I currently have all 12 errands planned out, but I'm reconsidering a few due to how fun they would be and their replayability (both if the player has to retry if they fail or if the player wants to replay the minigame).

"Day 7": Rough minigame concept

The Jungle Biome is complete! I'm glad to say the jungle environment of the game is finished--all 7 missions.

I'm back from my short vacation and I've made a simple minigame. I may revisit it to make it a better destructible terrain, but for now, the engine works fine.

I've also realized I can make the backgrounds 100% size instead of the 50% blurry size that I used earlier. I think it will look fine and I never really wanted a blurry background to start with, so I'll see how this works out.

Now, I can work on the next Biome, the Beach. It'll be the second Imperial level =O

"Day 6": First Escape level completed

Day 6 is finished, mostly.

The first Escape mission is complete! I haven't been working as actively in the past few days, which is probably a mistake since I've been underestimating the date limit for the competition (still feels like 3 and half months). This is basically a horizontally oriented Imperial level except that the player will die more by spears and the rocks than the spikes in the level. For the whole level, a huge wall of rocks will come tumbling toward you and spears will constantly fall from above to kill you.

I think most players can expect dying at least 80 times in each level :P 

The next level is an Errand mission. Want to know how the order works in each Biome?

1. Imperial

2. Errand

3. Collect

4. Escape

5. Errand

The next Errand mission will be called V.I.P. Bombs will fall from the sky for 2 minutes in a small arena as you dodge them. Terrain will be destructible, so this'll be interesting.

"Day 5": First Collect mission completed!

First Collect level is complete (I guess)! Day 5 is down!

v0.0.0.2.5 means Day 5, a Collect mission, is finished. If none of you read the second post since the blog's creation, Collect is a game mode where you try and collect 50 or more fruits and reach the end before the timer ends! 4 minutes on the clock.

And I will now begin progress on Day 6, the first Escape level. Again, if nobody read said post, Escape is a game mode where you try to outrun a wall of rocks and dodge spears thrown by Tribe Skin, Tribe Fuz's rival tribe. This will be a doozy to develop (to me) but it will be fun. This whole game is fun to make--level designing is fun to test out, minigames are fun to design, and the game modes are fun to polish. I just hope the game is as fun for the players as it is for me.

Collect:

The yellow arrow designates the direction from the player to the finish. It shows up on all 3 standard game modes, Imperial (classic platforming), Collect, and Escape. It'll probably be pretty helpful in all of those modes.

Teaser trailer featuring early gameplay!

A Youtube video has been posted showing the active version on June 8, 2010 build 0.0.0.2.4

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U_O9DvZ2s4g

It has a few short high-quality clips of the tutorial, first Imperial level, and the first Errand (Fruit Hero)! As of June 11, 2010 though, the current build is 0.0.0.2.5.

Enjoy!

"Day 4": Guitar Hero-like minigame

Fruit Hero, Day 4, being worked on

Hey! I've worked on this minigame for 30 minutes or so now and I think it looks pretty good and might be fun to play after I polish it up and add sound effects to it.

Fruit Hero is pretty much Guitar Hero or Rock Band except that the fruits just rain down upon you like from the wrath of a spazzy god. 240 fruits in 2 minutes...can you do it?

That's all :)

"Day 3": First traditional platforming level

Day 3 (first Imperial mission is complete) 

Work is going to start on Day 4, which is an Errand mission (a minigame) There are 12 minigames in Around the World in 33 Days, and 18 fun platforming action--the variety is meant to mix the gameplay up.

300...was a good-ish movie

I'm having loads of fun making these levels. I'm putting random jokes as it comes into my brain. I want to see how my first Errand mission goes. Every Errand mission is different, so it will require unique images and programming each time.

Gubye!

Design: Establishing level design patterns

Imperial, Errand, Collect, Escape. I'm now working on the first Imperial level (if the Tutorial one doesn't count :P)

Batman Begins was a good-ish movie.

Finished control menu:

Au revoir ;)

Design: Creating the menu, story, and tutorial

Menu, story, and tutorial level are finished

Although the menu and the tutorial level is marked as finished for now, they are subject to changing as I continue working on the project. What this means so far is, though, is that I have finished a robust menu (aesthetics, level selecting, INI loading, options, credits, help, etc.) and 2 out of the total 33 days.

Since pictures are worth a thousands words, I wouldn't dare write an essay to explain what these images do:

Menu

Game controls

Biome (area) select screen

Story screenshot 1

Story screenshot 2

TUTORIAL LEVEL: