Saturday, July 25, 2009


I dinked around and took a bunch of screenshots! Before I get to that, though, I'm getting a little bugged by the dirt textures, so I'm wondering which way to take it. If you have any other suggestions, feel free to say. Also, thanks a ton for the HUD feedback.


Say hi to the Appleseeds, too.

Here are the screens. Mostly in the plains, and there's a ton of them.


Title screen the first time you boot up.


Taking your first steps.


Heading back from the west.


Hold on, we have a picture of the island.

Press enter to view your files. Files are things like maps, pictures, charts, paper scraps, and so on with clues for how to proceed.


?! Well, It is a picture of the island.

From here, you can zoom in and pan the file around for a better look.


Moving on.


They're in the walls!

Here OO is using the quick throw. It's a good way to defend yourself from unexpected attacks.



There's plenty of them.


Aw jeeze.

When your hearts run out, you still have one last shot to get to safety. Take another hit when your hearts are gone though, and you're done for.


Let's dig and let's dig.

If you're in doubt of whether or not you can dig somewhere, check the toughness meter
in the upper right (next to the enemy alert). If you can dig, it'll show how strong what you'll dig up will be, or if there's something else, it'll be a question mark like here.


Grazing Appleseeds, be careful not to bump into them.

There's lots of places to go in Life+. This is the first room you can reach with 4 exits, two facing west, one east, one down.


Just a bit more!

If there's a ledge just out of reach, chances are you can grab on. I explained edgegrabbing a little bit ago, so just read back a couple posts.


This is a bad place to be.

This is the first place with an exit going straight up, accessed by climbing a vine. Since throws can be aimed in 8 directions, be sure to take out the Shimmer Buster before climbing. PS: There's something good up there.


The caves are down here.


Even though the cars are gone, there's still traffic.

Heading east brings you to a little road. A good rule of thumb in Life+ is that civilization will usually have something for you.


Getting plenty of sleep is a good rule of thumb, too.


Panning serves most of its purpose when you're zoomed in, but you can also check behind it to see if everything's okay.

A small note about file checking, be sure to do it where it's safe. Getting hit when you're reading or climbing will still hurt you, and knock you out of your file screen or off of your foothold.


I went with the prompt bubbles.

Well, that's all for now. I'm gonna take a fishing break.

16 comments:

Unknown said...

Did you just post this? I decided to check randomly and it looks like it was just posted :P

Gameplay looks legit. Also, I like what you did to the HUD. Looks like you also revealed some type of enemy, as well. Looks great, and I assume the enemies are varied. Variety is always a good thing :)

Unknown said...

Yeaaaaaaahhhh

Unknown said...

!!!!!

mygodyourebald said...

middle ground pic looks the best but i'm not sure how it will look in large quantities. the one on all the big screenshots lookstoo blockish and repetative.

why dont you post on tigsource forums more feedback cant hurt. they mentioned you in the awesome upcoming free games thread http://forums.tigsource.com/index.php?topic=2884.0

K said...

Wow, I can't believe I only found out about your blog yesterday.

This some really amazing stuff.
I know this game is going to turn out spectacularly. I really can't wait to play it!

Very inspiring.
I've worked a bit on games in the past, and have been really trying to get into making them now more than ever, so expect to see me around a bit :D

K said...

Also, I really love when you can see bits of the underground. Those reaverbot-like eyes in the wall. I love that kind of stuff.

I don't mean to offend you or anything, but I thought I'd put these little bits in since it seems like you're looking for some feedback.

As far as about ground, the areas where there's a lot of dirt seems okay (ie. captioned "Let's dig and let's dig" etc) but when you can see the sky ("Grazing Appleseeds..." and much more-so "Just a bit more!"), all of the blue sort of makes it feel plain and empty.
When you can see the water and the mountains, it's better, though.

What if you added some clouds to the background? I think that could be just what is needed.

Also, what if you did more with the water? Like, added reflection of light, or the island.

I dunno. Whenever I see scenes of sky, islands, and ocean, the old Sonic games come to mind.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v131/mangaguy/s3ks2.png

SiG said...

Love the new HUD. The interface is clean and crisp, and I'm glad you stuck to the blue-red color scheme for the buttons which fit nicely with the whole heterochroma character.

The middle ground texture looks the best, I think, as it has the most variety visually per block, while the left looks too busy and the right is too predictably tiled.

Some portions remind me of the castle portions of the original Super Mario Bros. (Those pelet-shooting things). What are those apple-car enemies, though?

One last thing: Your final resolution is 512x384? Are you going for Turbo-GraFX resolutions? In that case, you might want 512x224 or 512x240. Otherwise there might be some aspect ratio problems if played fulllscreen.

Unknown said...

I second all the comments about the new HUD, looks wonderful.

The blue sky background is kinda plain, maybe add some clouds?

as for the dirt texture, I like the 3rd one or whatever is on the new game screen.

SiG said...

I gotta say, the title screen looks a lot like Monty Python's Life of Brian.

bVork said...

I like the first dirt texture (the leftmost one) the most. It's simple and busy enough to not get annoying when repeatedly tiled.

Unknown said...

looks really good! glad to see progress!
are there any sounds at all, or just visuals?

Pastel said...

There's sounds, no music yet since I'm still learning about that, but it's not just gonna be a silent game.

Unknown said...

i'm the guy who keeps asking about the music. :P
what can you tell me about the sounds?
8bit? realistic?

Pictor said...

This is progress.

I like progress.

Which is probably why I'm not liking Nicalis very much right now.

Awesome work as always.

Unknown said...

I just learned about this game today. It looks really impressive; I'm especially enjoying your pixel artwork. I'm really looking forward to the finished product.

Are you wanting any help with music? I make chiptunes and I'd love to work on Life+'s soundtrack.
You can hear some of my stuff at this address: http://8bitcollective.com/members/sloopygoop/

Anonymous said...

Hey Pastel, I talked to you on /v/ once, I was working on a game of my own, though it's very very infancy stages (the shmup about a pirate ship).

Anyways, I'm really excited for Life+! When are we going to see gameplay videos, or dare i say, a demo?