Released Dunderheid

frd

Member
Hi, I'm working on a game called Dunderheid.

So far it features:

- random room generation
- player character with block, attacks and bowling

Time spent so far - 2 days.

Not sure where it's headed exactly. Here's how it looks -

 
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Morendral

Member
I like the look of it, and the concept is nice with a weapon that's one use and must be recovered. I think the game looks promising, but it's still too early to tell
 
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frd

Member
- Added randomly spawning pins to knock over, crystals to collect, zoom, screen shake, scoring and bonuses, entrances and exits to rooms, transitions, bowling directional arrows, a few more animations and generally juicied it up a bit.

Starting to come up with a bit of a plan for how the game might work.

Time spent so far - 4 days.

Any feedback would be appreciated.

 
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curato

Member
Definitely an interesting mechanic. It definitely needs some form of push back like how to win or lose and disability when you lose your head. Maybe the pins march around or and you got to fight off rain drops since you got an umbrella. Maybe the umbrella has different abilities with and without your head (just random thought).
 
M

mamacato

Guest
I like the animation.

Edit: something about the dimensions has me thinking it's a side scroller every time I look at the GIF. Maybe it's just the lack of details in the room. To be seen..
 
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Morendral

Member
I like the animation.

Edit: something about the dimensions has me thinking it's a side scroller every time I look at the GIF. Maybe it's just the lack of details in the room. To be seen..
I had thought that also at first glance. I think it's because the walls are lacking any detail in the filled part
 
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Nocturne

Friendly Tyrant
Forum Staff
Admin
Conceptually, I think this is brilliant! The character is really cute and the bowling game mechanic is really interesting and I can see how it could lead to many different sub-mechanics related to interacting with buttons, enemies, puzzles, traps, etc... The umbrella is an interesting mechanic too, and it could make a great "secondary" weapon or support item to the bowling ball head. I would definitely keep working on this, as it looks charming and has great potential!
 
I like the animation.

Edit: something about the dimensions has me thinking it's a side scroller every time I look at the GIF. Maybe it's just the lack of details in the room. To be seen..
I had thought that also at first glance. I think it's because the walls are lacking any detail in the filled part
He needs a rounder shadow. With this top down view, the shadow on the ground would almost appear as a circle, but here it's a sliver. Combined with the (common and excusable) stylized side-on perspective of the character himself, it really does feel like a platformer at first glance.

The super dark walls aren't helping, either. They almost feel more like holes than walls, making it even harder to register this scene as top down. The shadows going straight down compound this even more, hahah! Changing the black to a dark brown/red would also help a lot to show that we're looking at ceiling rather than bottomless pits. Pure black surrounded by bright colors is always going to feel like a hole in the screen. I still read the scene as top-down, but I can see how others might read it as side-on at first.

Anyway, yeah. This is cute. I like the character and concept, too. =D
 
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S

spoonsinbunnies

Guest
shows promise, I noticed your wallpaper disappears during the camera shake and no one else mentioned it.
 

frd

Member
Thanks again for the comments and feedback, it's amazingly helpful. I've made changes in response to comments here, and added some new stuff too.

- Added three enemy types, lighting, new background artwork, changed shadows, developed scoring system, worked on mechanics for bumper puzzles, and started to define levels and player progression.

Time spent so far 10 days.

Here's how it's looking -




 
Very impressive, dude. I love how the enemies can steal your head, that's fantastic.
I do sort of take issue with the enemies bowling the soccer ball heads like a bowling ball though :p
Have you considered having them dribble the ball with their feet and kicking it at you?
Oh, you could also have basketball enemies that bounce their basketball heads!

Those gifs show a lot of promise, the last one gives me hopes for cool puzzles and stuff. Nice work, dude.
 
You might want to give Kirby's Blowout Blast a try. It's the same mechanic and the enemies spawn in and they basically are pins. Game looks enjoyable.
 
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frd

Member
Thanks for the recommendation, it’s really cool seeing how they dealt with similar mechanics. In comparison that game has a far more progressive feeling of flow, and I can see now that mine is about stumbling back and forth.
 

Toque

Member
Very impressive, dude. I love how the enemies can steal your head, that's fantastic.
I do sort of take issue with the enemies bowling the soccer ball heads like a bowling ball though :p
Have you considered having them dribble the ball with their feet and kicking it at you?
Oh, you could also have basketball enemies that bounce their basketball heads!

Those gifs show a lot of promise, the last one gives me hopes for cool puzzles and stuff. Nice work, dude.
As Canadian I would think a stick and puck is in order.
 
J

JCJ

Guest
Great concept, I think you've got something quite unique here. I never knew you could make something cute out of bowling balls. I'll always see faces on them now.

I don't know if it's just me but I think the character shadows are too circular now. Maybe it's also because the other objects' shadows are still more oval shaped.
 
M

mamacato

Guest
Looks great! The walls and details finally allow me to see it as a top-down game. I can't believe you did this in such a short time. Any hurdles you had to face that you can share with us?
 

Toque

Member
Yes the walls help a lot with perspective.


I’ve always liked your games. They are always interesting and have unique art style.

Can’t remeber the names. The shadow people. The others reminded me of Eric Carle style illustrations.
 
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frd

Member
Looks great! The walls and details finally allow me to see it as a top-down game. I can't believe you did this in such a short time. Any hurdles you had to face
Thanks very much. Loads of hurdles really. What seems to work for me is letting go of my original ideas, and just running with anything simple that works. If I get stuck on something for more than 40 minutes or so I ditch it and make do with a simpler effect instead. I was aiming to make a mystical game about sheep herding but I’ve got one about throwing a ball.
 
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frd

Member
Yes the walls help a lot with perspective.


I’ve always liked your games. They are always interesting and have unique art style.

Can’t remeber the names. The shadow people. The others reminded me of Eric Carle style illustrations.
Thanks, that’s really encouraging!
 

RangerX

Member
This concept is really awesome. I love your character and I really think it should be a balance of "poor but workable melee if in deep sh..." vs "Head that is super useful".
I would really focus on the head, like you seem to be doing, however I don't see the sports stuff fitting (bowling and soccer). It just distracts from your art style and environnement the sports look brings nothing.
The rolling head + the bouncing and anything you can come with in regards of navigations or attacks with the head is great! Focus on that.
I could see that head being the magical body part of that character and with this head you could have 2 different types of attacks or moves. Physical (rolling, bouncing, etc) and magical too. (spells for navigation, magic attacks).

You could also be original and not make a dungeon game with random generation. I know its alot more design work/effort but nowadays EVERY SINGLE dungeon game does that and its really getting boring imo.
 
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frd

Member
Feeling like the end is in sight now. Added dialogue, puzzle scenes, a boss, more background artwork and started work today on music, sound and the menu screen, here's how that’s looking.

 
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Toque

Member
Hmmm. Can I build for Windows if I only have a Mac? I presumed not but I don’t know.
Yeah we come from a world of apple. It was a bit of adjustment to the windows world here.

I have access to my wife’s windows laptop for submission to game Jams.
 

O.Stogden

Member
Download the developers evaluation version, and use either Virtual Box (free) or Parralels. That Windows version should include everything to build the Windows version.

https://developer.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/downloads/virtual-machines
Didn't realize that was a thing, only just got my first Mac device 2 weeks ago, using Windows 7 32-bit on it as I had a key from years ago laying around. Good find. Still primarily use Windows on it, as it's an old Macbook so Apple removed support from it ages ago, but still has decent Windows support.

I'm the opposite way round and run a Mac VM on my Windows 10 PC, as I bought a MacOS license from the Apple Store. Is there an evaluation version of Mac which means I didn't have to buy the OS?
 
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