The Machine Elves - Under the Chrysanthemum Dome

[jph_wacheski]

I have decided to work towards an entry for the Independent Games Festival this year. [ http://www.igf.com ]

November 1st, 2008 - Submission Deadline, Main Competition

That is to remind ME!

So far, as of July 9th, I have a semi-playable level and I have started on a title sequence/menu screen. Find attached below a little announcement demo adapted from my title/menu.

I am not too sure how many people will get my references, however I will just go on with it regardless,. the game is largely inspired by a DMT accessed vision, as relayed by one Terrence McKenna [ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terence_McKenna ]. It is not much to go on, but there exists lots of similar material to draw from, as well as my own psychedelic visions. I am also interweaving some of the Mayan Mythos as it is relevant, and contains many symbol systems that I find esthetically pleasing, as well as intellectually stimulating,. I have also visited the pyramids, forests, and people in and around Oaxaca, in what is now Mexico and have that experience to draw from.

Hope I am able to do it justice, and bring it in on time. I know I can count on y'all for advice, inspiration, and encouragement. Thanks in advance.

NOTE: the demo is non-playable, and is meant as a sort of digital flyer announcing the intention of myself to finish the game and enter it in the IGF.

[Kjell]

Hi jph,



Curious where you'll be taking this, somewhat Minter-esque so far ( sole reason for owning a Jaguar! )

K

[jph_wacheski]

How high can you get? -Nintendo

DEA Chief: Winners Occasionally Use Drugs -
The announcement was the result of a comprehensive three-year DEA study of more than 40,000 U.S. winners, including thousands of successful business executives, doctors, lawyers, scientists and civic leaders. The study, originally designed by the DEA to help shed light on the qualities shared by winners that make them resistant to drugs, instead revealed that over 71 percent of winners had at one time or another experimented with controlled substances.

Constantine said that it remains unclear why winners, who enjoy successful, productive careers and feelings of love and acceptance from their families, would choose to engage in drug use.

"Time and time again, DEA tests have shown that no feeling you could get from drugs could be better than the great feeling you get from being a winner," Constantine said. "Why a heart surgeon, an architect or a straight-A student would use drugs when his senses are already enormously heightened by the 'high' that comes from being a winner is beyond me."

Making drug use by winners all the more puzzling, Constantine said, is the fact that winners are more than strong enough to resist the peer pressure associated with drug use, do not need to get high to escape from a terrible life, and do not associate with the sort of people most likely to use drugs—namely, losers.

DEA scientists said it also remains unclear how drug-using winners have managed to avoid addiction and the many well-known destructive side-effects of controlled substances.

"Winners seem to have an unknown quality that enables them to use drugs and keep on winning," DEA head researcher and narcotics expert Howard Tobin said. "It goes against everything we know about drugs, but many of the drug-taking winners we studied did not, in fact, become losers. They did not lose control of their lives, nor did they lose their loved ones, their jobs, their homes, or their physical or mental well-being. There is clearly something at work here that we still do not understand."

http://www.theonion.com/content/node/30072

Let us declare nature to be legitimate. All plants should be declared legal, and all animals for that matter. The notion of illegal plants and animals is obnoxious and ridiculous.—Terence McKenna

people have, and will, always, seek higher levels of consciousness,. but yeah the game is not about drug use,. although I see all substances people take into their bodies as having both physical as well as psychic effects,. many people are physically addicted to eating the flesh of animals,. it takes a good 3-5 days to break the physical withdrawal,. and the mental one is life long,. I know this from experiance. I am not sure how one differentiates a 'drug' from any other food stuff,. that being that,. the game is 'inspired' by a vision a man once had, that was relayed to me,. about the wireing under the board, and the many worlds we often choose to ignore,. look here for more [ http://deoxy.org/ ]

All pretension aside,. this will be a piece of interactive art, a game if you will, that is interesting to interact with,. . or that is my intention at least. time will tell.., the eight pin-wheels represent the eight dimensions that will be accessible from that menu / hub level,. when you find the key in each level you will return to the menu and choose another,. . you can play them in any order and each will manifest differently based on how many keys you carry,. so playing the levels in different orders will unfold many differing experiences. or that is how I see it currently,. .

peace

[jph_wacheski]

ok here is another brick in the wall,. .

well,. this is a demo of the screen that will tell the player what is going on,. the "narrator" screen,. or the story/myth part.

Nothing to do,. yet, perhaps moving the mouse will move the top layer,. . it is just a place to have little philosophical dialogues,. then the levl layer will begin. . ,

oh, by the way,. Bill Hicks is one of my saviours a true insperation,. . if you have not do please watch this!

http://ca.youtube.com/watch?v=Wwna3Q90vQc

[jph_wacheski]

Well I was trying to get this ready for the Indie Games Fest,. However I have not yet gotten far enough along to release a proper demo. I will show you guys some of what i do have, just for fun,. . Comments welcome, and suggestions as well, however I am not likely to use them as I have my own dumb ideas,. . Happy Holloween!!!

[VilleK]

I love the style and and animation of "Filaments". Do you use a shader to get that grainy look?

[kattle87]

A suggestion for "justtoosmalltosee": make C and V commands a "toggle" command (can be easily made by using a state variable), because I really feel uncomfortable when pressing 3 buttons at once

[jph_wacheski]

kattle87- yeah, I am just using those for testing currently,. not sure what will be done in the finnal ver,. three keys may be too many?, perhaps when you use the build feild there will be a pulse of attraction to all the sheild balls, and when you spawn a new one some repulsion,. I still wanted to figure a way to have that effect scaled with the distance from the player,. this many functions would work better with say shoulder buttons on a Controller,. and the build and spawn actions on face buttons,. as we know, more then three keys at a time gets some keyboards confuddled

Ville- I have avoided shaders thus far, thinking of a wider audiance,. btw what would the fall back be from the engines point of view? if your card does not support shaders would you just get the material with out the shader?? Anyway, I just have a renderNet drawing some noise over the whole screen,. it does add a nice faded organic quality i like., for the game componets I want to do simple solid dark color shapes it should look nice and the gamplay I am thinking of is in some way inspired by Yars Revenge,. [ http://ca.youtube.com/watch?v=lZ1Qg-Ny75g ] with side wraping,. and some sort of sheild to break through..,

[jph_wacheski]

updated to add a title and is now 800x600,. .

[diki]

i really like the seeding/feeding-mechanism in JustAboutTooSmallToSee, although it can be bothersome and time-consuming to get everything right. i have the impression that the only sensible way to bring the green bubbles to mature is to drop all the white balls somewhere else, stay near until they are being fried and collect their green cores - then rush to the green seed, bubblewrap them in and release all growth-pulses at once, hoping they mature before any missiles hit them. i did not have any luck levelling them up in small steps, since they get hit by stray missiles too often.

but i can't really complain - nobody said it would be easy ;)

racing the molten lava is quickly getting me into dead ends ... but i like that idea, too. allow me to share the "jump'n'climp"-prototype i did when i had a similar idea:

[jph_wacheski]

diki- yeah that is the thing that slowed me down on that,. keeping it fun is the main thing,. some times is starts fun, and as I experiment and add elements it goes off track,. I keep trying to re-introduce the funness factor!

your stratagy is indeed a good one, although I have found others as well,. lately I been just droping single blockers while running from the missles, then grab up the Material for building,. I use the screen wraping to escape often,. and yes building in burst is a good way to go,. I am not sure I like the missiles un-building the nodes,. like most stuff I do this is all by experiment,. so we will see how it evolves,. it should be more enjoyable with the music and such and is only intended to be a single level of the overall game that will have various gameplay 'zones' so as to not get too repetative.

The lava game is more fun I find,. but it can be very tough! Notice that you can destroy the walls after you build them,. I added this when I found myself boxed in too often,. and of course walls are created where you shoot those peices, so it is your choice and that is the main point of the game,. stratgy in the action! . this needs more ballancing and refinement for sure, but I like the direction it is taking,. want to add more things as you climb higher,. . and still figuring out the health and interactions of the stuff,. you get jump fule when touching a wall so you can hover under them or just slide up the sides too!
Your demo is cool, similare, but more puzzley I would keep working on that one. it would need to be a single solution puzzle type gameplay,. or you could have the blocks fall back down after a time and have different goals or things to collect,. thanks for showing that!

[VilleK]

Thanks for the screensaver, it is now installed on my computer and looks great!

Yes, when shaders aren't available the fallback is the material without the shader. So you can test this by temporarily clearing the Shader-property of the material you use and run the program.

[jph_wacheski]

ok here is a bit of work roughing in some basic gameplay over the filaments demo,.

When it starts you can test the movements,. it is stange, as is normal for me I do like to experiment! the filaments 'push' (anti-grav?) the player away,. you can wrap around on the sides,. the vertical movement is currently not based on velocity,. it is direct. I'm trying to balance direct control with some reactive/system elements.
Once you have a bit of a grip on the flying press R to Restart,. and the opponent will spawn, . and each time you reset after too. you can't win yet just score ponts.

is just a test/experiment,. however, I think it could get interesting. what you think??

stay tuned!

[jph_wacheski]

further along,. . started to develop a bit of a soundscape,. and the visuals are much nicer now,. as well, the controls are simplified and perhaps better,. . just going to work out a bit more for the player to do,. in the gameplay,. . action is what is missing still,. but I will come up with something, as I do like the look and feel so far..,

[diki]

hi jph,
i like that i don't have to worry about the firing direction, that gives it a bit of relative 'leasure' compared to e.g. robotron.
i noticed that the two-sided gamespace is not yet that integral to the game; maybe you can add / use some existing elements to force / reward the player into switching sides. i believe this two-sidedness should really be part of the core principle.
and lest i forget, please don't hop on the train of using Z as the firebutton. its convenient for most people, but on german keyboards the Z and Y is switched, making some recent indigames a bit uncomfortable to play ... that's why i really like the oldschool CTRL = fire paradigma :)