Hindsights one of those things that likes to bite you in the bum sometimes,  and driven by that i have began working on a more concept focused version of Swatch.   You can read more on that here (to save me repeating everything) 

I am trying to really buckle down with learning to code more, and pull out some decent ideas, get some working concepts together, it would also be nice to make some solid contacts with other indie dev’s of all skill levels.  I am the only one in my friends circle who is in to this stuff.  So i made a twitter. Would be great to get to know some people, so give me a follow if you like.

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I think one of the hardest aspects for me is ignoring graphics, personally as a gamer, i don’t find them to be vital to gameplay, i enjoy many games with “potato” graphics, but this LD, i just couldn’t ignore them, i have taken the last few days to learn how to draw objects with code, and have been playing around with that, creating a kind of “show” game.

I am using a new “core” system to indicate colours, and the relationship between these colours will be an important game dynamic.  Allowing the player to manipulate objects if they share the same core.  The screen shot above shows the player object linking to a block, and pulling it towards their position.

This will allow the player to move certain objects around the screen, there will be blocks who have no core, and therefore no manipulation capabilities, these in effect are static objects, should a jump in the game seem impossible to make, the player will be able to drag a block from somewhere else, into a position which allows them to make the jump.

Here is a brief list of changes to Swatch.

• New core concept, core colour indicates objects relationship in the game.
• Player core is effected by most of the game play dynamics, depleting with use of the player skills, and changing / increasing via in game pick-ups. (The player can collect “cores” via pickups through out the levels, how they use the core and its attributes is up to them. 
• Linking / pulling.  Players are able to “Link” to objects,  This is a system implicated for ease of coding, it changes the games code, as it alters objects cores to indicate proximity to the player.  An circle which is outlined indicates the player is not close to that object, a filled circle indicates the player can interact in some way with that object.  LINKING saves this information, and disables the active checking whilst the player is linked.  This way, all interactions are with the linked object. [Pulling] Allows the player to move objects in the game screen,  they can use this for a multitude of reasons,  Reach hard to reach places. Draw faces out of the blocks. Make a little house, what ever they like haha.
• No orientation, Down is where ever the player has landed.  At the moment this dynamic needs further work as it disorientates to much, I’m thinking of adding a switch, or some type of restriction to it. There will be more on this as it develops.  But consider this to mean (Sticky Player). 
• Swallow & Spit Again this is a fairly new concept so more on that another time. 

Hopefully there are some ideas people can get excited about here.  I’m looking forward to seeing how and where this project goes.

Thanks for reading.  Follow and leave a message ^^

Tags: ld32, Swatch