Four hours in for me. I’ve been streaming at twitch.tv/SudsDev since about ten minutes from theme reveal. Everything has been done on camera so far. I’ve had an unusual amount of progress. It’s been amazing.

Everything will end up on youtube in full. I’m also recording a time lapse.

My planning:

Planning. Trial by fire.

I started with thinking about what sorts of things have surfaces, and what would be beneath them. The world (ore, fossils, lost civilisations). People (emotions, memories). The Ocean (unknown, monsters). The beach (treasure!).

I went with “reality”. Beneath the surface of reality, we find most things have sharper edges; are more dangerous; less colourful. You see something you love, and you get used to it, you learn about it. All its flaws start leaking through.

This is true of most software I’ve loved, games I’ve played, TV shows I’ve binged on, people I’ve known.

Everything is flawed, [beneath the surface].

The idea then:

The over world and shadow world, side by side.

The lovely world on the left; All grass, flowers, colourful. Then there’s the shadow world on the right; Thorns. Pitfalls. Traps. Dead.

How do they interact? Enter, Lens of Awesome!

Lens of Awesome. Show’s what’s real, beneath the surface.

You pick it up (not yet implemented) and then you can use it. Toggle it on or off with E. The worlds mirror each other. But you have different abilities in each.

The stuff in the shadow world, will kill you. Whether you’re looking at it or not. You can’t walk in the shadow world. Its for foresight and hindsight only. Treat it as a map.

The deadly objects in the shadow world will be visible in the lovely world. They will just look different; lovely. There are five flowers in a row. Only one doesn’t secretly have thorns.

Some other screenies:

Lens of Awesome, mid-make.

Terrain mid-make

Shadow World close-up

I’m streaming every second! twitch.tv/SudsDev (I’m very quiet. Extended silences ensue.)

I’m tweeting too! Shameless self-plug.

Happy coding!

Progress Report #2

It is now nine and a half hours since project beginning. Since my first progress report, I’ve implemented the Lens of Awesome.

The Lens of Awesome, basking in it’s own awesomeness.

The Lens of Awesome teleports you from the over world, to the under world where you can see the true obstacles in your path. To navigate them however, you must return to the over world.

I’ve also added some pretty flowers. They all look this pretty in the over world. In the under world though, most of them have thorns. Only very few are safe to touch. The thorned flowers visible in the under world will hurt you in the over world. You just cant see the thorns without the Lens of Awesome.

Flowers!

Finally, the Log of Despair. Your first obstacle. This is the reason you leave the beaten path. The obstacle that makes you search for the flowers without the thorns.

The Log of Despair, forever in your way. Bringing you down.

Lastly, I’m streaming this whole ordeal over at twitch. You can also find me on the twitter.

15 hours in. Now 2am. Progress has been sporadic. I added the thorns beneath the surface of the flowers:

The flowers on the surface

The thorns that lie beneath the surface

I also added another experimental theme:

Treasure of Justice — will kill you.

Spikes of Corruption (under world version of treasure) — will kill you.

Of course, to avoid this pitfall, you’ll need:

Boots of Vertical Aptitude (unlocks jumping in the overworld)

And of course, you can catch me on the tweetbox. 😀

I’ll be back tomorrow. 😀