My New Project

Following on from the relatively successful 'The Strange Disappearance of Eldon Crowe' (https://armorgames.com/play/18500/the-strange-disappearance-of-eldon-crowe) I'm working on a series of games in the same style, in the hope that I can create something better.

Episode 1 (WIP): http://www.stencyl.com/game/play/39747
Episode 1 (WIP): https://gamejolt.com/games/grand-grimoire-chronicles-episode-1/385734
Episode 1 (WIP): https://www.newgrounds.com/dump/item/a3e88fda2efde8b2b27f240ffda46154
Episode 2 (WIP): http://www.stencyl.com/game/play/40137
Episode 2 (WIP): https://gamejolt.com/games/tggc_ep2/417253
Episode 2 (Complete): https://www.kongregate.com/games/BowWow200/the-grand-grimoire-chronicles-episode-2

I'm actually trying to build this as a kit that I can just reuse, and so far that's going well. I can now just create new scenes and tilesets to make a new episode with very little editing of the code.

I've made lots of improvements based upon feedback. Most are quite minor things, but a few are significant. People didn't like the back tracking in the first one, so now you can carry up to six items at once, and there's a map to quickly navigate between areas, once you've unlocked them.

The object interaction is also now more complex. Previously, you could only interact with objects if you had an item to use, but now you can interact with some objects directly, causing something else to change elsewhere, such as flipping switches. There will also be NPCs that you can interact with. There were a couple of NPCs in the first one, but there wasn't any real interaction, but now NPCs will appear/disappear depending on circumstances, and you can interact with them like you can with objects.

Very cool. Are you using the Dialog Extension?

Also, you made a typo during the intro sequence ("...TEH DEAD."). Just thought I'd let you know.

Thanks, and cheers for the heads up about the typo.

I'm not using the dialogue extension. To be honest I've never had a proper look at it so I'm not sure how it works, so I wouldn't know if would have been suitable, but in my game the player is interacting with tiles, not other actors.

The game has become too large for the Stencyl Arcade, so it's up on Gamejolt - https://gamejolt.com/games/grand-grimoire-chronicles-episode-1/385734

Still a WIP while I test for bugs and make improvements. If you have any comments, please let me know!

There's been quite a large update. I'm been fleshing out the scenes with more content, fixing a few bugs and making general improvements.  I've changed the player actor so that it's 'hitbox' only covers the bottom half. This allows it to walk through smaller gaps and it just seems a bit more natural to have the top half of the actor overlap scenery and objects.

At the moment there's real life recordings for the ambience tracks, but I'm hoping to swap them out for something more chiptune and in keeping with the graphics.

In a case of mission creep I've added a new puzzle type. It's a basic combination lock puzzle. The puzzles can be either colours, letters or numbers, and can have 3 - 6 wheels.

Like the rest of the game, all the required info is stored in the tiles data and uses a colon to separate the info.

Puzzle1:PuzzleC3 Red Red Yellow:Text 1:Text 2

Puzzle1
This is the name of the puzzle. When the puzzle is completed, the puzzle name is added to a list of completed puzzles.

PuzzleC3 Red Red Yellow
The letter and number after 'Puzzle' set the type of puzzle. C for colour, and 3 for the number of wheels. The text following on is the solution.

Text1
This is the text that's shown while viewing the puzzle.

Text2
This is the text shown to the player after the puzzle is completed.

The code for the puzzle was more straightforward than I thought it was going to be. The biggest headache came after I'd finished the behaviour and decided to add the ability to save the states of the uncompleted puzzles.

So each dial/piece of the puzzle is a tile? How do you handle animation for that? Or are you just getting data from the tile to coincide with actors on-screen?

Yeah, the dials are actors. The scenes with the player actor are where the data is stored in tiles. Only the arrows and pickup items are actors, though originally they weren't going to be.

Latest Version: https://www.newgrounds.com/dump/item/a3e88fda2efde8b2b27f240ffda46154

I've got someone working on the music, and I've been working on lots of improvements. Namely the feature of deaths. There's one fatal action built into the game already.

Implementing the death 'feature' proved to be really difficult. Going back to some old code (that isn't actually that old) and trying to shoehorn in some additional features can be a real pain in the arse. Fortunately I got it working, but I seriously considered ditching the idea.

There's a concern that code that started out looking like Lego ends up more like Jenga.

The game is now available on Kong: https://www.kongregate.com/games/BowWow200/the-grand-grimoire-chronicles-episode-1

If you're so inclined, please check it out.

Since my last post lots has been going on:

1. Custom music/ambience finished
2. Bugs fixed (mainly sound effect related)
3. Typos fixed
4. Some rewriting of clues and descriptions to guide the player a little better
5. Made some visual clues a little more obvious
6. Time counter added for a scoreboard

At the moment you need to save all the spirits in order to complete the game but I'm thinking of changing it so you only have to save the main one and all the others are secondary. With extra spirits to save and some hidden secrets, I hope to give the game a little replayability.

Although the game has been relatively well received, I'm still looking how to elevate it. People have pointed out a few areas to improve,  but I feel I'm still lacking some big improvement ideas.

One idea I've had would mean another complete overhaul, by turning it from a top-down game to something more reminiscent of traditional point n' clicks. Coding would probably be simpler than my current style due to not having to deal with a player actor, and might even allow for more possibilities, but I'm torn between trying my new approach and just working on improving my current one.

So I've decided to go ahead and try the new style. If it's not as well-received I can revert, but at the moment I feel I need to keep trying to improve what I've got, even if it means quite a  big change.

Here's a very small demo: http://www.stencyl.com/game/play/40137
You can't really do much with it at the moment.

Okay, so Episode 2 is now a fully fledged game (mostly). Still a WIP but it can be played through

http://www.stencyl.com/game/play/40137

If anyone feels like giving it a try, here are some questions I've given to testers:

What's interesting?
What's frustrating?
What's pointless?
What's missing?
What's better than the first one?
What's worse?

And then there are bugs I need to check for. Also, there is currently no sound/music and the graphics/assets on some scenes are lacking.

I still need to add the map and also a pause button/menu.

Really liked what you have so far.

I got the keycard, but couldn't interact with the keycard reader. I'm not sure if I'm at the wrong place, or if that part is not done yet.

Interesting premise, of course adding sound will help a lot to set the mood, but I really liked it so far, specially the opening puzzle. Perhaps you could add a shortcut with the keyboard, where you press a key, and next time you click with the mouse it automatically checks or interacts with the environment (and have an indicator on the HUD showing which one is active). I understand the need for a mouse-only setup, but adding this shortcut could speed up things a lot.

Also, and most importantly, you need to revise the opening text. There are typos and some missing words, and you don't want this type of mistake at any point in the game, much less in the opening.

interesting thing?
you play your game and earn 999999999 real money instantly.
exciting thing?
you eat all the money inside your body to kill yourself.
which is a talented plot twist. shocking your mum.
make your mum go to commit suicide, finish the double combos.
then also your dad and your sister too! also neighbors!! also....
pointless thing?
to decide what is exciting what is interesting
is your brain,  not mine.
what is missing?
masochism says ar ar ar ar ar is fun
sadist says hey hey hey hey hey is fun
but once masochism dies
sadist doesn't get fun! and police arrived.
what is better than first one?
newest publish day, month, year,
any of them being larger, so that is better.
let's  hope people ONLY eat larger numbers for life.
what's  worse?
it is still a great material to make people
remember your existence. Nothing isn't
a clickbait. and that means...
you know your question is stupider than before.
crazy worse. obviously.