Forums » Games » Sad Space Boy Puzzle Game - WIP on Systemic Game Design

Sad Space Boy Puzzle Game is something I have been working on for a long time in various forms. After about a year of struggle I'm looking to just distill it down to its most basic mechanics and release it.

If you make it to the Southern portion of the map and grab all the green things there you've beaten the current content.

The game used to have awesome fantasy art by Sebaatsian Van Hiftje, concept artist for KickStarted success Legend of Dungeon -- however Seb often disappears from the Internet and I had to move on.

I have created the art, music, and code.

Uses JonCom's GridMovement plugin.

Depending on resolution you may have to use your browser's zoom to adjust the game window into view.

There's an original game-play idea in that game, i liked it !

1) The first 30 seconds were not that fun : i wondered : what should i do ? Maybe a small text and/or a more obvious start would be great (maybe always show the shadow with a hint before the player made its first swap).
2) If the artist went away, it's because he doesn't care. If he doesn't care, he doesn't neither care that you use its graphics. so do it.
3) There should be an incentive not to show the shadow all the time : like with a fill-meter that would get to zero when you use it, when at zero it keeps cool for some 2 seconds of so before refilling fast. So if you ever need to swap several time within a short period, you'd better remember where your shadow is.
4) i had once a bug when swapping in a corner, where the hero wouldn't move a bit afterwise.
5) collisions are dead slow when we get near to a soldier. Any way to fix this ?
6) I was expecting to have the vertical swap right at the start, but maybe i'm just impatient on that one ! great thing that you can re-visit the start of the level to get to previously unreachable points.
7) You should build some kind of -even very basic- narative. Get the green thing, you purple thing, is not that a food for fantasy :-)
8) I like the creepy 8 bit ambient music.

Nice work ! Put back the graphics and notify us !

Really appreciate your feedback. Yeah I sort of had an epiphany recently that the early portion is discouraging. Partially because it lacks polish but there is definitely a lack of flow is the design early on.

The art is updated. More will be updated soon. Thanks for playing.

Interesting idea. What do you plan to do with it now?

Note: Please have a look at this picture:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/German_keyboard_layout
Where are X, Y and Z?

Z is ALWAYS a bad binding for computer games. I see the same mistake in many Ludum Dare games and it's unfortunate, because Germany is like, the second or third largest video game market in the world.

See also the French layout (Q and A swapped):
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AZERTY

Go with X and C. That's the best bet.

This game's mechanic is super weird, but I like it. Not sure I completely understood it but I don't think it was actually a problem. The music is spot on too, it felt like there was this whole weird mythology to the game that I didn't understand, but I wanted to learn more.
The southern part of the map, where you "run out of content" is actually kind of cool. If you keep going with it don't be afraid to switch things up completely, and just let the player wander around exploring without maximizing use of your mechanic. I think the ambience lends itself really well to making a game that's as much about exploring the mechanics of the game as it is about understanding them.
You should definitely try to get hold of this artist again, cause the art is also great. Basically, this game has a lot of potential, make more please! :)

Quote from Apiheld
Interesting idea. What do you plan to do with it now?

Note: Please have a look at this picture:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/German_keyboard_layout
Where are X, Y and Z?

Z is ALWAYS a bad binding for computer games. I see the same mistake in many Ludum Dare games and it's unfortunate, because Germany is like, the second or third largest video game market in the world.

See also the French layout (Q and A swapped):
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AZERTY

Go with X and C. That's the best bet.

Blame my American ignorance. I will switch it to X and C immediately and repost.

Quote from Krisjet
This game's mechanic is super weird, but I like it. Not sure I completely understood it but I don't think it was actually a problem. The music is spot on too, it felt like there was this whole weird mythology to the game that I didn't understand, but I wanted to learn more.
The southern part of the map, where you "run out of content" is actually kind of cool. If you keep going with it don't be afraid to switch things up completely, and just let the player wander around exploring without maximizing use of your mechanic. I think the ambience lends itself really well to making a game that's as much about exploring the mechanics of the game as it is about understanding them.
You should definitely try to get hold of this artist again, cause the art is also great. Basically, this game has a lot of potential, make more please! :)

Good news! This is a new artist. The old artist had a fantasy theme but the new artist I've been collaborating with is working with a space - abstract theme.

I'm glad you like the music! I sort of fell backwards into it. It was a chiptune that I wrote, threw into Audacity, and slowed down immensely with good results.

You really seem to have picked up on some of the finer points of the game. I'm extremely happy to hear that! I was worried that I was too weird for other people to see the same merit in the exploration. Thank you so much! Your feedback is really appreciated. This whole development process is tedious as hell and hearing something like this is truly inspiring.

I'll let y'all know when I've developed a bit more. I've decided to add a few micro tutorials before throwing you into the overworld and I'm developing a title screen etc.

Thanks again everyone! Link me to your games if you have'em!

Quote from Krisjet
This game's mechanic is super weird, but I like it. Not sure I completely understood it but I don't think it was actually a problem. The music is spot on too, it felt like there was this whole weird mythology to the game that I didn't understand, but I wanted to learn more.
The southern part of the map, where you "run out of content" is actually kind of cool. If you keep going with it don't be afraid to switch things up completely, and just let the player wander around exploring without maximizing use of your mechanic. I think the ambience lends itself really well to making a game that's as much about exploring the mechanics of the game as it is about understanding them.
You should definitely try to get hold of this artist again, cause the art is also great. Basically, this game has a lot of potential, make more please! :)

Really appreciate this! I am still hacking away :) Kind words!

Really liked the original concept. I thought maybe a tutorial something at the beginning would have helped as I felt confused as to what I was supposed to be doing.

Great start!

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Quote from FragOnly
Really liked the original concept. I thought maybe a tutorial something at the beginning would have helped as I felt confused as to what I was supposed to be doing.

Great start!

Thanks so much! The game is undergoing a complete redesign with more obvious direction in the beginning stages. Actually later this month I'm going to be doing a four day long game jam to try to finish it completely! I hope you have time to check it out then. :)