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I'm currently working on the ONE thing that requires quite a bit of work with its animation: A singing totem with 4 freaking heads. There's about 500 frames of sequenced animations and I'm at the 310th frame done.

I could have done a much better work on the model and the armature/bones, but I'm saving that time for the new gameplay mecanism I just revised.
(For the commercial release for the end of next month, I'm planning on having a system to customize the totem, hence that one will be scrapped.)

The new gameplay mechanism is a mix of Tetris' controls and sequences and Snake set in a Maze where you goal is to guide souls of the departed into the afterlife.

Long story short, that totem is Ba-ho, a guide that has a flame above its head that attracts lost souls in the Ukhu Pacha (Inca's underworld). Think of it as a representative of Pashamama, Goddess of fertility that guide the souls back to Kay Pacha (Inca's world of the living).

I don't think I'll be able to reach that far in the project by the deadline, but I would really like to be able to bring in the Supay, demons that would stop the souls in their track.

Wow, that sounds like a lot of animation work.

I hope you manage to submit a playable game (even if limited in scope) by the end of the jam!

The Inca underworld think just got me hooked. Hope you can finish this.

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Ba-ho's animations are finished and the gameplay-related element to it's animation are done too. The controls (inputs) are all done and can use the mouse and/or keyboard or a controller. The ring system is done on a physical level, but I have yet to implement the souls and their behavior. I also got to create the rings' paths.

The ring shown above display the selection. The highlight 3 rings closer to Ba-Ho are the rings that rotates when left or right is pressed. Pressing up and down change the rings selected. There are 3 possible difficulties which, for this jam, will fix the number of rings controlled by the player. Easy controls 1 ring, Normal controls 2 rings and Hard controls 3 rings at a time, which makes it harder to set the souls' path properly. The souls system spawn a random number of souls on the outer ring which move following the path (not yet visible) on the rings' pieces. Each soul has limited life time before it has to reach the center-most ring.

When a soul reaches one of the piece on the ring next to Ba-ho, it stays in that position for a short while before being absorbed and send toward the sky. While it can't die once at that position, souls that collides to another soul fuses together and count only as 1 soul. Obviously, the goal is to save as many souls (out of an finite number of soul per match) as possible.

What's remaining to do are:

• Recording me doing Ba-ho vocals. It includes only 5 vocals, but it might requires a tiny bit of work to make them sound good.
• Create the pieces' possible paths of each rings.
• Create the souls & their behavior (a.k.a. Soul System).
The catch is that while most ring pieces doesn't allow a soul to move back on an outer ring from its current ring, some some rare ones does allow particular move back and forth. The outer rings have more "path" variations than the smaller rings.
• Add the UI for a better look and seeing the Soul Score as well as the few settings and option in the game.
• Making a main menu and a game's logo.

I'm trying to be done with the pieces and Soul System by the end of 27th. The UI and Main menu can be done in a few hours at most.

I did implement the basics to allow the player to change certain colors in the game in case some people can't see specific colors and, if I have some time to spare, I would like to also add an option for a visible effect on Ba-ho to represent its vocals so that people who can't hear or can't play with sound (or simple hate Ba-ho's voice, a.k.a my voice) can still play without any issues.

Very cool idea. How have mechanics been coming together? I like the idea of implementing a soundless environment. I use headphones and sometimes I just want to play a game without needing to utilize them. Best of luck with the next 4 days!

(1 edit) (+2)

I started making models for the rotating pieces (a.k.a. maze paths) and once I was done with about 10% of the pieces, I decided to simplify the process at least for the Jam and the paths will be done purely via the textures of the pieces. It's much more simple and faster to just draw the paths than modeling them. The Souls uses invisible nodes I set on the pieces' prefabs in advance, hence the paths (or normally the model) are purely cosmetic which is why I'm taking the quick route on that one. 

Edit - Once I was done with the pieces and got them ready for 3D painting (UVs and layout-wise), I made a quick logo for the game.


I'm taking a break for today so that I can get into it and be done with the soul + maze tomorrow. :p