The VG Resource

Thank The Moon

SUMMARY

Thank the moon is a game based on an old concept I've had, the game is a platformer based in a world inhabited by horror monster archetypes such as werewolves, vampires, scarecrows, etc.
The game begins with the player being told they've been through some undefined traumatic event, in desperation they made a contract with the moon, they get all the power they need to get revenge, but when done their body will be taken and used by the moon.
The players character is now a darkling, a living shadow. (their gender, race, species has not effected their form, they do not remember anything of what they were before the contract)
Darklings can take the form of things they have seen, enter the mechanic of obtaining the form of bosses you beat. Each form will have a gimmick making them useful / interesting to use to navigate the levels.
The game ends with the player being betrayed by the moon and leading to a climactic fight where all forms take part in defeating the moon in human form.

Where does TSR come in?

Everything in between!
from gameplay concepts, to designs, to fleshing out the world, to contributing assets, everything thats not the start of the plot or end of the plot is free to build into.
The game is still in early development, but the earlier people can get involved the better, helping identify / fix problems before they grow.

I don't believe in a project like this being closed source, anyone and everyone should be able to see whats going on behind the scenes, whether they would like to make an adaptation, a fix or are just curious, so with each release updated on the first post, the entire source and assets will be included.

RULES!

I don't want there to be many rules but if there needs to be guidelines to keep a style in the sprites, or a coding convention for contributors, etc. etc. it will be in this section

RULE 1. any and all assets of this game are not to be sold and if redistributed are to be credited to the original creator and to be handled under their terms.
a fairly obvious one I know but its just good to be clear.

IN PROGRESS / NEEDED

Here goals and requests will be held, this section won't be used for listing "needed" items until the project has made enough progress, its only right something's provided before something's asked.

Current Goal: establish a basic world and get the player controlling comfortably.

DOWNLOADS

well I wouldn't post a topic with nothing to show, now this isn't much, but you can at least test how the character controls (which I intend to change greatly) and the way the background / foreground effects look. (load 00 for a test map)

F1 - Edit Mode toggle
Delete - Debug info toggle
WASD - move
Left Click - in edit mode, edit tiles (assign the X tile to delete tiles, its much much more efficient to delete tiles than replace them with a blank tile)
Right Click - in edit mode, click to place object, hold to delete objects

http://www.mediafire.com/?a6svl4n9dszc1bo

WARNING! the source code as is isn't commented well and some names may seem senseless, the engine in its current state was intended for my use only, over time I will clean up the code and comment through the documents to make the code more readable and accessible.

Thanks for reading, Discuss anything you may want in the game, anything you may be interested in, any advice you may have, any concepts you would like to share, etc. etc.
in this thread, I hope we can create an amazing world together.
Bombshell

being so early in development I've naturally been thinking up concepts and doodling stuff.
So far the ideas I have include a HUB world named "Ghost Town" the player can explore ghost town talking to its residents for expansion on the world or the current situation or just general gameplay hints (likely these would change throughout the game depending on what your next goal is) I'm thinking characters within the hub world only need a mug shot and 2 maybe 3 animations (idle, hit, chat), I would leave it at just idle but it'd be nice for even the non-plot-important characters to have some personality to them.
Ghost Town
its not much, I know, but its a very early sketch, as we establish more about the hub world could be fleshed out with peoples houses, businesses, billboards, make it lively and let everyone leave their mark on it in some way or another.

I've also done some general sketches, nothing important just brain storming
the darken I don't expect to use, it was an branch of the original concept where after so long darklings would be locked in a form forever, I scrapped the idea because it limits what could be done with darklings as possible enemies

I've taken a particular interest in a scarecrow guarding a cemetery as the first boss encounter
a cemetery seems fitting for the games theme, zombies could excusably be the first enemies, it'd be a good reason to rid them of any gimmicks that may cause difficulty early game, just slow and stupid brain chompers.

of course all of this is up for discussion,
so if anyone has anything they'd like to discuss relating to the early project your free to do so.

The doodles show the overall design of the character types pretty well, but I'm not surewhy but the vampire design seems to bug me a little bit(I can't put my finger on it).

Just curious, have you thought of using wraith, whisps, phantoms and such? I think it'd add a little bit of variety since not all the enemies would seem limited to the ground.

As for the Darken, it probably could've been darklings that refused to pay they're debt and defied the moon, and thus the moon took away there ability to change shape and cursed them to what ever form they where in. And they end up being angry at everything.

Edit: I also like the idea of it being open source, so the whole project isn't reliant on a single programmer(So if something pops up and he can't work on it, the project won't end up being either in haitus or get lost)

The problem with the vampire is bad sketch which led to bad design, the head is like a bean, the body is malshaped and its not defined that well, I'll keep trying
wraiths, whisps, phantoms, etc. are a great idea, its good you mentioned the variety because their characteristics are quite different and will no doubt lead to more diverse and interesting enemies.
the darken explanation is a brilliant idea and a good thing to visit at a point of crisis (say for E.G. if we take the hero's journey type story there should be a point where commitment to the cause is tested, this would make a great point to show what happens if you can not finish)

also on the open source thing, thats just how I saw it too, if I for some reason disappear or are unable to continue the project anyone willing could continue it. (I've seen on many occasions similar projects I've wanted to jump in and start up again, but of course the creator took the source with them, dooming the project)

So ended up making some doodles while brainstorming myself, so I cleaned up most of them(I left hte messy ones hidden for now)
Seems the like Bats and Crows/Ravens are missing even though they are extremely prevelent in Horror stuffs.

I've been working on the engine a bit (while working on P2PG Arcade I fixed a few bugs, it using the same engine the fixes apply to this too)
I think I'm going to get to work on a pallet for foreground and background and establish the general style of sprites, I don't want it limited to just silhouettes so a style will be necessary to keep sprites looking good together.
Kami I had a similar design to the witch and I like the bat (though making it a bit rounder couldn't hurt)

sorry for the delays of work on this project but I have no intention of coding gameplay elements when there is still no base design, so far its run and jump and boss battles,
Things I think need discussing (I'd rather it be decided as a group),
will there be buying and selling items? what will the currency be?
are there things to collect? gems? coins? moon shards? cookies?
how should the combat handle? combos? 1 hit commands? macro chains?
what abilities should you start with / what abilities should you earn? wall jump? climbing? gliding?
are the levels linear or should they have multiple paths?
and plenty more,
of course not all of it needs deciding, I'd just like a small idea of what to start with, the combat is the most important at the moment I'd say, because what is a platformer without hazard? and hazard means enemies (unless you just want boring old spikes everywhere)

(01-26-2013, 02:11 AM)Bombshell93 Wrote: [ -> ](unless you just want boring old spikes everywhere)

There should be a boss named "Spiked Wall Man".

I really like this idea! Only thing is, the moon design you have doesn't look 'important' enough.
I don't know exactly what you were going for, but I'm thinking of it to be very similar to the Gatekeeper in Fullmetal Alchemist Brotherhood
I tried something a little different from yours:

EDIT: Welp, this might have been subconsciously inspired by the Majora's Mask moon a little too much :U

Well this seems to have died already. :\/

So my two cents on the mechanic suggestions,
~I'd say that it'd probably be fitting for it kind of a action platformer, we could probably make it kinda fast paced with an overall timelimit before your stripped of your freedom, by the moon. I think that there should be the ability to do combos. The megaman-esque form collection probably could have different stats and attack/skill possibilities. Shops? I'd say there could be limited use items or maybe weapons or such to increase base stats or something. I'd say souls could be the currency of this world. I think the levels should be multi-path as it'd make tem possible feel UnNamed's desprate struggle.

I also feel we should try and develop the overall basic background lore of the moon's domain and it's residents.

---

@Baegal: I'd say it looks in overall pretty good, probably make it abit orange-ish, yellow-ish.

the project isn't dead, I've been working on my P2PG Arcade project a lot so this has been neglected, but fixes to the engine will effect this project too.
the original story for the moon (which is obviously subject to change should anyone have any ideas),
The world was ruled by 2 kings, the King of light and King of Dark,
Their entire role was to keep balance, neither could have more power or domain than the other,

the King of dark started creating sinister creatures from other creatures against their will, slowly turning his kingdom into one big nightmare, the king of light having enough of the suffering locked himself in the sky as the sun, the link between the 2 kings meant the king of dark had to follow to have equal domain, and so he became the moon.
They can only use their magics with the will of someone in the world, E.G. your character whoever they were requested the moon give them power, submitting their will to the moon.

souls as a currency sounds good, but it being a platformer I'm not sure what you would buy, I'd say cosmetic changes but that makes the system useless (because such rewards would be better tied to achieving goals)
I did have the idea of elemental souls, temporarily changing how you interact with the level and enemies.
E.G. Fire Soul, run through flame walls, walk on lava, resistant to fire enemies, extra damage to beefy nature enemies (which I intend on being different from typical enemies, sort of like mini-bosses)
I'd say a good limitation for this is to only have them available when your not in a form like vampire / werewolf. It would avoid the need to make a crap tone of sprites and slightly balance them.

I think this would require plenty of optional content like mini-levels, secret enemies, etc. otherwise the player would be grinding... in a platformer grinding is very out of place.

EDIT: Baegal - that looks awesome, once I have the pallet chosen I'll throw together a bunch of designs for a more dramatic and eye catching moon.

Yeah I don't really think currency is necessary, except that it might increase score. TBH with platformers less is more--there's no necessity to add something if it really isn't vital to the gameplay.

okay then, souls will likely be used as mario coins, useless bar for score. Though I do have a sudden urge to use them similar to sonic R, get so many and use them on specific bits and bobs to open new paths, it'd be a handy thing for secrets and reward those daring enough to take on the enemies as opposed to hopping right over them..

a quick moon design and pallet, pallet is not final but I'm liking it so far, some tweaks and extra colours (a game made purely out of purple would be boring as heck)

EDIT: changed some of the lighting
EDITEDIT: alt style
EDITEDITEDIT: other alt style

I'd say, when it comes to texture, 1 or 2 works best (probably 2 with less AA in areas, to make it look rougher without Dithering?)
As for face, I'd say 1.
What is the moon's size in relation to the main character?

well moon sized in relation to a person, but in view I think the moon will be significantly bigger than in the sprites above I'm thinking moon : player, 3 : 1 / 4 : 1 somewhere around there, bigger if need be. I want it to be grand when we're interacting with in, otherwise it should be out of view to stop it from removing focus from the scenery.

I think this could be pulled off via darkening it so its just a dim silhouette in the sky OR have the player go up into the sky to interact with the moon, via a floating island, magic or climbing a mountain, implying the moon is normally higher than our view, typically above the clouds.
I personally would prefer a flying island kind of thing (not a massive mound of land, just a small platform big enough to stand on, flying up to the clouds) it'd make for a good opportunity to give a sense of scale, show the world stretching off in the background like a map.