Hi guys.
My holidays just started and I returned to an old project (which is not that old at all) - the game formally known as
Doyle 2.
After asking a lot of people what a good alternative title would be, there were some candidates such as
Doyle vs Gravity that seemed promising, but finally I decided to stick with
GTFO, Moon! since it is not as generic and will hopefully generate more interest.
Since the original thread linked above, much has changed - the most important change being the graphics style. I finally found a style that seems to be adequate despite its extreme simplicity. I already posted a screenshot in
this thread (where I also asked forum members to help me with the game's title):
Furthermore I worked out a better story as well as a good way to tell it (using quite simple cutscenes and voice over in a Film Noir-ish style, somewhat similar to the movies The Third Man, Double Indemnity, Sunset Boulevard or even Sin City).
The story is ridiculous and I've got the intention to tell it in such a serious way that it appears to be funny - we will see how that works out, but I'm pretty optimistic.
The final game will consist of several components, the most important one (as opposed to what I mentioned in the original thread) being the
Story Mode, which will provide 1.5-2 hours of gameplay, of which half is already done. Furthermore there's the already existing
Coop Mode, which will later also support gamepad controls (so far you have to play it with two people using the same keyboard and/or the mouse). Surely it would be cool to play the Coop mode on two different computers, but that's not on my ToDo-list so far.
There are bonus levels and campaigns, e.g. one
Challenge Campaign that is meant to provide another hour or so of pure challenging gameplay using all the gameplay elements available without putting it into the story's context. Furthermore there's a
Race Mode in which you have to try to reach a given level's end in the least possible time, which currently looks like this:
The motion blur effect will be reduced a bit, and the player is also able to see the highscore's ghost while playing such a race level.
Since I'm a huge fan of
Bonus Levels in general, there is and will be more:
-a remake of
I Wanna be the Guy (not with the same level design, but following the same premise), i.e. a highly frustrating, almost impossible to beat level that constantly surprises you with unexpected traps
-Short remake-level of
VVVVVV (which is already existing, I applied all the game mechanics and copied some of the puzzles from VVVVVV) - I will have to ask the creator of that game if I'm allowed to do that however (it would be even cooler if I could use part of the original soundtrack... but that's quite improbable)
-and again in case the maker of that game allows me to do so, I will also integrate a remake of the complete game
Escape from the Underworld, all within the
GTFO, Moon!-"Engine"
Note that while this sounds like a ton of work, most of it has already been done. What remains right now is bug fixing, polishing and building the complete story including all the cutscenes (which works well, but is also much work). This is
still a lot of work, but considering how much is already finished, I'm pretty optimistic that one day the game might reach its final state.
All in all the game will provide at least five hours of "high quality" (i.e. not artificially stretched out just for the sake of it, but actually designed in a way to be entertaining) gameplay.
Finally, there has been another development, regarding the game's price. Originally I was planning to release it as freeware game, but throughout the previous months I realized that the game's quality would actually justify selling it for a small price, and - I think - it is even possible that quite a few people would buy it.
The price I'm currently aiming at is ~3$ (a bit less than VVVVVV, which imho is on a similar level quality-wise). But don't worry, my target audience is not necesaarily this forum, so I will post a free version at some point to let you test the game.
So much about that. Now what can you expect from me throughout the following weeks and months? Without giving you a concrete date (that never works out, hehe), I believe that I will be able to implement working cutscenes, so I might post a video of the story's intro sequence once it is done.
On top of that I'm planning to build an actual homepage (there already is one, but it is badly designed and coded and uses a rather bad, free domain name) as well as according Youtube-, Facebook- and Twitter-channels once there's enough material of the current version to show.
Thanks for your interest. Comments on anything mentioned above, be it the graphical style, the price or anything else, are highly appreciated!
-MrKohlenstoff