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TAFR blog # 9 - Attack Automaton

The Almighty Fishing Rod is a Metroid-Vania about a dwarf (Bimli) trying to become a god. While riding his insanely cute hedgehog (Pim), Pimli (Bimli & Pim) will go through numerous adventures, all fancier than each other. :-)

As it was to be expected, here is the attack automaton.

Damage is the state where the player lose health. Damage Dealt is the state where the player deal the damage to the enemy (or at least tries).

As you see, here pretty much from every state you can do a movement. I do not not for the moment if when you take a damage the player will be able to move, but I would like to. :-)

At the right, the state Damage Dealt is not linked to Damage. It is because in order to hit someone, you must get close. And we do not want the player to be hit every time he attacks (you can see that in Asterix the great rescue and it really ruins the gameplay). Of course we will also make sure that the wingspan of Pimli is large enough to not be forced to get too close to an enemy for an attack.

That’s pretty much it for this article. I think that I will try to code a little next week, in order to start making a prototype of the game and test the worlds that I made.

I hope you liked what you see & stay tuned for more :-)

#The Almighty Fishing Rod #TAFR #game design #game development #video games

TAFR blog # 8 - Animation Automaton

Today I’m going to talk about something a lot less interesting than level design. But as the worlds get bigger, it becomes harder to do and I’m currently lacking of creativity. ^^’

But don’t worry, soon, really interesting things will come ! :-D We are getting closer & closer to the date where I’ll be able to post some graphics about Pimli ! anticlockwisetio is actually working really hard on their looks, I look forward to post these drawings !

But it is not today’s topic ! We’re here to talk about automata. Particularly the animation automaton that I designed (it contains certainly some mistakes and will change in the future).

Here is what it looks like. As you can see, in every state, the player can take damage. I made sure that Pimli will be able to jump continuously. Every animation will be really short in order to have a great maniability and fluidity in the movements.

If you look closer (it is really well hidden ;-) ) at the bottom right there is a trash name “Attack”. Because it is pretty much a trash state. Every state can end up with an attack. From an attack you can go to “Waiting”, “Walking”, “Running” & “Start Jump” (unless you attack while in the air). But if you are more clever than I am, you will figure that it is not at all a trash state. But it is just a state that complicates a lot the diagram and I find it already hard to read. So I hope you’ll understand my choice. :-)

“Attack” contains all skills and attack abilities. I will soon show you the attack automaton. At this point you will pretty much have all the information about the player’s animations. :-)

So that’s it for today, I hope you liked what you saw. If you find any flaw to the diagram, do not hesitate to contact me, I will gladly discuss about that with you. :-)

As I said earlier, I am really looking forward to show you some graphics, it will be one of the most important thing in order to make you understand the universe of this game !

#The Almighty Fishing Rod #TAFR #game design #automaton #automata #video games #game development

TAFR blog # 7 - 3rd World

I finally finished the 3rd world !! :-D

As I said in TAFR blog #2 - First Wolrd , TAFR’s level design use a rectangle representation of Fibonacci’s function. So every world is bigger than the previous one (except the two first).

We are now entering a phase of HUGE evolution of each world’s size. This one was not too big, but it is becoming too hard to make animations about all possibilities in each level. Regarding this fact, now I will show you movement maps (as you can see below).

I hesitate between two possibilities for next worlds : Posting a huge post about an entire world like I am used to do, or posting little entries about a particularly interesting part, or an enigma.

Let me know what you’d like to see. :-)

But enough of that ! As you can see, the bottom right corner of this world is a little weird. It seems that instant damage blocks are used as regular platforms. But they aren’t. If you look well, for each damage block, a falling block is ready to cover it. The goal of this is to push the player to make all falling blocks fall and then go on the path and get the powerups. :-)

Furthermore, in the middle left corner you can see a room that use levers and numbers. It is an enigma ! First of all, the player will be forced to go there. By activating the scenario, the 2 falling blocks above the entry will fall. The player will learn the Dash ability. He will be able to break dark brown blocks.

In that room, each lever activate/deactivate every block that is noted with the same number. I let you discover what are the solutions for the power-up & the exit ! ;-)

When all of this is finished, the player can go kill the boss. This time, its weak points are on his sides. They will activate when they enter the boss cave at the bottom of the lever. To wake up the boss, the player will have to dash in the boss’s head.

There are the two ways of hitting the weak points.

(Did you see that I started using my graphic tablet and Photoshop ? I’m sure you like that gorgeous drawings ! ;-) I particularly like my hedgehog’s representation :-P)

There it is ! I hope you liked what you see ! Do not hesitate to ask me questions or give me advices about what you saw :-)

P.S. : If you think you found the solution of the enigma, I will be happy to know it ! :-D

#TAFR #The Almighty Fishing Rod #game design #game development #level design #video games

TAFR blog # 6 - Skills

As I said on yesterday’s post, today I will talk about the game’s Skills. Skills will be divided in two parts : Destruction and Absorption.

The Destruction Skills are skills that are made to do mass damage to enemies. When an enemy is killed by one of them, gold will drop. The Absorption Skills are made to absorb the souls out of the enemies when they are at the edge of death. They will indeed give souls to the player.

Both gold & souls are collectibles that allow to upgrade Equipment.

Here is the list of skills that I already thought of.

Absorption :

Each absorption ability needs the enemy to be at the edge of death. But each ability have a minimum hp limit. For example the simple hook would need the enemy to have less than 6hp where the lasso would need the enemy to have less than 11hp. Below is the list of absorption abilities, sorted by the hp needed.

Simple Hook :

Bimli catches the soul of the enemy with the fishing rod’s hook.

Lasso :

The fishing rod is used like a lasso to catch an enemy. Then Bimli pull on it to squeeze the enemy and catch his soul.

Back pulling hook :

Bimli hits the enemy with the rod. The enemy is pushed back. Then while the enemy’s thrown back, Bimli catches his soul with the hook and pull it.

Crushing hook :

Bimli catches with the hook the enemy. He then pull the enemy in the air and immediately push on the rod to crush it on the ground.

Destruction :

Each destruction ability deals a different amount of damage. Below is the list of absorption abilities, sorted by the damage dealt.

Whack ! :

Bimli wacks the head of the enemy with the Almighty Fishing Rod.

Spinning Spikes :

Pim jumps toward the enemy and spins to deal damage with his spikes. (I hope you will forgive me, not every animation can be beautiful :-P)

Underworld Chomp :

Toki spits souls that bites the enemy.

Hedgehog bite :

Pim bites the enemy.

This is it for the Skills. I hope you liked what you see. :-)

If you have any question or advice, it will be my pleasure to read & answer it !

#TAFR #The Almighty Fishing Rod #game design #game development #video games

TAFR blog #5 - 2nd World

Since the basic enemies were decided, I could work on the 2nd world’s level design.

Here is what it looks like. I placed breakable blocks in the top right corner in order to be able to come again in the world later.

In it, the player will be able to discover 5 things : breakable blocks, flying enemies, range enemies, falling blocks and powerups. The power ups will be divided in 2 parts : gold & souls (their uses will be treated tomorrow !

I made some animations to have a better understanding of this color code (for more informations, see the 1st world’s entry)

As you can see, an important thing is also added in this level : the Boss ! For this boss, we make sure that the player uses the back attack to start the fight. If he does not do that, the way to kill the boss would be too shady. There is an example of what would look the first moments of the boss fight.

The boss will be defeated when he touches the last layer of breakable blocks. It will open a path to the 3rd part of the game. For the moment, the worlds I designed are not too much opened and not too big, but as you saw in the 1st world design, the longer you play, the bigger the worlds will be.

The other powerups that are visible in the world will only be reachable with other abilities unlocked later in the game.

This is pretty much all for today. I hope you liked what you see. :-)

Tomorrow I will talk in further details about Pimli’s Skill.

#TAFR #The Almighty Fishing Rod #video games #game development #level design #game design

TAFR blog #4 - Enemies

Hey there !

Before doing The Almighty Fishing Rod’s second world, I wanted to create some basic enemies to start placing them in the levels. So here is the different archetypes that I chose.

They are divided in 3 groups : Normal, Flying and Range (ex : archer).

Normal :

Sheep :

Stationary enemy or moving on straight lines. Ignores the player.

Giraffe :

Enemy which only the upper part of the body is vulnerable. Follows the player.

Imp :

Enemy which only the lower part of the body is vulnerable. Follows the player.

Frog :

Enemy who jumps on the player when he gets too close. Move only by jumping. Follows the player.

Flying :

Flying sheep :

Stationary enemy or moving on straight lines. Ignores the player. Being able to fly, this enemy will have more complex movements.

Eagle :

Enemy that leaps on the player when he gets too close.

Starving Eagle :

Enemy that leaps and follow the player when he gets too close.

Range :

Archer :

Shoots one arrow straight ahead or up.

Archer lvl 2 :

Shoots three arrows straight ahead or up.

Archer lvl 3 :

Flying enemy that shoots four arrows in four directions.

That’s it !

Someone asked me if those designs were the final looks of the game. Not at all. :-)

The graphics are being worked on, but there is simply not enough for the moment to show some drawings.

Thanks for your question and your interest ! :-) Do not hesitate to subscribe if you want to read more about the development of The Almighty Fishing Rod or Game&Life !

#TAFR #The Almighty Fishing Rod #game design #video games #game development #enemies

TAFR blog #3 - Equipment

An important characteristic of TAFR is that the player will see Pimli evolve throughout the game. TAFR will start with a Bimli that only wears a white boxer and a Pim with just a mustache or a ribbon. They will then get equipment, and then upgrade it. At the end, they must look totally badass ! And it must only be due to the player’s efforts. :-)

For that, I thought of several pieces of equipment that Pimli will get throughout their adventures. In addition of getting graphically cooler, they will get bonuses from it.

Without further a due, this is the list of all equipment and its effects.

Helmet : Bimli’s helmet is linked to the damage of Back Attack & to the maximum life.

Fishing Rod : The Almighty Fishing Rod is linked to normal attacks and Destruction Skills.

Charisma : The charisma will affect Pim’s mustache/ribbon and Bimli’s boxer. It is linked to gold drop.

Pim’s armor : Pim’s armor is linked to the damage reduction.

Toki : Toki’s linked to the percentage of soul looted with Absorption Skills & with the minimal life required to activate an Absorption Skill.

(Toki is the worm that hangs on the fishing rod’s hook, but it is not just a worm ;-) )

So this is it for the equipment !

Next time I will present you the skills and their uses.

As always, don’t hesitate to contact me if you have any question or advice, and subscribe if you want to see future posts about my work ! :-)

#TAFR #The Almighty Fishing Rod #game design #game development #video games

TAFR blog #1- Abilities & Skills

Wanting to do a Metroid-Vania game, before to start designing levels, we must choose the abilities that can be used that involve moving arround or breaking blocks.

So we divided the “abilities” of Bimli & Pim in 2 categories : Abilities and Skills.

Abilities are all the stuff involving deplacement or breaking blocks, I’ll cover it just below. ;-)

Skills are combative capacities, or certainly other funny stuff. We did’nt thought through that part, so we/you’ll read more about it later. :-)

We also used Bimli & Pim to make the scale of the game. Bimli (when he’s riding Pim) is 2 blocks high and 1 block wide.

But now, let’s talk about the abilities ! What we chose to use is :

(To ease all this, I will talk about the team Bimli & Pim as “Pimli” or “The Almighty Super Ultra Cool guys”)

Jump : Pimli jumps 3 blocks up.

Double Jump : Pimli jumps a second time while in the air.

Crawl : Pimli gets down on the ground and now takes only 1 block. But Pimli can’t attack.

Float : Bimli swings his Almighty Fishing Rod while in the air. The result is that The Almighty Super Ultra Cool guys fall down less quickly. Starting this ability will stop the ascending phase of a jump/double jump.

Dash : Pimli dashes suddenly to the next tile. Can destroy certain blocks. Can be done in the air once per jump (jump->dash->jump->dash). The dash stop the ascending phase of a jump/double jump.

Back attack : While in the air, Pim rotate himself and dash to the ground. Bimli hits the ground really hard and can break some new type of walls.

That’s it for today !

Next time I will show you a bit of level design I made, so stay tuned ! :-)

#TAFR #game design #game development #video games