Project Slender - development thread

jonmulcahy

I'm doing something different this time around, I'm going to have a development thread from the start of my game. This is the first preview video from my game Slender, an 8bit survival horror game. This is the completion of the movement and screen changes. I'm using some backgrounds from Quest for Glory 1 to help show movement. The red rectangles are walls.

Stay tuned for more.

Braydon_SFX

Haha, neat!

floydianspiral

a survival 8 bit game is an interesting idea...cant wait to see more

LeonardDeveloper

Looks awesome! - love the name, is it inspired by slender man?

famekrafts

I forgot the name but I am suddenly remembering one classic game like this. It's coming out great.

jonmulcahy

thanks everyone, I think it could be cool. I've been writing up some prelim design docs this week inbetween working on some other projects and if I can pull off some of the logic and scripting, it should be a good game. the grid in the middle of the picture is a early map of the world.

I'm trying to make this game somewhat random so no two games are alike. The villian of the game will appear in random positions for each player, some of the goals will be randomly placed, and of course how the player dies / how the game handle's restarting. I'm keeping that a secret right now. I think it's pretty cool though.

Goals for this week:
- Code some of the random happenings
- Code player's death
- Code villian's placement

That's all for now, I'll post another update in a week or so, or if I hit any major milestones.

carlblanchet

Really cool man! I love slender man! Was thinking of making a reference game like that but not anymore since you're doing such of an awesome job with yours!
Can't wait to see your final product!

jonmulcahy

Really cool man! I love slender man! Was thinking of making a reference game like that but not anymore since you're doing such of an awesome job with yours!
Can't wait to see your final product!

Thanks!
It's always slow going at the beginning. 90% of my time has been designing on paper, but because of that I was able to design the map and walking method in about an hour. The entire game is one scene right now.

jonmulcahy

some progress this week. I've got the final designs of the main character and his walk animation down. I've also got the final design of the villain. You can check them out below. I've got some progress on the game, but nothing I want to show right now since it's most of how the player dies. but it's coming along.

Slowboy

Looking really cool Jon. What with this and eMMa, spooky games are becoming a GS forte!...Oh, and Spooky Hoofs! (Hooves?)
Anyway looks great!

WoodGames

How did you create that animation?

jonmulcahy

How did you create that animation?

Manually. It wasn't fun.

AppsterDude

@jonmulcahy are there any good animation programs for mac?

jonmulcahy

@jonmulcahy are there any good animation programs for mac?

Im not sure, others will have better knowledge about it. I did this pixel by pixel in photoshop using some 8bit walking cycles as a guide

jonmulcahy

another quick update. I worked on the inventory system tonight. Using tables I have a dynamic inventory system that places the item on the map at pre-randomly generated positions, but only in the order they can be found. After walking over the item the item appears in your inventory to use in the future.

Tinpot

@jonmulcahy have you tried Spriter for your animations? Quiet literally stumbled across this last night. Not sure if the current build has export for PNG's, but might be worth a look considering it will be included once released.

Just create the body parts, and let it do the animations!

osucowboy18

Looking cool Jon! I'm glad to know I'm not the only one around here who spends countless hours working on design documents on paper. Some of the developers and designers I work with can certainly attest to this

Can't wait to see more!

- Alex

jonmulcahy

@jonmulcahy have you tried Spriter for your animations? Quiet literally stumbled across this last night. Not sure if the current build has export for PNG's, but might be worth a look considering it will be included once released.

Just create the body parts, and let it do the animations!

very interesting, I'll take a good look at that tomorrow.

jonmulcahy

Looking cool Jon! I'm glad to know I'm not the only one around here who spends countless hours working on design documents on paper. Some of the developers and designers I work with can certainly attest to this

Can't wait to see more!

- Alex

at this point i've spent longer on design docs than actual coding , and every time I think of a new idea for the game, i go back to the docs and update them.

carlblanchet

really nice!!

jonmulcahy

really nice!!

Thanks. Spent the night upgrading both me and my wife's iPhones to 5s. What a pain, but I finally did it. Unfortunately that meant no real time to code, but I did work out mentally how to do some cool things.

jonmulcahy

some new artwork for today. I finally settled on the art style. The only bit of color in the game is the red tie. Everything else is in black and white. This is one of the Trees and the Well, and the two characters in there for scale and mood.

IsabelleK

It looks amazing Jon! I really like this pixel art style
I have a question - I saw a lot of games with Slender in title - is this some kind of popular story, or book?

jonmulcahy

It looks amazing Jon! I really like this pixel art style
I have a question - I saw a lot of games with Slender in title - is this some kind of popular story, or book?

it's a 'fake' urban legend that was created a few years ago
http://knowyourmeme.com/memes/slender-man