a game of life (game maker 5)

[Akira]

Just a little game I whipped up after my friend got a tamagotchi thing.



I'm not much of a coder so if anyone wants to help me out the gmd file is here:
download .gmd

Left click - interact
Right click - show stats
+ increases hunger
- decreases happiness

I will try to continue but this could well be a neverending project. If anyone wants to contribute a creature/code that would be rad.

[miascugh]

Hi,

I am not miascugh but his brother hijacking his account. I am a bit of a coder and maybe I'd be interested in coding a bit (though I don't know game maker). Depends on how big the project is. If it's just some nice little tamagotchi thing without any fancy internet stuff or something, it could be fun. (However I don't want to promise anything at the moment)

Could you just tell us how you imagine the game?
A list of all feature. What can be done, what can't be done...

Haha, and NOW I'm gonna do some CRITIQUE!

I think the apples don't fit in stylewise. They are too cluttered, the dithering seems random. The light source for them is not cleary defined.
And maybe the trunk of the tree could need an additional shade.

... says the expert ...

cheers

[Rox]

Oh, evil EVIL miscaugh'sbrother! Don't do that! ^_^


I have to agree with the apple thing, though. They're very grainy and super-high contrast. The contrast between apples and background isn't bad, it's good to have interactiv.. inter.. interactable... ... usable objects contrast with non-usable ones. But the apples are just painfully contrasted. Just like the ground is painfully UNcontrasted. You can't tell that the ground actually has three shades, so there's no need to use three shades. Also, like miscaughsbrother said, the trunk of the tree could use a highlight.

[Akira]

Well I wasn't really planning on having a plan but heres what I've thought of adding so far:

-Interface
Various bars (happiness, hunger, etc)
Time/age
-Playing with the creature
Seperate objects do seperate actions
-Shop
-Title Screen
-Changes in creature with age*
-Some sort of minigame to increase age or money
-Possiblity of more creatures and perhaps breeding
-Movement dependant on mood*
*semi added

Alot of this I could probably do myself it would just take time and the coding would be messy.
I'm open to any ideas. I don't really know where this is heading myself (probably not the best enviroment for a coder right?).

@miscaugh'sbro: I'll fix the dithering on the apples (they were originally for another project with a different style) but isn't it better to have game sprites with undefined lightsources just so you don't have to worry about lighting at different angles and stuff? Maybe i'll just use a top/front source.

@Rox: uhh... theres actually 5 shades for the ground... Maybe a greater hue shift instead of more contrast? i want an overall neutral background so items/creatures stand out. I'll add another highlight to the tree and see how it looks.

EDIT: Updated background

Oh miscaugh'sbro, if you download gamemaker (www.gamemaker.nl) and the .gmd file (first post) you can see the game as it is so far and also access all the coding and sprites and stuff. I probably won't switch languages as I want to be able to keep some control over what is happening and not have it get too complex.

[ptps]

Ignore me if I'm wrong since I'm just a n00b here, but the tree, to me, looks as though the branches are wrapped outside the mass of green blobs that are supposed to be leaves, insteading of growing out and branching out. There are shadows around the "end" of the branches that make it look like it's a hand-ish thing trying to squeeze the green.

Would it be possible if you made the tree a little more umbrella shaped, with some extra foilage overlapping the branch ends?

[Akira]

It would be entirely possible to do that. I was just lazy with the background (and pretty much everything else ). I'll try remember to make an edit tomorrow but no promises.