I tried to do a Webplayer of this, but I couldn’t get it to fit right in the window, so I did a Mac standalone instead (I intended this only as a standalone, anyway). Hopefully it’ll download all right. It’s not fully animated yet (note the cogwheels on the right), because I was going to finish it this morning and ran into some trouble that I mention in the second last paragraph below.
I should mention that this machine is a small part of a larger walkaround/exploration type of game.
Instructions:
In this example of how the “machine” will work, you’re about to find out where the letter A fits into the puzzle, which is part crossword and part word search. The crossword puzzle is in the white squares, while the word search words are all diagonal. In this example, the puzzle has already been pieced together for you, so you don’t have to figure anything out.
To activate the machine to place the letter A, you have to first click the big blue/turquoise orb in the lower left, then click the following code into the “virtual keyboard:” 16 BRICK. To reset the puzzle, click the white cube in the triangular area. These are not the actual controls I will be using in the game, but only for this test build.
Clicking the blue orb also sets up the letter O as a “booby trap” that will stop further use of the keyboard. This is to prevent people from cheating by clicking all the keys of the keyboard to get at the code.
In the process of creating this build, I somehow lost all of the meshes for the crossword puzzle and can’t find them anywhere on the computer, so with a sinking stomach, I realize that I have to create and animate it all over again.
There’s not much to this test sample, but I hope you enjoy it!
It still looks interesting so I’ll keep an eye on how your progress. Feedback:
Once I activated placement of the letter A, I thought that whole animation took waaaay too long. I’d definitely recommend making that a bit shorter as it’s not eye-catching enough for me to want to watch and it’s long enough to bore me a bit.
Can you give some background as to how the user will interact with this puzzle? Do they hunt down various codes in the world and then go to the puzzle to enter them?
Also, when talking about game play what will happen when the user hits a key that’s a booby trap? I noticed that when I pressed O a white, semi-transparent “shield” (for lack of a better term) appeared over the keys and it seems to just hang around. In the final game will that be a timed thingand eventually go away?
I know you said it’s early in development still so I assume some good audio is in the works?
I like the artwork but think it can still use some refinement. Specifically I’ll tie back in to my animation point above (#1): the animation goes on a bit long but when shortening it up, have your gears and whatnot stand out a bit more. I’m not sure on a best path or good suggestions for that, it’s just a gut feeling.
Ok, I’ll stop now. Like I said, I’m intrigued by where you are going with all this and I think that’s a good thing (it’s far better to leave folks intrigued than disinterested!). Keep it up and please keep us posted.
Note: I’ll admit now that for the longest time I thought your screen name was “Terrans Age”, as in “the age of the terrans” sort of thing. Now with your recent postings I’m finally clued in to the fact that it’s “Terran Sage”. DOH!
I wondered about the speed of the animations, etc., and originally had no plans for the chain reaction effect; I was just going to have the letters immediately drop down into the puzzle. I thought this’d be more interesting, however, and I still like the general idea of it. I’ll see what I can do to make it faster and more exciting. (I’m easily amused by slow things, I guess.)
The user will be wandering through the level, searching for talismans with letters of the alphabet on them (while encountering all kinds of rpg-type situations, robots, traps, etc.). Often the talismans have to be “won” by overcoming some danger, figuring out a puzzle, etc… By clicking on the talisman, you are immediately switched to the word machine screen and given the code for revealing the letter that was on the talisman. You can also switch to that screen whenever you want to view the puzzle. If you begin to recognize words in the crossword puzzle, there will be a way to choose a particular letter to see if it’s the correct one within that word. If you’re wrong, there will be consequences. If you’re right, all of that same letter will reveal itself throughout the puzzle, and you can begin to figure out the puzzle faster without having to find the talismans. Once the crossword is complete, the rest of the letters (the yellow ones) will automatically appear, and now the puzzle becomes a word search, which eventually leads you to a password that acts as a key to take you to the next level.
There’s more to the game than just the word puzzles and reaching levels, however. Ultimately, the game is a quest, and the goal is given to you at the beginning of the game. As you search for the talismans, you are also given clues for completing the quest.
It sounds pretty complex, but prompts and some instructions will be given to the player throughout the game.
Booby trap was probably the wrong word. The white shield (which I haven’t textured or even modeled yet) is only meant to stop the player from entering anything else in the keyboard while they are still in the puzzle machine screen. As soon as they exit, the shield goes away. It’s meant more as an annoyance to keep people from clicking random keys or trying to cheat by clicking all of the keys. I haven’t set it up that way yet, but that’s how it’s going to work.
Yes, I haven’t even gotten around to audio or even lighting, for that matter.
And yes, the artwork will all be tweaked. I thought that if I post in the Showcase early on in the project, I’ll get a lot of constructive criticism that will save me the headache of redoing everything later on. So far it’s helped a lot!
Yes, it’s Terran Sage. It’s also the name of a rock band I’m in. I was just casting about for names, and this one popped into my head. There’s no real story behind it. Hm, I kind of like Terrans Age. I never even thought of it.
How do you play this game … ? I can’t do anything. P.S: It crashed for me on the default player settings, iMac Intel Duo 2.33 GeForce 7600 GT, I’m now trying to make something happen ( apart from a black and white version of the screen that curtains across ) and might wait until you post some kind of instructions. Loooks interesting tho and I love puzzles … maybe the puzzle is working out how to play ?
Actually it’s not a game–yet. Just a sample of how the “machine” will work. To activate the keyboard, you first have to click on the glowing blue orb on the left. Then click 16-B-R-I-C-K on the keys with the letters and numbers on them. When you’re finished, the machine animation will begin. To reset, just click the white cube above the blue orb. Hopefully it’ll work. I also posted instructions at the top of this page.
Sorry that it crashed on your computer. I hope it’s not bad code. I wasn’t getting any error messages, so maybe it’s something else…
Thanks, again, HiggyB, for the comments. I sat down and brainstormed ways to make it work better and look better, and I was amazed by some of the obvious things I hadn’t thought of before, like using skeletal animations, alpha texture animations for Tesla coil lightning effects, particles, etc… I was pretty fixated on the general idea, I guess, so I overlooked other things. I always say that posting in the Showcase is the best learning experience of all!
I’m sorry I didn’t read that far into your original post but I got it working with the instructions you posted and it is interesting. I agree with HiggyB on the animation time, maybe about half the time ? As said before I like puzzle games so I’m keen to see where this goes.
but I got it working with the instructions you posted and it is interesting. I agree with HiggyB on the animation time, maybe about half the time ? As said before I like puzzle games so I’m keen to see where this goes.