Sophie’s Witch Game
Posted: October 18, 2010 Filed under: Game stuffs, Lottie's Dungeon | Tags: Lottie's Dungeon 8 Comments »
What?
If you have been following my twitter, you already know this, but I’ve been working on this lately, and you can now buy it. go here.
The game is still in development, and I will be adding to the price as I add to the game.
I’ll use this blog here to post updates and news about the game, since I barely use this blog enough otherwise 😉 I’ll probably post every wednsday (since alliterative indie blog updates are all the rage what with Marian Mondays, Fez Fridays and now Witch Wednesdays), also Wednesdays are named for Odin, and Odin is a total dude.
What the game is aiming to be:
A few people have asked me to describe what the game will be when it is done, which is ambiguous since the game’s page only really lists future features. SO THEN! You will play as a witch, who is relatively new at being a witch. she has recently moved into the ‘original’ witches house, that borders the human world (Earth) and the magical world. witches being the only things of course that can enter both worlds. Our witch wakes one morning to find that the human world has been STOLEN! probably by one of her witch housemates, and is likely being taken to the bottom of their basement (which just so happens to be the huge magical world) to be sacraficed for evil bad stuff. So, our witch makes the hero’s choice and sets off into the basement to save the world!
buuuut its not going to be easy, hundreds of procedurally generated dungeons, caves, mountainsides, abandoned ancient cities and the like are between our witch and her destiny, and they are filled with all sorts of nasty things that want only to hurt her. She must learn new spells and craft new items to become strong enough to fight the monsters deeper in to the magical realm. as well as rescue her more trustworthy witch housemates for help along the way.
as well as this ‘story mode’, I shall be adding a suvival mode, with an infinite amount of dungeons with ever stronger enemies,in this mode the challenge is to get as deep as possible before you finally die, and this mode will have permadeath (if you die, no respawning, I may even have it delete the save data in that slot!)
gameplay wise, if you can imagine diablo, spelunky, and a sickeningly cute j-rpg all had a magnificent three-way and an even more magnificent baby, which is now in it’s rebelious teen phase and wants to be a shoot-em-up, that’s what I’m going for.
What about Sarah’s Run, when will that be ready?
I don’t know, but I do know it would take me longer to finish than my witch game, and I’m not at the point where I am happy to sell it yet, and frankly my financial situation is I need to be making some money right now, I enjoy working on both games, but for the time-being, my witch game is taking prority, Sarah’s Run is next on my to-do list, I have some wicked things planned for it 🙂
again, heres the link to my witch game, theres a free browser preview by the way 🙂
I think it’s the best Witchy game in ages, and I’m excited to watch it develop! 😀
Hey, you should ad bump maps to the stone walls. That would look awesome! Maybe that would add graphics accelleration dependencies that you don’t want to mess with though… :S dunno…
Have only looked at screenshots so far…
@Dock thanks! I can’t think of any other witchy games right now, but yay! 😀
@Per I’m mostly using vertex lighting I’m afraid, so bump mapping is no good there. I may use all pixel lights using unity’s new deffered rendering as a graphics option and then consider it (since the walls are super low poly and some extra lighting spiff wouldnt go amiss) but I dont have hardware that supports it so if I cant test it myself, I may get it wrong if I try to include it ^_^;
so I guess what I’m saying is; probably no bump maps, maybe, but probably not 🙂
It’s an interesting idea for the pricing. Buy it before it’s fully completed and you get it cheaper, the earlier you buy the cheaper it is. I don’t know what the projected full price is of the completed product though or how long we would have to wait. Perhaps users might want to know how much they are saving by buying early?
I tried the demo thing and it seems a bit too difficult for me the way it is now. No sooner have you left the witch’s cottage thing than you have a large rat or big blob upon you and you barely have time to even turn around before it’s got you. But that may be just me being crap at games.
Last thing, I hope you are planning to release this for Android and iPhone, it seems an especially excellently suited game for the phone market. Awesome on an iPad too I think with the increased screen size.
Good luck with it anyway!
@Richard yeah, I’m sorry but I havent tuned the difficulty or how close to the start point enemies spawn, so thats more my bad than your being crap at games 🙂
as for what the full price will be, I have no idea, it will depend on what I think it’s worth when it’s done, as it’s not there yet I can’t say.
and for iOS/android, its a possibility at some point, but I’ve never developed for that kind of device before, I dont know if how I do stuff on PC would work there and still have a decent frame rate.
oh, and thanks for the well wishes 🙂
Looking very promising. Music is wonderful, too.
OK you made $5000 on the preview now make the game. 😐
For those who don’t know what I’m talking about:
http://www.kongregate.com/forums/1-kongregate/topics/150130-unity-contest-winners-announced?page=1
@DSSCRA yep, that’s super awesome and that money is going to be a massive help, but it’s not enough to fund development of Sarah’s Run (it’s barely enough to cover the rent and bills that I owe already), and the game’s not at the point where I am comfortable selling pre-orders of Sarah’s Run (I have nothing to give pre-orderers, since I want the experience to be complete and not fragmented for players), so I need something else to make money in the meanwhile, hence Lottie’s Dungeon is my current focus, and I have also started doing paying freelance work to cover bills.
Sarahs Run is important to me and work will resume I promise, it’s just going to have to be once I’m more financially secure.