It’s been a couple of weeks since I worked on and finished Aedicula, my Tiny World themed game for the 48 hour compo. I figure enough time has passed that I can talk more objectively about it and my future plans for it.

Progress
The concept came together pretty quickly on the first night. The second day was mostly spent watching Ogmo Editor tutorials and reading documentation while figuring out how to get basic levels to import properly into Flashpunk. The majority of the game came together on the last day. The 4 levels and final polish necessary for it to be considered a finished game were done in the last 4 hours.

Final Polish
The last hour was spent making the title, adding menu and restart buttons to the level, and adding instructional text. These don’t seem like a big deal, but I’m really glad I put them in. They’re the difference between a tech demo and knowing that someone coming into the game without any knowledge of it beforehand would be able to play it from start to finish.

Next Steps
I ran out of time to add a pushing mechanic to anything but the keys. The original goal was to also have blocks that could only be pushed when you’re large. Large blocks would have passages that could only be passed through when you’re small. I’m going to keep working on the game and switch the top down view to an orthographic view. I’m also going to rename the game to Minor Deity. The name is more accessible and better describes the gameplay in the title.

Most of the hard stuff is done I think. The biggest time sink was getting familiar with the level editor and dealing with its output format.
The Alice in Wonderland shrinking/enlarging mechanic is working.
You can only pick up keys when you’re large. When you’re small you just push them.
I just have to add large pushable blocks and that should be enough for me to start creating levels.

I’ve been pushing my code to github: https://github.com/emilng/Aedicula

The player is the large red block. The square with the big/little person changes your size when you go into it.
The gate (little circles on the right) will open (disappear) when you get all the keys in the level.

The end of first day was more productive than the end of the first day of my previous ludum dare. \o/

I came up with a title and concept for the game. The title is Aedicula which is  a small shrine within another building. See I actually learned something in architecture

The premise is you’re trapped within a temple containing a demon shrine and you have to find a way out.

It’s going to be a puzzle game with Alice in Wonderland shrinking/enlarging mechanics. So when you’re large you can move obstacles or climb over obstacles that you would be unable to when you’re small. When you’re small you can fit through spaces that your large self can’t fit through.

On the right I have data import working from the level editor into flash.
On the left is color palette inspiration and towards the bottom is the design for the demon head/shrine.

This will be my second ludum dare.
I didn’t finish last time but I learned a great deal so hopefully I’ll do better this time.
I’m skipping Diablo 3 open beta to do this =)

Tools:
Flash Pro, Flash Builder, FlashPunk game engine, Ogmo level editor, Reason for sound/music, Photoshop for graphics.