Alright, so I have a game, or at least a prototype of it. How can I improve it?
Because if I had the time, I would definitely work out a few quirk things that ended up unfinished.
First of all, character animation.
Because I actually made different sprites for the main character running around, at least in one direction, but I didn’t have the time to look into how to implement this in an 8 axis movement. It’s one minor thing that can make a strong difference between a sketchy prototype and a polished build.
But that’s purely aesthetics without much effect on the gameplay.
On the other hand the island, the gameworld itself, could do with a lot more detail and greatly improve the final effect. After all this is a game about exploration, and what good is exploring if there isn’t anything interesting to visit?
Stine likes games that show a lot of different areas full of mysteries, with old ruins, swamps, dangerous seas and more. For my prototype I had to put the limit at some point and I could never focus on making any area strong in characterization. I also couldn’t give my gameworld a nice, consistent story. It all ended up quite rushed in that aspect to tell the truth.
Then I would love to make the quests more interesting. I mean, right now as it is the game is full of fetch quests: go here, take this, find this guy, blow this cave, open that chest… A little bit more depth would have been very desirable. And that means lines upon lines of code, of course. It wouldn’t be so hard now that I have a grasp on the basics of scripting but it’s not something that I am willing to jump on right now.
And of course we have combat. Somehow I always wanted some sort of simple, old 2D Zelda styled combat in the game, even if to provide some extra difficulty in completing the quests. Again, this is not a core element of the game, but I really think it could evolve the gameplay a lot more. Not very complex combat sequences, but just basic sword fighting. The idea of using spells against enemies is also there, but that’s more of a second thought, even though it would be very cool.
Now, I don’t have any real plans of continuing this game any further, but I do want to keep using this little island of mine as a test lab to try out new ideas I might come up with for other games. It has the framework and now I know the tools. I’m still not perfect with coding, but I can definitely do much better now with the experience I have gained this semester.
And again, you will probably be able to try this prototype out yourself in the portfolio section. Keep reading for an update soon!