First off, this is not the project I've been working on since the middle of May. That project is complete, and a demo will be forthcoming shortly. It's not up to me when the demo goes out, so you'll just have to wait to find out about that. :-)
This is my next project, which I am funding myself and developing with the assistance of an artist I've hired, tentatively titled "Ice Cream Mania".
That name doesn't really fit the theme of the game however, so I plan to change it, and suggestions for alternatives would be appreciated.
This is a mockup of the main game screen:
The art for this is in a very early stage and much about it will change, but suggestions/critiques would be appreciated.
The people you see there are actually created like a paper doll. All the face parts, hair, clothes, etc, are interchangeable, so that the customers will vary in appearance. That's the only version set up as a sprite right now, so I just cloned him to see how multiple customers would appear.
Cloning him revealed that the door and window are too small currently so those are going to be fixed to match the perspective.
These are the main characters:
This art is pretty close to final.
Here's some background on the game:
The two characters you see above are rivals. I haven't decided yet if they will be brother and sister or not. If so, then the player would not find out about that until the end of the game.
The game mixes ice cream with a western theme. Hence the reason I need to change the name.
The two main characters will own shops at opposite ends of town, and there will be a saloon like building in the center of town which each has their eyes on for setting up shop in.
That builidng will be labeled the O.J. Corral and it will be a "soda shop" that sells fruit drinks. It will be up for sale, but neither ice cream shop owner will have enough money to buy it initially. This is where the game begins.
After choosing which character you want to play, you will see a side view cinematic of the two shop owners staring eachother down from opposite sides of town, arms at their sides like a gunfighter, and then the game will switch to the in-shop behind-the-counter view you see above.
The gameplay will involve taking orders from the customers and filling them correctly as quickly as possible. Thought bubbles will appear over the heads of multiple customers indicating which color ice cream they want, and in what order. They may change their mind as well.
Once the customer has ordered, they will progress to the cash register. And once you have finished the cone they ordered, you will click on them to hand them the cone, take their money, put the money in the register, and give them their change.
If you've made the order correctly, then this will go without a hitch, and if you've done it quickly, they'll be happy and will give you a tip.
If however you have gotten the order wrong, the customer may show his anger by refusing to pay, or giving you a lower tip or no tip.
The customers will also display their emotional state while standing in line, so if they start to get impatient you'll know you'd better speed things up.
As you progress in the game, improvements will be made to the shop. At the end of each round/day some of the money you have made will go to fixing up damaged portions of your shop and resupplying. And after a certain number of days/rounds, you will move into a bigger, better shop, which you will then proceed to improve just like the previous one.
Over time other changes will also occur. While initially you might start out with only the three basic flavors of ice cream, over time you might gain as many as 12. In addition you might gain the ability to produce such items as a bananna split, a sundae, or a float, or gain additional toppings.
I'm still working out the kinks in the gameplay though, and just writing this has helped me iron out a few gameplay elements I was unsure about. One thing which is still troubling me is how I should go about handling the mouse and the player character. On the one hand making the character slide side to side with the mouse would be cool, but on the other hand I can't have them blocking the items which the player needs to click on. The character is also rather large to use transparency, (might kill the framerate) and they don't look as nice with transparency either.
Another big problem is the music. I am having a hell of a time finding music to license which will fit the game. I'm pretty sure I want some sort of country music to fit the western theme, but finding the right music has been a nightmare. The low quality samples they provide on many sites, the lack of country songs on most of the freindlier to use licensing sites, and the need for music which is not annoying and can be enjoyed by people who don't generally listen to country music, are killing me.
If anyone has any suggestions for where I can find music that's right for this, or any gameplay suggestions or art related comments, it would be appreciated. :-)
Oh and if you're wondering about when the game will be out, I don't have a hell of a lot of time to finish it. I've only got enough saved to get me through January, and I would REALLY like to have the game done by the end of November. It just took me five months to complete another game I was working on, but I learned a lot about how I should set up the code for gameplay and menus while working on that, and created new libraries for handing fonts, images, and animation, and all that will help me get this coded quickly. Also a lot of the delay on that project was simply waiting on the artists to get the work done, and I had no control over that on that project and they were really slow to get stuff done. So I hope that this will be a realistic goal.
Well, let me know what you think, and throw any ideas you have my way! :-)
This is my next project, which I am funding myself and developing with the assistance of an artist I've hired, tentatively titled "Ice Cream Mania".
That name doesn't really fit the theme of the game however, so I plan to change it, and suggestions for alternatives would be appreciated.
This is a mockup of the main game screen:
The art for this is in a very early stage and much about it will change, but suggestions/critiques would be appreciated.
The people you see there are actually created like a paper doll. All the face parts, hair, clothes, etc, are interchangeable, so that the customers will vary in appearance. That's the only version set up as a sprite right now, so I just cloned him to see how multiple customers would appear.
Cloning him revealed that the door and window are too small currently so those are going to be fixed to match the perspective.
These are the main characters:
This art is pretty close to final.
Here's some background on the game:
The two characters you see above are rivals. I haven't decided yet if they will be brother and sister or not. If so, then the player would not find out about that until the end of the game.
The game mixes ice cream with a western theme. Hence the reason I need to change the name.
The two main characters will own shops at opposite ends of town, and there will be a saloon like building in the center of town which each has their eyes on for setting up shop in.
That builidng will be labeled the O.J. Corral and it will be a "soda shop" that sells fruit drinks. It will be up for sale, but neither ice cream shop owner will have enough money to buy it initially. This is where the game begins.
After choosing which character you want to play, you will see a side view cinematic of the two shop owners staring eachother down from opposite sides of town, arms at their sides like a gunfighter, and then the game will switch to the in-shop behind-the-counter view you see above.
The gameplay will involve taking orders from the customers and filling them correctly as quickly as possible. Thought bubbles will appear over the heads of multiple customers indicating which color ice cream they want, and in what order. They may change their mind as well.
Once the customer has ordered, they will progress to the cash register. And once you have finished the cone they ordered, you will click on them to hand them the cone, take their money, put the money in the register, and give them their change.
If you've made the order correctly, then this will go without a hitch, and if you've done it quickly, they'll be happy and will give you a tip.
If however you have gotten the order wrong, the customer may show his anger by refusing to pay, or giving you a lower tip or no tip.
The customers will also display their emotional state while standing in line, so if they start to get impatient you'll know you'd better speed things up.
As you progress in the game, improvements will be made to the shop. At the end of each round/day some of the money you have made will go to fixing up damaged portions of your shop and resupplying. And after a certain number of days/rounds, you will move into a bigger, better shop, which you will then proceed to improve just like the previous one.
Over time other changes will also occur. While initially you might start out with only the three basic flavors of ice cream, over time you might gain as many as 12. In addition you might gain the ability to produce such items as a bananna split, a sundae, or a float, or gain additional toppings.
I'm still working out the kinks in the gameplay though, and just writing this has helped me iron out a few gameplay elements I was unsure about. One thing which is still troubling me is how I should go about handling the mouse and the player character. On the one hand making the character slide side to side with the mouse would be cool, but on the other hand I can't have them blocking the items which the player needs to click on. The character is also rather large to use transparency, (might kill the framerate) and they don't look as nice with transparency either.
Another big problem is the music. I am having a hell of a time finding music to license which will fit the game. I'm pretty sure I want some sort of country music to fit the western theme, but finding the right music has been a nightmare. The low quality samples they provide on many sites, the lack of country songs on most of the freindlier to use licensing sites, and the need for music which is not annoying and can be enjoyed by people who don't generally listen to country music, are killing me.
If anyone has any suggestions for where I can find music that's right for this, or any gameplay suggestions or art related comments, it would be appreciated. :-)
Oh and if you're wondering about when the game will be out, I don't have a hell of a lot of time to finish it. I've only got enough saved to get me through January, and I would REALLY like to have the game done by the end of November. It just took me five months to complete another game I was working on, but I learned a lot about how I should set up the code for gameplay and menus while working on that, and created new libraries for handing fonts, images, and animation, and all that will help me get this coded quickly. Also a lot of the delay on that project was simply waiting on the artists to get the work done, and I had no control over that on that project and they were really slow to get stuff done. So I hope that this will be a realistic goal.
Well, let me know what you think, and throw any ideas you have my way! :-)
