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Friday 9 December 2016

Simply Mindy shiznit.


It is Friday, and I feel weird that I'm not putting out a build. Despite liking this new pace, it'll take some time to adjust to a bi-monthly schedule. As such, I think from now on I'll try to provide at least status updates on Fridays, so people have stuff to look at / look forward to.

A little overview. In Simply Mindy you're, obviously, playing as Mindy, a few months after the end of Soo Cubus. If you've seen the good ending of Soo Cubus you'll know where she wound up, and now she needs to come to grips with her substantially-changed circumstances.

Below are a few things of note you can expect while playing. I made short notes of a lot of them; now I will expand.

- On the bare surface the game play will be fairly similar to Soo Cubus. Three Stamina a day, earn money for rent, build stats, watch cut scenes, etc. That said there will be far more stats to juggle (ten, off the top of my head) which will be used in far more story-related scenarios than in Soo Cubus.

- There will also be less of a central story than there was in Soo Cubus. The primary goal in this one is for Mindy to get a new job for herself, so the story you pursue will change depending on the direction you drive Mindy's stats. Sounds ambitious, might be overly-so, but I relish the challenge. The plan is to have many more endings than in Soo Cubus, and all of them will be the 'official' ending, since each will see Mindy winding up with a job of sorts. Think Princess Maker, if you know that game.

- Changing seasons will play a role in statistical upgrades, as well as overall aesthetics. For example, if Mindy can't pay her rent she'll be forced out onto the street, and you'll see different animations depending on the season. She'll also get hit with different stat penalties depending on the season. There will also be a calendar with both yearly and unique events that trigger on specific days.

- RPG elements and RPG-based combat will play a larger role this time around. It was tacked on as a novelty at first in Soo Cubus, turned into a fairly major (if simplistic) mechanic, and continues to stick in my brain as a fun inclusion. The plan is to have three dungeons you can explore on foot (!!!), and at least one of them will change based on the current season, since it'll be outdoors. Elemental weaknesses and a few elemental spells will also play a role in combat, as I like Pokemon-style rock-paper-scissors combat, and learning spells will work into one of the storylines.


Here's a screenshot of a sample dungeon I was mucking about with one day. Wanted to make sure it was a feasible concept, so I drew up a simple tileset and set Mindy to wandering around. Works pretty well, all things considered, and I look forward to prettifying the thing. (Those red strands are vines. I didn't try very hard.)

- In an effort to make the backgrounds more interesting, I've separated most of them into different layers so I can animate elements of each scene separately. As such you'll see more flavour animations that will bring the world to life behind the main action. I'm hoping to change these animations based on the current season, as well, so people will be fucking in parkas during the colder months and swimwear in the warmer. Stuff like that.

I fully expect Simply Mindy to take me a hell of a lot longer than Soo Cubus to polish into a finished form. I also fully expect it to be a lot of fun in the final estimation, and I hope you all agree.

Oh, and, uh, I'm still working on Soo Cubus. Slowly. Danged game takes so long to load into Stencyl these days...

2 comments:

  1. anyway to download the soo cubus v 4.0 instead of playng from browser ? like before ? aways used legends of krystal forum for download ur games x_x

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    1. What in the hell, all the descriptive text and the download link vanished from that page... I have no idea how that happened, 'cause it was there last time I looked... the link is back up now, at least.

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