Plan for Adam Larson

After several months of yearning, I have now GIDed.

I know torque script and the torque platform pretty well, but was yet to use T2D for anything. So, I used this months GID as an opportunity to learn it. Thus, Illinois James:



I had two collaborators on this project. I did most of the coding and gui work, a friend did all of the art and animation (using Flash), and my bro converted the art to a T2D ready state, built all the levels, and helped with some of the more mundane coding tasks (such as defining datablocks and the like).

The main character is an average guy who is victim of a treacherous crime (more on this later). His main weapon in the quest for retribution is a whip. He also carries a boomerang. The whip is used by moving the mouse in a whip-like fashion. The character moves with the arrow keys and the 'rang is tossed with the left mouse button.

The idea for the whip came about several months ago and everything else about the design was thrown together this weekend to fit with it. It's fairly obvious when you hear the story.

Illinois' friend Jergens partakes in a prank at our hero's expense. That's right, Jergens has committed the most dastardly of crimes... He has placed a sign reading "kick-me" upon Illinois' back. With this "hit" now located figuratively and literally on his back, Illinois must fight through throngs of foes to seek retribution against the villianous ways of Jergens.

Unfortunately, given the limitations of GID (for instance - time), there are not throngs of foes, and the enemies that do exist are not very bright. AI was the last thing I wrote and it shows. There is no pathfinding (which you'll see is very necessary), and the enemies don't interact with boundaries well. Aside from that, I'm pleased with how it turned out. The whip feels about how I wanted it to (though it might take some getting used to), and the levels actually came together fairly well (despite their lack of length). Of course there are several other bugs, but they are mostly unimportant to the gameplay.

A little more on the whip: Sudden movements of the mouse will launch the whip in the direction of the movement. If you play around with it, I'm sure you'll get it. Damage given to the enemies is related to the speed of the particle of the whip that firsts hits them. It's not perfect, but it does a decent job of making good whip action hurt more. And, after each whipping, you have to let the mouse rest for a second. This was a cheap hack to eliminate the ability to swing around the whip really fast and expose the flaws in the spring and mass system I built for it.

As is the case with every GID I'm sure, given a few more hours, the game could have been made 100 times as long. With the level editor built and the core game logic in place, not much work would be necessary if I ever felt the urge to expand the game. And I might if the idea is received well. I'm not sure whether or not people will like the way the game feels - let me know.

It's been said before but I must reiterate: If you're considering GIDing but are yet to for some reason, just do it. I had a ridiculous amount of fun and having a "completed" game after 24 hours leaves quite the sense of accomplishment. And next month I'll probably actually join in the festivities on the #gameinaday IRC channel. From what I've heard that add's a lot to the experience.

And here are a couple of screenshots for those of you that don't want to download and play the game.





Ah yes, the theme (ghosts). The two odd looking things that attack you (and subsequently become one - bad AI) are ghost pigs. Jergens owns a hot dog stand and has summoned them to protect himself.

Edit: Formatting