Tumbleton's Fortune - everyone loves moving things

While the world in Tumbleton's Fortune is cool, playtesters have commented that it's lacking dynamic objects that allows the player to interact with them.

We listened and introduced moving objects that kick up the excitement level.

We have:

Moving Platforms: these move from point A to B either horizontally or vertically
Buttons: Can be used by the player to do anything from opening doors to exploding things.
Dynamic Boxes: Can be pushed by the player, jumped on by the player, and used to press buttons.
Rotating Objects: Anything from rotating platforms that the player has to navigate to rotating wheels that the player must snap objects to, and then scale.
Spawners: Continuously spawn new objects. We have a pipe that spits out fireballs and other dangerous blocks.

The spawner is especially very fun to watch as it spews fireballs out. We also have it shooting out dynamic blocks that fall onto a ramp and then slide down towards the player, making a nice obstacle course.



All these things are going to be gradually introduced to the player as he progresses through the game. This ensures that every new level adds something new and exciting to the game. The player should look forward to the next level, as it will bring new things.

The plan is to mix these new dynamic objects with the game's main puzzle mechanic - snapping objects to the game environment.

For example, one of the game's puzzles involves using a snapping object to create a safe platform for you to jump on as you scale a sloped incline intermittently engulfed by fire. When a wave of fire is over, the player will have to pick up the platform and move forward again, getting ready to deploy it again against the next wave of fire.

Playtesters agreed that these dynamic objects added a ton of fun, especially when mixed with the puzzle mechanic, which is great news to hear.

The History of Command & Conquer

Machinima recently did an excellent 5-part miniseries dedicated to the franchise that got me into PC gaming - Command & Conquer.

Having followed the franchise for its entirety and as someone who owns all the games, I recommend these videos to C&C fans and newcomers alike. They're informative and cover all of the C&C games, including cancelled ones like Renegade 2 and Tiberium. Details are also present on Westwood, the dev studio behind the games and what they managed to accomplish - essentially bring a new genre to the market.

Tumbleton's Fortune - incoming art

We're in the process of importing some 3d models into Tumbleton's Fortune to make the world a little less boring and more recognizable. I'm working with 2 artists from DigiPen - a Bachelor of Fine Arts (BFA) and a Bachelor of Art in Game Design (BAGD) to get the art assets that Tumbleton's Fortune needs.

Tumbeton, who is our hero is an explorer. The first thing an explorer needs is a sweet hat. That's why the first thing that got modeled was his hat:



Taking inspiration from Indiana Jones, the hat goes right on top of our character, who is essentially a ball:



The cool thing is that depending on where the gameplay camera is looking, the hat (and the ball - Tumbleton) turns with it. This makes it easier for the player to understand which way the main character is oriented, which ties back to our control scheme for controlling Tumbleton.

It's still work in progress, as we don't have a face on the ball yet. We're planning on using various textures that show Tumbleton's facial expressions - happiness, fear, sadness, anticipation.

Even without the face, playtesters loved the hat and all commented that they felt that the hat gave our ball character. People were just having fun looking at him, which helps connect players with Tumbleton. The hat also makes him instantly distinguishable from the rest of the environment, which the main character should always be.

The environment will also get a variety of models. Players during playtest sessions commented that they expect to see cool landmarks like pyramids and sphinxes.

This is a giant sphinx that will come in 2 flavors: a decorative one and one that you can roll in and explore for loot.



We can also easily scale the sphinx from a scyscraper-like size to something as small as Tumbleton. We're planning on scaling the sphinx down, and using it as a small person-sized decorative environment piece.

The head of the sphinx is a simple sphere, like Tumbleton himself. This is because the characters in our world are all balls that roll around the world. I wanted to do that because players will suspend their disbelief more easily if they agree that the game is taking place in a fantasy world where characters are cute spheres that roll around to get places.

Epic moments in Tumbleton's Fortune

Gamers love and have grown to expect epic "WOW!" moments in their games, something that Tumbleton's Fortune will have sprinkled throughout levels. When people think back on playing Tumbleton's Fortune, I want the players to remember these moments and say things like - "wow, that was really neat!"

Since the game is set in an Egyptian setting, we have the ability to implement a variety of cool traps like boulder chases, falling tomb columns, crushing ceilings, and mummies roaming around. A lot of these may sound stereotypical, but people expect these and if we don't deliver them, there's a chance that they could walk away disappointed.

Recently, we playtested the first of these epic moments - a giant boulder chasing the player. The feedback was a grin on the faces of players - something that made myself grin in return. After the playtest session, the consensus that these moments are exactly what a platforming and puzzle game like ours needed!



Not only do parts like these act like a good pace breaker among the standard platforming and puzzle sections, the game as a whole seems to get better.

After encountering an epic moment, people might forgive some of the earlier parts they didn't really like in the game, and start looking forward to the next epic part. In other words, players keep wanting to play your game!

So the next time you're exploring an Egyptian tomb, keep your eye out for any rogue boulders.