Mining Mayhem - multiplayer platformer [devlog]

OK, I have completed just about 50% of the game mechanics that I want for my current project "Mining Mayhem" (working title), so I figure it's time to present my progress to the community for feedback / criticism / ideas. This is a multiplayer game that is optimised for LAN to allow a few friends (up to 4 and maybe 5). Learning how to take advantage of the multiplayer has been a real voyage - what a great plugin, even though it doesn't play nicely with the platformer plugin (at the moment, at least).

You are a miner and have to collect gems and gold so you can become wealthier than your mates. The level map is created by a procedural generation system where each peer sets part of a seed before the game starts. It's unlikely that any two levels will ever be identical...

The terrain is destructible - you can do your own landscaping by digging / shooting / throwing exploding axes / other means that I have not yet invented... And, of course, you can hurt each other to steal their stuff.

The plan is to make this look good and start by putting it on Kongregate - for feedback and ideas. I will probably put it on Greenlight shortly afterwards if there is enough positive feedback. If it does go out on Steam then there will be a level editor mode as well - more on this to follow.

What I've done so far can be summarized in the gif below (side by side browser windows of me v me showing the minor lag between perspectives...):

I'm think that it needs pixel art of some sort. My placeholder graphics are not great but should give you an idea of what game atmosphere I'm trying to create. I think I like lighting effects.... lol.

More to follow in due course. I'm busy with a day-job, so my dev work on this is part time, with slow but steady progress...

Cheers.

Looks pretty cool from the small gif images there. Artwork seems pretty good as well but it's a bit hard to see it really clearly.

My only constructive criticism at the moment would be, perhaps that larger explosion you have that causes that big hole in the tiles to appear at the end of your gif sequence there... maybe making it "round" instead of a huge square would be cool. When I say round I mean, round-ed - minecraft circles. Your particle effeects would look cooler if they weren't just the standard 'square dot' as well.

Lastly, if you can post a static image of how your characters look etc, because it's hard to see them

~Sol

SoldjahBoy - Thanks for the suggestions; all good points taken on board. I'm using substitute graphics and I will post images of my characters when I've drawn them. Cheers

This looks great mate! is there something to test already ? im very interested in this

I will probably put it on Greenlight shortly afterwards if there is enough positive feedback. If it does go out on Steam then there will be a level editor mode as well - more on this to follow.

I don't think you'll have to worry about getting enough positive feedback, it looks great even with placeholder graphics, and I can see a multiplayer party game like this being popular on Steam.

It reminds me a little bit of two other C2 games - Shotgun Raiders (greenlit on Steam) and Sombrero (signed with a Publisher).

It will be interesting to see how the level editor work with the procedural generation.

This looks great mate! is there something to test already ? im very interested in this

Thank you! Nothing worthy of testing just yet, but give me a while and I'll be very grateful for some perf and feedback testing (might be a few weeks yet at my current work pace....).

I don't think you'll have to worry about getting enough positive feedback, it looks great even with placeholder graphics, and I can see a multiplayer party game like this being popular on Steam.

It reminds me a little bit of two other C2 games - Shotgun Raiders (greenlit on Steam) and Sombrero (signed with a Publisher).

It will be interesting to see how the level editor work with the procedural generation.

Thank you . I was impressed by Shotgun Raiders when it went out on Greenlight last year.

I need to do some experimenting to see what will be possible and practical for the level design mode. I only have a very basic framework set up at present.

Courtesy of some circle maths we now have some circular explosion damage...

Courtesy of some circle maths we now have some circular explosion damage...

Now that looks killer! Much better for sure IMO

~Sol

Thank you SoldjahBoy! I am very pleased with the effect - add a little camera shake it'll look proper earth-shattering .

To all - I'm at a crossroads in my design.... Simply put - should I have slopes or not.....? I'm thinking that the current test/demo (above, with no slopes) is lacking a certain flair - that the game should have slopes to make it more playable and eye-pleasing. I suspect that my platformer mech will need some work to make the wall climb work properly, but I'm up for it. Any dissenters / thoughts?!?

Cheers.

Slopes are cool but so are no slopes. If you stick with the square edges maybe make the player "auto jump" when walking if they hit a single height block so it doesn't end up being a jumpfest? They would need to jump still to clear anything higher than a single tile but it would make it "feel" like having slopes without actually having them.

~Sol

Slopes are cool but so are no slopes. If you stick with the square edges maybe make the player "auto jump" when walking if they hit a single height block so it doesn't end up being a jumpfest? They would need to jump still to clear anything higher than a single tile but it would make it "feel" like having slopes without actually having them.

~Sol

Ha - yes! This is exactly my dilemma.... I do want to avoid the jumpfest scenario, where progress is slow unless you're always bouncing. The auto-climb idea is good and has worked well for me in the past, but I think it would slow progress enough that players would just jump anyway... So - here's what it looks like with slopes:

And here's an example of self-damage.... to show the difference between the explosion-circles:

I think I'm going to go for slopes....

Yeah slopes look slick

Very nice!

~Sol

Thank you SoldjahBoy!

Post weekend update. With the help of the magic Canvas plugin, and a modified nw.js plugin by — (that enables image saving from url), I have created a system where the player can upload 3 images for conversion into a game-ready tilemap. All I have to do now is transfer the event sheets from my experiment to the main project, without inadvertently deleting a variable or set of events... If all goes well, user-designed tilemaps and custom graphics are now looking promising!!

Phew!

User level-design progress update.

Well, creating a tilemap on the fly is not easy... (of course!). But, here's what I've managed to do so far. There are a couple of slope render artefacts that need addressing, but as a first go - I'm quite pleased with it!! It looks like I'm going to have to create a tilemap draw algorithm and draw each new map that way - I was hoping to get away with employing blend modes, but it doesn't look like it! At least I have achieved a simple draw/delete mech and a means of allowing the player to upload their own tilemap foundation images.

Now to plan some For loops....