Phoenix Details

I think its now time to shed some more info about Phoenix, as the major code is finished, it now all about level design and a bit of polish here and a bit of juice there.

Phoenix is a puzzle game.  You, the player are a ball, you enter a world of a specific shape (World 1 = Square,  World 2 = Triangle, World 3 = Circle).  In the game you destroy a particular 'normal' block(s) to get your self to the goal line,  for every block you destroy you loose 10 points,  so try to destroy as few a blocks as possible.  Sounds simple right, well there are obstacles to make things harder, here are some of the obstacles:

Bouncy Bouncy - If you collide with this obstacle, you will bounce away in a particular direction, this could either be in your advantage or most likely not.

Death - Collide with this obstacle, and you will be destroyed, particles flying everywhere and level restarted.

Shape Shifter - Enter this obstacle and after a few seconds you will be converted to another shape, but will that shape be to your advantage?  Who knows!

Teleport - Enter this obstacle and you will be teleported to another section on the level,  again, will this help you complete the level? or will it take you to your death?

Earthquake - Collide with this obstacle and your screen will shake for 10 seconds,   watch out you don't destroy too many normal blocks as you will loose points.

Lights Out - Collide with this obstacle, and your screen will mimic that of a strobe light for 10 seconds, it will annoy you, as you loose sight for a few mili seconds, and it will confuse you.

Spin -  This obstacles stays in one place, but spins at a certain speed, if you collide with it, it will push you in the direction it is spinning (not an amazing obstacle, but needed something small to start off with)

Gravitron - Enter this obstacle, and you will encounter almost zero gravity,  and it may take you in a strange direction, tap the player on the screen to gain more speed and gravity and escape the Gravitron.

Electric Pulse - Collide with this obstacle and you will be electrocuted - that's not good is it!

Each world will have 25 levels (free version will only have 1 world).  In each level you have bonus drops, 2 purple and 1 gold.   The gold bonus drop is the one you have to collect, the gold bonus drop is the location where you have to guide yourself to. You have to collect all 25 gold bonus drops to unlock the next world.  Each bonus drop is worth 50 points,  so it is worth collecting all drops in the levels to increase your total game score for the leader boards.

Once I finish World 1 levels, I'll post a gameplay trailer,  all of the obstacles will not appear, as some of them are for the paid version only.  

Brick Wall has gone

2 Weeks ago I posted a blog post stating that I had hit a brick wall in development of Phoenix.  I totally thought I found a bug in Stencyl,  as I had tried everything to sort it, but whatever I tried the collision was not being detected between two different objects.   After posting on the Stencyl forum I got one very friendly user who kindly looked into the problem for me.  Last week, he got back to me and figured out the solution, it was trivial to say the least, but he didn't fix it with the first idea he had though.

So back on track, I have managed to create the code I wanted, and things are back on track :).   But I am now participating in a game development contest over at TOTGB (Think Outside The Game Box).   The theme for the contest is Evolution,  so far there have been very interesting ideas floating about and I can not wait to see the outcome of some of the games.

You can read about my entry over at TOTGB and read my development blog there.

In my next post I will give away information on what each obstacles are in Phoenix,  stay tuned, it will be a good one :)