We are continuing to elaborate Mr.Elements.

The demo have allowed us hearing several feedbacks, negative and positive, but always constructive:

• This occurs most often it’s too difficult! Most players quickly lose. Players know what to do but not how.Puzzles are so obvious most people.
• The handling is disturbed by the camera system that confuses the player.
• Atmosphere is relaxed and positive.
• The idea and the world are welcome. Several people wanted to explore just for fun.

Long have I hesitated between two modes: direct control of the character (in the third person, as in the current demo) or point’n'click. The first won it because I wanted it to have more direct control and more involved in the action but it is clear that this is not what pleases the audience.

While a good designer, he must abandon his own preferences (forget the arcade!) and create a work that resonates with the public.

Following comments, we resolutely turn towards the point’n'click and not only for its extremely simplified controls, ideal for children. It is also a style of game that leaves much room for history while allowing better guide the player. This does not means forgetting action phases because many things are possible with a mouse!

It also has the advantage of being transposed on many platforms including the iPhone and iPad through “Touch”.

I make the transition well with our latest work on Mr.Elements: the graphics!

I said we had to work on the visual aspect to make it more “pretty”. The challenge is to make beautiful but also optimized for not stopping performance of the iPhone and iPad. If we can translate the visual world on iPhone / iPad without sacrificing the quality of play, we can only succeed on other machines to larger possibilities.

So, here is artworks for iPad:

So while toying with the Terrain Engine, I came across Fractscape (a Unity-made terrain tool), which got me thinking of procedurally painting/terraforming the terrain, and other geekeries… then Chris came in, one thing lead to the other and bam, I find myself doing a pong… with the Terrain Engine.

Not that I’m that obsessed with pong (or am I?), it’s just the “hello world” of gaming. Anyway, here goes…
(click to activate)

© Gamepulp 2007 – Created with Unity »

Please note:

• this demo needs the Unity plugin to run -don’t worry, if you haven’t got it yet it will auto-install smoothly.
• on Windows, the textures don’t move, only the heights… works fine on Mac though… maybe that because I’m using unsupported methods?
  The cool thing: I don’t care ! ah, the joy of prototyping…