Project Tundmatu

http://gamejolt.com/games/tundmatu/192044
My side project demo is out! Go and test it out and don’t forget to [size=150]rate it![/size]

Story:
year 2xxx…
Humanity is infected with an unknown virus, which is about to kill the human race.

The best scientists found the ingredient for the antidote from meteorite,
but unfortunately it perished before scientists managed to craft any cure for the virus.

Scientists searched out the space and finally found what they were looking for:
Planet where the Meteorite was came from!

After hard training and preparation of the one volunteer, government send him to
the unknown planet to look for the ingredient.

Mission TUNDMATU is about to begin.



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4 Likes

Rated, like it specially the particles effects for the jump and the metroid feel on it, but the jump button I felt it weird, for what I have see when players test my game It will be better to make it jump with the “w” key instead of space it feels more natural. Also the sound is pretty loud jajaja

but it’s pretty cool overall :smiley:

Thank you Gelo! :smiley:

How I ended up to make jump button to be space was that you play using WASD and mouse and all the games (I think) which has the same controls, jump button is space and it feels more natural for me. But you got test players behind you so I get it serious! :smiley: Tho your game where is jumping, is pretty basic platformer and jumping is better be up, “W”, “Z” or “X”.
But I think I’ll make different controls to choose, that might be the best :smiley: Hahah sorry about that, it’s certainly not a game to play with speakers volume 100% (or even 50%?) :smiley:

Yeah at the end that’s the best thing jajaja different control settings

It is a week when I released the TUNDMATU Demo on Gamejolt ( http://gamejolt.com/games/tundmatu/192044 ) and the game is going quite well, at least when comparing my other game releases and how much I have advertised it.

Game was 6 days on the front page in “hot games” (Popular indie games, sorted by Hotness.) and now it’s place 11 in there. Someone even made let’s play about it! (2 times exactly because first video made my game looks pretty bad and unnecessarily buggy, but let’s player was pretty nice to make another video about it when I asked (begged) him to do so and after I made little update for the game :smiley: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6yHruYwxVks ).

Here is some stats:
Views
672
Plays
143
Ratings
8 (3 Perfecto, 4 Great and 1 Good)
Followers
12

So thanks to everyone who has been rated, followed, commented or supported the game some other ways! You have helped me a lot!

Developing the game continues and I’ll try to write every week what I have done etc. in the devlog on TUNDMATU gamejolt page http://gamejolt.com/games/tundmatu/192044 .
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1 Like

Latest news
Part 1:
http://gamejolt.com/games/tundmatu/192044/devlog/weekly-or-monthly-report-gjyvirct
Part2:
http://gamejolt.com/games/tundmatu/192044/devlog/weekly-or-monthly-report-part-2-dikybtc7
JabbaTheVge480x352Both.png
Video how the game looks now:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l9AKJzVp8aA

If you don’t have anything to do in the weekend, try Tundmatu demo (http://gamejolt.com/games/tundmatu/192044) and write here your thoughts about the demo and weekly/monthly reports :slight_smile:
Every feedback is good and welcome!

The interesting thing about it is that it really feels like an alien world, the atmosphere of the game is really good.
But to be honest it get old quickly. Fighting the same creatures with the same weapon among the same walls while listening the same song looping…
It was pretty smart to design the level sandbox-like and let the player go around in any direction and find the modules to be able to get to new unexplored areas of the level, but the actual level is not interesting enough to make this work and there is no clue what we are supposed to do really.
After a minute there was nothing to keep me interested really but I did play it through.

So that’s an other thing, somehow you need to let the players know they need to and can find modules on the map.
Maybe, we could have the modules already but we need some sort of power from crystals or creatures to get them online.
Or instead of landing, we should crash on the planet and make the modules land somewhere else or the creatures took it and just let the player know at the beginning in a dialog, some modules is missing and need to find it.

In my opinion, what this game need is a linear level design to continuously introduce new things to the player to keep it interesting and a mission. Even though our primary mission/cover story is to get to the planet and gather resources for the scientist on earth, but once we arrive something unexpected should happen and this mission should become secondary for us.
For example, we crash on the planet, loose the modules, being attacked…etc something should go wrong that we need to fix first or loose something that we need to get back or protect our self against alien attacks, anomalies…etc

I can see lot of opportunity in the concept but as it stands right now, it isn’t fun to play to be honest.
It need a lot more to make it actually worth playing.
But I’m pretty much burnt out on games really, there is only a few games in the world I was enjoy playing in the past years so when I say “it not fun”, it maybe just me so don’t take my word for it but I wanted to be completely honest with you because the concept, that art and the atmosphere of the game is pretty good I can see potential in it.

Thank you ddabrahim for a very good comment!

Game genre is metroidvania, so there will be lot of backtracking and exploring.
Game is about to find new stuff like weapons, secret places and beating huge bosses. so it might get boring for people who don’t play the genre. Thought the demo don’t show all of it’s potential what I have design.

You are absolutely correct about that. That is my mistake, because I will add cutscenes and more story about travelling to the planet in the final version of the game so everything makes sense, but I was too excited to share the demo… (What I have to learn is to be more patience to show my games :smiley:). I will release new demo when I get everything as I wanted to (I need a pixel artist to make cutscenes). And I think that the map you can look pressing “f” is not clear right now to show where you can go and where not, because I think people who has played that game have confused where they should go.

Yes there will be more than the demo shows! :smiley:

I try to learn from every feedback to make my game better, so I thank you again for this good comment! And This kind of comments are 100 times better than comments, which praise the game and don’t say anything negative about it.

Good, this demo is a very good start :smiley:
Ok, some thoughts:

  • I’m wondering what the crystals are for… there will be equipment/upgrades to buy? Maybe they should regenerate slowly or just by a smaller fraction than the first time you find them, so you’ll search for and be happy to find a new “crystal-mine” for the first time, and not simply return to the same room with three crystal-things for free :wink:
  • The first boss, that rock-ball, is very easy, maybe adding a jump attack to the boss pattern, or constantly random falling blocks…
  • The metroidvania style open world is well implemented in my opinion, and it’s semi-linear already, as every other way is “blocked” at the beginning except for the one that unlocks the wall-jumping as some other rooms containing bonuses and a room that unlocks other rooms, etc., it’s OK for me.
  • There is a “bug” in the map position, from the room with the save capsule and three bats, go to the right (the room before the mantis boss), the map will mark the save room while you stand in the left edge.
  • Not sure if it’s unintentional, but you can do a triple jump if you let the player fall from a platform, then you can do a simple jump in mid-air, and then you can activate the jets.

Thank you very much Lizard-13 ! :smiley:

Crystals will be like money. Buy things like a potions from native humanoids to restore health etc. And MAYBE somekind of fuel for a weapon…
Yeah I think that I’ll change it like that :smiley:

Yes that miniboss is pretty easy. I’ll add your suggestion to the memo.

I found 3 same kind of situations and those are fixed :stuck_out_tongue: But I don’t update the demo version until I have done everything I want in the game :smiley:

Yeaaah it’s a feature… hehe… :smiley: It’s not how I first wanted it to be, but I don’t know is that good or bad thing, because now you can make “drop jumps” :smiley: It’s bad if you can jump like that and go places where you should not go at the moment.

Again, thank you very much for the good comment and suggestions! :slight_smile:

Weekly or Monthly report! Part 3

Mostly I have been doing pixel art for the game (Backgrounds, tiles, enemies etc).
Also, I have been working with the map and make it further.
Here is some pictures:



More pictures in gamejolt devlog: http://gamejolt.com/games/tundmatu/192044/devlog/weekly-or-monthly-report-part-3-9mhb9rri

1 Like

Those jetpack particle trails look so nice when done right! It’s so nice to see people’s works, gets the inspiration flowing again. :smiley:

Pretty nice atmosphere ofc it’s raw and stuff, but it looks promising. I guess it’s too early to critisize the technical things, so a few questions about the concept.

So you gonna add friendly NPC’s to interact with? How is it gonna work? Maybe you can use a ship that is already there, just make it to contain a lab or something, like in those movies where they analyze different shit with fancy sci-fi technology onboard of a ship, for example you find certain objects and bring them back to ship to interact, maybe like send probes back to earth or something, could be implemented by simple dialog I guess. Since you have a goal of the game to find a cure, it makes sense to have been sent to this planet with equipment to help with that, like setting and gameplay intertwine at least a little bit.

Are you sure about cutscenes? I mean unless it’s something simple and easy to make, otherwise I don’t see much reason to spend time/resources on that, I’d say better invest into gameplay and other things, not like you’re a AAA studio, and what do cutscenes really bring to the table? Gotta be other means to tell a story me thinks. But it’s merely a suggestion :imp:

I agree with these observations, I think it makes more sense to have your modules to be broken when you arrive as suggested because finding modules on an alien planet seems weird, while you could reach the same effect(power up) but in a bit more plausible way, as an example, let’s say rough landing made you lose all of the “fuel”, so you kinda have the stuff, but not enough fuel, so getting things to turn into fuel might be one of the ongoing “quests” and ship can be used to as means of doing it. Say you got just little fuel left for basic tasks like to perform basic crafting.

I have a few nore suggestions, so if those made any sense, I can post some more.

Thanks! :smiley: These comments give me motivation to work with the game more! :slight_smile:

Thank you Zapata! I have made changes so final version will be a lot of different (you can read those in devlog: http://gamejolt.com/games/tundmatu/192044/devlog

Yep there will be some NPC’s to interact with. You can talk with NPC’s etc. Nothing too complicated, just some dialog and maybe “yes or no” questions and maybe little side quests etc.
Interacting with the ship have good potential to add n the game. Yes the story is telling you that you have been send to the unknown planet to find the cure, but anything can happen in the adventure :stuck_out_tongue:

Absolutely sure :smiley: I am not going to add animated cutscenes or anything like that. Only pixel art images with some text (If you have been played Shovel Knight, you know what I mean :stuck_out_tongue:). Only in the beginning of the game. And I don’t have any deadlines when the game have to be 100% done, so this might be half a year project or 10 year project :smiley:.

Well I think that some times it’s okay in video games that there is no sense at all, and most of the time it’s much better in that way :smiley: And many games have this “problem”, but who really cares that you can carry on 100 missiles and 10 different guns and still jump and run like an olympic athlete? :smiley:
I have been thinking that should the modules be “alien technology” that you can use, or should there be some accident and your modules gets missing etc. But we’ll see what it’s going to be :stuck_out_tongue:

Of course! I really like to hear community thoughts and suggestions! So feel free to post some more!

Thanks! :slight_smile:

In base on this, I would like to ask in wich universe the humanity send only one person to find the cure as a last salvation chance? There would be a great expedition I guess, more than one ship in case something goes wrong, and more than one person per ship for sure :confused:

But that answers the question. Maybe you lost your equipment and your team die in the same event?, also there could be other ships but in other planets?, the sky is the limit :smiley:

Yep and that one person is just random volunteer right now and if there is virus which is killing everything, is there time to teach everything about medical and biological engineering and everything that is including space travelling etc. etc. :smiley:
Or if that volunteer is an android that have the information and skills. Or human that can get the information and skills from chip which is installed to brain.
But what I try to say is that I would like to throw some logical things to the trash can :smiley: Usually what makes games great is the lack of logic :smiley: Same thing is with movies and cartoons.

Those are good suggestions! Yep the sky is limit and it’s good to get some feedback and comments from people, because I can get some ideas from you guys and then I can fusion the ideas with my ideas :slight_smile:

I will only suggest at this point that you just choose how “realistic/plausible” your game is gonna be, pick a “levelof realism/logic” and stick with it throughout. If it’s sci-fi based with some “logic” behind it in explaining the story is one thing, if it’s just “fun,fun,fun” no need to make any sense, than stick with that. It looks like you don’t really now what kind of attidute you aiming for, I smell dissonance, there is a fancy word for it - “ludonarrative dissonance”. Basically when your story and gamelay contradict each oither. Or maybe you’re not that good in explaining things in english, or I’m missing smthng. :smiley:

Well yes, I am not good at explaining things even when using my native language (finnish) :laughing:
What my point about saying that “I would like to throw some logical things to the trash can” etc. is that I’m not making realistic game :smiley:
Imho you can use term “ludonarrative dissonance” better when talking about realistic games.
Though I like more nes/snes era games than modern games, so that might be the reason I don’t mind if games don’t make sense sometimes (like in many Metroid games, why did Samus lost her equipment etc? I did not even thought about that when played and I really don’t care). And many Snes games, you just start playing thinking nothing too much and there will be story here and there and no one questions what happens in the gameplay.

Summary:
-I am not making realistic game. Player might left from earth using small spacecraft and after a day it’s arrive to the unknown planet and nothing is explained why. Who play the game can use imagination to figure that out :smiley: (That was just an example, that I might not telling everything in the beginning of the game, why and how this is happening and this is not making any sense etc. If someones game experience is ruined because they can’t handle that in the game it’s possible for player to travel in one day to the unknown planet with no explanation, I don’t know what to say). But I hope that people who play it, don’t overly think and analyze everything :smiley:
-There will be more story in the beginning
-I like Snes games.

And as always thank you for comment! :slight_smile:

Don’t worry about that(for now). You know Contra doesn’t make more sense than this either, and it was inspired by the film Commando, sort of. In real life one man can’t fight an army of course, but in a game or a movie it is perfectly OK. :smiley: