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The Legend Of Doodle: Secretly a video game

wanna make a game, or anything else? seminal bloom!
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LBuncleJoe
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The Legend Of Doodle: Secretly a video game

Post by LBuncleJoe »

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Heyo! This here is a video game I've been working on for about a million years (six). Granted, its been an on-and-off affair and not a full time death march, at least not until recently, but I suppose the details aren't important. What is important, however, is that it's finally almost done!!!?! We're aiming to get this thing finished and released early next year, and I could not be MORE EXCITED.

But what the heck is this game anyway? Well, It's a large, exploratory platformer that takes place in a hand-drawn world. I wouldn't call it a "Metroidvania", that's not really an honest description, but the world is massive, contiguous, and filled with a tooooooooon of things to find. The game follows the titular Doodle, a reclusive brute at the edge of the world, and Princess Ebony, plucky heir to the pencil throne, in a desperate search for other survivors. After a terrible and disastrous night, these two strangers find themselves all that's left to rise up and strike back.

Here's an old, moody trailer, and an even older cheesy gameplay trailer. They both show off some fairly out-dated level design (both in terms of looks and mechanics), but they should give you some idea of how the game looks in motion. I'm hoping to get a new trailer produced before the end of the year, but, we'll see how time permits. But what about things that aren't in motion? They say a picture is worth a thousand words, so what if I gave you a THOUSAND pictures? Well, wait, no, I can't exactly do that, that'd be ridiculous. I don't even have that many. But what I do have is about a half-dozen screenshots and some artwork! That's almost as good, right?

Screenshots (Warning: Very Big)
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Some Official Artwork (Also Very Big)

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How about some tunes? You kids like tunes, right? Here's a big heapin' helpin' of music from the game's soundtrack.

So, what's the point to me dumping all of this here? Well like I said, this game is relatively close to being completed (in the grand scheme of things) and I think it'd be fun to show the things left to do, as I do, because it's what I do. And I'm doing a lot; working on this game is most of my day, so in theory I should have plenty to show. Considering how far along the game is, I also think it'd be fun to do some comparisons between different versions, so maybe I'll do that. Maybe I'll just show EVERYTHING! There's no telling what will happen. Well, except for me finishing the game. At this point that kind of has to happen, doesn't it?

Here's to seeing this through to the end!
Last edited by LBuncleJoe 8 years ago, edited 2 times in total.
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LBuncleJoe
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Re: The Legend Of Doodle: Secretly a video game

Post by LBuncleJoe »

I've taken to making a lot of .gifs lately, showing off various little things across the game. Like bugs! Or WIP level objects.

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It's been fun archiving new work this way, so I'll probably keep at it? Probably
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Re: The Legend Of Doodle: Secretly a video game

Post by Giik »

Oooooh. Loving the art style. I'm a sucker for metroidvania-ish games too.

My only gripe so far is that it seems like the character would blend into the background too much on the darker paper backgrounds. Have you tried filling it in with white or something?
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Re: The Legend Of Doodle: Secretly a video game

Post by LBuncleJoe »

It's something that's come up before, and we've debated the option of coloring in the player. On the one hand it does sort of break the art style a bit - there's a particular mood and theme to having the texture of each individual world/BG overtake (almost) everything, including the player, as you are meant to feel very small and outmatched. But, on the other hand, it's a dumb reason for things to be difficult for some people, and it has been a problem in the past.

Ideally I'd like to have some more organic solutions for this problem, depending on the world/BG, but if it comes down to it we will do something like this for the sake of playability. We'll just have to see!
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Re: The Legend Of Doodle: Secretly a video game

Post by Giik »

You could always try filling in the character with a transparent color, so they still have the background's texture somewhat.
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Re: The Legend Of Doodle: Secretly a video game

Post by LBuncleJoe »

Took a short break to participate in Ludum Dare over the weekend, but now I'm diving back into this-here-game. Work is progressing smoothly, including some new Backgrounds for late-game/optional areas, like this one:

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Also, terrifying new glitches, like this:

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Look at it go! As silly as this glitch is, it's far from the most ridiclous thing that's happened during development. That award would have to go to this nightmare (warning, a tad loud).
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Re: The Legend Of Doodle: Secretly a video game

Post by LBuncleJoe »

Getting around to adding some new cosmetic additions to the game, like a downpour of eraser shavings:

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There'll be plenty more where this came from!
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Re: The Legend Of Doodle: Secretly a video game

Post by Pikabread »

wow I'm sorry I didn't look at this thread earlier, this game looks suuuuper neat so far. love the art style.
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Re: The Legend Of Doodle: Secretly a video game

Post by LBuncleJoe »

Pikabread wrote:wow I'm sorry I didn't look at this thread earlier, this game looks suuuuper neat so far. love the art style.
Thank you very muuuuucccchhh!

So, I guess this is worth mentioning here: I was interviewed by The Vita Lounge magazine some months ago about this game, as well as another future project of mine. That interview has finally run in their February issue, which you can read for free right over here. So yeah, that's neat!!

As for work, we've got some new backgrounds in, like this old, spooky, worn-out map: Image

As you can see, we're also playing around with having the player generate a spotlight in the darker worlds to help with the readability issues. This'll look extra neat when we get some other decorative 'light sources' in, like hanging lamps, generating their own spotlights.
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Re: The Legend Of Doodle: Secretly a video game

Post by LBuncleJoe »

Heyo - I know I've been kind of quiet about this for a few months, but we're still plugging away. Mostly been working on the process of porting the game over to Unity (because seriously, GM: Studio grows more and more terrible by the minute). Speaking of, here's a look at that port in action - now with high resolution border options! Fancy!!!!

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Also been building up our stockpile of decorative tiles - like these bookshelves.

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Hopefully I'll have more to share from this soon, but for now, I'll leave you with one last gift: this newly-ish-released song from the game's soundtrack.
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Re: The Legend Of Doodle: Secretly a video game

Post by LBuncleJoe »

Ahhhhhh! Big Thing!

Well big to me at least! Partway through today's work session, I finished designing the 1000th room! Been floating around that number for a while now, but this is really it! Not counting dev rooms, not counting menus, not counting other misc. junk, I finally made it! And here it is:

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There's still plenty left to do, and plenty more levels to design, but I'm incredibly happy that we've been able to make it this far, and keep the game world as mechanically diverse as its been.
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Re: The Legend Of Doodle: Secretly a video game

Post by LBuncleJoe »

Up late, workin' late - been working a lot lately. But it's been worth it, as I just hit another major milestone! My workload recently has been making major level design revisions across the game world. Diversifying the individual worlds better, improving their flow and scale, as well as just generally making the rougher spots a lot more palatable. And so, I've just finished up the revisions for the 4th world, which features some of my earliest level design! Now it's all nice and doesn't fill me with shame whenever I look at it.

Behold, the last month of my life:

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Welp, guess I'd better get back too it.
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Re: The Legend Of Doodle: Secretly a video game

Post by sonicspin »

nice job so far
it good look
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Re: The Legend Of Doodle: Secretly a video game

Post by LBuncleJoe »

Thank you very much.

Trying to get back into the habit of taking more frequent gifs. Been so busy it's just slipped my mind! Here's a silly little one for screenshot Saturday:

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Re: The Legend Of Doodle: Secretly a video game

Post by LBuncleJoe »

Here's a couple more .gifs from recent design sessions:

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Also hit 1111 rooms in the game maker project file today - so that's silly!
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Re: The Legend Of Doodle: Secretly a video game

Post by Willhart »

This looks really cool. I hope it is going well too. Reminds me a lot of games like an untitled story, and I enjoyed those a lot.
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Re: The Legend Of Doodle: Secretly a video game

Post by Hollylolly »

This game looks seriously great from all these screenshots and gifs, definitely something I'd be interested in playing!
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Re: The Legend Of Doodle: Secretly a video game

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Willhart wrote:This looks really cool. I hope it is going well too. Reminds me a lot of games like an untitled story, and I enjoyed those a lot.
Been a stressful couple of months due to some personal/family related stuff, but I'm still whittling away at it when I can. And thanks - Matt Thorson's work was definitely a source of inspiration early on, hopefully it can live up to some of his best.
Hollylolly wrote:This game looks seriously great from all these screenshots and gifs, definitely something I'd be interested in playing!
Thank you! Feel free to take a couple more:

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Re: The Legend Of Doodle: Secretly a video game

Post by LBuncleJoe »

Been doing some expansion of the early-game as of late - got an idea for a game-long side-quest, among other things, so I'm going ahead and blocking out areas for that.

Who is responsible for *this* incredible mystery?!?!?!?!

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Re: The Legend Of Doodle: Secretly a video game

Post by Willhart »

Hard to guess. Also neat hats.
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Re: The Legend Of Doodle: Secretly a video game

Post by LBuncleJoe »

Thanks! The hats have been one of the sillier aspects of the game to work on, so i'm glad you like them.


Spent today adding a handful of shortcuts to the game. These are mostly to assist with speed-running or late-game backtracking, and are mainly intended to be useful during a 100% run, but I still think it's a nice thing to have for perceptive players who want to carve through certain sections.

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This one here is my favorite right now.
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Re: The Legend Of Doodle: Secretly a video game

Post by Hollylolly »

Is this project still being worked on? What's the progress like? Too eager to play >.<
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Re: The Legend Of Doodle: Secretly a video game

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Is this project still being worked on? What's the progress like? Too eager to play >.<
Release is still quite a ways off, but I'm steadily workin' at it! Sorry for the radio silence - been so busy with this and other projects that I just haven't gotten around to sharing anything. Allow me to apologize with a small friend:

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