Lestac, a non-linear 2D exploration game

by nddrylliog • 13 years ago

52 19 13 years ago

nddrylliog7• 13 years ago

Hey folks! Even though HN is more hacker-oriented, I still thought I'd give it a shot.

Factoids:

  - It's the first commercial game fully made in ooc
  - It's sold only on itch.io (which recently made HN frontpage)
  - It was originally a Ludum Dare submission
  - We just released a Christmas update!
  - It's lame because the game is not about killing stuff!

I have no idea how this post will do, but I'll happily take your questions here. Thanks for your attention and happy holidays :)

mhlakhani• 13 years ago

By ooc, do you mean the programming language? [1]

if so, can you share any thoughts on how that affected the development process? Any quirks? Any features that made it much easier?

Thanks!

[1] http://ooc-lang.org/

nddrylliog7• 13 years ago

Precisely!

Well, it's interesting that ooc returned to its roots, because when I first started working on it, it was for a small simulation game project at university.

I'll try to be as unbiased as can be, though.

Here are the reasons I liked writing it in ooc:

  - I find it hard to write bad ooc. The language is smart,
  but not too smart, so you can write code that's concise
  yet not too confusing.
 
  - Moving up from C, having a single tool manage the build
  of your whole project is really cool. I recently added
  cross-compilation support, so I produce the Windows, Mac,
  Linux 32-bit & 64-bit builds from the same machine.
  I have a simple Makefile for tasks like packaging so 
  releasing a new build is a 'make deploy' away!

  - Recent versions of rock have gotten relatively good at
  error checking (there's still plenty of room for 
  improvement), but it's often a lot more helpful than
  well, most compilers I've seen. (Clang isn't bad, but
  it's C, so it can only help you on a low-signal level).

  - Most of the libs I wanted to use (SDL2, SDL2_mixer,
  OpenGL 3.x) already had bindings, and for the others
  (stb_image, etc.), well, I wrote'em. It's usually a
  matter of neatly organizing C functions into an
  object-oriented-ish interface.

I'm not trying to sell the language here so I'll stop, but mostly - for this project, after 5 years spent working on and off on the language (and peripheral projects), it got out of the way. I could just write what I thought and it worked. From what I gather, it's a rare satisfaction in the software craftsmanship realm :)

As for the downsides, well, there are things I know to work around, language features I know I'd better avoid, and the occasional compiler blips. But for a project of that scope, I got away with "using my toy language" relatively scot-free!

I still remember the very harsh comments when I first presented ooc to HN a few years back. Forunately I was in a high at that point so I didn't care. Had I listened to them, I would never have gotten where I am now. So: stay positive, everyone!

sp332• 13 years ago

Not to be confused with Ook! http://esolangs.org/wiki/Ook!

com2kid• 13 years ago

The trailer tells me nothing about the game. The description "non-linear 2D exploration game" is much more enticing than anything on the site, how is this game non-linear? I was expecting some sort of insight (or at least hint at) on the website, but I didn't see any. Then again maybe if I had gone even further into the trailer than however long I did (a couple of minutes?) I would have found something.

Either way, not a good way to sell something. :(

nddrylliog7• 13 years ago

Ah well, I'm still working out my marketing skills - a field which I hate with a passion, but there's two of us and, well, someone has to do it.

Basically — environments to explore, set to an original soundtrack. That's really the selling point. The actual gameplay, so far, is mostly finding items, bringing them to characters, in exchange for other items, so that you can find your way to the exit!

Since the Christmas update, there are two separate worlds with different 'quests' - the latter being a snow/winter/Santa-themed world.

We definitely plan to add other gameplay mechanics, but we think the "charm" of the game is already there. We're happy with how Early Access is working, and totally understand if people don't like that niche and/or want to wait until there is more content / gameplay arcs.

To shed some light on the "non-linear" qualifier I used in the submission, allow me to refer you to the Ludum Dare Postmortem for Lestac: http://amos.me/blog/2013/lestac-the-making-of/ — which explains some of it.

As a side note, to anyone on HN who is interested in following the development of Lestac right from the devs' mouths, let me know, I can totally give out a few http://devsofa.cc keys for the Lestac channel.

RyanZAG• 13 years ago

You realize this game is the very definition of linear gaming...?

ido• 13 years ago

I assume I can pick up the items somehow? The "tutorial screen" only tells me of the arrows, space and enter, none of which pick up items.

DanBC• 13 years ago

The actual gameplay, so far, is mostly finding items, bringing them to characters, in exchange for other items, so that you can find your way to the exit!

Finding items that you can collect would be a useful feature for some people.

Finding items that you can collect, and use to modify your "home" or similar would be cool too.

lalc• 13 years ago

I bet it has lots to explore and "lovingly crafted" I can buy, but "gorgeous"? Not everything can be gorgeous. Maybe try "quirky" or "with character"?

Anyway, buying to support, and wishing you success.

nddrylliog7• 13 years ago

Point taken & suggestion applied. Thanks a lot for your support!

bichiliad• 13 years ago

I agree. http://technoheads.org/2013/10/dont-call-your-things-beautif...

wingerlang• 13 years ago

This looks like (and looks like it would feel like) knytt.

pawn2• 13 years ago

Fun little game. I have a few suggestions that would make it better, in my opinion.

1. Include a 'save' feature or save automatically when a person steps through a door or transitions from one screen to another.

2. Maybe allow a person to adjust how much left/right movement happens to a degree in the options. The guy seems a little 'floaty' to me, and I had trouble not over-shooting my intended jumps. Of course, a max would be needed pretty close to where he's currently at, and a min would be needed that's still enough to play the game.

3. Allow it to support controllers and/or customize the controls.

4. Make picking up items more forgiving. It's currently a little too picky, in my opinion.

nddrylliog7• 13 years ago

2 and 4 we've had on our mind (2 is already an improvement over the previous builds! still has work to do. I believe sane defaults would be enough though.)

And 3, I definitely want in. If only because I enjoy playing platformers with controllers so much. The only "problem" is that controllers are so wildly different from one another -chances are, most customer complaints we would have gotten would have been about that! It's definitely slated for an upcoming build.

As for 1, that's a non-trivial feature do to how levels work, but it's also definitely something we want as the game expands. As it stands now, with two separate worlds, it's not too hard to finish each in one go, yet saving would be nice, especially as more complex quests get added and potentially spawn multiple worlds.

cskau• 13 years ago

Any chance of adding some other method of payment? I don't have a PayPal account (and would rather not use it), but have all my credit card info already loaded up in for instance Google Wallet and "amazonpayments".

I have to admit I'd probably have made an impulse purchase if there hadn't been that small hurdle (and, for me, moral dilemma).

( For reference see https://www.humblebundle.com/ )

The game looks nice though ! It's exactly the kind of "quirky" indie game I love :)

nddrylliog7• 13 years ago

itch.io does support Amazon Payments / Stripe but that's only available to US sellers, and we're based in France unfortunately :(

I'll take a look and see what our options are. Thanks for the kind words!

edit: Stripe does support France, but in closed beta — just signed up, we'll see when/if we get in the beta!

Lestac, a non-linear 2D exploration game

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