Hungry Overlord and Caged Photon

Kulu

Hello

Im here with hi res screenshots and vids showcasing some of my recent developments.

Hungry overlord

a game where you fling kitchen knives at flying ingredients , while Mr Overlord waits for dinner time


Caged Photon

a simple adventure set in a fictional planetary system


hungry overlord

http://postimg.org/gallery/2lulgb1ve/

Caged Photon

http://postimg.org/gallery/2fw4aftmi/




hungry overlord trailer 1 youtube

Kulu

caged photon

dislekcia

Hey, it's really difficult to see what the gameplay in each of these trailers actually is. It might be an idea to focus less on image filters and just give a little bit of un-edited gameplay to make people interested - you don't have to produce an entire gameplay trailer (although that's often a thing people do when their regular trailers are very stylised or heavily focused on delivering story), but a couple of seconds of straight gameplay can go a long way.

I think I could vaguely see what the play would be like in Hungry Overlord. First up, that's a cool game idea. There's a lot of room for neat gameplay and interesting game events. That said, I found the ingredients very hard to see - why is everything so dark? And things were happening very close to the camera, often I couldn't tell what was going on with a particular knife that was spinning all over the place - are those knives the ones you've thrown or do you have to tap them when they're spinning to redirect them into ingredients? Do you want to hit ingredients you do or don't want in the pot? Does it matter where the ingredients fly to after you hit them? ... Basically, there's a bit of a lack of feedback in the game right now, it's hard to tell what the players actions are achieving and what's right or wrong from the video alone. I'd suggest pulling the camera back from the pot and making it obvious that clueless goblins are just throwing stuff over the pot and it's your job to slice things into the soup. The knife throwing could do with some more interaction and more of a feeling of things arcing around, maybe a drag-release to throw (and a corresponding decrease in the speed of thrown ingredients)?

But yeah, I feel like pulling the camera back and tweaking the lighting would make a big difference. You can still have the pot dominating the lower 1/3 of the screen with the Overlord pottering about in the background, in fact, having your camera be further back will allow for easier depth of field blurring on the background elements so they don't compete as much but are still interesting.

Kulu

Thanks for the feedback.i will adjust accordingly.

Im thinking of posting a playable level so people will see whats actually going on.

Addressing the concerns about the food flying away....

I did initially think of having the food land in the pot. But i thought it was more fun to watch the ingredients fly away.

That said ... I didnt want it to be a cooking simulator. Just casual fun, based on a cooking theme, and then have the physics system handle the rest .

But i will address the issues. Thanks for the paragraphs of feedback, thats what i like about forums.

Im probably going to have ingredients fall into the pot.

And yes i did zoom in the camera for the trailer.

But one last note . Its not sapposed to make sense . Just casual fun with physics.

But making it realistic does interest me, alot .

'another 4 days of work related insomnia'

Kulu

I will addres the lighting situation as well. 3d rad is awsome but, im still new at with this engine.

EvanGreenwood

Thanks for posting your work @Kulu !

Just want to echo @Dislekcia's thoughts.

It was hard to know what Caged Photon is from the trailer. I imagine you were trying to make it mysterious, but maybe it went to far. Do you have an example of a trailer that gives you the feeling you want in the trailer?

(I ask because if we know what you were trying to achieve with the trailer then perhaps we can offer better feedback)

Both of these trailers don't have any in game audio. A little bit of audio would have helped convey what was happening between the vegetables and the knives. Audio could let players know if it's meant to be messy, or if it's meant to feel more like skillful cooking.

I realize you don't want to make a cooking simulator, but I think I would want my actions in the game to have some effect. If that's feeding the overlord a tasty stew, or if that means poisoning the overlord, I think as a player I'd want my actions in the game to achieve something interesting.

Cooking simulators are sometimes awesome btw. In Dragon's Crown the cooking game is just one part of the leveling up system (the cooking starts at 10 minutes):

Kulu

Cool . Ill try and address the advice. I didnt think of an option to poison the overlord, but i think i can add something like that.

Kulu

Hi. Ive made the ingredients land inside the cooking pot. And ive made it so the overlord comments on your cooking based on the score value.

Will post more vids and screenshots.