Bauble Play - Windows / Zune

[Jenison]

EDIT - 10/26/2009 Conjure Development

Beta of the game is available here
You will need the XNA 3.1 Redist installed. The zip file does include the .CCGame file as well if you wish to install it that way after unzipping.

Remember this is a beta version. And only meant to be a demo!

There are still some open / known issues

1. The achievements menu is not functioning properly. It scrolls weird and doesnt display how it should
2. Not all the achievements are in the game yet. The more simple ones are.
3. The game does not save achievements. This is a bug and will be fixed next revision.
4. When the level ends, some sound effects are still queued to go off when the curtain closes.

The game works with a gamepad, but can be played with the WASD / Arrows and Enter key.

Looking forward to your feedback and have fun!


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Hey guys, thought I would share my project with all of you. Its still in alpha but wanted to show it off a bit.

Conjure Development

The basic premiss is a causal 'gem removal' style of gameplay. Its ment to be played here and there with beginners able to play for at least 4 min. Someone who is an expert should be able to play for as long as they like (almost). You control when the level is over, unless you screw up

The title is called Bauble Play. You are seeing a scene from a play, and you are interacting with it. The background is the setting how events will play out. Our first 'Play' is a pirate ship. The pirates are trying to steal gems for themselves. its your job to stop them by collecting as many as you can. The ultimate goal of this level is to sink the pirate ship.

Features
- Casual game play
- XBox Controller support
- Achievements
- Fun? going to try ...
- Free to the public when its released!

Here is a test code I did with the captain of the ship -


And here is some gameplay

[Jenison]

So I've added achievements to the game

Over the past week, we managed to implement an achievement system for Bauble Play. There will be game wide achievements and level specific achievements. They are designed to be fun and challenging. I think it would be great to have it be able to sync to a web page so you can see how many others have as many achievements as you.

Some examples



This one is pretty self explanatory. Its a game wide achievement, indicated by its icon.



Disarm 50 bombs in a single Pirate level to get this achievement

can find a complete list here

[Zarcath]

I'm not sure I understand the cannon firing mechanic. There's only 3 cannons and they don't exactly match up with all of the gem rows. When they animate firing, they stop new gems from coming where?

[Jenison]

The cannons fire cannon balls into a gem slot. If you select the cannon ball in time, you disarm it and get some points.

If it explodes it takes 2 - 4 gems with it and you dont get any points. Plus the chance the game could be over if there are no matches left. So its in your interest to disarm them.

You can collect cannon balls and when you have enough, you can fire one back at the ship. Do that X times, the ship sinks and you move onto the next level. So you are in control when you want to move onto the next level. You can wait though to rack up some points as the motive is to play a level and get a higher score. Think Donkey Kong. You can blow by a level without really scoring anything or you can stick around and try to get a higher score.

The captain can fire anywhere between 1 and 6 cannon balls. The harder the level the greater the chance of more to be fired.

EDIT - also, NPC's will be entering from stage left and stage right. Removing gems periodically. We are still working on them and what they are going to be doing. Hopefully I'll have one in the game soon. I'm also working on a mechanic so you can prevent an npc from doing so.

[Jenison]

Hey guys,

A quick update. Title screen is being worked on and polished. We will soon have music / sound effects. Things are going really well. But, i'm shooting for the first week of Aug to be out of Alpha.

Here is a shot of the title screen

[Camerous]

Almost to the third week in Aug and still no update... how is it going?

[Jenison]

Still working on it...

I had a long animation sequence to work on that involves sending the pirate on a treasure hunt. Its designed to help the player.

I still have a bit to do. My artist had some real life stuff come up, but I'm starting to get art back again. I have to be done within a few weeks as I am entering into the Indie Game Challenge.

Here is a shot of the in-game help

[Jenison]

Here is some more game play. I've added sound effects ... the way you select gems is now different. Its coming along nicely.

I just played a quick game not really trying, but keeping it short for demonstration purposes.

There appears to be lag in the game that is shown in the video. Its not like this at all during gameplay. I dont have the best computer for recording and it apparently choked on a couple areas.

[Jenison]

Beta is now available to download...I will update the OP with any issues / warnings