Cosmic Lander, a new minigame project

I recently  started to work on a new indie game on my spare time.

The initial goal was to develop a series of really small games within very short development cycles, in order to address a largest spectrum possible with my favorite game engine to date: GameStart

It turns out that it rapidly evolved into something a bit more ambitious, even I’ve been able to prioritize the tasks, and especially to work on a gameplay before starting the real artworks.

From a basic “Lunar Lander” it ought to be, it moved to a gameplay with a series of closed levels (caves ?) in which the player must seek for a list of items, while struggling against the gravity.

The graphics are basic so far, as mentioned above, mainly because I want to focus on what I’m not confident with : the level design. The visual aspect of the caves might eventually get painted or textured, but the real challenge here is to create funny & challenging levels.

So far, the game features 4 levels, no score, the basic win/die gameloop, a minimap and a few bonus & traps. The physics engine plays an important part in the gameplay.

I’m currently wondering to what extent it could be relevant to create a level editor inside the game, in order to have people create their own levels… Want to share your opinion? 🙂

2 thoughts on “Cosmic Lander, a new minigame project”

  1. Level editors are NEVER a bad idea, in any game project. I’ve seen time and time again when players have been able to pull off amazing feats in level creation that the creator of the game may or may not have even thought could be done. I always end up, personally, spending more time in level creation or editing of pre-existing levels in games moreso than actually playing the game.

    In summation: let your players flex their creative minds. Let people who would otherwise have no interest in the game at all take interest so that they can be creative. Allow customization so that players can take to the title again and again, even after having completed the game months ago.

    (There is a reason Minecraft and Terraria are popular, albeit simple games. It’s the ability to be creative, I believe)

  2. “really small games within very short development cycles”. I couldn’t agree more really. As Rabbit said, level editors are great allthough they increase the dev time. So it’s a matter of balace here.

Leave a Reply to Leather Rabbit Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *