Gameplay: This is a fairly basic platformer. Since I plan to do this almost entirely on my own (will likely seek out help for sound-related things) I'm keeping things simple.
As stated in the above image, in this game you play as RMS-001, a cybernetic weapon created by the military. Your goal? Break things.
The only controls in the game are really movement (left, right, and jump) and attack.
There will be two powerups present in the game which change your attack. Normally you have a simple smack, generating forces upwards of 500 Newtons in a single hit, which has a bit of range and near-instant startup. The first upgrade, the Murder Sticks, provide a more powerful version of the basic attack, packing 1500 Newtons with each bludgeon, and creating cavitation bubbles (tiny vacuums within the water which quickly collapse upon themselves) to provide a secondary attack with slightly more range. It also allows you to quickly retreat if your attack connects. The second upgrade, the Stabby-Stabby, gives you an entirely new attack, a sort of grapple and pummel. Boasting a bit more range than the Murder Sticks, the Stabby-Stabby attack snatches any enemy within its range (yes, it can take out multiple enemies at once if they're close enough!) and allows RMS-001 to continually pummel it until its health falls to 0, or release it with a small push if you need to retreat. Larger enemies will have a chance to break out of the grapple on each pummel, however, and bosses will have a chance to break out upon the initial grapple as well. If an enemy escapes, RMS-001 will be invincible for a short time so you don't randomly die if you're grappling enemies while at low health. I haven't decided yet if you'll be able to switch between the upgrades while in a level or if you'll have to choose one when starting a level, but you won't lose the upgrades once you acquire them.
The game will be level-based, and after the tutorial, each level will feature some sort of boss. Throughout each level there will be various enemies which will generally be based on sea creatures, ranging from clams and snails to fish and crustaceans. Each enemy will be found as both the actual creature and a mechanized version of it which will attack differently and sometimes be harder to break.

Programming: Made in GameMaker 8.1 Standard. Too lazy to learn a new language for this so I figured I'd stick to what I know.

Team Members: Right now, just me. I may look for people to help at some point in the process, but for now I plan to do almost everything myself. I'll likely run into trouble when I get to the audio side of things, such as music and sound effects, so if you wanted to help out that's what I'd be looking for.

Things to show:
Preview video featuring the current state of the menus and the first level, as well as movement and attacking with RMS-001 (and how bad Youtube can be at processing videos at small resolutions).

A mockup of part of the tutorial level.


My sprite thread post with some RMS-001 animations.

Various notes:
-Inspired by a friend of mine after he showed me The Oatmeal's comic about Mantis Shrimp.
-The playable character is based on a Mantis Shrimp. If you'd like to see a really in-depth and awesome Ted-Talk about Mantis Shrimps, this has pretty much all the cool information. If you just want to see what one looks like in action, this is a good example of what it does.
-Obviously, nothing shown is final, especially as far as visuals are concerned. At the very least the levels will look much nicer than what's shown when they're finished, I just needed something so I could get started on the gameplay.
-No playable demo for a while. I might release something that people can mess around with when I finish the menu system and the first level, but not any time soon since this is sort of a background project for me.

Feel free to make suggestions, comment on the idea or what I've shown, and all that sort of stuff.

minor update on my new website in case anyone cares about or remembers this game

i care ; _ ;

knowing your sprite work, i'm just guessing that a good amount of the visuals will be beautiful.

looking forward to more updates man, keep em coming

Very cool I'll be keeping an eye out for any updates/progress myself



I like to watch people with more motivation then me XD

http://dettadesigns.webs.com/

Another minor update: Bubbles!
(also the clam featured in the OP)

gm can do a lot more than i thought initially...

nice little bubble system though dude
people don't appreciate the little things often enough.

If you don't know a whole lot about making games (or just how code works in general) then it might not seem like GameMaker can actually do a whole lot.
With a background working with a very complex game though, GM is very flexible considering the effort it takes compared to learning an entirely new language.

Obviously learning a new language would probably be more beneficial in the long run since actual languages (C-related ones for example) are much more flexible and have more freedom overall, but for a little game that I'm making pretty much entirely for fun, I didn't want to put too much time into development.

I see. I just had this certain image of GM......Maybe it's just cause yoyogames used to boast "you can make a game without much coding knowledge!!" and stuff like that, so i kind of always took it as a joke. Main reason I took up as3. But it's most likely much better than I think, heheh

and i know what you mean. that creative feeling you get...that makes you want to just make something....it can feel amazing, but be detrimental to your health at the same time, lol.

another (minorish) update: treasure chests!

http://dettadesigns.webs.com/

notable update: jellyfish! (and the tutorial level is basically finished)

http://dettadesigns.webs.com/

i actually like that idea.
did you plan everything out already?

the jellyfish i actually came up with like two days ago but i wanted to finish the tutorial before implementing them

i started a big doodle page of random things i could do, which also sprouted the treasure chest, and i now have at least one specific boss planned

aesthetically i think it's very clean and pleasing (the game)
youve clearly got the important elements in making a fun platformer styled game but you're gonna have to drive it home with some killer level design, best of luck man, i'll keep watching this for updates

http://dettadesigns.webs.com/

Today's update is a video!

I'll probably skip out on more updates until I have a first level fully designed (or even completed) so there probably won't be much shown for the next week or more (I also get my wisdom teeth out on Wednesday ; -; )

Another minor/major update: Crawling!

http://dettadesigns.webs.com/