Scree - Gameplay Videos and Work in Progress

Hi - I can't wait to finally release my first game! I'm a one-person team and this is not my day job, so my ETA is vague. But the game is coming along well, so I'm hoping for summer 2015.

Scree

Scree is a colorful, abstract "treasure landslide" game with short play sessions: around a minute. It's physics-driven, with musical sound effects and a progression of upgrades that add increasing variety of abilities and treasures. Game play involves planting a limited number of bombs to knock as much treasure (and the best treasures) down the mountain into the "water" at the bottom, where you collect the point values. The main strategy element comes using the bomb types wisely, and maximizing your multiplier before grabbing the best items. (But you can also just forget strategy, plant bombs wildly, and take your chances!)

It's a Universal game, without the usual Free-to-play baggage: NO currency, NO timers, NO consumable IAP. I plan to offer it free with ads, and premium without. (But I hate ads and will try to keep them minimal--never seen during play, and not the only way to unlock/achieve anything.)

iPhone 6 Plus video (work in progress):

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And here's an iPad screenshot (updated 7/15) plus an early sampling of treasures including a Piñata that breaks open to release extra loot, and a few high-value "Collectibles" (various random stuff) of which I have been creating many. That way, players can find Collectibles fairly often, but each one can still be rare and fun to discover.

I still have to finish the "meta-game" (a mission system of sorts), program the final 2 of the 6 bomb types (you customize your own loadout, or let the game pick for you), and build a couple more maps. (You don't "beat" maps and move on—there are only a few maps, with varying play styles, and you choose the map you feel like playing.) Disclaimer: this is work in progress; details may change!

 

Some details on the bombs and loadout system:

You have a limited number of "bomb slots" (like ammo), and at the start of each game you can tweak your selected set of bombs. Some bombs take up more than one slot, so it's a choice between having many low-end bombs, a few super-powerful ones, or a mix.

Then you use your chosen bombs, in order, placing each one by tapping on the slope (swipe to pan/up down).

You can tap like crazy, placing all your bombs at once for a quick, luck-based sandbox-like experience.

Or, for a better score, place each one carefully, watch what happens, and then place the next. Usually it makes sense to work your way down from the top of the slope, paying attention to "pile-ups" where a lot of treasure has collected. But your tactics may vary when it comes to maximizing your score: if you leave the best treasures alone until you've raised your multiplier, they'll be worth even more.

6 Bomb Types:

- Mini Bomb: the basic one-slot bomb. It explodes on the ground where you tap—so even if you tap on a big pile of treasures, the bomb goes off at the surface behind them: you're launching treasures outward rather just shoving them into the ground.

- Wrecking Ball: a big, heavy metal ball with plenty of momentum to keep it rolling downhill. It drops from above like a meteor and lands where you tap—making it a good way to smash open treasure chests and the like. But the Wrecking Ball also has another use: when you catch it at the bottom, it's worth 1000 points. So filling your last few slots with Wrecking Balls gives you a way to cash in on a big multiplier.

- Mega Bomb: enough force to move the heaviest treasures, and with a wide radius to start a nice avalanche.

- Black Hole Bomb: an inward-sucking vortex with a wide radius. Useful to pull treasures together in one place, or draw something valuable out of a crevice.

- ?????: stay tuned! Not exactly a bomb, but an unpredictable device that keeps operating for a long time.

- ?????: stay tuned! The most powerful bomb, with a chain reaction effect.

I'm still working on the last two.

I find Random Loadout to be the most fun: your set of bombs is chosen for you, and you have to make the best of what you're given. (As a reward for accepting this challenge, you get an extra bomb slot or two.)

 

Video

Here's an older gameplay video from when I'd only just started building the game. (Sorry it's slightly stretched: at that time, the only way I could record a video was to make a Mac build with a mouse cursor.) Fear not, that logo overlay isn't really in the game!

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You can see some regular bombs, some Black Hole bombs, and the Wrecking Ball (now called Cannonball) which just rolls downhill and then scores 1000 points at the bottom.

This clip was taken at a point when almost all of the variety has been unlocked. Things start out simpler, but all the points you collect work like XP, raising a progress meter until the next upgrade (new bombs, new levels, new treasures, whatever). Upgrades are permanent, and there's no IAP to get them quicker: you just have to play and score points.

(I've already made the Piñatas look cleaner than that video—and upgraded some of the sound effects.)

 

Procedural levels: some levels have a new layout each time you play. This level is also much wider than most, with the camera pulled way back. (All levels pan vertically.)

 

I've been working on UI lately.

Map-picker on top. The "pie" is like an XP meter--progress toward your next upgrade (unlocking a new map, new type of treasure, etc.--in this case, the next unlock shown is Piñatas). And the stamp (different random object each time) takes you to view your collection of rare "collectibles" you have found. (I haven't made 50 yet; that's my goal, though.)

I went through a lot of revisions to take all the complexity of missions and upgrades (calling for a pretty complex menu system) and boil it down into a few screens that feel simple.

Before and After:

 

Thanks!

Just Googled vectorpark--interesting, artistic stuff!

I'll post an updated gameplay video soon. (Yosemite makes iPhone recording so much easier.)

I'm up to 51 different treasures:

All 5 "regular" treasures done (dots and jewels/gems).

All 6 "breakable" treasures done (release more treasure when broken—Piñatas, treasure chests, etc.).

40 rare collectible treasures done (some show up in pairs; aiming for 50 at launch).

And 4 maps done (at least one more planned for launch; this really changes the whole game feel, so it's the kind of variety I like to have).

But still only 4 of the 6 bomb types done. (Wrecking Balls are now called Cannonballs.)

 

Thanks!

No new video yet--I'm reworking the physics a little first. Turns out that the same bomb action can feel very different in different shapes of terrain/arrangements of treasure. So I'm making the bombs "smarter," acting a little different in different scenarios--but in a way that FEELS more predictably the same.

 

Thanks, all!

Thanks. I wanted to make game where the sound effects themselves created a musical soundtrack. All the sounds have random pitch, but always form decent-sounding chords together.

To do that I needed a formula that would transform any sampled note into any other sampled note. Couldn't find it anywhere, but I did find bits and pieces of musical theory that led me to the answer:

Multiply the pitch of the sample by:
(2 to the 12th power) raised to the power of (the number of half-steps to shift, + or -)
(For the non-musical... like me... "half steps" = "piano keys": both black and white.)

(My next math challenge: the random chords sound fine now, but aren't restricted to any one musical key--and I'd like to re-do the sound system to make that possible. Then I could try different keys and give the sounds a different feel. I think I'll need to make a look-up table for that, unless I can find some universal formula for the half-steps in a given Western scale.)

 

Just posted a new gameplay video (in the original post). Shows the menu/UI, and a handsome china plate, suitable for any occasion...

 

Thanks! And I may take you up on the testing offer later on. I will need testers soon.

 

Thank you. I hope to post a video soon demonstrating how you can customize your loadout—choosing a lot of weak bombs, a few powerful ones, or some mix in between.