A blog post about my current active project, Innoquous 4, and some information on it.
Firstly, it's initially aimed for YYG Competition 05. It's going to undertake the alias Innoquous Hand Held for this. Innoquous Hand Held will lack online functions, be capped to 480x272 as its screen resolution, and be slightly fiddlier than usual. This is a direct result of the competition restrictions. What it will contain will be 100 levels (40 new, 60 from Innoquous 1, 2 and 3, many of which will be tweaked to accommodate the faster controls). There will also be other obstacles - I'm aiming for timed-shooting guns and pushable blocks, that will debut, and make appearances in both new and old, tweaked levels. I'm looking to add a level editor - this may not make IHH as the control restrictions would make it difficult to implement.
Once IHH is released, I will upgrade it to Innoquous 4. This will be the full-on game. 800x600 resolution, mouse-controlled, easy to use level editor (mouse-controlled), improved menu, plenty of customisation options (complete control over block colours, a choice of characters - play as a fish!, and other options), etc. I'll also poke UnknownGamer into making the online for it, which will build on I3's site - you'll be able to make an account on it, share statistics, see your rankings, upload levels you've created and download others', with level ratings etc. Depends on how much he can do.
Now, cost-wise. I initially said I was going to make Innoquous 4 my first commercial game. However, with the need to make IHH free, this is now unlikely. What I am edging towards is making the game DONATIONWARE. This would mean you could pay $/£20 (madness!), $4 (what I would've initially charged), or even 1p/cent (*stares*). The reason I want to charge for the game is because I'm about to jump into the world of work, and in all honestly I'd quite like to be able to jump out of it ASAP into commercial indie game production. I know it'll probably be a few years before that provides any kind of income, but hey, the sooner I start making this damn game, the better!
Yesterday I released a trailer for the game, showcasing its new IOTAS-style graphics and mentioning some of the planned features. If you're interested, here it is:And that's pretty much it, really! If you have any comments, suggestions, or anything else, don't hesitate to comment. Even if I don't reply to them, I certainly read them and take them on board. Thanks!
Until the next blog entry.
~ NAL