The Illogical Journey of the Zambonis (Devblog)

Noyb's picture
zamboni.png

This might be happening. I dunno. Trying not to think too hard about it and let whatever work emerges come naturally.

High level concept is that it's a reimagining of the 90s kid game The Logical Journey of the Zoombinis, except reinterpreted as taking place in a world where bad things happen that aren't always in your control. And using KNP clip art.

First pass of a script attached. best viewed in a program that has word wrap. Everything except the directions in square brackets is intended to be spoken narration/dialogue. Probably too bleak. Or not bleak enough. I can't actually tell right now what would work best.

Edit: removed script for now.

Edit 2: DONE!

Comments

SpindleyQ's picture

That's pretty bleak,

That's pretty bleak, yeah.

I am super excited about this project! Even though I have never played the Logical Journey of the Zoombinis. But this makes me really want to!

Noyb's picture

Update

6/6: The character creation screen above is fully functional. Two of the buttons above have swapped functionality due to some arcane Clickteam object focus bug, but I found this behavior so compellingly illogical that I decided to keep it.

Attached is a first pass at a narrator voice. Ordered a pop shield, so the plosives won't sound quite as irritating in the future.

6/9: Zamboni facial features now persist between levels. Got early gameplay (drag-drop + success animation) working for the first level. Disappointed that I had to dip into the MMF2 clip art to get the cliff+bridge effect working. Still need to do a failure animation, and probably rehash my dialogue system from Macarena of the Missing to handle the narration.

6/10: Failure animations in. Dialogue and "scripting" system from MotM is now playing nicely with the game. Introduction to the first level (but not the game's introduction) is voiced and animated. First level's gameplay halfway voiced and animated. Calling it a night.

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Danni's picture

Perspective is a bit weird,

Perspective is a bit weird, but only serves to make the game better. I love the use of Evilface!

Scenery needs more depressing, though.

Noyb's picture

Am I working on this again?

Am I working on this again? Is this another passing phase? Watch this space.

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sergiocornaga's picture

I'm glad to hear you may or

I'm glad to hear you may or may not be working on this again!

ME TOO i remember enjoying

ME TOO i remember enjoying the demo with daphny forever ago

I love the Zambonis too, I

I love the Zambonis too, I can't wait for either playing the game or being disappointed by you Noyb not completing the second episode !

Noyb's picture

Thank you! It's technically

Thank you! It's technically the full game, where the previous release was a demo. (Hrm, it's probably not ideal for to play the first level twice before experiencing the new content, but I'm not sure if it's actually a problem if some themes and structural elements are revealed early on. Guess I'll find out in testing!)

Noyb's picture

Thank you for your kind

Thank you for your kind words!

Short interstitial scene done. Two more main puzzle levels + ending to go.

Noyb's picture

Third level DONE. (eep, did

Third level DONE. (eep, did that KNP bubble clipart always have ugly transparent sections?) One of the more mechanically complicated ones. One short cutscene, another puzzle level, and the ending to go. Still treating this as a trainwreck with a super long development time, so I haven't decided how much polish I want it to have, but I'll probably do some closed beta testing once it's playable from start to finish.

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Noyb's picture

Last level DONE. Next up:

Last level DONE, with probably the worst seesaw animation and perspective in all of gaming. Next up: ending, a few minor polish tweaks, and testing to make sure the writing actually conveys the themes I want it to convey.

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