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[eigenbom]

Update: Added Videos! TRAILER, ALPHA FOOTAGE: DUNGEON, SPIDERS/FLAMES, MERCHANTS

Hey guys. As a massive rogue-like and DF fan I set about to make a platforming rogue-like with DF, Nethack, and Terraria being major influences. 3 years of full-time work later and I've now got something that I think is pretty unique and interesting. The game is called Moonman and is a blend of short procedural games like Spelunky and Binding of Isaac with longer sandbox games like Terraria. You can build, harvest tiles, create items and armour from resources, talk to NPCs, and generally just explore the different regions in the world, looking for seven moon fragments to finish the game.



The worlds are procedurally generated and will contain forests, towns, caves, dungeons, islands, and many interesting alien landscapes. My background is in procedural generation (I have a PhD in the area) and so I hope to be able to take the procgen in the game much further than what appears in other procedural platformers. An average play length is going to be about 30 minutes to an hour, and you can adjust the game generation settings to get larger worlds, more difficult worlds, or peculiar kinds of worlds (e.g., one where it constantly rains fire).

The game has a neat fluid and fire simulation system, a solid physics-basis (built on Box2D), simple stylised graphics, lots of action and combat, strange landscapes and creatures, heaps of different weapons, armour and items, and has just been Greenlit and so will appear on Steam later this year.

I have just launched a Kickstarter campaign to help me finish the game. You can get alpha access to Moonman by backing the project, and there are other rewards too, such as having your name etched on a tombstone in the game.

I've included more gifs below, but I highly recommend checking out the trailer and more information on the KS page. If you like the look of my game then please consider backing the project and sharing it around with your friends. I'm just a single dev, but I'm working hard to make Moonman into the procedurally generated platformer that I've always wanted to play. I'd love to answer any questions you have and hear any suggestions or criticisms. This is my first big PC game and I'm pretty excited to finally show it to the world.

Cheers!

PS. If you're interested in reading about how I made the game, I have a development log of over 140 pages over on the TIGsource forums. And here's an album of 84 gifs covering 3 years of development.

[Scripten]

This looks really interesting. I'll have to read more about it elsewhere, but I am definitely interested.

Did you also do the spritework? It's a very pretty game.

[eigenbom]

Thanks guys, I love the enthusiasm

Yep I did 99% of the art and all the code (about 60k LOC of C++). You can see on my devlog how the art style evolved as I got more confident with it. I also run a twitter group called @Pixel_Dailies which I use to practise my pixel art skills.

This upcoming year will be all about gameplay, as I really dig into the world generation algorithms much more. I've got a basic level of procgen but there's so much to do, and DF is a great resource and inspiration in that regard. I hope Moonman can be like a DF-lite, in terms of curious and fun world to explore, with animals doing weird things, NPCs behaving oddly, and emergent situations that arise from the simulation.

[Sirus]

This looks very very nice. I'm keeping an eye on this.

[miauw62]

Holy shit this looks gorgeous.

Do want. PTW.

[Arbinire]

def looks good, like a project of passion, will be keeping an eye on it

[Oneir]

Oh man, I'm excite. I found the devblog via RockPaperShotgun a few months ago, but I didn't get really deep in it. Congrats on the Greenlight!

I was actually just thinking the other day that one of my big issues in playing Terraria or Minecraft is there's no end condition. Terraria especially has a lot of Metroidvania influence in getting different gear just to access/survive new areas, but it doesn't have the same ultimate end condition. There's no story to advance, or complete. And here you are! With an open world, crafty-stabby game with a definite end condition. So! That's really cool.

[silverskull39]

ptw

[Scripten]

I absolutely love a lot of the ideas on display here, but two in particular stick out a lot, and I don't think I've seen them elsewhere in gaming.

1) The procedural/powder toy-esque relationships between objects. Broforce kind of hit this sweet spot, but that was almost more of a puzzle game with shooty platform-y elements, while this one looks like spelunky with engineering. The addition of goals and decoupling of progression from mining in a build-em-up/roguelike hybrid is a fantastic concept. Flooding a cave to clear it of spiders now feels like a gameplay element rather than a toy, for example.

2) The idea of a Metroidvania-style open world where you progress and open up parts of the world, but still go back to the start to find new areas, stock up, and otherwise integrate into the world is something you rarely see in a platformer. Again, it's all about that sweet spot that pulls this game away from the crowd.

I'm really excited to see where this goes.

[evilnancyreagan]

Why hello there!

I'm surprised there wasn't a post for this sooner. Although honestly, this game has kinda slipped my mind. Now that you're here, keep us up to date

[Levi]

You can adjust the game generation settings to get larger worlds, more difficult worlds, or peculiar kinds of worlds (e.g., one where it constantly rains fire).

Sold.    

I'm gonna echo what everybody else said and say that I love the art, and game itself looks pretty great. 

[eigenbom]

Cheers guys, glad you like the art and the idea behind the game. Still a lot of work to be done, but the KS will hopefully kick this year off well. Here's a poking guy..

[SalmonGod]

I cannot read this title without my inner voice singing it to the tune of Spoonman.

[SharpKris]

PTW

[eigenbom]

Taz -- I'm hoping to make the game enjoyable for a few run-throughs at least. I'm going to pack it full of content, different attributes, items, etc., so that each play through is different enough to be fun. I think Binding of Isaac and Nuclear Throne do this pretty well.

My main plan is to have different moonmen be unlockable as you achieve certain goals. So, for instance, there'll be a silver Moonman who has no arms, can hover, and has a laser coming out of his face. You won't be able to wield weapons or use items with him, so he'll provide a really challenging run through. Other fun things like that will hopefully keep it fresh, but to be honest, if someone can get 2 hours of fun out of my game then I'd be a very happy man. A lot of games get like 10 minutes of play before they are shelved for the next one.