Nice implementation; Usually your not allowed to touch your "past" copies but it was an interesting concept actually standing on your past self to get across various levels. Nice.
Motherload is similar but I think takes a slightly different angle on the game play; I think controlling a character rather than a ship makes the game different enough to be interesting; maybe even a little more engaging (easier to relate to?); As a developer there's always things you want to change about games anyway so this is my way of making my own game that I want to play and hopefully others too :-D.
@racarama: Yeah; I should have called this a preview rather than a demo as the demo version will contain a lot more features than you see here; I'm also considering having a "free"/"lite" and "premium" version of the game; where the lite version is a full game but just with some features removed and the premium version includes side quests and side mines that run out from the main mine for those that really enjoy playing. We'll see; nothing concrete - which is why I started posting details about it now to get a feel for what the people want and determine if I can steer it in that direction if need be :-D.
Again, thanks for all the comments everyone.
I'm also not much of an artist so it's sometimes easier to borrow ideas that others have used to quickly create effects (i.e. swinging the axe); I really wanted to do all these frames separately but it's just extra time that takes me away from dev :-D. In previous demos of this game I also had a similar particle effect to miner dig deep but removed it for now until I feel it adds value and looks good :-D.
Sorry for the multiple posts; silly 1,000 character limit :-D
I realise this game is aimed at quite a niche market but in all honesty it's aimed primarily at me; I've been wanting a game like this for ages and after a bit of research couldn't find anything that was close enough to what I wanted; Miner dig deep was half way there but I couldn't justify buying an xbox just for that; Miner disturbance is also pretty close but goes off on it's own little tangent - It's also written in Java (as is Minecraft - which I must say once again rocks! Definately a good indie game to buy!) which opens them up to a whole world of possibilities that Adobe only just seem to be handing over to us via their flex libs.
I'll be writing a "special" Kongregate version of the game that makes use of their API's and will definitely take a look at this payment system you mention - it must be new as I didn't notice it the last time I read through the docs. Having a daily challenge to see who can earn the most and dig the deepest will definitely encourage people to pay; Although I think the scores can only count if you return to the surface? Or is that too mean?
Yeah; I think anything less than £5/$5 for the flash game is reasonable given enough features and game play. I know people have a hard time valuing things but when it costs so much to rent movies online (here in the UK anyway) buying a full game that you can play and be entertained for days (rather than hours) seems quite reasonable to me.
However, being able to download that as an AIR application I think it starts to move into the realm of a normal game (at the end of the day who cares of it's written in flash or C - it's an app that you download and install); and just this ability alone gives you a lot more freedom and also costs more from the development and support point of view - which is why I bumped the price for the download up another £2 to cover those costs.
www.minecraft.net Rocks! I thought about doing a 2D game similar to minecraft but I don't think it works anywhere near as well in 2D. Man I love that game. Go notch!
@pjt33: Some great comments - why do we have to manually sell all those ores and refill the lamp? I guess I enjoy accountancy :-D; I'll add in options to auto-sell ores when entering the shop and re-filling the lamp automatically until you run out of fuel.
The full game has a key-map system so you can assign whatever keys you want to each function but this was removed for the demo to keep it simple. The full game also has indicators showing where you're about to dig.
I'll yet to play Miner disturbance been so busy workin on this :-p.
Sorry about the edge detection; I'm only checking one of the tiles under the player so when your straddling a gap it sometimes think your actually falling! It's on my todo list :-D.
Thanks for the comments everyone!
I'm quite impressed that you guys picked up on this; I've seen the torch effect used before on lots of games and wasn't quite sure where it originally came from - It's quite a difficult thing to achieve in flash and keep performance nice and smooth but I think it works fairly well at present but definately has room for improvement.
Again, thanks for all your comments so far - I love feedback whether it's good or bad - it all makes for a better game eventually; even if you guys don't bother playing again :(
Ta,
Chris
Is there a version of Miner Dig Deep in flash? That you can play at work? I don't have an Xbox so I haven't been able to play it; What if people like the game but don't have an xbox? How many games on here are copied of others?
I have seen the videos of Miner dig deep on you tube while I was researching making this game and it looked a really fun game to play. There are a lot of features missing from their game that I want to incorporate like earthquakes, flooding, poisonous gasses and other things that I'm not quite ready to reveal that I thought could make the game even more fun! I also thought the lack of a story to bind it together was a little disappointing but maybe I went a little overboard with the story and dialogue on this one :-D.
A little slow to start and get the hang of it but really fun once you get going; I think the middle was a little flat but once I'd gotten towards the end it was quite fun being able to win almost quite easily - completed all levels and loved every minute; Strange take on a game but well worth the time.
Excellent.
JayRomeGames (or anyone); do you have details of the websites that do offer paid games?
I figured although a demo isn't the full game it's still "a game" and compared so some of the games on here where you press a red button and follow it around the screen the content is still enough to have fun with and enjoy spending time playing... Is it _that_ big of an issue that a game is advertised as being a demo when the full game requires pay? Is it better that you have a "complete" game that's free and then a "premium" game that has extra features (Motherload has a premium game that costs $19.99!!!)
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