End of Shakecan Games - Start of A New Project

Hey, there. It's been awhile.

*Sigh*

I really should stop writing that at the start of my posts.

In any case, I haven't been doing much game development recently, as I got a full-time job, which has been taking up a lot of my time, in addition to my other rather important pursuits.



Because of this, even small games like Kyro'll take longer than just a few weeks.

Behold! The relatively simply projects that will now take years of my life to complete!

So, I think this'll be the end of "Shakecan Games" as a label (until later on, I suppose). In the meantime, I'll try to carry out the same concept and make small, compact, fun, and functional games that really just focus on the fun of core concepts rather than getting bogged down in other things.

The current game I'm working on is called Airgrift. It's a rather simple concept, which is a mixture of Pac-man with other maze-like action arcade games.

The plan is to make the core concept play like Pac-man, but add additional features and elements like hazards, enemies, and different manuevers to kind of update the gameplay and keep people playing it.

Since most maze-like games tend to focus on action, I think I'd like for the game to have puzzle aspects available as well to help mix up the gameplay. The basic gameplay loop is something like this:

1. Enter stage, notice all stage gates are closed
2. Collect all money bags / "necessary" collectibles
3. Stage gates open
4. Head into next stage

When starting, the game will spawn one of a random selection of maps for you to play on next, and the game progresses by you clearing those maps (obviously). Overall, this should mean that the game won't feel stale as you continue to play on different maps and experience different challenges and progressions.

The items you pick up will most likely be money bags that will be points that directly contribute to your score. In normal games, this mechanic does stuff, like how large point denominations give you 1-ups in most arcade games. However, in Airgrift, the money bags you pick up will serve a secondary (primary?) purpose of currency. You'll be able to spend the bulk cash you get to upgrade and improve the game overall. For example, you'll be able to purchase different characters or additional map packs to add variety to the game.

I'm not sure if the game will have a definite end to it any more than Pac-man really was just designed to be played infinitely, more or less, but if so, it'd probably be at the end of a number of levels, like after you progress through, say, 25 maps in a single run.

Anyway, that's the general idea that I'm thinking about and working on. Thanks for reading!