Down in the Ocean ...

My brother asked me some sketches for re-painting the fish-themed bedroom of char*ly. He wanted it with a Bilou-drift so that our favourite hero could be seen swimming along on the walls. I already had some funny characters that could have been injected, but for Bilou, I wanted it to be something more than "an ocean zone, that is underwater" ... fish that can depart from the ordinary fishes, because that's what Donkey Kong Country has already done. And he wanted something more child-friendly, that doesn't trigger any nightmares.

Since my brother is much into music, I somehow came up with the idea of transforming musical instruments into underseas inhabitants ... the french name "Piano à queue" for the Grand Piano may have helped ... or maybe that's just the harp-shape of hippocamps. Anyway, I've got my design and I like it.

And only when I'm done, he comes back with the office's iPad and show me the brilliant, indie-developed Squids RPG/strategy game from the Game Bakers... which happens to take place under water as well (not that surprising ;)

Although the interactions and goal is pretty simple, they managed to keep me playing until the end of the demo (that is, the point where you're prompted to purchase more characters) thanks to that lovely graphics they have. The OST is sure great as well, but it's just harder to focus on the game music with kids playing all around. At some point, I paused the game and picked my pencil to note some graphical tricks, some underwater plants I found interesting, and so on.


edit: pencils have finally discarded some sharp-harps and twisted me towards saxocamps instead. I've got other folks that look like whistling-fishes. Cymbal-manta-ray didn't make it.

Le vieux Synopsis.

Petite scéance d'archivage: voici en comparaison ce qui tenait lieu de "Synopsis" à Bilou après la scéance de "brainstorming" pour le concours de 1994: tout juste un nombre de niveaux, l'ordre dans lequel il est possible de les parcourir (notamment via les téléporteurs triangulaires) et les pouvoirs gagnés après le combat contre les boss.

C'est bien sûr ma version "synthétique" de travail, mon frère m'ayant confectionné quelque chose de plus graphique avec une grosse tortue et une île volcanique ...

Bo - Look. This is an ancient map of the planet we've landed on.
Bi - Yep, it's curious that they had technology to build teleporters, but still named their lands along some primary elements such as "Fire", "Water", "Green"
Bo - I wonder what these "pyramid" and "turtle" places could look like.
Bi - Feel like doing some exploration, at last ?
Bo - Don't be stupid ! Archeological curiousity has nothing to do with your "exploration" stuff!
PS: eh oui, finies les "vacances 2010". Fini les coups de rouleaux sur le plafond, les tuyaux qui fuient et les tiroirs à monter ... ma cuisine est à nouveau prête à l'emploi (peu s'en faut), ce qui signifie que je peux à nouveau déployer un laptop dans mon salon :P

adventure (t.a.g., Bilou's)

This is the last post in the (Bilou's) Adventure thread.

These posts presented you whatever is related to the "great project" of having a platformer game starring my blue ball Bilou (and possibly co-starring his sidekick Bouli) collecting the 7 magic stones and saving the world from some impending disaster. As you have guessed the storyline is still subject of major changes from times to times and the gameplay mechanics are still largely under study, but one piece at a time, it builds up.

The game will features different zone on the planet Bilou's cruiser is crashed, including (at least) green zone, school zone, desert zone, fire zone, ocean zone, castle zone and lost zone. I keep giving them generic names so far, to avoid setting excessively strong boundaries to creativity and imagination.