Chomp 'N' Cheeky (Shareware)
v1.0.0-alpha Released!
New Game In development Coming to Town
This game is my first commercial based game. I had been working on making games with Construct for four years, putting some ideas I had together in order to learn about how Construct works. This year. I am doing it for real, making a commercial game. I initially was planning to do this behind closed doors but realised the importance and the desire of building up a community with people, getting their take and feel on the games I am making.
Say "Hello" to Chomp 'N' Cheeky. A brand new 2D adventure puzzle game that has been in development since February yet to be launched. I got to a point where I could release a shareware version of the game in alpha state . I was heavily motivated to get it completed when Feedback Friday by Tim Ruswick was coming up. I knew I did not have a lot of time left before having to wait another month so I wanted to juice things up as much as possible and include some sort of help system. That's exactly what I stayed up all night to do last night and released this shareware alpha version at about 4:30AM this morning. This is the first time I've ever released a game and I am very excited to continue developing the game and building a community along with it from here!
It's called Chomp 'N' Cheeky
A 2D adventure puzzle game that stars two main characters: A very hungry cave clam called Chomp and a lost smiley face called Cheeky. You play as Cheeky, the lost smiley face, that was out looking for food and got lost in Clam Grove and it's up to you help get him out so he can go home.
During your adventure, you will constantly encounter Chomp who will come out of his cave to eat anything he can, including smiley faces, so you want to make sure that Cheeky is not going to get eaten.
Game Play Idea
Let's talk passed the fact that some pop ups appear on the screen once starting (which have very useful information by the way):
- The entire game is based on tiles. Objects are placed tile by tile and characters move tile by tile.
- Your starting point is a door with a banned symbol on it. This is also your spawning point if you get eaten.
- The goal is to get the key that is usually surrounded by a disposable object called bread.
- Chomp is the only ones that can eat the bread in order to make a path through it so you can collect the key and go through the door.
- Chomp's patrol picks random directions and travels in that direction for a random selection of time, usually anywhere between 0.5 to 2 seconds.
- If Chomp sees you, he will forget about eating the bread and go right after you instead, he prepares for a big meal by having his mouth constantly open and moving towards you.
- You can lose Chomp by going behind an obstacle where he will not see you.
- Chomp will return back to his normal random patrolling behaviour once he runs into an obstacle.
- You can bait Chomp by going into his line of sight and lining him up with a bread of bread that you want him to eat.
- When he stops chasing and returns to normal patrol behaviour, he will start eating the bread around that area, making it easier for you to reach trapped items like keys, doors and treasure, and in some cases, it's necessary for you to get out.
- Other things like treasure are there for you to collect so you can increase your Score.
- There are secret runes on every level. Each type of rune has a special engraving on it which represents the type of magic that rune has.
- Runes can make rewards appear that you could not see before.
- Even more rare are power ups. In the shareware version, you can take advantage of an invisibility power up so Chomp cannot see you, but you can still be eaten by him if you run into him.
- Your score will accumulate and every 10,000 you get, you will be given a bonus life (the winking face)!
- After going through each door, you will be given a summary of how well you went during that level, your level score, your total score, the percentage of found treasure, the percentage of found secret runes and an award of points for completing the level.
- At the end of the 10 levels, it will show your total score you earned and a sneak peak of some of the features you can expect in the full version that is being developed, and what's that? More clams?
Game Play Summary
Getting stuck and working out how to get the key so you can get the hell out, but also collect shiny things on the way, avoid getting eaten but also using the abilities of the enemy to your advantage even though it can be a bit risky.
Issues and Solutions
The shareware version is only a very small part of the game. So, not all features will be available for players. It is there to give people the basic concept of the game, a bit of fun and establish the seed of interest. However, it is still in alpha development, and I still want to add some additional game play variety in the game to make it more interesting. I have shown my game to quite a number people after just one day. I'll go through some of the issues I have discovered and solutions I plan to work on. These solutions may or may not turn out exactly as described but bare with me here...
| Issues | Solutions |
| New players not reading the help pop up that appears at the start of the section so they have no idea what to do. | • I still plan on having pop ups but perhaps instead of putting everything in their face to read about all this information I am considering reducing the content in the initial pop up on start and only show a pop up as events happen in the game. • Perhaps an area where they can access the help information whenever they need to instead of not being able to access it again after closing it off. Some people suggested a tutorial, but I think for the most part, players want to get right into the action of the game and not have to go through a tutorial which is subject to change and become outdated very quickly at this point. I think telling the player little bits and pieces as they go along will help them learn and become more interested in the game. |
| Waiting it out instead of baiting Chomp into eating the bread they need to get items trapped inside the bread (this one really opened my eyes to how people are responding to the game). | Before releasing the game on the internet, I showed a few people I know personally and they found it a lot of fun. They actually tried doing what I wanted players to do: bait chomp to eat the bread they need eaten. It's really the only way to remove the bread, but after expanding my audience for the game I found that not everyone was keen on doing this so they wait in a spot, then look away only to be eaten shortly after. I can see how this can be frustrating especially when Chomp's direction choice is random, so I'm looking into these solutions: • Introducing an additional mechanic that gives the player more control over getting Chomp to eat the bread they want. I am looking into ideas revolving around leaving breadcrumbs that Chomp will focus on eating instead of chasing Cheeky and making sure Chomp can still see him when turning a corner, etc, then at the end of eating the bread crumbs, Chomp would eat whatever bread block that's in front of him. • Another solution I have had on my list for a while and has been suggested by multiple people is to enhance Chomp's AI to actually target the closest bread and eat it. Of course, this idea would mean bread gets eaten and less idle wander for Chomp. • Chomp constantly finds his way to Cheeky - I didn't really want to do this one because of the way the game is. It defeats the purpose of Line of Sight, but I think the previous two solutions should fix this problem. I kinda like both of these ideas, so I'll be working on each of them. At the end of it, I am confident that players will be more engaged instead of choosing to wait all the time. |
| Not enough Chomp visual reactions so players don't understand when Chomp sees Cheeky or anything about Line of Sight and how Chomp responds to seeing cheeky since it's not visual. | • I plan to create head indicators to inform the player of what Chomp's thinking, whether he sees the player or not so the player can obtain enough information to make the right strategic decision. |
| The coins look like big dots, the pile of coins looks like a honey, the pot of gold looks like a pot of honey! What do you do with them? | That's just treasure, you collect it... Yes, I know, they all look a bit strange right now, but the graphics are not final. There's a lot of content that I want to add to the full version and getting the game play right for everyone before I prioritise doing the graphics. In any case, I will be looking for a graphics designer that can help design much nicer graphics that compliments the GUI theme that I have going. Please let me know if you have the skills and are interested in helping in this area. |
Full Version Coming Soon
- More Clams - You'll find it's not just the cave clam Chomp The Chaser, you'll also run into Chomp's best friends with their own set of unique abilities. They are the earth clam Dash The Fast Charger, the pipe clam Sticky The Tongue Terror and a very tricky shrub clam called Switch The Camouflaging Shapeshifter. Names might slightly change during devlopment.
- Cheeky's Hammer - Cheeky can find a hammer on a level which really takes gameplay to another level. With the hammer, you'll be able to smash your way through certain blocks, knock clams out and smashing them through bread as well as defend yourself.
- More Secret Runs - Discover up to 8 different kinds of magical secret runes, making the game even more wild and crazy.
- Even more elegant treasure to be found.
- More Levels and Themes - 100 levels, 10 sections, and a special theme for each section of Clam Grove.
- Boss - A boss level for you to fight Munch The Monstrous Snapper.
Playing the Game
Head over to my Chomp N Cheeky Shareware page to start playing: https://lukenecklace.itch.io/chomp-n-cheeky-shareware
Supporting Me
I am broadcasting live development of this game on Twitch. Click here for my Twitch Channel
My streaming schedule is 9:00AM to 4:00PM Monday to Friday Australian Sydney time:
I post regular updates to my Twitter, so please follow me there to stay in the loop: Click here for my Twitter feed
You can also stay in the loop with video updates on YouTube: Click here for my YouTube Channel
The ultimate way to support me is by donating to me. Every cent will be going towards my ability to continue development of Chomp 'N' Cheeky. However, just joining my community, following me, watching my streams and engaging directly with me to help develop the game is much appreciated too.
Wait this is v1.0.1?
I know, I had to fix some stuff shortly after it was released, but this version works much better.
The next minor update I do to the shareware version will come another devlog.
Thanks for your help and support in advance, and I hope to interact with you soon!
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