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Author Topic: Purcitop Garden - A mini adventure game  (Read 8243 times)

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fallahn

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Purcitop Garden - A mini adventure game
« on: May 08, 2021, 04:15:55 pm »
If you've been following me on Twitter you'll have seen updates over the past year to my newest game: Purcitop Garden. The game is a procedurally generated, family friendly adventure game made with my SFML based framework xygine.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=60D7s9bV_JU

You can download it (for free!) from itch.io: https://fallahn.itch.io/purcitop-garden

Kabimm

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Re: Purcitop Garden - A mini adventure game
« Reply #1 on: May 12, 2021, 03:31:25 am »
I like the graphic style and the overall cozy atmosphere, also the minigames are fun. The subtle sound and graphic effects are really nice, and I also enjoyed the sidescrolling parts with the little quizzes and the cute cubs.

Butâ„¢, and that's why I didn't play that long, I just don't like mazes. I mean, a maze, every now and then is ok I think. After a while it annoyed me a bit. Mazes are just not my thing.

fallahn

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Re: Purcitop Garden - A mini adventure game
« Reply #2 on: May 12, 2021, 11:35:17 am »
Thanks for giving it a play!

You're quite right to point out all the mazes can get very repetitive. When I first started this project it was actually just to test to some procedural generation theory - originally it was just a never ending series of mazes! However, once I'd poured some significant time into it (this was back at the beginning of the first lockdown) I decided it was a waste to let it disappear into my bucket of unfinished projects which is when I started adding the story to it.

Originally I was looking at making it something like Alice in Wonderland, or one of the studio Ghibli stories. In fact the lead character was actually blonde to start with, but I changed her hair colour to make make her stand out more against the background. It also made her look more like American McGee's Alice, rather than Disney's  ;) The character of the daughter is loosely based on Chihiro from Spirited Away. Coincidentally it also made the characters look a bit like friends of mine, which, as it turns out, influenced the game further down the line...
I'd also read somewhere a quote from Steven Spielberg who had said one of the keys to making a fantasy story believable is to start it founded in real life - before dropping your characters down a rabbit hole (or into a talking TV ;) ), which is where the train ride comes from (that and, again, Spirited Away). The character of the Professor is actually an extension of an invisible character in another one of my games Mow Problem - I had actually considered making the entire experience basically one large advert for it, but wisely decided not to in the end  ;D

With this in mind it was a fairly logical step to add more mini-games, platform sections and collectibles and so on, to try and break the mazes up as much as possible. It worked to a certain extent, but I never finished some of the planned features such as the 'greenhouse' mode, where you could plant the seeds found in the main game, and nurture them in an entirely separate context - kind of like a plant based Tamagotchi. I may revisit this idea sometime in the future and add it via an update.

In the end it was just a fun project to make, and has proven quite popular with people who play it with their children - possibly because it only takes an hour or so to complete and can be done with a short attention span  8)

If I add any new features, I'll be sure to post them here!

Kabimm

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Re: Purcitop Garden - A mini adventure game
« Reply #3 on: May 19, 2021, 05:57:19 pm »
Oh, I understand. Seems like I almost finished the game then, but I expected there is a lot more to it, because of the seeds. I actually thought I will be able to plant them at some point. But if it is not that long, I will give it another try and finish it.
As I said, I really like the overall look and feel and I'm looking forward to any updates on this game or a new project :) And congrats on finishing the game :D

 

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