The Republic of Thoronia

Man, that was is a long title. I really ought to have shortened it somehow. Um. So, anyway, Mojiferous and I are hard at work getting Simoebic Dysentery up and running on every conceivable platform, some of which are pipe dreams that I’m forcing him to look into, and some that are more viable. But long long ago in a land far far away, we put together the concept and artwork for an Lucasarts style adventure game on the iPhone. This, obviously has never been released, and likely will never be released. That said, the character’s were complete, as was the dialog tree and plot. Now, until I figure out a way to present the dialog tree that isn’t boring, I’m going to share the character designs. Enjoy what never was!

All the votes for the Udevgames Contest 2008 have been tallied up by an army of hamsters, and Mojiferous and I have walked away with a First Place finish in the “Originality” category as well as a Bronze in the audio category (for the umpteenth time, the soundtrack, performed by the Republic of Thoronia Band is available here) for Simoebic Dysentery.

A special thank you to all who voted for the game, Mojiferous and his lovely assistant Liaht, Christiné for the feedback on the soundtrack, and all the other developers in the competition.

For those of you unable to play the beta version, worry not, we’re hard at work on the full game, getting the dialogue finished up, designing new levels and such, and I’ve purchased a whip from Amazon.com to pelt Mojiferous with so we can squash all the known bugs. The game will be released on every single platform we can push the thing to shortly (ie, in this century). Thanks again folks! Next stop wonderland!

PS Anyone who played the game on their Mac’s, please feel free to email me (sidebar), comment below or sign up for the Mojiferforums to push design idea’s, bugs, crash reports, complaints or high fives.

PPS I’ve started becoming obsessed with the English Explorer Percy Fawcett, any idea how we can work that into the game?

Yes folks it’s true. Contrary to what our initial game concepts might have lead you to believe, Mojiferous and I’s Amoeba based puzzler is well on its way to greatness. To kick off the two month long countdown we’ve decided to release the soundtrack early on, so, without further ado… here it is (zip format, individual MP3s below)! Check out Mojiferous’ explanation of the game below the track listing. And as always, feel free to check out the Republic of Thoronia’s other works here.

1. “Welcome to My Body”

2. “Unrest in Dys-century”

3. “Proteus Maximus”

4. “White Blood Cell Hot Body”

5.  “The Truth is Inside”

6.  “Amoeba I’ll Do It Tomorrow”

7.  “Mitosis Are Sore”

8. “Phagocytosis Soda Charm”

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COPIED FROM the Mojiferforum:

Title: Currently, something involving the word Ameba, Amoeba, Hot Sick, etc. etc. (suggestions, anyone?)
Genre: A real-time puzzler… Sort of an ugly man-beast-child of Frogger, Dig Dug, Super Mario Brothers, Portal, and dysentery.
Game Description: You are a parasite (at this stage in development an amoeba), happily going about your business of parasitism inside some unfortunate fellow’s body. You float through the blood stream, looking for nutrients, avoiding phages and antibiotics, and trying to (literally) divide and conquer. The game will be divided into “levels” and “worlds”- each level is a portion of a system or organ within the person’s body you are living within- so for example, the first “world” will likely be the lungs or stomach, with minor “levels” as you advance through the stomach wall and towards whatever organ you’re after next. Each level ends with a “target cell”, much like the flag at the end of a Super Mario level, full of nutrients to allow you to continue your journey, with end-of-world levels home to a much more nutrient rich cell that will give your amoeba enough energy to divide, increasing the number of “lives” you have and opening the door for possible mutation. Mutation is currently planned to be non-directional (meaning neither definitively positive nor negative) and allows for added abilities, special skills, or [possibly] unforeseen consequences.
How it will work: Like Dig Dug married to Super Mario at Frogger’s house… The player will start at one end of the level, with the “target cell” at the opposite end- in between there will be a maze of blood vessels, cells, bone, muscle, etc. etc. The player can move freely through the blood vessels, but they will be the main conduits for immune-response cells (of various kinds), antibiotics, and other such amoeba-eating nasties (everything will move through the blood vessels according to a “pulse”, and in early levels the player may not have strong enough propulsion to overcome this pulse and may be stuck riding the current. Also, as the “patient” gets sicker, the pulse will increase, making the game’s “immune response” faster as levels increase… this is the Frogger part of the game, timing your escape from the white blood cells.) Surrounding the blood vessels will be cells that the player is able to lyse, or burst- much like Dig Dug, tunneling through the body’s organs to get at the “target cell”. Occasionally these normal cells will also hold immune-system nasties or bonus proteins, making them impassible or attractive. Scattered about will also be areas that are impassible (such as bones or muscle tissue), that the player will have to plan around. Big gameplay concept: The amoeba may only destroy a limited number of cells in its quest for the “target cell”, so the player will have to plan their route to the target- will it be through the dangers of the blood stream, or can you make it through the maze of cells and tissue? if only you had enough cell-bursting power…
Graphics: The graphics will be modeled after Gray’s Anatomy (the book, not the TV show), with a woodcut/etched look. Mostly black and white, but with color overlays for blood vessels, target cells, etc. Some important items or places will be labeled in a similar fashion to the book.
Controls: WASD and spacebar

Development Tools:
REALBasic
Illustrator
Inkscape
Gimp
Audacity

Team:
Joe Flores (Mojiferous) – code, design
Thorin Klosowski (King Thor) – design, script, music, sound
Liaht Rosenstein – technical consultation, editor

Additional notes: We’re hoping to have some sort of soundtrack for the game, and recorded dialog (that will sound muddied, as if you were listening to it inside the body) whether that happens, we’ll see…

Development Plan (as of 01/09/09):
1) build a graphics engine for the game with accompanying level editor, post them here, distribute to team (1 week?)
2) design levels, while sound, music, and other assets come together (early Feb?)
3) assemble levels and start building physics and logic for the game (late Feb?)
4) something close to a working game (hopefully by the end of the contest!)

I know, I know, you’re all thinking “New project?!?! Wait a minute, we never got the Republic of Thoronia point and click adventure game on the iPhone that you promised!” That’s a valid point, and I assure you that the game is still in the back of Mojiferous and I’s heads, in fact, here is a screenshot to keep you in anticipation:

The game may or may not be iPhone-able as the platform isn’t proving as easy to program for at this point. BUT I am going to point you in the direction of Mojiferous’ most recent accomplishment, Atomic Combat, which will be available soon!

Anyway, the whole point of this post is to let you all know that The Republic of Thoronia Band will be undertaking a new project over the winter. We’ll be recording a new soundtrack to the excellent Fallout 3. Why? Because frankly, the music in the game is background, and we think it provides an excellent platform to really expand on a lot of fun and interesting sci-fi musical nonsense. The soundtrack will follow the main quest, with a bonus EP of a select few side-quests. Look for it towards the end of January, and, as all things Thoronia, will be free.

If you asked me what video game’s I’m most excited about right now, I’d probably give you a laundry list of different games (actually just Dead Space, Fallout 3, Far Cry 2, Endwar, Prince of Persia, Resistance 2, and…). Most of those games would be exciting because of technical prowess, immersion, complexity. Yet one of these games is simple mind blowing in its absolute open-endedness. That game is Little Big Planet for the PS3.

The game itself is a fairly straightforward platformer, you control a little sack-person, having them run from left to right while jumping over obstacles and such. But the games design sets a remarkably interesting tone in that it looks like some magical set piece that you’d order from Etsy. It’s beautiful, to say the least:

I had a chance to play with the beta over the last few days, and I’ve concluded that this is one of the most stylized and remarkable games on the horizon. But the real appeal of LBP, the kicker, the whole shabang… is the fact that you can build your own levels, customize your own characters and turn your level into almost anything that you could possible imagine. The developers of LBP have given the user a complete design experience, which the beta of course doesn’t even begin to touch. You can, essentially, build an entire level (or hell, a whole new game), and subsequently share it with everyone on the game’s servers. Yep, build, share, rebuild, customize, borrow, share, repeat. It is going to be amazing.

It’s going to be amazing because it is one of the first console games ever to not only be full of creativity, but to breed it (yeah yeah yeah, we all know about Quake and Half-Life Mods… but those aren’t console’s now are they? And hell, this is 100X easier than making a Quake level (albeit the last time I tried to make a Quake level was for Quake 2, so it may have gotten easier by this point)). It’s going to showcase what games can do, in all of their good, bad and ugly (we’re all going to assume that yes, there will be at least 1000 user-generated penis based levels). On top of that it boasts a collective creativity in that you and your friends can sit down together (literally or figuratively online)  and create levels with each other. Already, with the beta being live for under a month, a few great levels have been produced…

(video’s after the break)

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