Lemma Soft Forums

So I found ANN to be totally sold out to promoting this game...
http://www.gamespot.com/ds/puzzle/layto ... eview.html

and found that it combines town exploration with puzzle-solving. The perfect combination for any all-ages VN hybrid.

I don't have a DS, so too bad I can't play the game, but perhaps someone else had?

Regardless, 13-17 hours reading time plus 85-120 puzzles is a bit too much for an amateur gamemaker to handle.

I know I saw a reference to this game while reading the forums yesterday... someone saying they were playing it ô_o... Shooow yerself!

I'm actually curious about how it plays, too.

It was eclipse, IIRC.

I saw the Penny Arcade cartoon... But I haven't finished Freshly Picked Tingle's Rosy Rupeeland, Metroid Prime 3 or Super Mario Galaxy yet, so no new games for me for a while.

Wait, people bought that game?

I mean, on purpose?

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Hey, I'd buy the Tingle game! It's so weird, how can you not buy it? (Rhetorical question. No answer needed. )

The whole time I was playing Layton, I felt that it could be easily done with Ren'Py. There were cutscenes, dialogue as you would have it in VN's, maps where you move around town by clicking on "hotspots" like doors or arrows to move left, right, up or down (or forward or backward), menu screen, and the changes to puzzle mode (you can find puzzles or you can get to them by talking to the residents).

The puzzles you can easily do. You would either input, click or draw a circle or outline around the answer. Input was usually numbers or letters.

Most of the puzzles I think you can find in a puzzle book. Some examples were the sokoban-type puzzles, how many "shape" is in this diagram, move x and y to the other side raft puzzle, etc. They ranged from easy to hard.

As you go around town, you can find hint coins. You can use the hint coins to help you if you're stuck with a puzzle. I finished the game with a lot of coins left over (about 140+ iirc). There's three hints you can get per puzzle.

There's also a lot of extras to the game. For example, there's a journal that helps you keep track of the story and gives a little inside to how Layton felt with what was happenning. There's also a gizmo and painting section where you can get pieces for solving puzzles. The gizmo, you will built something that will help you in the game while the painting is a nice extra piece to go along with the story. There's also a section that keeps track of all the puzzles you've done plus an "inn" section where you help decorate Layton and Luke's room (you get stuff when you solve puzzles). In regards to the story, there's also puzzles within the puzzle of the main Golden Apple mystery which helps keep player interest (at least imo).

If you finish the inn decor, gizmo, painting, and finish the game, there's also a bonus section you can access at the title screen of the game where you can access the sound bites, movie clips, and all these other extras including harder puzzles. There's also a "hidden door" which you can open when you get the second game. You can also download weekly puzzles.

Let's just say that it's one steller game. I think it can be done by someone here. It will just require getting all the right stuff from story, music, etc together and getting it done. Also, I think something like this would be the next step from the current popular hidden item-type casual games out there.

Anyways, here's one of the downloadable puzzles you can try out and a cookie for reading all of this stuff I just wrote.

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I just got the game myself today... I've only done 7 (yes only 7 so far) puzzles, and I'm already in love with the game. It has so much more working for it than just the puzzles though. I like the art style, the music is charming, the voices are nice, the setting is nice too, and it has the potential to have something of a charming and nice story to it. The only two real characters I've seen thus far are Luke and Layton (the two heroes), but they're both quite likable, so I have no doubts the rest of the main cast will be cool too. But the fact that it has left such an impression on me this early in the game means it's a keeper. From just the little I've played, I'd instantly recommend it to anyone, especially the puzzle fans out there, and I have no doubt that it'll continue to amaze as I go through it, only reassuring that recommendation.

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http://www.twitter.com/drakeynv
The Compendium of Drake :
Starlit Sky ~ Songs of Araiah ~ Mirai Imouto ~ Temple Glen ~ Fuyu no Tabi

Hmmm... how much should a Nintendo DS go for nowadays? I've bought a Playstation because of TOCA and a Dreamcast because of Grandia II, so I'm starting to wonder if this will be my 'killer app' for me.

And of course, besides a consumer (gameplayer) perspective, we're looking at it from a producer perspective (gamemaker) as well.

This could be a candidate for the proverbial 'LSF-community-made' VN discussed last year or the year before (besides 'The Question). It's just a matter of switching into high gear. The point is that this kind of game is very accessible to a lot of people. And it is a straightforward idea, its surprising not many people have taken and run with it. Actually, Fatal Hearts is sort of following this concept, and I believe Mr Sulu's upcoming game is sort of like this too, and Time's Tear would be similar if it had more puzzles, but if we tweak out the 'all-ages'-ness feel this kind of setup will appeal to almost everyone.

Hypothetically, assuming a project like this happens, we would need:
* a programmer
* a puzzle-designer (not necessarily the programmer, but someone who knows how to make good gameplay)
* a writer (or several)
* character artist
* background artist (or several)
* voice actors
* musician

Then pop them all into Imouto Mode, then if ever Ren'Py is localized for a handheld or the nth generation Ipod, there would be a ready community-made demonstration game.

8000.00 to 10000.00 php last time I checked

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How do you make your games? I see. Thank you for the prompt replies, but it is my considered opinion that you're doing it wrong inefficiently because I am a perfushenal professional. Do it my way this way and we can all ascend VN Nirvana together while allowing me to stroke my ego you will improve much faster. Also, please don't forget to thank me for this constructive critique or I will cry and bore you to death respond appropriately with a tl;dr rant discourse of epic adequately lengthy proportions. - Sarcasm Veiled in Euphemism: Secrets of Forum Civility by lordcloudx (Coming soon to an online ebook near you.)

This game sounds a lot more interesting than I thought it would... *adds to list*

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White Cat games site - Gamedev blog

To me, it's not surprising at all. Because this bit:



is not only really hard, but also has practically no overlap with any of the existing skillset needed to build a VN, so it would only be by chance that somebody in this community already had that skill.

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Much of the casual market would have been happier with Fatal Hearts if I'd spent less time on story and more time on puzzles, but I'm a writer first and puzzle design is hard. (Stealing existing puzzles is less hard, but I wanted original and I wanted things that, as much as possible, made sense within the story.)

Also, when you're doing a combination of different puzzles, every puzzle may require a different interface, and that's a lot of interface to polish if you want it to look slick.

But I don't have Professor Layton so I don't know how much puzzle variety there is.

Could be a fun community project to just have people contribute different puzzles they've written in Ren'Py and then have someone write a vague story to present them in?

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Hanako Games

If any of you ever played Lucasarts games of old (Day of the Tentacle, Grimm Fandago, etc.), it has a similar feel to it. Though it gives you a lot of puzzles to slough through. The voice acting is good, the art is fitting and the cutscenes are fun to watch.

Professor Layton is awesome. There's a number major categories of puzzles that will give you an idea how to think about solving them after about 30-50 puzzles or so But even then, they're still tough if you don't think out of the box to solve them. They provide hints to solve the puzzles by spending Hint Coins but the number of coins are limited so you can't just spend them wantonly.

NPC's in the game gives specific types of puzzles (like a girl only gives age puzzles while another guy might give only *which route is shortest/longest* puzzles).

I'd definitely rate it as a must play. Puzzle type to really hate: those slide the blocks to complete a picture type of puzzles. No amount of hints bought can get you through those except yourself.

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Currently working on:
Kensai : On hold till Masters is done. Grrrrr...

Interesting, I'm putting this into my list of games to check out °w°