Dragon's Wake

Hi guys.

I have been working on a game for almost a year now. Cave Story was a major source of inspiration for me, so hopefully it will have some appeal for you guys. (If it doesn't, let me know what I am doing wrong)


Dragon's Wake is a 2D Adventure Platformer where you take the role of a newly hatched dragon. At the start of the game you break out of your egg and have to go explore, grow and make friends (and enemies!).


Most recent trailer (Warning: Pre-Alpha footage)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hB8JDTOO60g


My intent is to tell a compelling story almost entirely through the gameplay, with no text or voiceovers. Those of you who have played Brothers: A Tale of Two Sons will know what I'm getting at. Those of you who haven't... shame on you!

Alright, that's enough bragging from me for now. I better get back to work.

 

The environments feel a bit primitive. It would do to include more details and organic (non-square) shapes, to give the world a more natural feeling.

 

I totally agree.

At the moment I'm putting together a very 'bare bones' version of the game that only has enough for you to play through the game. I want to finalize my level designs before I start adding in stuff that I might have to redo again anyway.

I'm about four levels away from finishing the basic alpha version. Once that's done I'll check it over to see what major revisions (if any) need to be done, then it will be time to do the decorative stuff.

The trailer was put together with footage from a demo I showed at PAX Prime, so it's not completely spartant, but the final version should look much better. Unfortunately, It will probably be a few weeks before I have any nicer looking stuff to show.

 

It may be graphically barebones right now, but the game mechanics at it's core looks like good sandbox fun. Best of luck to your project!

 

Duuude this looks great so far. Like first off you get to play as a dragon which is already a good sign and then you show all this other stuff and it looks great!
But yea like they said improve on the environment and such because a plain world can get boring.

From out of curiosity how much creativity and freedom will we be able to have in this game? Examples like Customization, Choices you make that impact how you play and etc.

 

Player freedom will be fairly limited I'm afraid. I don't intend to make the player character customizable, and the path you take through the game is mostly predetermined.

That said, there will be choices you can make to affect the story. I'm not going to give details obviously, but as I said before, Cave Story was a major inspiration.

 

That said, there will be choices you can make to affect the story. I'm not going to give details obviously, but as I said before, Cave Story was a major inspiration.

So, it'll involve an incredibly arcane and unintuitive sequence of events?

 

Haha, it should be a lot more intuitive, or at least the consequences should make more sense. ( SPOILER: Seriously, you can save professor Booster's life by NOT helping him?)

The trick will be to realize that there is even a choice to be made.

 

My intent is to tell a compelling story almost entirely through the gameplay, with no text or voiceovers.

That's pretty cool. I own Brothers but haven't yet played it, but another game I played that does that is Teslagrad. There is no text or spoken word in the entire game outside of menus, but the pictures displayed upon the walls and the silent plays strewn about explain the mechanics of the game and the tragic histories of the culture you were born into. I made it special with its silent "speaks for itself" aesthetic.

And you apparently were able to show this at PAX Prime? That's really awesome!

 

I'll have to check out Teslagrad now. Thanks for the reccomendation.

And I was able to show a demo at PAX Prime and PAX Aus last year. It was just one game crammed in a booth with 10-5 others, but I was there.
I won't be going to PAX Prime this year but I do intend to be at PAX Aus (much easier for me since I live in Australia). It should be released by then, so it will be a better demo hopefully.

 

Have you seen this game? It similar in the sense that the protagonist is also four-legged.
You should try it; you might get some nice ideas.

 

"Last Active Jan 29 2015 10:42 PM"

He hasn't been around for a while. Oh well.

 

Well, I don't spend a huge amount of time on these forums, it is true. Game development takes a lot of time after all.
I'm more active on the TIGSource forums where I also have my devlog. If you want to follow the development, that is the place to do it.

But I am not dead. In fact, I have big news to announce! Dragon's Wake has been greenlit on Steam! A big thank you to anyone here that voted for it!

 

"Last Active Jan 29 2015 10:42 PM"

He hasn't been around for a while. Oh well.

That's not a long time, considering how inactive members are usually - Especially when he's developing a GAME.


Anyway, this looks like it has lots of promise. I'll be very carefully stalking this project.

 

As will I. This looks really great.

 

I don't know what you're using to make the game, but it would be beautiful if you added some shaders and grass ripple effects.

Something like this:

Spoiler

 

I don't know what you're using to make the game, but it would be beautiful if you added some shaders and grass ripple effects.

Something like this:

Spoiler

I believe this uses Unity, so that's very much possible.

 

Hi again guys.

Development is ongoing. I recently updated the trailer to show some of the new content and improved visuals. I thought I might share it with you here.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PEU6q3RTGhI

Enjoy!

 

I absolutely love those little tutorial markings. That's a fantastic way of teaching.

 

this game looks like it's going good! i enjoy the visuals and everything in the trailer!
but not the dead dragon.
i can't wait to see what's in store for this! :3c