Making a bit of progress. Every frame now has a hat, eyes and mouth, although I might change some of the hats again. Maybe I need to sculpt the little Plinks in real life first, so I have something to draw them from. Now I need to do the same, but for the children and elders.
Plinks
Just a 🇳🇱 dutch artist (@LevendLichtje) working on a little game. Although, knowing me, it won't ever be little.
#IndieGameDev #IndieDev #gamemaker
Working on overhauling my sprite drawing system. I’ve added new walking animations for the Plinks, facing left and right. Still need to tackle the upward walking animation, with their back turned. I might add diagonal movement too, but first I want to test if the current directions are enough. They may be smooth enough to not need diagonals.
Since I’ll need to do the same for both child and adult versions, plus all the overlays (eyes, hats, tummies, etc), I’ve got a few full evenings ahead!
Once that’s done, I think I’ll finally have a base that doesn’t bother me so much. Then I can finally dive into the actual game mechanics!
Plinks now not only follow the player, they can see them too! When they get a little curious, they’ll turn to look at the mouse when it comes close. If their curiosity grows, they’ll start following it around. I realized I was missing a clear visual cue for their curiosity, so I added this behavior to make it more noticeable.
The hats don’t move yet. That’s next on the to-do list. Or maybe I’ll rewrite the whole sprite-drawing system first... it's turned into a bit of a jumbled mess.
There are so many sprite states to handle! Life stages: sporules, children, adults, elders. But also spot sizes (none, small, big), hat options (none or standard, maybe more later), white tummy or not, breathing animation, walking animation, and now six different directions to look. Should that be eight? (Back turned, looking left or right) Maybe not? It might be too subtle from the back.
All of these need to be added for the other life stages too...
At least I'm getting better at pixel art! :)
I made the kids pick a nearby adult and follow them (not pictured), while adults follow the player (represented by the mouse moth. Mousefly? Cursorfly?).
They only do this if they get curious about the player! How quickly curiosity builds depends on their attunement trait: the higher it is, the more they seek connection; the lower it is, the less they engage. Some might even start to resent the player.
So, the first hints of this being a bit of a relational game are finally starting to show up!
@cxxvii thanks! I think I was building an even more complex system with bitmasking. But it's been a while so I can't remember haha.
If you look at the unfinished tiles with numbers, you might see that the dividing line does run through their middle!
@eishiya oh I can definitely do that! Will add to the Settings
@misjavanlaatum gamemaker!
I’ve been thinking about what the player actually *is* within the world of Plinks. They won’t control the Plinks directly. Instead, the player will take on the role of a spirit(?), gently influencing the world. To reflect that, I’ve created a new mouse cursor: a softly glowing butterfly. It’s maybe a little cute, but that will balance out over time as the world becomes deeper and stranger.
The Plinks will be curious about the cursor. You won’t be able to steer them directly, but their curiosity will become an important game mechanic later on.
I also made progress on how Plinks move around, based on their traits. It still needs work, but at least they no longer walk straight into the sea!
(I also see that I need to adjust the word banlist. Oops.)
A small animated preview of my game. It’s still far from finished!
You can spot a different type of Plink here, a rare hatless variety. Its name consists of its colony name (Ihie) followed by its own name (Yrafi). The naming system follows a set of rules, though I’m still working those out.
The tileset you see isn’t final either. Some tiles are still placeholders, as shown by the numbers. I'm not happy with their look, so they will get changed.
The flowers are two species of notiflowers, Waernts and Heyls, which will play a central role in the game.
Hi! I'm #NewHere but not on Mastodon as a whole. (You can find my other account at @LevendLichtje )
This will be my blog where I post about my hobby project Plinks!
Plinks is meant to be a little game about the tiny mushroom creatures named Plinks. It is a gentle nature-themed base-builder and life simulator. Each Plink is created with genes, traits, relationships, a personal and ancestral history etc.
Gameplay centers around forming meaningful bonds, guiding the colony through the seasons, and observing the interplay of genetics and personality.
Instead of standard strategy, it invites players to care for and influence a living, growing community. Not through commands, but through relationships.
As a professional artist who turned her hobby into work, this is just a replacement hobby. Mostly made to create the kind of game I could not find anywhere. Development will be slow and only move forward when I'm up for it. But it's made with a lot of attention and hand-drawn pixelart.
Client Info
Server: https://mastodon.social
Version: 2025.04
Repository: https://github.com/cyevgeniy/lmst