We’re now up to more than 70 levels in Disposable Heroes, levels that vary in complexity, in terms of scenery and diabolic machinery; in terms of your enemies, how many of them there are, the powers and abilities that they have and in terms of the weapons, lotions and potions you have at your disposal to assist you in your quest to find and defeat the Lizard Wizard, find the king’s son, bring back his head and return the light to an accursed land.
Once I had a few levels in place, the ideas just came thick and fast; from deadly tipped arrows, to falling bricks, swinging cogs and wheels to all manner of bad guys and bosses including some guys who can kill you with their farts. There are things in there that can injure, splat and slay you in numerous gruesome ways which makes it unsafe to stay where you are for more than a second! And of course with our protagonists being utter idiots, working in tandem doesn’t always make the job easier.
So one particular challenge in making the game has been how to order it all, and here I explore how I went about that using a variety of menus, maps, minigames and more…
Menus
Organising the menus has been an interesting challenge as I have incorporated a whole bunch of Steam achievements in there too. That’s been something of a logistical and technical challenge; while defining the achievements themselves was pretty straightforward, incorporating them into the mechanics of the game and linking them with Steam was something I’ve not done too much of to date, so I’m sure we’ll find a few bugs in there every now and again. Certainly though it marks an exciting development in how I put games together, and I hope makes the whole adventure of Disposable Heroes even more of an immersive challenge!
So to do all of this, in addition to the main menu that offers 1P/2P, character selection, sound and music options, I introduced a subsequent marketplace scene into which our Heroes gallop on horseback, where you can choose various additional options including trading of your coins for a set of lotions and potions alongside the Steam achievements and other choices.
Maps
With all of that going on it became clear fairly early on that I was going to have to make a way of organising it all, so I decided to make it a journey through the accursed land, not just a series of perilous challenge. This is where the scrolling map came in, and I am pleased with the result. It’s very much in keeping with the cartoon comedy of the game and, with our stick-man-and-woman Heroes and the evil bad guys along the way, it has plenty of character too. I’ve divided things up so there’s pretty much one section per 8-10 top-down view levels which offers you saving ‘marker points’ along your journey, from where you can resume your quest each time you play again.
Minigames
There are five minigames in Disposable Heroes designed to test reactions and hand-eye coordination; there’s a minecart chase, a trebuchet assault, a near-perpetual tumble down an almost-bottomless pit, a scene in which you must dodge falling masonry as the castle comes down around you and of course my own personal favorite – a trip via an enchanted portal to Planet Earth in the year 1995! Here’s a little bit about each of them.
The Minecart
Although it now appears approximately half-way through the game, this was actually the first minigame to appear in the overall piece and indeed the one that led me to the notion of putting these ‘little extras’ in to add variety and to break up the succession of top-down view scenes, which runs the risk of becoming repetitive if it is without variation. In the minecart level you (and your colleague, if you are in 2-player mode) must use directional controls to speed up, slow down and dodge the evil, foul mouthed scum chasing you through the mine, avoiding obstacles on the tracks as you go. David’s mock-bluegrass track for this level adds to the overall craziness and still makes me chuckle every time.
Escape The Castle
The idea here as you make your way through the sections is that all is crashing down around you and you have to dodge the falling masonry and escape to the (relative) safety of the outdoors. You must use your powers of concentration and coordination to negotiate the stones and make your way to the courtyard.
Almost-Bottomless Pit
A few years back I made a game called Stumble Tumble. The premise of that game was that you are some hapless dude who is condemned to falling, perpetually. I guess I was trying to take a new angle (quite literally) on the scroller. So for Disposable Heroes I dusted off the concept and had our Heroes chased by the pursuing pack of ne’er-do-wells into a pit that threatens to reach to the very bowels of existence. There’s no alternative route, gravity is the only thing that will deliver you to the Lizard Wizard and to the ultimate confrontation. As you tumble you must avoid the detritus that rains down upon you, flung by the nasties who are after your blood.
Trebuchet
The Trebuchet level came about when I was talking to a friend about the game and its medieval (albeit ‘wacky-medieval’) setting. I’d wanted to make a game that invoked our fascination with that era of history but also to poke fun at ‘the stuff of Arthurian legends’ like Monty Python did in The Holy Grail (but obviously not with quite the same degree of legendary comic genius..!). I wanted to send up the genre in an absurd manner. We got talking about medieval weaponry and all of the different things I could potentially include in the game. I already had an impressive arsenal at the Heroes’ disposal – club, swords, orbs, magic wand (and not forgetting of course the hugely non-authentic, non-medieval laser gun!) but then I realized that I was missing a trick… A trebuchet is a medieval siege weapon as impressive as it is flamboyant. Engineered to perfection as it is, as the very nature of the development of weapons technology has always led things to be before things become obsolete, with their counterweight and powerful reach, I loved the idea that the Heroes could have a scene in which they wheeled in the siege engine and used it to battle the nasties. So here you have it. Collect and load the rocks, aim and fire at your adversaries, avoid the hail of arrows and scimitars that come your way. Plus there’s some ‘top banter’ from the Red Leader to get you all fired up for battle…
Back to the Future
This level is just a cross-dimensional extension of the general absurdity of the game. Having battled to save the local alchemist from the clutches of some evil witches, our Hero (or Heroes) drink a potion that transports them across time and space from wherever and whenever the accursed kingdom in which they live is, to Planet Earth in the year 1995. Once there they are confronted with a completely alien environment, and to return to their homeland they must cross the busy road to activate the return pad. Think of it as Horace Goes Skiing meets Enchanted.
Well, that’s your menus, your maps, your minigames… but of course there’s loads more to explore in the game. In addition to hearing the story of how the light vanished from the land, there are many, many levels for you to navigate and many foes for you to vanquish, even before you encounter the Fat Baby boss, Bongo the Rather Silly Pirate and the Lizard Wizard.
Launch day is getting closer, it’s an exciting time for the Disposable Heroes..!
Ben
Follow us on Twitter and like us on Facebook to find out the latest Disposable Heroes news!
disposable heroes 