Hello!

Im new and i looked around, i hope im posting in the right spot haha! im really bad at descriptions and a lot of what im saying will actually be the beginning cutscene but id like to put it all out there.

Basically, im making a video game called Goobert which is a 2D platformer. its about a voodoo stringdoll named Goobert and his journey to save Stella, a ragdoll that is kidnapped by alien Goo monsters. The Goo monsters invade Gooberts planet to steal "Essence", which is the life force keeping Goobert and everyone else alive. It has the power to bring anything to life, and the Goo's want to use it to conquer other planets. Several of the alien goo's, of different colors, corner Goobert, who accidentally uses a vacuum cleaner to suck up the blue goo, scaring the rest off. Goobert then, trying to get the goo he recently captured out, puts the vacuum in reverse and the goo goes flying out and splatters all over the floor(never to get back up). Trying to leave, Goobert slips on the goo and goes hurdling out a window to the streets below where he sees Stella being taken away. Ironically, Stella hates Goobert and when she sees him trying to rescue her, hurries onto the alien ship as fast as she can.

Later goobert goes back to his mess of an alien on the floor and slips again. later, however, he uses the vacuum cleaner to suck up an alien of a different color and its sticky, thus bringing the dynamics of the game; different colored goo's have different properties and you use them to get through the game.

So his vacuum is his primary weapon, and the game itself is a 2D Platformer/Puzzle. You use different goo's to slide into and break walls or boxes, to jump up and grab onto walls, to bounce higher, and even to hide. You can also get upgrades for your vacuum cleaner(hold more goo's, longer suction distance, longer projectile distance, etc) which you will need to do periodically to advance. the other fun part(which might make people hate me but love me as well) is there are certain levels where youll need(as an example) a blue goo, but there isnt one. The idea is, youll already have one stored in your vacuum backpack to use. If you dont, you must go to a level previously that had one, suck up the go, then revisit the level your trying to beat to advance. Annoying, but i feel it adds more to the game.

theres SOOOOOO much more but i dont want to waste everyones day. Ill put up a simple mockup i made of goobert on some of the tiles, i want honest feedback! I hope to release this game(if it does well) to Steam Greenlight or the Android Marketplace(i dont know how well a platformer like this would do on a phone since theres so much to use button-wise).

so what does everyone think? Also, thanks for taking the time to read this :D

It's an interesting concept, I feel like the morbidness of a Voodoo doll is a little at odds with the silly cute storyline, paticually in your art.

haha i understand. like i said theres a lot to it. Goobert is a stringdoll because Stella is a ragdoll, constantly ripping and coming apart, and Goobert, despite the fact it may kill him someday, keeps using himself to sew her back together because he loves her that much. She needs him, even though she tries to convince herself she cant stand him. Its like that one girl we all meet who picks all the assholes in her life and youre there, doing everything right, and she just doesnt see it.

It all comes out within the first half hour of playing the game xD

Sounds like an interesting concept that could be developed into something fun.

A lot of your post is storyline, which may get better feedback in the Writing For Games forum, but you've also got the start of some interesting game mechanics there as well.

How many types of goo will there be, and what other effects will they have?

So far you've listed slippery,sticky and bouncy, which are a good starting point and may be useful for navigating or for setting traps. From the top of my head, you could also have (//EDIT: you already listed this!) corrosive (to burn through things), smelly (to distract bad-guys), and perhaps some different damaging types for bad-guys with different resistances. Any other ideas?

You mentioned that the vacuum is the "primary weapon": does this mean there are other weapons, or did you just mean it's effect could be changed with different types of goo?

I think it's a good basic concept, but whether or not it was a fun game would come down to your level and puzzle design as well as a good progression and pacing through the different types of goo. You would probably need some testing with a working prototype to really get this down properly.

Unless there's some hint to tell you what you might need, the idea of not providing the correct goo in a level sounds pretty annoying, and players may be frustrated with first having to search for the appropriate goo and then having to repeat a previous level to capture one; in the worst case, a player might not even realise this is possible and simply think the game is broken.

I'm also not sure how it would go on a touch-phone -- how many controls are actually needed, and do you have a good idea of how you might implement them with a touch-interface?

There Sam, your bad-mouthjng sidekick who kinda works like navi? Usually hes just an asshole but he drops hints every once in awhile, telling you to grt a goo from a previous level is one of them.

Right now the goo monsters are;

Goo Grunts:
Red, bouncy(jump 3x as high!!)
Orange, sticky(slow enemies, grab walls and even the ceiling!)
Blue, slippery(used to make you run through an obstacle quickly or break a wall/box)
Black, hidden(use to sneak past foes!)
Green, posession(this grunt collects essence and brings it to the mithership, if you capture him you can make inatimate objects come to life or revive dead npcs to get help and money)

Then we have General Goo's which are like... mini mini bosses. Just harder to kill, reward more gold but give the same properties dependjng on its color, may change. They look more human, less like blobs of goop

The GooRoo; midgame boss. Hes fat and has goos carry him around, when you encounter him he flees sending waves of too grunts and generals your way, and laughs when you have trouble. You defeat him by shooting too blobs in front of him so he slips, bounces out of control, or sticks to the floor and slams his face into the floor.

The Great and Powerful Goo; hes annoying, he throws too bombs at you while you fight his pets(Globby and Slime, after bonnie and clyde) and you defeat him by sucking up the bombs and shooting them back at him

Sounds good :) Many platformer developers just seem to skip the story and setting. It doesn't need to be fancy but something that sets the game apart and gives personal twist. I like the goo (reminds me of what Portal 2 did) as well as the style you're going for.

Just some quick thoughts:

- Voodoo (black magic) or aliens (scifi technology) could be a good themes on their own, it seems you include little bit of both but don't really use them much, do you? What if the character was Voodoo doll and the different kinds of goo were also linked to voodoo and black magic instead of aliens? Do you plan on really making use of the interplanetary scale? Or could the character be something non-magical that links to aliens and sci-fi?

- Lots of slipping and accidents in the story, seems a bit implausible and you could write it in more meaningful way. You can make the character realize the use of goo in one coincidence. Or the character could see as the kidnappers escape by sliding on the goo, for example. You can later bring up additional colored goos one at a time as your game progresses.

Haha see this is why I come here :9 what if I make it so... I GOT IT

An evil witch doctor makes Goobert and Stella, as well as all the goos(and for expansion purposes, maybe other anti heroes and villians??) using black magic and "Essence". Goobert and Stella, being a bit more dynamic, start branching away from the "yes sir, no sir" obedience and develop emotions like hate, love, hapiness and anger.

So goobert falls in love with Stella, but Stella does not love him back. The evil witch doctor is using stella for witchcraft, poking her with needles and burning her, and stella let's out a cry for help. The evil witch doctor gasps(as she is unaware of the new intellegence stella posesses) and then cackles maniacally at her wonderfully sinister new creation.

Goobert hears stellas cry and races to the rescue, and by the time he gets there stella is in a cage and the evil witch doctor is going through all her spellbooks and reminiscing on how she made stella become more... human. Goobert rescues stella(against her own will) but in the process is spotted by the evil witch doctor. She questions him furiously, to which he replies by pushing stellas cage off the table and breaking it open. Goobert then runs off(maybe slipping on a goo?). This enrages the witch doctor who sends these goos, the goo generals, gooroo and finally the great and powerful goo to calture goobert and stella, or kill them and harvest this new essence and become more powerful than ever before!

Hazaa :9

Wow, nicely cooked up in the little time between our posts. You basically turned the setting upside down from rescue to escape mission, well you could include both parts in some way. This is also why I come here ^^

Already sounds more intact story. For future I would now be more interested in the witch doctor. What are her goals and is there something more to being just "evil"...? How did she create Stella and Goobert and why are they so precious to her she can't let them escape? I bet the player learns all kinds of things about the antagonist and what she is into as the game progresses. :)

Very much so. I think I'm going to make them an accident, or something special, which is why the witch doctor is so hellbent on getting them back. I also think sometime during the game(probably chapter 2 or 3) stella is taken by the goo grunts and must be rescued(again, being less hopeful for goobert as a savior and more that shell escape on her own).

The witch doctor will grow as a more dynamic characgsr throughout the story. Possible storyplay would be her beloved died and she learned witchcraft to bring him back to life. Now with that I have the option to give her what she wants(goobert learns the feeling sympathy and helps the witch doctor) or make it so goobert and stella escape and are free leaving the witch doctor with nothing. Now if he helps her, he would need to give up his Essence since him and stella are the only two that has this special trait. But I feel a better plot would be the witch doctor takes stellas essence, and goobert gives his to stella so she can live.

Lots of potential :9