Mer Tails! Come n Get Yer Mer Tails!

I've just added the second poll over on my Youtube channel so that everyone can pick their favorite mermaid tail for our archaeology protagonist! I'll have the final design ready on Monday.

Now, as promised, I'll tell you guys about the planned game and how it works. At the moment, I am mapping out the game map and planning some of the puzzles. Starting on Monday, I'll be animating the protagonist and building the foundational mechanics in Gamemaker.

The protagonist Lani has been tasked by the Museum of Merthropology where she works to explore a recently discovered ocean palace. These ruins are said to have belonged to the ancient Orole kingdom, a nation which mysteriously collapsed hundreds of years ago. As an expert in decrypting dead languages, Lani must discover who the palace belonged to, and what happened to them. But the ancient Oroles were a brilliant, technologically advanced civilization, and the palace has many surprising secrets!

This is a 2D exploration puzzle game which will require players to take physical notes with paper and pen. Gameplay consists mostly of swimming around, exploring and looking at artifacts, and solving some escape room style puzzles to unlock treasures and advance the story. There won't be any combat in it; I'm aiming for it to take about 2-ish hours for players to complete.

The special mechanic of this game is "reciting". At any point, you can type letters into the game and Lani will "recite" them into the world; this is how you unlock treasure chests, manipulate objects, reveal secrets, and so on. 

This game is small, but it may end up being the largest project I've worked on this year. After this weekend, It's gonna be pedal to the metal! Thank you everyone so much for continuing to support me all the way through May since the beginning of this year, I really hope this turns out to be something you can all enjoy and be proud of.

I still haven't been able to think of a name (this morning the best I could come up with was "Secrets of The Blue", but it sounds kind of corny to me) so for now I'm just sticking with "The Mermay Game!" Probably by the time this is done I'll have a better idea of what to call it.

Here's your sign-off joke:

Q: Why do scuba divers always get hired?

A: Because they can work under pressure!