It's been a while since I last wrote about my videogame project, Project: Doodle, which has now been given a proper name: Sketchy Maze. There have been a few releases of the game since I last wrote about version 0.4.0 and they bring some exciting new features!

What is Sketchy Maze?

Sketchy Maze is a drawing-based maze game themed around hand-drawn maps on paper. There are a few built-in example levels (and will eventually have single player story campaigns), and you can also draw your own levels and make them look like anything you want, and play them like a 2D platformer game. You get to pick what colors to draw with, which colors are for solid floors and which ones are fire, and drag-and-drop some 'doodads' such as Buttons, Keys and Doors to add interactive elements and create puzzles and obstacles.

And those doodads? You can create your own, too, and program them in JavaScript to do whatever you want. Or you can download and play custom maps and custom doodads made by other players. Your imagination is the limit!

The inspiration for this game came from my own childhood. I'm a 90's kid, and when I was growing up with videogames like Sonic the Hedgehog and Super Mario Bros., I would often draw my own "levels" with pencil and paper of a 2D platformer style game. I would borrow ideas from all the games I liked, and would draw mazes that had features like buttons, keys and doors, and then "play" my level with my imagination, envisioning a character working their way through my maze, and keeping score in my head about which keys were found and what doors can be unlocked, or how a button might open a door somewhere else in the level (and I'd draw a little dotted-line connecting the button to the door so I wouldn't forget).

When you're drawing a level on paper, it can be whatever you want. You can draw a castle or a cave. This game is a manifestation of my childhood imagination.

Check outs its website at SketchyMaze.com!

What's New?

There have been a handful of releases since my last blog post. You can always check the latest change log on the Guidebook site.

Some of the key highlights include:

• Bundle custom doodads with your custom levels! If you've created a custom map and it makes use of a bunch of custom doodads, there is now an ability to "publish" your level for easy sharing! All of its custom doodads will come embedded inside of the .level file, so that it will "just play" on someone else's computer.
  • Note: this feature is not available in the free version of the game. Buy me a beer to get a full version forever. Options to monetize the game are being sorted out eventually.
• Custom level wallpaper images: if you don't like the built-in, paper-themed level wallpapers, you can browse and pick your own image to use. Your image bundles with the level so it will appear as expected on someone else's computer. The free version of the game can use this feature!
• Stylish brush patterns: in the Palette Editor you can choose from a variety of patterns that affect the look of a color when it's drawn onto your level. The idea is to have your strokes appear as pencil graphite or marker rather than solid colored pixels.
• New doodads: the Warp Doors and Small Key Door. Also, several doodads have been increased in size to better patch the recently updated player character.
• New wallpapers: Graph paper and Dotted paper were added to be lighter variants of the Blueprint.

Downloads

Sketchy Maze is available for free on all desktop computers, including GNU/Linux, Windows and Mac OS (Intel).

It is still in early alpha release mode. The game is functional as a proof of concept but still needs polish and more built-in levels and doodads.

Check out the Sketchy Maze website for downloads and more information about the game. The Guidebook site contains a lot of screenshots and in-depth documentation about the game's features.