Metroid-inspired Project

UPDATE 1/28/2015 - more progress can be seen here: metroid-inspired-project-progress-journey-galactia_t123701

Trying to implement some gameplay elements inspired by those found throughout the Metroid series into more of a casual game. So far I've managed to complete a number of them in a way that would allow for rapid production of levels, puzzles, creation of new enemies, weapons, etc. Most recently I've implemented a seamless scrolling 'effect' and an auto mini map generation feature using arrays and the tilemap.

Graphics style inspired by 'true' 8bit graphics.

No name on the project as of yet - but I would love some feedback! Thanks guys!

(super basic pause screen, with a draggable map showing where level objectives and exfil point would be)

11-23-2014 Updated build can be accessed here:

http://threesevenhosting.com/builds/11-23-2014/

A couple of notable updates

1. New enemies

2. New terrain elements

3. Gravity and Physics modifying zones

4. Some map UI updates

5. New mission objective (Search and Destroy)

Be sure to check the map for your objectives.

UPDATE: 11-26-2014

OK - I've added a quick build update, which primarily includes crawling, using bombs, and trap platforms (which were surprisingly more complex to make than I had anticipated)!

Also includes a simple title screen, with a name that's subject to change:

http://threesevenhosting.com/builds/11-26-2014/

(I haven't implemented crawling into touch controls quite yet - sorry guys!)

Some screens:

Thank you everyone for all the encouraging and constructive feedback. Please keep it coming.

A quick update - didn't upload a new build, but here are some screenshots. New additions include:

Several New Enemies and Behaviors (see screen shots)

Zone scrolling camera movement for specific rooms (see screen shots) - which addresses the issue of not being able to see where to jump vertically in certain situations

Improved game-play elements, such as marking enemies that need to be eliminated

New tilesheets

UPDATE 12-15-2014:

It's been a while, but here's a brand new build:

http://threesevenhosting.com/builds/12-15-2014/

It has a lot of new things kind of under the hood, but I also spent some time refining and creating some more complex enemy behaviors and mission objectives. There's a few new area tilesets, as well as a new objective.

Let me know what you guys think or if you run into any bugs. Thanks for all the encouraging feedback!

Looking cool. Definitely has a metroid vibe to it, even though it looks kinda clunky? It'd be cool to see it in action

alvarop thanks for the feedback! Definitely trying to take some notes from that late 80's aesthetic.

http://threesevenhosting.com/builds/11-17-2014/

here's a simple demo build... see if you can find all the artifacts! Try out the map too from the pause menu.

arrows keys and zx. some basic and ugly touch controls should show up on tablets/mobiles too, and some hotspots and keyframes will need to be reworked for the running animation.

Just played your demo,

The main problem I noticed would be when I played is that when you pass from a screen to another by jumping, you have no idea where you're going.

I know it might be because it's a 80's style game but, this mechanic was really a thing that annoying and that still is.

(I attached a screen if you don't understand what I mean)

Maybe you could add a plateform that makes the player not falling when he's in the next screen?

I don't know if it's supposed to be a real feature in the full game, but I kinda like the fact that the lvl design makes a loop (you're just doing the level again and again until you find the artefact, in that way you don't have to go back like in some games.)

Not so much other things to say, it runs fine, the art is already fine too by the way (the decor feels a bit uniformly blue though^^)

Keep working on this

Just played your demo,

The main problem I noticed would be when I played is that when you pass from a screen to another by jumping, you have no idea where you're going.

I know it might be because it's a 80's style game but, this mechanic was really a thing that annoying and that still is.

(I attached a screen if you don't understand what I mean)

Maybe you could add a plateform that makes the player not falling when he's in the next screen?

I don't know if it's supposed to be a real feature in the full game, but I kinda like the fact that the lvl design makes a loop (you're just doing the level again and again until you find the artefact, in that way you don't have to go back like in some games.)

Not so much other things to say, it runs fine, the art is already fine too by the way (the decor feels a bit uniformly blue though^^)

Keep working on this

Good call man - that's something I've been thinking about addressing. It could come down to something as simple as better level design, but it also could come down to some more complicated level scrolling engine.

And thanks so much - art and everything was built by myself. The blue is sort of my test pallette - maybe I should try some more metal looking colors?

It's looking good!

And I am a big Metroid fan since forever .

I played your demo and saw that you have the Metroid typical wall crawlers (Geemer).

Any tips to make them stick to the wall?

Or do they just have a bullet behaviour and turn 90 degrees when the hit an invisible trigger?

Anyways... it's cool and I like that you already have a working minimap.

You can always change the angle of gravity TKesse, you'd do this with the platform behaviour.

TKesse —

First of all... thanks for saying Geemer. I was starting to wonder if anyone out here was a former 80's gamer or not.

Honestly, for how simple of an enemy that guy was, he was pretty difficult to figure out. Essentially though I have it move 16 pixels in it's current direction, trigger a check which looks for barriers in front and below him using overlapping at offset, which will set the flags for 'front' and 'below' either on or off. at that point, depending on which flags are on or off (a combination of them), they will move in the appropriate direction. I also have them averaging out to the nearest 16x16 grid so that they never really move out of bounds.

I originally had separate objects for checking those collisions, but when I converted this guy over to the crawler family (so I could reproduce the behaviors more efficiently) I ran into problems. checking at offset made things much smoother, and it also cut down on some processing power since each Geemer didn't have it's own forward and bottom checker following them around all the time.

Also I really appreciate the interest you guys have in this project. Here's a new build with some new simple features:

1. Some simple 8bit sounds I made

2. 4 directional aiming

3. A new enemy

4. Teleporters

5. Super basic level select, mostly for my own debugging at this point

6. Addressed the level design issue mentioned by regisRquoi by making it more obvious where jump points were

Everything is still way rough and I haven't spent much time on sprucing up the third level, (I took out level 2 because it was really rough) but enjoy!

http://threesevenhosting.com/builds/11-19-2014/

Also, regisRquoi, what you mentioned about looping through the level - I felt like that was some of the fun of the original Metroid games. I'm glad you picked up on that! That's sort of the idea behind the 'Metroidvania' genre.

I like the way the camera move for teleporter

Yes I know that's kind of the point of a metroid kind of game, but the loop here is really short, so it feels like it's a bit different and could be cool with some lvl design work. I dunno. Maybe I didn't played metroid enough also

I'd say the "passing a screen by jumping" is still a bit annoying, but it's clearly better now! Think of this when you do some lvl design on this game, it can be a tricky thing! It's really better now though!

Oh, and, I forgot last time, but I feel like the enemy of the 2nd screen (when you fall just after launching the first lvl, see?) is really frustrating, the player can't really see him coming, and it feels like "I had to lose that health", not a good feeling about one of the first enemies you see in the game

Sound is kinda cool also (I miss music, I know it's a prototype but it changes a game to have just a bit of sound playing ^^), don't know if it was there last time, didn't had sound on my computer, ahah

Bye

regisRquoi I'd love to drop some music in, haven't found a good resource yet for some free music (even just for testing).

So what I'm trying to accomplish is boiling down the metroid formula into more of a casual kind of game. Lots of small loops, exploring and problem solving. I'll keep that in mind about enemy placement. I've played too much metroid... so sometimes I don't think about that kind of stuff.

Nesteris - zone based camera movement was tricky! I found a way to make sure all the enemies are disabled when it's scrolling so that nothing breaks. Eventually I'm going to add crawling (similar to the morph ball in that sense), so I needed crouching to be a little more static as a transitionary state.

Thanks for finding that bug, I'll work on it!

Nesteris - I have their behaviors in a larger "Enemies" group and then smaller, enemy specific subgroups, and I just disabled the group(s) as needed. The only thing that I have right now that disables the object time scale is the on screen message function.

Kevin MacLeod doesn't have much for chiptune music (if that's what you're after), but there's lots of other stuff to choose from.

I really like what I see so far! Coming from someone who is also working on a Metroid-like, I can really appreciate what you are doing.

ryanrybot - Thanks so much man. Can I see your project somewhere?