Metroid-inspired project progress - Journey Galactia

Also... what do you guys think of that name? "Journey Galactia" ? Going to purchase a domain, but I just want to be sure it doesn't sound lame...

It's awesome. Go for it, but do a bit of research of trademarks before going 100% forward. Still, it sounds right.

Closest sounding thing to it is Battlestar Galactica and it's pretty far away.

I like the name, game is looking pretty fun. Keep it up!

notnsane and GenkiGenga - thanks guys. I did some google searching and nothing came up... it does kind of have that battlestar galactica kind of feel, that's something I worried about from the get go... but like you guys mentioned, it seems like a good fit. I actually came up with the name when I researched the origins of the word 'galaxy' and went back to more of the greek root of the word.

Quick update... example of a simple secret passageway and a new enemy type:

This is pretty epic!

Great job mudmask!

ryanrybot - thanks man. so much. trying not to make it too epic so I can actually get it done.. haha

I love the limited palette. Blast from the past.

CBX dude thanks. some of that palette will change at some point... haha - hey, nice cavestory avatar.

Quick update -

1. New Level objectives

2. New music system (but of course... this is just an animated gif)

3. Boss battles

4. Some minor HUD updates (weapon changing system, ammo that refills over time)

edit//5. Powersuit Changing system (new powersuit shown here)

A few other things not shown here...

I also tweaked the jump physics just a bit, as per feedback

Nesteris - thanks amigo. I do everything myself at this point - everything from coding and art to music and sound effects.

I don't use any plugins or anything special for the layouts, every level has all the rooms already laid out in them. Since this isn't necessarily an open world game, I can skip trying to do really difficult tasks like that... although I have some theory as to how to apply this engine to a larger open world pretty easily. That might be some time in the future, but not with this project.

Looking really good, as per the usual!

It's interesting that you went with limiting your weapon energy. I'd like to see how that feels in game.

Nesteris - that's a pretty extensive list! I don't know if I'd be ready to team up with anyone in the near future. I'd have to see how this project does. But hey - seems like you've been really busy man. the map screen is a separate layout, and it pretty much uses global variables and arrays to pull whatever the current data is and display it on screen. this is pretty much how it works:

pause button -> "pause" state is saved, go to pause screen

pause screen -> map is built, energy and current weapon is displayed

player changes stuff around and exits -> weapon and other modified settings are saved using web storage, "pause" state is loaded

(back in the level events) when "pause" state is loaded, load all the modified settings from web storage

ryanrybot - maybe I should do a demo build soon huh? so I got the idea from the last zelda game to come out, a link between worlds, where your special items are limited by a replenishing meter. I'll have ways of refilling that meter, either through an item you can access in your inventory, or maybe through a pick up or something. I felt like I didn't want to go the route of traditional metroid games, where you just run out of ammo and that's kind of it until you find a way to get some more or hit up a recharge station - especially since this is mission based (level based) and a bit more fast paced. So... this kept it challenging but still kept the pace of level completion moving well. you can't just get a sweet gun (recently I made a lightning gun, for example) and just blast everything away. maybe that's kind of old fashioned though... in the age of casual gaming, at least.

thanks for the constant feedback guys! grateful for you two.

Nesteris - good points. A big part of my decision, like I mentioned, was to just keep the game moving kind of faster (but not too fast).

About webstorage, I only use that when an item or option is changed from the pause screen. when I exit the pause screen I essentially reload the previous save state of the game, and when that save state is loaded, it also loads the changes that were saved using the web storage. for example, if I switched a weapon, or used a med kit or something, obviously a save state wouldn't load those changes because you're going back to a previous state of the game. you would need something like webstorage which remained independent of the save state in order to load any changes that were made from the pause screen.

Nesteris - I have a function that creates an array based on the size of each layout, and records which screens are empty and which have important things in them, then it just outputs on the pause screen. It's pretty crude, the procedurally generated levels, since they're already based on an array, put it together a bit easier and allow for auto mapping. one of my next tasks is to do that for my normal levels.