And now a full play through of the latest level I've (almost) completed.

Level 4 - Stage 2: The Sunken Village.

At this point in the game Thurstan has been possessed by the same evil that has take his family from him. It cannot control him completely but drives him insane (hence the name of the game/comic). So while he is possessed in the game he loses the ability to throw daggers. But to make up for this his strength and punch radius is doubled. If anything he punches hits a wall etc. it will explode on contact.

Still two bad guys I want to add to this level. Water grabbers - zombies that grab at your ankles unless you jump on them, and brain pickers that throw the remaining contents of the skull at you. Also need to add a door closing behind the player at the end of the level and the water filling the tunnel back up.

Anyhow - here's a play test from start to finish. Sorry about the sound cutting in, it always does that to me - a real pain in the ass. If anyone knows why it does that let me know please and thanks!!!

[Tube]http://youtu.be/8CZIbHKfB40[/Tube]

Chris

KaMiZoTo Thanks! Yeah - I'm a big fan of all things Bubble Bobble and Snow Bros. It was what I intended the old Go!Go!Maddi! game to be but it turned into some kind of Ghouls 'n Ghosts/Contra styled platformer.

The map thing came in after I played over the first 10 stages 30-40 times and thought I needed a way to break it up.

As far as the split screen thing goes. I just paste the layers at player 2's x/y co-ords to a canvas and then move the canvas back to the second half of the screen. It's actually not as cpu heavy as I though it would be since I've been playing it at 60fps on a 5 year old laptop 2 player co-op.

Hey Guys :)

So this is the other game we've been working on while doing/taking a break from Insanity's Blade. I decided to make the old Go!Go!Maddi! Construct Classic game just a private release when it's done in order to keep the music I wanted etc.

So this one is built completely from scratch including the fonts (except one temp one.)

Game play:

Map screen - Sim stage

Overhead map view is a playable shooter/sim (similar to Actraiser on the SNES). Maddi and her helper (1 of 3) can rebuild the towns that were taken over by monsters by sealing the portals they emerge from. To begin a sim stage you must first beat the 10 stages of platform gaming! Once that has happened you can proceed to destroy the portals and rebuild the town. Once all portals are destroyed there are another 10 stages of platforming until you can go to the next town.

Platforming - Action stages

Each Level consists of a "Sim" stage map screen and 20 stages of platforming. 5 Levels in all so technically over 100 stages to play :)

The platforming stages are similar to Snow Bros (arcade etc). You play as Maddi and/or one of her friends. Throw candy magic at the monsters until you coat them and then walk into them to push them. There are combo meters for the amount of enemies you can hit with a single candy etc. Power ups which can be picked up or found and equipped in the sim stages as well.

The sim stages aren't really the focus here, just a way to break up the game play a bit between the levels. 100 stages flat out of platforming is rough ;)

The sim stages will be only complex to the point of having your minions collect power ups that are hidden on the town map and saving them from the monsters.

The boss fights are different. You must shoot the smaller enemies to load up the "Super Cotton Candy" machine to attack the bosses. You can't just hit a boss. In co-op (which has split screen!) one player can move the machine while the other shoots enemies and loads it!

Aiming at a console and windows only release for this game. I'm hoping the Wii U can handle the gfx I toss around ;) As of now I have used no WebGL in the game at all to make sure it's console compatible. In fact I've had WebGL slow this game down more than it's helped which is strange. Solid 60fps without webgl and it will stutter with it.

Anyhow - Here are screen shots. No release date yet, though most of the game is already coded. Still a ton of gfx and animation to do!!

<img src="http://designchris.com/images/maddi/title.png" border="0" />

<img src="http://designchris.com/images/maddi/mapsim.png" border="0" />

<img src="http://designchris.com/images/maddi/stg1.png" border="0" />

<img src="http://designchris.com/images/maddi/split2.png" border="0" />

<img src="http://designchris.com/images/maddi/boss1.png" border="0" />

Hope you like the shots :)

Chris

Nixel - if that specific artist allows/hasn't signed off the rights for that song already then it will be in a sound test as well as the game. All of this music is from the Famitracker forums. They hold competitions and do the music for free. It's all hosted somewhere off site but completely free to download.

That specific song (listed only as no27.wav in my game) changes into a style of music that doesn't suit the game - which is why I only used the opening of it. If I can find my list of songs by title and artist I'll let you know which competition it's from exactly. But for now I only have no27 to go by.

The dwarf follows you closely at a delay. Throws axes. Can't be killed. Will probably make the game way too easy HAHA! It seems to me when I designer the character in my comic way back when, the dwarf from Golden Axe was actually a huge inspiration for his look. Not the in game character but the hand drawn image of him during the title sequence of the original game.

I'm still hacking away at the new Go!Go!Maddi! game. We've added an ActRaiser style sim to the map screen to break up the 100 levels of candy busting platforming. All of the texty and titley stuff needs to be done for that one. Then when I'm ready for full demo release (of Go!Go!Maddi!) I'm going back to this game full speed. I think it's almost time to do the dev thread for the new game :O

Chris

Jayjay Congrats and win stuff!!! It is fun and challenging!

arcgen Thanks! I'm a bit hardcore when it comes to the retro stuff. I like my video games to look and play like they did when I enjoyed them still!

BACLog Your code was a huge help to get my wall jump/wall slide started. There is a lot of extra stuff going on besides that. Frame specific timings, speed changes, locking off other controls... pain in the butt it was to code that haha! Mind you there is still a bug in the wall slide bit of the code. And I know what's doing it. I just always forget to fix it. I have a bit that says if sprite legs is overlapping floor and wall then... and it's set wrong. Thanks for your support, I'm glad that you're enjoying watching this progress (and playing that tired old beta/demo!) I should be back to work on this game in about a week or so. Just finishing up my next game demo/beta - I hope you like Snow Bros!!

landman Thanks! I've played through my game collection a million times now I'm sure. I'm buying old school bits to this day. Waiting on a nice jap cart of Magic Sword for the snes. Which is a partial inspiration for my game play. I even did a tribute to the "Golden Bear" in the first level of that game. In my 2nd stage there is a bear based on the one found in Magic Sword. Not as big, not quite the same, but he's golden and he swats at you! There are a lot of nods to my favorite games in here. The way I shade some things is more of a nod to Sega than it is Golden Axe. But once the dwarf character is in, that'll be as close to a nod to Gillius as I can get! The comic relief/side kick character in my comic is an alcoholic dwarf named Finn.

NotionGames Thanks! Glad you're liking it! And we're flattered that it's inspiring you for your next game!!

Jayjay One of these days I need to throw you into my game collection down here HAHA!!!

I still have 7 levels to design although 1 is only a partial. Loads of enemies, bosses and the cinematic bits too! The Castle is reused with a different pallet along with the boss fight area. I just have to draw a separate route up to the throne room.

Exotic dancing undead coming soon!!

Thanks for all the support and kind words guys!!!

Chris

Nixel Very cool game so far! Took me a bit to get used to the buttons and then I got through haha! Very clean all around - and you're sticking to classic game play which I did while adding to it with the power absorption! Well done!

Keep it up! Epic work!!

Nixel Wow! Thanks! I'm glad you are liking this so much. I've actually had it on the back burner for the past two weeks while I start another project and was finishing up a big work project that was pretty draining.

I actually just bought an old NES and the games I always loved. My game is nowhere near as hard as the old NES games haha, it's far too forgiving!

I was about to start another boss battle similar to the Bell Tower one but work got in the way and I need solid days to do art for this project. The possesed king battle will have a giant gross heat appear in the around the screen and shoot at you. The Bell boss battle was finished not long after I posted the video. Past the half way point with the levels :)

As for the music, that's going to be paid for, if the musicians haven't used it for anything else. They are all original songs apparently. There is an nes contest where these guys get together and compete to make the best nes songs. They do an excellent job. But I think I have 7-10 different guys music and I'll have to narrow it down. I've ended up changing some of them too!

I can't wait to get the dwarf following the player in game :D

Anyhow this is on hold for a month and then I'll be right back at it until it's finished!

Thanks again for the extremely kind words!

Chris

Finally caved and started making the Go!Go!Maddi! game I wanted to make originally. Plays like Snow Bros/Bubble Bobble as far as main game play goes. Shoot candy magic at bad guys, bad guys get coated in candy until they turn into one, bump the baddie and he goes bowling down through the level clearing out other baddies as he goes.

Started this the night I heard there would be Wii U support...

When it's one level complete I'll start a dev log thread and post the demo. I've already got the stage working about 90%. Want to add more stuff. Bells and whistles and what not.

Here's a pic of nothing happening at all :O

<img src="http://designchris.com/ibbeta/untitled-3.jpg" border="0" />

Chris

Totally started making a new Maddi (my daughter)game just for Wii U after reading this news yesterday. We have one, she loves her "Nintendo" - take my $3000 and run...

Totally forgot to post this here, Stage 10 boss area. The battle with the possessed king. Think this guy is going to have 2 stages of fighting. Human form and a giant spirit head... whenever I have time to work on this again ;) Bottom of the columns look silly... might have to fix that.

<img src="http://designchris.com/ibbeta/stg10c.jpg" border="0" />

Chris

Jayjay Yup - nothing special. Not even close to that background palette limit on those screens. I think it's 13 colors - 4 colors per 8x8 block. This game destroys the rom limitations though. It would technically be the biggest NES cartridge ever made ;)