The Ram usage on my PC is around 4.3. That is so odd that this is occurring. I wonder why Steam Deck would act differently. I'll reach out to them and see if I hear back from Steam support (though I highly doubt they will).

To specify, the build of BioGun thats playing in the screenshot above is an NW.js Linux version, 64bit.

I totally agree. Something is really off and I really want to figure out what it is. Our game demo is unfortunately getting negative reviews mentioning Steam Deck's performance Steam. I would love to figure out the cause and hopefully a solution before we release our full game a few months from now.

Ashley I've been scouring the Forums to see if anyone has brought this topic up and haven't found anyone mentioning this.

A game like Garlic which is 300mb uses 7gb of the Steam Decks RAM while my game (BioGun) uses 8gb of RAM. My VRam is only using around 2.5 to 3.

I don't know about Garlic but we have our Sprite Sheet size set to 1024*1024 in the project settings. We originally had 4096 and when we dropped it down to 1024 we barely see a difference being made. Maybe 300mb? Does anyone have an idea of what may be the cause of this?

Thanks brainwavecreations! Metroidvania indeed take a very long time to make. This February will be 2 years and I've got the primary systems completed and about 15% of the game done! I am sure you're talented enough. If you are a one man team keep it simple. Single color silhouette backgrounds and a simple main character design. When I started Bio-Gun I was alone and I knew making a complicated main character would be very difficult and time consuming with all the animations. Thats why my main character doesn't even have arms and the gun simply rotates to the angle you fire at! You can do it! Just think of clever work arounds. :)

We have not done any crowdfunding. I worked on Bio-Gun for about a solid year and got it to a point where I could show it to investors and one believed in my project enough to financially support me and my friend.

Thank you! If you get to try the beta I would love to know your thoughts! Right now is the best time to take in feedback and apply it to the game before Finalizing everything. :)

Hi everyone! Today I am excited to present to everyone in here my game, Bio-Gun! A metroidvania shooter made with Construct 3.

Currently, I have a BETA AVAILABLE on STEAM for Windows

• Mouse and Keyboard support
• Gamepad support
• Remappable keys/buttons for both configurations

Steam Page

Join our Community Discord

WHERE IT BEGAN

A few years ago (2016?) I made a survival shooter that is currently on Scirra Arcade. It was called: Bio-Gun Arcade Edition. It currently still holds a spot on the front page which amazes me to this day! I am honored that so many of you enjoyed it! A few years later (2019) I decided to pick the project back up and make it into a Metroidvania where you explore the insides of a Dog.

Figuring out what the design should look like was VERY difficult. For one, there isn't any reference on the internet of what things look like at a microscopic level. So I had to wing it and take a lot of creative liberty with the designs.

WOMB

LIVER

Ultimately, it took about a year to figure out and feel confident with the current asthetic of the game. During that year I also taught myself how to make a handdrawn world that functioned like a metroidvania. There are a lot of metroidvania examples that are pixel based for Construct, but I have yet to come across any that go beyond Pixel and are hand drawn so there weren't any tutorials I could find. This resulted in a long period of development spend on how to make an interconnected world.

Map

PLAYER MOVEMENT

Once I figured out how to connect rooms and store data from previous rooms (Persist Behavior) and Respawn Timers for enemies I instantly felt empowered! I soon after focused on the player movement. I believe I spent about 3 months on this alone. From adding polishing touches like Cyote Jump (grace period that allows you to jump after falling off a ledge) to Button Input Lag (pressing the jump button before landing still allows you to jump once you land), the controls felt VERY responsive! Adding a nice weight to the players Jump was also crucial as was giving players the ability to control the exact height they wanted jump! All of these things combined made for controls that felt responsive and solid.

NPC's

Next up I felt that the world needed to have memorable characters! Thankfully since the theme was Inside of the body, a lot of the designs of the characters were inspired by what cells do!

From white blood cells to Liver Cells, all of them naturally had a place inside of this world I was creating and their roles inspired their designs! Also being inside of a dog I felt that all of the characters should have a Dog look to them.

The game is still under development so I have plenty of other characters that I will need to design. Such as ones for the other Organs that the player will explore in the game.

THE BOSSES

This was a fun and challenging aspect of the games development. Bosses are VERY crucial to a metroidvania. It's where you test the player and reward them for understanding mechanics you taught them along the way to the boss. You can see glimps's of my bosses in the trailer. They had a specific design philosophy in mind when creating them. In Bio-Gun you start off with the ability to dash. I am not a patient person myself and I love speedy movement so I felt it best to begin with an ability most games give to the player later on. Since you start off with Dashing the first boss is designed to utilize dashing while still being relatively easy since its still early on in the game. One of the phases forces you to dash to keep up with the boss in order to deal damage to it.

This game design philosophy is enforced with the next two bosses. So lets review:

• Boss 1: Focuses on teaching Dash.
• Boss 2: Focuses on teaching Aiming while enforcing Dash.
• Boss 3: Focuses on teaching Jumping while enforcing Dash, Aiming.

After that the player has been taught the Fundamental abilities and we let your hand go and throw enemies and bosses that will push variations of all those 3 systems + the newer abilities they get later on.

Bio-Gun is being developed by two people, myself and a friend. We've got about a year or so left of development. We can't wait to show everyone more stuff as we continue our journey. It is my hope that this post inspires those who want to make metroidvanias using Construct and also to show its totally possible!

Bio-Guns Beta is public so if you get a chance to play it please feel free to give us feedback in our Discord or down below. I am on Discord often so I'll catch the feedback faster there. Thank you for reading!