SF: I can't imagine that being a problem.

Neonlare: I don't think you should restrict yourself to an NES style solely for consistency's sake.

As for puzzle elements; I had this idea for your last build of Crazy Shuffle when it was an arena style game. On your HUD you could have a random sequence of enemy cards and if you killed the enemies in that order you'd get a life or something. Then they'd reshuffle and you could try for another one. I don't know exactly how your game plays now but maybe when you kill some enemies they'd drop a random card and if you collect them in the same sequence as the lineup in your HUD you'd get a powerup or something.

Neither G-force Fighters nor Evil Empire is being worked on so you're both golden.

SF- I see you're going the 3d route with your graphics, looks great. What kind of gameplay are you shooting for?

Neonlare- Same question towards Evil Empire, what are you shooting for? Also I'm curious, how much has Crazy Shuffle changed since the last build you posted? 

Yeah, no one's working on either of those. Good luck.

There's nothing wrong with selling your art. I think it's the way your selling it that's a problem, as a pack that anyone can buy. If someone here needs an asset bad enough they'll pay for it I think they're going to want it either tailor made for them or at least exclusively theirs.

By the way those do look amazing.

What are the strengths and weaknesses of your player character?

Simon Belmont for example moves slow and has a stiff jump but on flat horizontal planes he's basically god. His whip is long and can destroy any projectile. Vertically he's outmatched though so jumping is to be avoided.


Mario is the opposite. He's nimble and has great aerial control and anything underneath him is dead. Without power-ups though he's defenseless on horizontal planes.

I thought this thread was gonna be about whether video games needed music to be good.

Yeah. I can think of worse music and it's pretty difficult to detach myself from this theme but it's certainly not ingenius. Stuff like the underground music is jus kinda... weird. That weirdness becomes iconic because people love the game and they instantly forgive the fact that that music is kinda like "eh, this is OK..."

I've never listened closely to the underground theme before, it's so simple! I wouldn't listen to it looping on an I-Pod but I think it does work well as background music. I like it, but I could be bias. It's impossible to tell 

Some of those links don't work (Space Dreams, They Came, Lazer League) but yeah that's all the finished ones.

I wrote a list back on page 123 that's up to date. I'll keep it up to date too, why not. Mind you I'm not listing anything as taken unless I see some content.

Probably Crazy Shuffle and Non-Human are the only one of these that's gonna get finished. Crazy shuffle less so since Neonlare decided he's redoing all the code which is not always a good sign.

BOOO!!!

I think they're undervalued.

For something to be scary there needs to be a threat. That's the nature of fear, the mind reacting to a threat. Now you can try to induce this by proxy with threats directed at a game's avatar, but why not cut out the middle man? Since most of us don't like being startled a jump scare is a genuine threat directed at the player themselves.

They're considered cheap, and maybe they are, but how else can you make the player perceive a threat that's not there?

Hello there, this is an action platform game in a twisted version of our modern world: Irrational buildings, horse-head man and traffic-light-cockroaches firing bullets.

The names we were considering are:
- Urbos ex pest
- Sorrow of the demon
- Akranios
- Anatopia
- Coba

Your main character has a really strong design, is the beak mask inspired by plague doctor's masks? As for your titles...

- Urbos ex pest (This one pops out the most for me. Does it mean anything?)
- Sorrow of the demon (This seems to fit the aesthetic of your game. It's not bad but it's not great either)
-Akranios and Anatopia (I really don't like either of these titles. They're both really forgettable.)
- Coba (this feels tribal, is that a good description for your game?)

Free associating off of what you've got presented, here are some alliterating names.
_______

Maijin Melancholy

Demonic Depression

Oni's Onus

Warbled World

Opium Onset

Kooky Cool's Quacky Cataclysm

“One learns from books and example only that certain things can be done. Actual learning requires that you do those things.”
-Frank Herbert's Children of Dune

What SirNiko is describing is like a non-puzzle, it has the appearance of a puzzle but if you scrutinize it you'll see that there is no possible solution so the solution is not to attempt it. In other words the puzzle itself is a red herring.

I've only played one game that has done something like this, a Japanese Rpmaker game called Ao Oni. At one point you encounter this framed on a wall.

You control the little dollhead and naturally you assume your goal is to direct it into the round hole. Note that you can push the squares but you can't pull them. Examine this non-puzzle carefully and you'll see that you can never get that head into the hole. The actual solution is to acquire a dollhead elsewhere in the game and just stick it in. I thought this was pretty cool.

Whether a designer should subtly aid the player or treat them like an adversary, I guess that depends on who you imagine your audience is. When I play a pure puzzle game I expect to be challenged intellectually, that's why I'm playing. Of course the designer needs to be consistent with their rules and always teach new game elements before turning them against the player, but I think what J-snake said about being the player's adversary is a great approach to puzzle design, in most cases anyways. I might be irritated if I was playing something like Windwaker and found myself trying to solve an insanely intricate block pushing puzzle for a week. We play different games for different reasons.

This thread is great by the way, lots of good thinking in here.

No one is working on Spread Fire.

That's all cool. As for boss battles, I can't see them as a negative. Even when boss battles are bad it still feels right to have them.

I've thought about remaking one of these games. I'm an amateur artist with no game making experience though, and making a game is a lot of work man, so I guess nevermind.

Here, it's Micro-Mike


and here's Robbie

Dude, are you thinking about remaking another Action 52 game? Cause that'd be awesome. As for maintaining the list again that'd be cool, three games were finished while you were away. City of Doom by HandCraftedRadio, Lazer League by Plasticware, and Operaton Full-Moon by moi. Recording who's working on what is a little harder. I wrote a list two pages back guessing who might be working on what.

I honestly don't think remaking Cheetahmen is a good idea, what with the recent Kickstarter to actually remake Cheetahmen (I think it was legit). To me, it seems like it is impossible to continue without a significant increase in attention. Either give it some closure or reboot it, but don't just leave it hanging. (I would favor just closing it, since there are way too many scrolling shooters for it to be interesting...)

Are you refering to this? It's actually not a remake, it's an NES reproduction of Cheetahmen 2 that's been Rom Hacked to work. Supposedly they're adding new content as well but the whole things a little fishy.