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[MaloEspada]

MOMODORA IS COMPLETE! DOWNLOAD IT HERE!

Hello all. I've been developing a little game recently, called Momodora, and I thought of making a devlog so I can gather some feedback and improve it.


WHAT IS IT




Momodora is a 2D platformer focused on action, inspired by stuff like Mega Man, Metal Slug, Zelda and Cave Story. My goal with this game is to provide challenging, yet fun, gameplay. Hopefully, a nice experience.
It is made in Game Maker 7 therefore it only runs on Windows, unfortunately.

The story is the following:

"The story begins as an orphan girl, who has lost her mother in a tragic incident, enters a forbidden land, in search of a particular item. It is said that this sacred item can bring the dead back to life.
Driven by her will to see her mother once again, the girl ventures deep into this land."


HOW DOES IT PLAY

This is a really important. It plays like any platformer. It plays like Cave story meets Legend of Princess, I think?
You can jump with A, attack with S, use an special item with D and change weapons with Q. Later on there will be more weapons and possibly more items to use.


IMPORTANT FACTS

-this game is supposed to be challenging, so if you think it's really easy or annoying or a hamburger, please help me improve it!

-contrary to what you may be thinking, it is not an exploration-focused game but entirely linear. there is a little branching but nothing that could be considered 'non-linear', imo.

-the previous game i was working on, moonchild, was scrapped and this is taking its place. you can consider momodora a 'remake' of moonchild, sort of.


OKAY, HERE IS THE DOWNLOAD LINK


Version 1.4
Mirror


Old versions in case you are interested:
Download (Milestone 2 July 7th build)
Download (Milestone 1 June 27th build)


enjoy!

[Jo-o]

 
(it's great!)

[mokesmoe]

Finished.

Bug: if you stand just to right of the block throwing guys, they will face left.

The gun seems to suck. There are only a few situations where it is better than the leaf, and it is completely useless once you get the boomerang. I think it should do as much or slightly less than the leaf, not one third.

[letsap]

This is pretty fun! The controls are solid, and aside from smoke appearing at a weird place when you land and the occasional unintended earthquake, it seems pretty bug free. As far as challenge, if you approach it like Cave Story it's pretty tough because you'll run into things (does the leaf touching stuff make you take damage? The hitbox seems a bit wide), but if you slow down the difficulty dives pretty far. Standing still and inching forward seems to beat just about everything, so you might want to balance that out a bit.

Seconding the sentiments about the gun though, compared to the leaf's strength, ability to go through walls, and area of effect, the gun is pretty shabby. I think most of that comes from the lack of aiming, if it could be tilted to shoot at the ceiling dudes for instance, it'd have a special place.

Looking forward to the finished thing!

[sergiocornaga]

I feel the current colour scheme in some areas (the first is a good example, also those screenshots you posted where the background is really busy and saturated) makes it difficult to differentiate the collision layer from the background.



Maybe something like this would work better? Based on the tried-and-true idea that blue recedes and yellow comes forward. I dunno, I'm no expert.

[MaloEspada]

This is pretty fun! The controls are solid, and aside from smoke appearing at a weird place when you land and the occasional unintended earthquake, it seems pretty bug free. As far as challenge, if you approach it like Cave Story it's pretty tough because you'll run into things (does the leaf touching stuff make you take damage? The hitbox seems a bit wide), but if you slow down the difficulty dives pretty far. Standing still and inching forward seems to beat just about everything, so you might want to balance that out a bit.

Seconding the sentiments about the gun though, compared to the leaf's strength, ability to go through walls, and area of effect, the gun is pretty shabby. I think most of that comes from the lack of aiming, if it could be tilted to shoot at the ceiling dudes for instance, it'd have a special place.

Looking forward to the finished thing!

Great to see you here, Pastel. What occasional earthquake? You haven't been messing with debug stuff, right?!
About the gun, there will be more later on, so this first gun will prolly be obscured by the later ones. But I can power-up it a bit, til you get the boomerang I guess.

I'm not too keen on aiming upwards. While it seems like a natural thing, Mega Man didn't have it... I guess I like the limitation, but I may change it if it's too demanded.

Also, thanks mokesmoe for reporting the bug!

I feel the current colour scheme in some areas (the first is a good example, also those screenshots you posted where the background is really busy and saturated) makes it difficult to differentiate the collision layer from the background.
-image-
Maybe something like this would work better? Based on the tried-and-true idea that blue recedes and yellow comes forward. I dunno, I'm no expert.

Uhh, I guess I'll have a go at changing the background. I kinda wanted the first cave to be a black or close to that haha. Thanks for the suggestion!

[sergiocornaga]

Oh, the first screen you see isn't bad. In fact, the rock background might benefit from being even darker there. I meant the several screens directly after it.

[Terrorbuns]

It was way too easy for me :|

...Course I pretty muched abused the boomerang when I got it and used the Leaf Blade to get rid of enemies (since it kills most of them in one hit) and used the gun to keep distance between me and the block throwers.

Though I did get cheapshotted multiple times when changing between rooms. I feel that the enemies are often too close to the entrances to make safe transistions (notable between the entrance to the room before the tetris blocks and the room before that.)

Good game otherwise! Can't wait for some AWESOME boss battles :D

[JaJitsu]

Hey you finally made a devlog, heh.

I really agree that you should add the ability to shoot up. It would make the gun more useful, and would really help with the bats.

plus "megaman didn't do it" is a bad excuse not to ;P

[omnilith]

Plays really nicely so far! :>

I agree that the gun should be able to shoot upward, and maybe downward too when in the air. More versatility is never a bad thing!

I noticed that the cyclops guys who spin around the platforms sometimes lack their... cores. The part with the eye on it. So I just saw the spinning bits rotating around an invisible core. Nothing gamebreaking of course, but you might want to give it a look.

[mokesmoe]

When there is a block right next to spikes, the spikes overlap with the block and make half of the block unusable.
I think being able to shoot up would be a good idea, since the gun is already underpowered.

The eye wheels missing their middle eye is what happens when they have one gun hit left.

[MaloEspada]

I noticed that the cyclops guys who spin around the platforms sometimes lack their... cores. The part with the eye on it. So I just saw the spinning bits rotating around an invisible core. Nothing gamebreaking of course, but you might want to give it a look.

That's two enemies! One is part of another / feeding on another.

When there is a block right next to spikes, the spikes overlap with the block and make half of the block unusable.

Yeah, i'm gonna change that. Thanks.

Thanks for all the comments so far!!

[Stukos]

This game is beautiful. The player character is ridiculously lovable.

[LaserBeing]

More versatility is never a bad thing!

Tell that to Simon Belmont. In Super Castlevania on the SNES they gave him the ability to whip in 8 directions and it basically destroyed the balance of the game by making your whip so useful you hardly ever use the subweapons. The axe and holy water in particular were totally redundant since enemies above and below you could just as easily be taken out with your whip without spending hearts. Sure it felt good... but like so many things that feel good at the time, it was wrong. You'll note that in subsequent Castlevania games, although they kept the whip-flicking technique, they ditched the game-breaking 8-way whip. See also: Megaman 2's ridiculously overpowered Metal Blade.

More isn't always better.

[Ben Kuhn]

Code:

___________________________________________
ERROR in
action number 1
of  Step Event
for object player:

Sound does not exist.

I loaded a game at the first save point, hit "a" and got this error. This happens every time I load the save file. Want me to send it to you?

Ben

[mokesmoe]

I had the same no sound problem. Making a new save fixes it, but that has obvious downsides. Happens with S as well, but they are the same sound effect, so no surprise there.

[HöllenKobold]

More isn't always better.

No, that just means the level designers of Super Castlevania IV didn't account for the more.
Anyway, gun pointing, yes please.

[////]

Top stuff !
good lvl design and the attack is quite satisfying. 
edit: I have that error too ..I cant make a new save.

[MaloEspada]

Code:

___________________________________________
ERROR in
action number 1
of  Step Event
for object player:

Sound does not exist.

I loaded a game at the first save point, hit "a" and got this error. This happens every time I load the save file. Want me to send it to you?

Ben

Hopefully I fixed this. I got this error earlier too. Thanks.


I guess I'll upload a new version for now for those who have that problem (and others, since I fixed a bunch of things). Hold on dudes!

EDIT: version 011 is up. Check the first post if you want to play it. There isn't much new. Just some bug fixes and other minor stuff that you guys said. No gun pointing up etc. I should get something new in a few days and hopefully fix the "sprite shaking bug" soon!

EDIT 2: it seems i just fixed the sprite shaking thing. i rewrote part of the movement engine and uploaded again. let's see if there is any bug now!

[ink.inc]

Before the game can even start up, it displays

"ERROR in
action number 1
of Create Event
for object Main:

Error defining an external function."

Which is a damn shame, because it looks great, judging from the screenshots.