next »

[Kevin]

Well, regardless of how it played before, concerns over the bosses' difficulty caused me to rewrite it entirely. It uses the same patterns, but it's so much cleaner, and all of its attacks etc. are easily toned down sped up or changed, so... progress! I would have just left it as the mess it was if if not for the feedback, so thanks!

Konjak is definitely a good suggestion, as is Turrican (I know you're talking about the graphics on that one, but it's a game I'd forgotten about). I'm obviously already drawing heavily from Metroid and Mega Man, as well as Contra and many of the better known entries in the genre, but the more suggestions the better.

Anyway, I'm really happy with how things are going. Progress is definitely being made. ♥

[Kramlack]

How did I miss the revival of this thread? Glad to see you've continued this now that you've come back. KEEP. IT. UP.

[Kevin]

KEEP. IT. UP.

Will do! Promise.

Ugh. Three bosses more or less finished, and (despite what I just promised) I'm feeling a bit 'bleh' about working on this, haha. I may take a short break and see if I can't get the motivation back (I will, I'm just a bit tapped for ideas right now and don't feel like doing any serious thinking).

On the plus side, I only have 5 bosses to go, then it's on to actually designing levels and working on basic enemies and hazards and the like. Then, I'll whip up some cutscenes, come up with some collectibles, maybe a hidden boss or two and... Hm. This might end up being a larger project than I'd expected.

Edit:
Huh. I thought I'd lost my motivation, but it turns out I just needed to pee really bad. BACK TO WORK


Edit 2:

New video uploading now, showing the changes made to the previously shown boss based on your suggestions/critique. Also shown are the life upgrades and, more importantly, the new HUD element which displays the opponent's health during boss encounters.

You'll note that I've changed my mind again, at least for the moment, and upgrades now appear after defeating a boss rather than scattered in hidden locations throughout the levels. Depending on how development goes, this may become more of a branching boss-rush than anything else, with the areas between boss-rooms comprising 1 to 2 screens, tops. Ideally, this won't be the case (I'd rather this felt more like a full fledged platformer), but it depends on how much the non-boss areas end up feeling like filler.

Edit 3:

Here is the video, as promised.

[Franklins Ghost]

Like the edits on the boss, think it's a definite improvement from the last video. Also think the upgrades coming from defeating the bosses will work well cause then the player knows how to get them rather then having to look in obscure places to find them.

[Kramlack]

Love it! The new pattern is definitely an improvement. My only criticism would be to either make the falling power-up fall with gravity, or to have sparkles/effects falling off of it as it slowly drops down at the speed you currently have it. Right now it sort of just looks like, "HURRY UP AND FALL"! Love the Mega Man death particles when you grab it though, that's pretty awesome.

I'm so excited for this game you don't even know.

[Kevin]

So, this morning when I woke up my computer had loaded a black screen informing me in no simple terms that my jard drive was dead, despite being in perfect working order not 5 hours prior. Anyway, fucking idiot that I am, there are no backups and so I regret to say that the project is on indefinite hiatus and more than likely dead. Thanks for all the support, guys. Sorry to disappoint.

This was typed on my phone while I was extremely pissed, so excuse any typod, etc

[Franklins Ghost]

That really sucks and hope you're able to recover it cause was enjoying seeing you develop this project and was looking forward to giving it a go.

[jmcmorris]

That's quite sad. Have you tried booting off of another harddrive? However, if you really want to recover this data I suggest not running with the harddrive anymore as that will just destroy it even more and look online for a data recovery service. They are not cheap but it may be worth it?

Good luck. Be sure to save backups in the future. Dropbox and Google Drive are both free services that making backing up data to a remote server extremely easy.

[seagaia]

I'm guessing it's probably recoverable with the right choice of things to do, the data's probably still there (unless the read head crashed into wherever on the disk the data for the game was) - so it's worth a shot.

As an addition to the backups, I'd recommend some form of version control hosting (Github, for example), or anything you can set up a git repo with and still have the source code be private.

[Kramlack]

@Kevin: I am literally flying over now to punch your computer in it's stupid face.

[SolarLune]

Man, that stinks. Really sorry to hear that. The game was looking really cool, and I'm sure you put a HUGE amount of effort into it. Hope you continue with another cool project!

[Interrupt]

Ouch, feels bad man. Only takes this sort of thing to happen once before you become a hardass at keeping backups around.

Dropbox is my best friend. Second best friend, external HD.

[Mars]

You can recover most of your files, I dont know specifically how to do it, but if you go to your nearest PC repair center they will make you a backup for a fee (most of the time is cheap, but depends on how many GB's you want to recover [this is me guessing]).

If the PC still recognizes the hard drive (via booting of course from another hard drive) then you may even be able to do it yourself, with the proper program, just Google up Data Recovery application.

Good luck, I hope you can recover your files, it sucks when it happens.

[Udderdude]

That sucks, hopefully you can do some data recovery.  Even if it costs $$$.

Reminds me, I should run Replicator more often ..

http://www.karenware.com/powertools/ptreplicator.asp

[DrDerekDoctors]

Aw, man. I'm so sorry for you. That sucks balls.