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[Tazi]

Hey!  

Neon Grey is a 2D sidescroller with a dystopian/cyberpunkish setting, inspired by 8-bit/16-bit games, and will have similar gameplay, as classic action platformers from NES era like Megaman, Castlevania, Ninja Gaiden, etc.... or the more recent indie game Oniken. (tho I'm aiming to be less cruel as those NES-hard games, while keeping the difficulity level on high.)



I aim the visuals to be colorful and dark at the same time. Kinda like Lyle in Cube Sector meets Blade Runner, or something like.

I also have some very early previews of the soundtrack here:
https://soundcloud.com/bitstortion/project-neon-knight-bgm
It's inspired by 80's spacesynth stuff, but there are also some chiptune, and psytrance, and a lot more influences actually....

I started this game at the last months of 2012, and it's still very early in the whole development span, but hopefully I'll have a lot more time to work on it after this summer. Until that, I'll be as active with updates as I can, but won't be suprised if weeks pass without a single post.




Game's also up on indieDB, with a very short test-video: http://www.indiedb.com/games/neon-grey


Well, thanks for your time, and lemme know what you think! Cheers!  

[McMayhem]

Hey! Some impressive stuff you got there. Love the NES look to it, gives it that extra cyberpunk atmosphere. I also really liked the smoothness of the animations and the transitions of the sprites overall.

I noticed there was a lot of melee combat, are you planning on including any ranged weapons? If so, how are you going to implement that system? Seems kind of like the Metroid route, but I'm not sure if you had something else planned. Otherwise, it looks pretty spot on .

[Tazi]

Thanks for the feedback!

I love metroidvanias, tho the game will be more of a straight forward action platformer, with a few explorable secret areas.

The player character will have a few more moves to use against the enemies. There will be a mid-air falling stab move, which will work a bit like in nes ducktales, or the stomp move from 3D platformers). Also, there will be a chargeable projectile attack if you hold the attack button, but with a difference to Megaman/Metroid: if you do it, the player will be unable to move while powering up for the attack. This way he will avoid overusing it, but if he is skilled, he can create advantage out of it, if it's used in the right situation.

Btw the basic sword attack will have about 3 tile range, which is 3 times bigger than in NES Ninja Gaiden, and it won't be as slow as the whip move in Castlevania 1. Hopefully this will make the game less frustrating. Yet, it will be still hard. 

[Evan.Greenwood]

Hey, I enjoy this sort of game.

Glad to hear there's no Metroidvania, I've played a few too many of those recently and, unless a game is doing something really clever with the unlocks and the exploration, I find the backtracking to be just not worth it. (For instance the Metroidvania in Dust:An Elysiam Tale didn't add anything for me).

The slow whip in Castlevania wasn't completely frustrating... well... I can't imagine it working now, but not every game needs a really powerful base attack (unless the game is meant to be a power trip). Sometimes it can be cool to make the player feel a bit threatened/ineffective... so long as there is a way for them to get more power (like the special attacks in Castlevania... which were pointless in Castlevania 3 when the whip was more powerful).

(though that's just me rambling really)

Anyway... I like the theme and the setting. I'm hoping there's some cool cyber-punk mechanics in it (like hacking robots or projecting into cyber space).

[Tazi]

Thanks. The enemies/level design will be adjusted for the longer range of the fast sword attack, so the challenge will still remain hopefully, only that the player won't be so vulnerable after a badly timed attack.

The cyberpunk thing is actually more about the technological state of the world the game takes place in, and not really present in the gameplay, but actually there's a shorter astral projection themed level, I'm planning... After all, making a game like this, I can't avoid adding some pleasent 80's wireframe sci-fi stuff.

Here's a tiny update:

(an abadoned industrial zone - work in progress)