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[bolosaur]

Presents...

Hi gals and guys,

Buck & Miles is a 16 bit-esque singleplayer platforming game reminiscent of the 80s and 90s classics that most of us grew up playing.

It features a trucker named Buck and his sidekick Miles, who's beloved MacGuffin Betsy has fallen into the hands of an Evil Villain™ named Baron Von Kaiser.

Kaiser lives in a blimp which continuously floats around the overworld map. The overworld map in turn is divided into 6 sectors acting as worlds, and the player must chase Kaiser down from boss castle to boss castle until he's cornered and finally brought to justice.

Astrojone is our team name. We are three guys working on this, and our goal is to try to emulate the design approach, art direction and promo material that Japanese developers used back in the days, with the intention of bringing back some good memories and nostalgic moments for players who appreciate classic games.

We welcome comments and criticism on everything we post, but more importantly we hope that at least some of you will become as excited as we are at the idea of a (we hope) good and polished platformer being produced.

Thanks a lot for looking at our game.

Website / Facebook page / Twitter page

(also feel free to check out Toadstone's Tumblr and skyline's Trax in Space profile)

[HernanZh]

Looks awesome.

[toadstone]

Here is a sort of mockup screenshot



and the main character with his various powerups.

[bolosaur]

Powerups are divided into hats and tools. There are a total four of each, so that allows for up to 16 different combinations.

- hooray!

Hats:



Weapons:

[Quarry]

Crowbar

[Alec S.]

Looking really nice so far.  I like your power-up system.

[bolosaur]

toadstone finished up the first world's tileset. Here are a couple of mock screens illustrating the end result:

[Son of Bryce]

This looks great. I like the colors you're using and the goofy character animations.

Any designs for enemies yet?

What's the story?

[Sean Hogan (seagaia)]

I love the song in the trailer and it's a very warm-feeling game. Any official place to get the songs?

[bolosaur]

Thanks for all the kind words. It means a lot to us.

Any designs for enemies yet?

Yeah we do have a few enemy designs. toadstone has been churning out graphics like a madman, but I think he's just about to get to the enemies. Here are the ideas we have thus far.

What's the story?

Well, I provided most of it in the first post. It's just your run of the mill platformer backstory based around a MacGuffin. We are going to make sure that it's consistent and logical, but it's not really a story-driven game per se.

I love the song in the trailer and it's a very warm-feeling game. Any official place to get the songs?

Yeah our artist skyline is insanely talented, and we're lucky to have him on the team.

We haven't really decided what we're going to do about the soundtrack yet. On one hand I'd like to release as many goodies as possible, but on the other this soundtrack is his baby and he might want to do something else with it. We'll have to see once the game is released.

If you like his tunes though, you should check out his Trax in Space profile.

[toadstone]

What's the story?

The story is one of class struggle told through the perspective of a Mario-type game. Buck starts out as a blue collar trucker, but must don the appearance of middle class bourgeoisie workers before finally elevating himself to that of the ruling class elite, all in order to take them down from the inside out. The platforms you jump on are a visual metaphor for class mobility.

[bolosaur]

We're going to try to get our game on Steam Greenlight, so we got help from Jamie Sime to do a couple of '90s video game promos.

I think they turned out pretty cool.

No Fun
Catch My Drift?
Platforming

[awbskeur]

skyline: so good! 

[Quarry]

Bring back the fawn

[Evan McClane]

Hats

TF2 ripoff

Anyway, looks real good!  The art is really nice, and the character's cute. 

[bolosaur]

Thanks a bunch for all the replies (both the crits and encouragement). This is the second time we've gotten comments on ripping off TF2 with our hat-powerup-gimmick, haha. However, I don't think any of us got our inspiration from TF2. :-)

In other news, we're now on Steam Greenlight. If any of you have an account or would just like to help support our game, we'd really appreciate it.

http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=92932760

Again, thanks a lot pals.

[bolosaur]

So we're finalizing all the movements of the player. Here's the final list:

• Standing (duh)
• Walking
• Running (increases a Speedometer that, when maxed out, can be utilized by certain powerups)
• Turning (while decelerating during a run)
• Jumping (variable jumping which height is also determined by factors like running speed)
• Falling
• Looking up (allows the player to pan the camera upwards)
• Ducking (also allows the player to pan the camera downwards)
• Climbing (up and down ladders, horizontally over tightropes, and freely across grids)
• Sliding (down slopes)
• Swimming
• Bouncing (off of certain enemies, traps and other bouncey objects)
• Burnt (causes player to lose all items)
• Frozen (immobilizes player and leaves them open to enemies)
• Electrocuted (disables running and jumping high for a while)
• Dying (RIP.....)

Also, here's a list of abilities and drawbacks pertaining to all the powerups:

• Baseball bat - Melee weapon that can be used freely and without interruption both on ground and in mid-air. When enemies are hit, they are, depending on their weight, sent flying into each other.
• Hammer - Can only be used on the ground, but can be charged both on ground and in mid-air. When fully charged and released (again, on the ground), it will both crush blocks and send out a small, floor-hugging shockwave bolt. Charging can be done without interruption, but releasing the hammer immobilizes the player while the animation is playing.
• Umbrella - Can be used as a melee weapon to pierce enemies. If the action key is held down, the player will unfold the umbrella which will depending on whether the player is in mid-air or on the ground either break the player's fall or work as a shield. Using the umbrella on the ground immobilizes the player while the animation is playing.
• Boomerang - A regular projectile weapon which can only be used one at a time. If an enemy is hit, the boomerang immediately returns to the player for additional use.

There are also hats that the player can use in combination with the weapons:

• Hardhat - Allows the player to crush blocks from below.
• American Football Helmet - Allows the player to dash and tackle enemies when the Speedometer is maxed out.
• Beanie - Propeller cap that allows the player to fly if the Speedometer is maxed out.
• Tophat - A magician's hat that replaces ducking with hiding inside the hat, which temporarily protects the player from enemies and other dangers.

What do you think? Are the weapons and abilities balanced enough for the player to want to play around with all of them?

[Sean Hogan (seagaia)]

Sounds Kirby-ish. Can't really say how much I'd want to use one over the other without playing, but it seems like it's fine!