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[Kyle O]

Here is a game I am making.

PLAY IT!

This is a little side project I made for punkjam. If you are familiar with my other larger project, you will notice I have stolen some ideas from my other game.

Anyway I'm thinking it is sort of going to be kinda like a SHMUP. Unique part is you control a character with a really big hitbox and you can eat things.

Here's a gif--



I don't know.

[jamesprimate]

animation and the soft color palette looks great! love how the legs re-position, its very effective

[Connor]

where'd you come up with kings highway? it reminds me of the sailing song william taylor, and im pretty sure your not going for a nautical theme...?

[Quicksand-T]

That fluid neck/eating animation, so nice.

[Kyle O]

I've never made a SHMUP before. I was really confused bout how to do the camera/scrolling. I've figured it out but now have more problems-- mainly thinking about collisions.

The size of the character is very large compared to other SHMUPs like Gradius... I don't know how I should handle damage. Where a bullet should be considered a hit and whether depending on where you get hit if that should affect the damage received. Also whether something should happen if you run into the wall.

Getting the shooting working:

[Kyle O]

So I managed to scrap something together that was playable in time for the end of this this game jam--

http://opatik.itch.io/highway

I think I might expand on it a little more but I don't know. It's rough but let me know what you think!

[FRACTURES]

Looks unique and cool. Liking this 

[Sustrato]

This is a pretty sweet idea and I had fun with the demo.

Your art is good, but the contrast is really low. I don't think my eyes could take more than five minutes of it.

The slow movement and large hitbox is obviously very different from most shmups. I think to make it work, you need to really reconsider how you design enemies, and break from the traditional mold.

[marcgfx]

maybe you could have the main character ride this monstrous being. the monster could be invincible, the hit-box would just be the rider. the monster could maybe even have a way to absorb bullets, but it should likely let most of them pass. otherwise it would be too easy to hide in the top-left corner
you can also keep the large hitbox and give the monster some regeneration power, so the player needs to decide on how to take as little damage as possible.

[karlozalb]

Tested! I like this, the art style is amazing, keep up the good work

[Kyle O]

Your art is good, but the contrast is really low. I don't think my eyes could take more than five minutes of it.

Yeah, I realize now that I really need to darken some things up.

Thanks for everyones input on the hitboxes. They're all really good ideas. I was planning on adding a rider but time constraints stopped me. It would be interesting to have 2 separate health bars for both monster and rider. I was even contemplating heath bars for each individual limb on the monster... but that would be overkill I think...

The way it's working right now in the demo is every body part is invincible except your head-- which actually works pretty good. If I make the whole body a hitbox then I will go I think with the sort of damage sponge route but make hits to the head do critical damage. If I did it that way with a rider then the player would have to keep an eye on 2 small important hitboxes plus 1 large less important one... could be interesting 

[Kyle O]

So I think I'm going to continue on with this project for a little while. It's so much quicker developing a simple shmup like this, rather than my other project which requires fastidious level design, and generally doesn't offer the same amount of instant gratification.

So I think I will do 1 more level and see if I feel satisfied.
My next idea is to have sort of a "mining" level with some awesome drilling boss--

[Kyle O]

So here is the second boss.



I've been contemplating doing a 1 boss a week challenge for myself. It seems doable as long as I have enough ideas. At any rate, I definitely hope to finish this boss by the end of the week, if not sooner!!

[Kyle O]

It's actually a lot of fun controlling this boss. This might require a game of it's own eventually.

[Kyle O]

So I'm done with this second boss. You can play it here.



Next I'm going to add some context/story to this game. The plan is to essentially make it a sort of kaiju game. You get to play the godzillaesque anti-hero who ultimately saves the world but doesn't give a damn about the city being destroyed in the process. So I am going to have to draw some destructible buildings and some portraits of scientist for some brief dialogue.

After that... maybe 1 more boss and call it a game?

[ｂ∀ ｋｋｕｓａ]

hmmm ... Could you maybe make it as a side story happening in the same universe as your big game Letters from Earth.
Big potential here for promoting Letters from Earth .

[Kyle O]

Heh, I was sort of planning on that actually... however... since nobody has played Letters from Earth, nobody would know it was tied into that story anyway...

Speaking of which, I suppose I should get back to working on that other game sooner or later...

[crusty]

fills the void left in my heart from the last guardian.  my sweet beak

[Kyle O]

I know! I should make this creature fully autonomous and have the player be some young kick-ass kid who gets to ride it. Maybe just steal the whatever the plot is of The Neverending Story. I don't know really. I think I will just keep putting that off and make more boss battles.