Really liking how shamelessly (I don't mean it in a bad way) this borrows from ZII =)

Haha, thanks. I always loved Zelda 2, even though I get the impression that I might be in the minority on that one.

I'm hoping I can improve upon some of the things I didn't like about that game.
- Not having sub-weapons (boomerang, etc.).
- The palaces in Z2 felt a little too same-y to me. Lots of identical hallways where you fight enemies on flat ground.
- Going down really long hallways in palaces only to find a locked door right at the end... (I would prefer having the lock at the start of the hallway).
- Really bad in-town quests (like finding the mirror, getting the lady some water from a nearby fountain...)
- No puzzles in palaces
- Having to find that-one-tile on the overworld where you find an area required to progress
- No overworld secrets (like bushes you can burn, rocks you can bomb or things to push like in the original Zelda)

The whipping animation looks exactly like the Castlevania one, which already feels pretty quick. If you wanted to speed that up you could probably spend less time on the pose of it behind your back (the antic) so he just goes into the outstretched whip pose sooner.

I'm finding that the Castlevania attack animation feels way more powerful than mine does. I think maybe it's because Simon leans back farther in the behind-the-back pose, and leans farther forward in the final frame? Maybe it's also because he attacks slower, which implies more weight to the weapon.

I just noticed your guy has a shield - does it work? I noticed the dude taking damage. It only seems odd to me because he's basically holding the shield up over his face in his default poses, which makes me think that he'd have some sort of shield + heart damage meters or something.

The shield works, but isn't shown in the video. It only blocks certain types of projectiles (currently only daggers). It doesn't block direct contact with enemies, or throwing axes.

I like it a lot! Very Castlevania, and that's never a bad thing!

What language are you making this in?

Thanks! I originally was using a sword as the main weapon, but the range felt too short for my liking. I tried a really long sword, but that looked strange, so I went with a ball+chain like in Castlevania. The combat now feels like an alt-universe Castlevania where you can control yourself in the air, the attack is faster, and you have a shield which blocks projectiles.

If anyone has any ideas on how to make the attack animation look more powerful, please let me know. I'm still really new to pixel art and animation.

I'm programming the game in C++, using OpenGL for graphics. Windows, Mac, and Linux are the target platforms.

[First playable build!]

First playable build!
https://www.dropbox.com/s/9pw7earryzv3s5a/cake-build-oct-03-2013.zip (1.6 MB, Windows)
https://www.dropbox.com/s/a7ltw99sgg4vbi6/cake-build-oct-03-2013-mac.zip (1.4 MB, Mac)







Old stuff below
-----------------------
I've been working on a side-scrolling action adventure game. It's inspired primarily by Zelda 2. The bulk of the game takes place from a side-view, but also has an overworld in the style of Final Fantasy or Dragon Quest on the NES.





Video:




Music ideas:
http://soundcloud.com/detective/fm-test-3
http://soundcloud.com/detective/fm-test-2-v2
http://soundcloud.com/detective/fm-test-4
Any feedback is welcome!

// This might be too basic for your needs; it's ghetto, but does an ok job.
void Particle::Update(double dt)
{
    mX += mVelocityX * dt;
    mY += mVelocityY * dt;
    mVelocityX += (float)RandomBetween(-1000, +1000) / 1000.0f * WIND_SPEED * dt;
    mVelocityY += (float)RandomBetween(-1000, +1000) / 1000.0f * WIND_SPEED * dt;
    mVelocityY += GRAVITY * dt;
    mVelocityX = Clamped(-MAX_SPEED_X, mVelocityX, +MAX_SPEED_X);
    mVelocityY = Clamped(-MAX_SPEED_Y, mVelocityY, +MAX_SPEED_Y);
}

Edit: Oops, it looks like Charybdis gave pretty much the same solution.

Since the summer olympics have begun, why not do a compo themed around the summer games? 

Looks like Archon.
Any plans for multiplayer? A two-player version for PC where you can battle using one keyboard could be fun!

Those blasting cannons managed to get me every time! Are they aiming at me, or just shooting in a certain direction? Sure felt as though they were aiming for me anyway.

Haha yeah, I know what you mean. But no, they don't aim at all. They simply shoot horizontally once a second. A good way to get past the cannons is to draw an L shaped line to protect you and also allow you to bounce up (or even a circular shield around wizardball, but that is a bit harder to pull off.)

You also need some cool music

The music is off by default, but there's a button to turn it on in the bottom right. Here is the music currently in the game. It's one continuous track with 5 songs. wb-mix-3.mp3

Thanks for the feedback.

I got music playback working on iOS. The only engine task remaining is porting to iPhone/iPod.

I started working on the app icon:



Most app icons I've seen tend to not have the title on them...maybe there's some better way I can fill the space than with the text.

Why not implement the following:

Start line from the left: Pink
Start line from the right: Blue

Yeah, I prototyped that early on, as well as a variant which looks at up/down instead of left/right. Both seemed confusing, but maybe it's just because I got used to being able to draw lines whichever way I liked. I think I'm going to go with just one kind of paint for now.

Octodad is the funniest game I've ever played. And the funny emerges from your game system, which I think is just awesome. I'm looking forward to this.

So, I've been working hard to try and finish things. I finally sorted out how to do a nice space background, without magic art skills. I figured I'd write up a quick tutorial; see below.







How To Make Outer Space (using Gimp)

Step 1:

• Make a new layer, filled black.
• Filter->Render->Clouds->Difference Clouds
• Check randomize, tileable. Set detail and scale to your liking. (I used 4 for detail and both scales.)
• Create the clouds.

Step 2:

• Colors->Levels
• Adjust top slider to the right, to cut off below a certain brightness level.

Step 3:

• Change the layer blending from Normal to Additive.
  

Step 4:

• Colors->Colorize
• Adjust Hue, Saturation and Brightness to taste. Blue and purple tends to look space-y.

Step 5:

• Make another layer and do the same. Perhaps try different cloud parameters. Use a different hue. Experiment.

Step 6:

• Find or snap an image of the night sky, perhaps dark blue, with stars. Put it below the other layers. Adjust transparency levels on your cloud layers etc.. Have fun!
  

Very cool. I look forward to seeing how your wall grabbing animation system progresses. The video showing the tech is interesting.
 

Fun little game! I got all 3 endings after a bit of experimenting. The engine works well. Nice work.

Nevermind the scary windows package (it's going to iphone/etc anyway, right?)...

I'm just curious, what do you mean by this?

 The reason the ball is pink/blue is that I had planned pink lines for jump and blue lines for roll. I guess I could revisit this idea and play around with various control schemes a bit more.

Udderdude: Given that most people find the game too hard already, I think complicating the control scheme for the reason of adding depth might be a mistake. My personal design philosophy is to cut out absolutely everything you possibly can without ruining the core of the game. That's not to say that I don't appreciate the feedback; I do!

* I updated the original post with some videos as well as additional information.

Wait, so you didn't cut the title off intentionally? It's kind of funny as-is, sort of like famous last words.

     - whoa dude

Very cool, but please fix the clock. Yes, I figured out how it works, but honesty, it's going to make very many people quit before they see most of the cool stuff you've made!

And the laugh rules.