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[GIRakaCHEEZER]

Tess is a platformer run-and-gun game.  It follows the story of Tess, an odd little girl who had a bad day.

You run and you shoot and you can pick up exp to increase your total number of hearts.

Download (v 1.0.1.0)

Playable in the following languages:

English
French(Français)
Korean(한국어)
Japanese(日本語)
Spanish (Español)
Chinese (中文)
Portuguese (Português Brasileiro)


More screenshots below.





Please read the "readme" file included with the download for more information about controls and how to play.

Comments and criticism are welcome/encouraged!

[InvertMouse]

Okay! I've downloaded the game so let me share thoughts as I go:

- A bit interesting how you open a JAR file to launch the game. I guess EXE would be more expected.
- Great music!
- Love how you navigate the menu by control the character. Very cohesive.
- Nice dialogue with Mum to draw intrigue and create tension from the start.
- The noise Mum makes is kind of scary ~
- Nice barriers on the first screen to make players show they know how to jump.
- I find it strange how it is Z to jump and X to shoot. Would have expected it to be the other way around.
- The character reaches max speed almost instantly. Very easily to tumble off ledges because of that.
- Clever secret area with slight texture difference in wall to provide a hint.
- Why is everyone so down ?
- Clever repeated foreshadows of "yesterday".
- Save points are generous enough to not be frustrating.
- I appreciate how there are no annoying knockbacks when you get hit.
- Gameplay is standard (though solid). The depressing atmosphere is what kept me playing.
- Level up system encouraged me to kill all the monsters.
- Clever new mechanic in the tower. Loved the gradual difficulty increase.
- Cool ground reflect effect. That section was oddly easy, though?
- Dying at the boss forced me to go click through his long dialogue again. Minor issue.
- I like how that dude has the halo around his neck.
- With the last boss, that first spiky ball is too quick to dodge. Once you spot the pattern, it is fine, but that first one felt like it was a bit about luck.

A sad twist and ending ! You kept the depressing mood from start to finish. That is impressive. How long did you guys spend on developing the game?

Good stuff !

[ThemsAllTook]

Looks really cool, nice job!

[GIRakaCHEEZER]

Okay! I've downloaded the game so let me share thoughts as I go:

- A bit interesting how you open a JAR file to launch the game. I guess EXE would be more expected.
- Great music!
- Love how you navigate the menu by control the character. Very cohesive.
- Nice dialogue with Mum to draw intrigue and create tension from the start.
- The noise Mum makes is kind of scary ~
- Nice barriers on the first screen to make players show they know how to jump.
- I find it strange how it is Z to jump and X to shoot. Would have expected it to be the other way around.
- The character reaches max speed almost instantly. Very easily to tumble off ledges because of that.
- Clever secret area with slight texture difference in wall to provide a hint.
- Why is everyone so down ?
- Clever repeated foreshadows of "yesterday".
- Save points are generous enough to not be frustrating.
- I appreciate how there are no annoying knockbacks when you get hit.
- Gameplay is standard (though solid). The depressing atmosphere is what kept me playing.
- Level up system encouraged me to kill all the monsters.
- Clever new mechanic in the tower. Loved the gradual difficulty increase.
- Cool ground reflect effect. That section was oddly easy, though?
- Dying at the boss forced me to go click through his long dialogue again. Minor issue.
- I like how that dude has the halo around his neck.
- With the last boss, that first spiky ball is too quick to dodge. Once you spot the pattern, it is fine, but that first one felt like it was a bit about luck.

A sad twist and ending ! You kept the depressing mood from start to finish. That is impressive. How long did you guys spend on developing the game?

Good stuff !

Thanks for your detailed commentary!  The contest allowed for a development period of the month of June (30 days), but I didn't learn about the contest until like the 5th of June so I worked on it for around 25 days.  Same with the other people who helped out.

Looks really cool, nice job!

Thank you!

Also if you liked the game, please remember to vote for it in the contest.

[InvertMouse]

No problem! Best of luck with the contest .

[GIRakaCHEEZER]

Ver 1.0.0.3 has been released.  You can download it here.  (op has been updated with the new dl link)

Changes in this version are below.

Ver 1.0.0.2 (July 21, 2014)
+Music is now streamed so music playback is instant
+Graphics are now double buffered so they should be faster on slower systems (they weren't all that slow before but yeah)
-New changes to the graphics seem to cause issues for some users in fullscreen mode, but I can't rep these issues on my machine so I'm having a hard time debugging them
+Some physics tweaks (slightly less gravity, slightly more friction, jump timing made more forgiving)

Ver 1.0.0.3 (July 22, 2014)
+Fullscreen bugs for Win8 tester fixed
+Music issues *should* be fixed now, the ones reported by Will anyways

[TomHunt]

Very nicely done.  I like how you mix the side scroller mechanics with the adventure game elements. It kinda feels like you could do a game with just the jumping around and the interacting with things, and not have any shooting at all.

[Luachra]

Very nice! Really enjoyed the whole depressing atmosphere you had going on. It Felt like Cave Story was a big inspiration? Which is a good thing! Also love the way enemies drop Exp. orbs, I had some serious unexpected fun chasing some of the bouncy ones down

[gamerzap]

The art style looks really interesting and unique.  Especially the people.

[GIRakaCHEEZER]

Very nicely done.  I like how you mix the side scroller mechanics with the adventure game elements. It kinda feels like you could do a game with just the jumping around and the interacting with things, and not have any shooting at all.

If I was to go for more of an adventure game style of gameplay, that could probably work.  I like shooting things though.

Very nice! Really enjoyed the whole depressing atmosphere you had going on. It Felt like Cave Story was a big inspiration? Which is a good thing! Also love the way enemies drop Exp. orbs, I had some serious unexpected fun chasing some of the bouncy ones down

Yeah, Cave Story was definitely an inspiration for this game (along with Kero Blaster).  I wanted to see if I could make a game with gameplay similar to those games but with a darker mood.

The art style looks really interesting and unique.  Especially the people.

Thank you!



Ver 1.0.0.4 has been released.  You can download it here.  (op has been updated with the new dl link)

Changes in this version are below.

Ver 1.0.0.4 (July 22, 2014)
+Made the game less focus-greedy
+Canvas's background color was set to black which makes fullscreen transitions less jarring


Please remember to vote for it in the 2014 Indie Game Maker Contest.  There's only 6 days left to vote!

[GIRakaCHEEZER]

There's less than 24 hours in the voting period for the 2014 Indie Game Maker Contest, so if you haven't already, please vote for Tess!

(Here is a post explaining how to vote in case you need help.)

Voting is over, thank you to everyone who voted.

Also I'm still looking for feedback on the latest build (v 1.0.0.4), so please play it and comment if you can.

[GIRakaCHEEZER]

Version 1.0.0.5 has been released.  This version has been released to fix a minor bug and a few minor changes to the game. The OP has been updated with this new version.

Ver 1.0.0.5 (August 2, 2014)
+Got rid of the "turning" state for the player, which would make it so that you couldn't jump for a frame after pressing a directional arrow key
+Made jump timing slightly less forgiving (1 frame)
+Added "+1" to HP bar when you level up/increase your max HP

[GIRakaCHEEZER]

Version 1.0.0.6 has been released.  The biggest change in this release is that all the languages/translations are now in 1 game, so that the other localizations of the game can benefit from the recent engine upgrades the game has been getting.

Ver 1.0.0.6 (August 29, 2014)
+Graphics Engine optimized further, should be faster
+All languages are now in one download, can select language from options menu
+You can press keys to skip text scrolling now

With this new version I’m going to be taking down the download links for the separate language versions.

You can grab the new version here. Links in the OP have also been updated.

[GIRakaCHEEZER]

Version 1.0.0.7 has been released.  You can grab the new version here.  Links in the OP have also been updated.  Details on the patch are as follows:

Ver 1.0.0.7 (September 20, 2014)
+Added Portuguese (Português Brasileiro) translation
+Laser beam no longer "droops" when standing on entities
+Gravity slightly reduced for Tess, should make jumping easier a bit (more air-time)
+Flyers in Shanty Town have been slightly nerfed to make easier to kill and slightly less aggressive
+Nerfed the hammers in the final boss, no longer 1hit KO (still do a lot of damage though)
+Jump made more responsive/no longer has 1 frame delay
+Fixed a minor bug that occurred when switching between languages
+Translated key names for "UP", "DOWN", "SHIFT", "SPACEBAR", etc
+Migrated game input from KeyListener to Key Bindings
+Fixed sound and music engine to work if master gain controls aren't supported
+Also fixed the music player to use a larger buffer size for transfering data to the audio line (it was using a 4 byte buffer before, I don't know why)

[GIRakaCHEEZER]

Tess version 1.0.0.8 released!

You can grab the new version here.

Finally finished putting together this patch.

Achievements have been added to the game now, and are compatible with GameJolt/sync up with GameJolt. Also, “Mirror Mode” was added, which unlocks when you get 5 achievements.

Full details of this release here.

[GIRakaCHEEZER]

Now you can play Tess with a gamepad! Details on the gamepad controls have been added to the game's description (and to the included readme file).

ver 1.0.0.9 (October 11, 2014)
+Gamepad support added

You can grab the latest version here.

[Jubjub]

I just beat the game and I really enjoyed it, the mood was perfect. The gamepad controls worked just fine, although I would have liked to be able to remap them, since one of my buttons is broken, which made switching weapons a bit unwieldy.
Is there a list of all the achievements anywhere?

[GIRakaCHEEZER]

I just beat the game and I really enjoyed it, the mood was perfect. The gamepad controls worked just fine, although I would have like to be able to remap them, since one of my buttons is broken, which made switching weapons a bit unwieldy.
Is there a list of all the achievements anywhere?

Thanks, I'm glad you enjoyed it!  I'll look into adding customization options for the gamepad controls into later versions.  Also, you can check all of the achievements from the achievements menu via the Escape menu (accessible with the Escape key).

----------

Bugfix for Tess ver 1.0.0.9

There was a major memory leak in how the game was trying to detect if the player had a gamepad connected in the last release that would most likely bring the player's computer to a grinding halt if they weren't using a gamepad.

The download's been updated to fix this.  Please re-download the game if you've downloaded ver 1.0.0.9 prior to reading this notice.

(Also the korean readme was updated)

[ChatterBlox]

I loved this game! Keep up the good work!

[Uriel Fish]

One of the best free-to-play indie game I have ever play
Good work :D