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[Duckbridge]

Hey there,

I'm Marciano, programmer at Duckbridge and we're currently working on Luckslinger, a hip hop infused spaghetti western action platformer with a lucky twist. In Luckslinger, luck is measurable, changeable and has an impact on the game world.






We've been working on this game for about 3 months full-time now, but we have about 3-4 months to go. We have showed the game at a showcase and had some people play the demo, so far the game has been received quite positive.

Anyways, I know it's kind of late to start with a devblog, but I figured, better now than never..
Since we're already 40%'ish it's kind of random to start the devblog in the middle of the project, so I'll try to backtrack first and then from there move to where we are now.

Some pictures of the game can be seen here and some videos

and

[Duckbridge]

In Luckslinger, we have a 'luck mechanic' which is mostly passive. You collect luck and the more you have to more chance on lucky bullets, more/better loot, things not breaking, the duck helping out etc etc. But you also lose luck when you get hit. You can activate luck to get out of sticky situations, you will be 100% lucky for a short period of time (but this uses all the luck essence you have).

So basically, there are different objects/events in the game world that respond to the amount of luck you have. For example, when you are lucky enough and almost fall in a pit a mole might save you.

(Your luck is shown in the top-left of your screen)


PS: the gif isn't the same speed as the in game speed

The idea is that Luckslinger has a 'lucky-bracelet' which can store luck essence, the more luck essence, the higher the chance that a Lucky event will occur.

[Duckbridge]

Donald and I have been working on this game for three-months, at first we made a prototype which we uploaded to newgrounds and was received pretty well, from there we started working on the 'full' version of the game:)

The newground prototype had a different name because we didn't settle on a name back then, and also found out that 'Bullets & beats' wasn't a good title for the game:)

This is also our first 'fulltime' game, so we plan to make this game as good as possible. We both work from home through skype, so it works quite well.

Some people have questioned why we decided to combine hiphop & spaghetti westerns, but the answer is quite simple.
Donald really loves spaghetti westerns and (instrumental) hip hop and I really love hip hop(all kinds of) so we want to share this love by creating a best of both worlds and mix it all inside 'Luckslinger'.

For Luckslinger, we plan to have 6 bosses and you generally play through the story of the game. We might add multiplayer mode, but that's undecided yet! (and it will probably be local multi)

[Duckbridge]

The posts aren't really..in any order, but I'll start do that soon^^.

Some more GIF's of the current version of the game:)





And we plan to add a snow level later

[Duckbridge]

The history of Luckslinger
Luckslinger started out as a prototype that we released on Newgrounds, because we wanted to try out this 'luck mechanic' we decided to make a prototype and put it on newgrounds and see what people would think of it.

After putting the demo up on newgrounds we got pretty hyped, because most feedback was quite positive and the game's core was pretty good. Because we had planned to go fulltime into duckbridge, we started working fulltime on the game.

At the time of the demo, the game was still called 'Bullets & Beats' because we couldn't think of a better name. We quickly found out that that name was not a good idea since it suggested that the game was about beats. So after the demo we came up with a new name 'Luckslinger' and we've been using that ever since.
 
After three months we showed the game off at 'Hell o' Bullets', an event in Holland, and got a lot of really positive and cool feedback. From there on we figured that we had quite a solid base and that we kind of had an idea of how difficult the game would/could be. So currently we're working on getting the rest of the game finished, the other levels and bosses and whatnot.

[Duckbridge]

Clover Creek



In Luckslinger, there is a main town where you keep returning, called 'Clover Creek'. The idea behind this town is that it once was prosperous, untill some people stole the lucky charms from the town and now it's just a sad sad place. There aren't many people living in it and they could use your help badly..

[Duckbridge]

We haven't updated this for a while. But we've been working a lot on the game in the meanwhile! And we have made some changes aswell.

However, after showing the game on reddit and such, we got some emails from producers that wanted to send in their music for the game. Because we didn't want to have multiple composers for the game we couldn't really use this music.

However, some music that we received was so good that we felt sorry for the producers that we couldn't add it to the game. So we came up with a new idea for the game! We came up with the awesome idea to add 'Vinyls' to the game which can be found in the game or bought in 'in-game stores'. The vinyl can then be played in the Saloon and will contain music of producers that sent us their music! :D This is super cool for two reasons atleast: one, we can help 'promote' super cool music that we really like, but that have a hard time reaching people. And two, we have a new (secret) collectable within the game that does more than just 'give you points'. (And three, we discover really cool new music).

So, in Clovercreek, there is a 'underground record store' where you can 'buy' these records.

PS: If you have any hiphop'ish music or you have music that would fit the game, just send them to [email protected] and we'll check them out!

[Duckbridge]

Hey all,

Happy Newyear all!

So one of the last things we added to Luckslinger was the ability to ride Jill(the horse) in clovercreek and in sadhill.

So instead of walking to Jill in clovercreek and pressing 'X' to trigger a cutscene which puts you on Jill and then Jill runs by herself, you can jump on Jill and run by yourself!



And in later versions of clovercreek, Jill will follow you around in town so then you don't have to go look for her everytime you want to exit the town!

We have some more new stuff to show but I'll update the devblog again soon!

[Duckbridge]

I think it's time for another small update But it's a very important, game changing mechanic.

The knife!


So! Pretty early in development we added a knife item to be used. The player could throw it and pick it back up to throw it again. (it would also stick to enemies etc). We almost immediately knew the mechanic was almost too much fun to only have it available for a limited time. So we made it a permanent weapon!
Because you can't reload while in the air, you can't do that much besides wait till you are on the ground again. Now that the player has a knife he can decide to do extra damage by throwing the knife in the air, lowering the time to kill. It is also thrown in an arc and has different distances depending on how long you charge it. Which in turn gives the player something new as well: battle preparation.

Not only did it create a more dynamic and active battle system. It also ensured Duckbridge's role in the game. Duckbridge used to be a companion that did what he wanted, whenever he wanted it. But now his main task is to return the knife to the player. (he even pulls it out of the enemy body if he needs too)

I can talk all day about the knife and why it's great, but I'm sure you understand why.

And here is a gif to show Duckbridge returning the knife.

[DocLogic]

Dude, this game looks awesome! Im surprised this thread isnt full of comments.

I love this idea, western/hiphop fusion. Theres is not enough hip hop in games. I love the beats in the videos in the first post, almost have like a Rza/Wu-tang feel to the beats. Also, really smart idea with promoting peoples music via collectibles.

I really love the speed of the enemy bullets. Looks like you can dodge them at any time by rolling, but you can also use "luck" to deflect them? Thats pretty rad.

Are those idle animations, whens hes like taking his hat off? Is there a gameplay purpose to the duck, or is he just chillin, and following you? (*Edit* oh just read above comment about him returning the knife...smart.) Would be neat to have the dog from duck hunt show up at some point, just laughin at you.

Great game, will be keeping my eye on this.

[Duckbridge]

Dude, this game looks awesome! Im surprised this thread isnt full of comments.

I love this idea, western/hiphop fusion. Theres is not enough hip hop in games. I love the beats in the videos in the first post, almost have like a Rza/Wu-tang feel to the beats. Also, really smart idea with promoting peoples music via collectibles.

I really love the speed of the enemy bullets. Looks like you can dodge them at any time by rolling, but you can also use "luck" to deflect them? Thats pretty rad.

Are those idle animations, whens hes like taking his hat off? Is there a gameplay purpose to the duck, or is he just chillin, and following you? (*Edit* oh just read above comment about him returning the knife...smart.) Would be neat to have the dog from duck hunt show up at some point, just laughin at you.

Great game, will be keeping my eye on this.

Haha, thanks man!

I will be sure to tell our beat producer, he will be very happy with that. And yes, you are totally right. The amount of luck you have changes things around you, in a passive way bullets might deflect. But you can also activate (spend) the luck for a temporarily super luck bonus. 

Yeah Luckslinger has a few idle animations (I love to make them). The duck's main purpose is indeed to bring back the knife. But he also does other things whenever he feels like it. Stun enemies, give you hearts etc. Cool idea :D Maybe i'll sneak him in somewhere!

[Duckbridge]

The last week hasn't been that busy, we spent most of our time preparing our Kickstarter page and our Steam Greenlight page. Because Steam Greenlight is one of the goals we want to archieve for this game, we took time to make a good trailer and some good GIF's which could help explain the game. The same goes for the Kickstarter, but we put even more time into that.

We also entered into the Global game Jam 2015 so that was also super fun and it was a good distraction from Luckslinger.

The 1st of February we will be launching our Kickstarter/Greenlight so we're just preparing for it.

We're also progressing a lot on our 'poker mini-game', in Luckslinger you will be able to poker against an AI, just for fun (you will most likely use your cash collected in levels to bet into the poker game).

A small GIF of the pokering can be seen below, it's far from done, but it's starting to look like something:)

[Duckbridge]

Today is the big day! We'll be launching our Kickstarter & Greenlight campaigns, we've been preparing them for a while and it's super exciting (and scary) to finally just publish our greenlight and kickstarter pages.

We'll update you guys later again with the links to the kickstarter and greenlight pages!

[Duckbridge]

We have finally launched our Kickstarter & Greenlight campaigns! We're suuuuper excited (and scared) about this! If you're interested feel free to check them out!

Luckslinger's Kickstarter
Luckslinger's Steam Greenlight

[DocLogic]

Greenlight page is awesome.

Great video too, I fricken LOVE how the "voice" work sounds like a scratching...complements the music perfectly. Wish you all the best!

[Polygonzo]

This is the kind of fresh indie game I hope to see greenlit and kickstarted. Full of cool ideas, not too polished but charming as hell. Looks fun, good luck!

[Duckbridge]

Hey thanks for the support!

We're still kind of struggling with the Kickstarter and Greenlight. But we're trying our best and will try to contact some PR-firms to see if they can help us out with reaching out to the press, so we'll see how it goes:)

[ryansumo]

Good luck with this. Hip hop spaghetti western is the kind of out there idea that indie games were made for.

[Duckbridge]

Thanks all the people who replied we appreciate it!

We've currently pretty much finished the third 'train' level of Luckslinger



So right now we're working on the fourth level! Which will have a different structure than the other levels so we're pretty excited about that one. We'll share more when we can show some cool stuff!

[jovanmilic97]

Bumping this,hope it gets exposure for kickstarter.