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TIGSource ForumsDeveloperPlaytesting"-NIGHT LIFE-" (full game)
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David Miles Carter
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« on: September 01, 2007, 09:19:35 AM »

I’ve submitted my game to be featured in tigscource, but I wanted to post it hear as well.

My name is David Miles Carter, I’m a illustrator/Cartoonist that makes old school Japanese games as a side hobby. Tigsource is my favorite indie gaming site, and I’m excited to finally toss my hat into the ring with one of my own games. I’m a long time reader, fist time poster to the forums.

"-Night life-" is a cartoonishly hip, independent arcade game chronicling the adventures of a fictional J-rock band in Tokyo. The game has a retro 16 bit (my favorite era) breakout/space invaders gameplay style. A punk rock kitty cat, a chain smoking alligator on bass and a hyper bear as the drummer, this three piece musical act rocks their way across the famous Ginza area. “-Night life-“ is very unique and eye catching with it’s innovative concept, distinctive visuals and it’s vibrate and colorful cast of characters.
It’s a charming experience of a game. The only way I can describe it is “kinda like an early 90’s Hudson/red team (bonk, air zonk) game on crack.”
It’s a true product of my lifelong obsession with cute but weird, Japanese, old school video games.

Controls:
You move the band side to side with the mouse, collecting power ups that the enemies drop. The yellow power up is the laser, you can fire the laser with the spacebar.
You also need to fight the bosses by getting a one shot laser power up.

Known bugs:
-Sometimes the musical note will get stuck in a straight right to left or up and down pattern. If this happens you can just hit it back to a normal bounce pattern, or wait about 7 seconds for it bounce back to a normal pattern.
- When fighting the bosses, be sure to only hit them one note at a time, if you happen to collect multiple laser power ups, don’t rapid fire shoot them.

You can download the game from the website:

nightlife-game.com

The site has a lot of great concept art and some screenshots.

Here are a few screenshots.









Enjoy!
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Xander
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« Reply #1 on: September 01, 2007, 09:44:55 AM »

I was a little disappointed myself. The artwork is undoubtedly very cool, and now a Plush Chain-smoking Bass-playing Crocodile is on my christmas list, but considering the focus on the band it would've been nice to have some awesome music to go with it. Maybe it is that concept poster doing it to me, it's just that it echoed 'Guitaroo Man' and I thought musically it might be as interesting as it's influences.

Instead, I get to the first boss battle against a sax-playing moon (Plushie request No. 2!) and the mario boss theme kicks in. Admiteddly I lol'd, but it would've been nicer if the band had a little more musical input into the game. It's a nice little game though, and the art is pretty sweet, but ultimately I guess I needed a little more to keep me gaming. It's just hard to read 'innovative concept' and find 5 minutes later you're playing breakout. I guess I'm just not much of a breakout person myself. Although typo wise, should the multi-ball be called 'Multi-note' or did you intend though. Great style though.
« Last Edit: September 01, 2007, 09:54:19 AM by Xander » Logged
moshboy
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« Reply #2 on: September 01, 2007, 04:06:44 PM »

I personally don't mind a good Breakout game, if one is put in front of me but this just didn't have a natural feel to me (the physics didn't at least).

As above I thought the art was pretty cool but while the concept itself had a few twists on the old Breakout formula, I just don't really think this theme suits a Breakout style game (hitting a note rather than a ball around the screen just feels odd to me), which essentially lessened my interest to keep playing all the way through.

It does essentially seem to be a Breakout variant so the term 'innovative' didn't really spring to mind for me either.

Pretty though.
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Pacian
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« Reply #3 on: September 02, 2007, 03:39:59 AM »

I like the fact that this game is so unashamedly cute, even when depicting chain-smoking punks.  Maybe I just download in the wrong circles, but this is definitely an order of magnitude more cuteness than I've seen before.  So much going on, and all of it with a smiley face...  And I like it.  Smiley

(hitting a note rather than a ball around the screen just feels odd to me)

It works for me.  I like the way the paddle is actually a band.  They're kind of bouncing the tune around, trying to keep on track, maybe.  I do think it might work a bit better if the sound of the note hitting things was a little more melodious.

And I also think the gameplay needs tweaking.  I'm used to the idea that in paddle games you can control the angle the ball bounces off of the paddle, by where the ball actually hits the paddle.  Eg. if it hits close to the right edge of the paddle it bounces off at a sharp angle to the right.  I was having trouble getting the note to go where I wanted it to, and it took me a while to realise that it just seems to bounce off of the band naturally.  It's realistic (I guess, as much as a bouncing note can be) but it doesn't give the player as much control as they could have.
« Last Edit: September 02, 2007, 03:41:35 AM by Pacian » Logged

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« Reply #4 on: September 05, 2007, 09:14:05 AM »

Hello there! Here are a couple of quick comments...


First, make sur eyou use the escape key to pause and exit the game. Since you lock the mouse in the game, you have to make sure we have some way to unlock it.

The overall concept is very interesting but the note is not clear enough in the screens. The colors of the note should have alot more contrasts with the background. Ditto for the enemies. Some work fine but wre loose alot of details of the enemies, like the flying bra for example.

When we get a powerup, you shoudl tell us alot clearer. For example, when battling the sax moon, I didn't know that I could shoot at it after picking up a tape.

It could be a good idea to add a tutorial of some sort to explain the basic controls of the game.

The game is relatively buggy. I could keep on playing even tho I was game over. I shot the super Ipod when the game over message was being displayed and I could keep on playing.

Transition between phases are very weird. they seem to jam the game and then everything is fine. If you have some loading to do, create a transition image that will be displayed while the loading is occuring so we don't see this bug.

Some times, the note got stuck in a loop, bumping from one side to another almost horizontaly. You should make it so that kind of situation doesn't happen or at least unstucks itslef quickly.
 
The art is very nice. Very funny and has a good vibe to it. I also like the concept of the band.

All in all, it's an interesting clone.
Later!
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Average Higgins
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« Reply #5 on: September 06, 2007, 07:32:36 PM »

I really like the art style here! I can't comment too much on the game but I at least want to compliment your art!
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Radnom
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« Reply #6 on: September 06, 2007, 11:47:52 PM »

I'm so disappointed that the game is a breakout clone, because like the others said, the art is fantastic!
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David Miles Carter
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« Reply #7 on: September 08, 2007, 10:09:31 AM »

Thank you everyone for the great comments on the art and the style.
Honestly, I went with a breakout style to create a very casual, breezy, old school "anyone can play" arcade aesthetic.

"I like the way the paddle is actually a band. They're kind of bouncing the tune around, trying to keep on track, maybe."

Yeah, that's exactly it. I thought a band hitting notes instead of a standard ball was a very cute idea. It's by no means "Cave Story", but it's a nice little game.
Thanks for playing.
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ocarson
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« Reply #8 on: September 15, 2007, 12:30:17 PM »

Yeah graphics were real nice, but again, it feels like another click and play style breakout game, but where does the time go when game making is a hobby, looks like this time it went to the deliciously tasty graphics.

The gameplay is adequate I guess, although nothing people haven't played before.
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