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[FauxOperative]

I love this look so much.  It reminds me of Shovel Knight or Brave Earth Prologue but dare I say... it looks better?

Amazing pseudo-NES style.  Looks really fun.  I generally avoid games like this but I would like to try yours ASAP.

[MekaSkull]

A scene from the memory dojo.

This is one of the few places that resemble something man made and it's only a memory.

[MekaSkull]

I don't have much experience in building a metroidvania type map, so I'm making a few safe bets with this one.
There's a single main path you travel, but it has a few points where you can wander off to explore secrets or sequence break. The game will push you towards the optimal path though. The secret areas (most of the time) start and end near transports to make sure there's minimal backtracking.

Light blue = completed levels
Gray = planned levels
Dark blue = planned secrets

[th3shark]

Man this game looks cool.  How far in advance do you plan your map?  Do you have an idea of what will go into all of the gray and dark blue areas? 

[pmprog]

Looks pretty neat

[tuaarita]

Will there be a prelude or anything of the sort? Pls respond  

Also you seem to have such a clear vision of the game, it's admirable. I'm jelly.

[Magurp244]

Loving the minimalist asthetic, I hope its going to be as sadistic as Ninja Gaiden. 

[MekaSkull]

Man this game looks cool.  How far in advance do you plan your map?  Do you have an idea of what will go into all of the gray and dark blue areas? 

The idea for each area is designed. Now I'm sort of zooming into different parts of the map and implementing whatever comes to mind based on the theme of each level.

Will there be a prelude or anything of the sort? Pls respond 

Also you seem to have such a clear vision of the game, it's admirable. I'm jelly.

I have an idea for a prelude. It's going to be something you might discover by finding optional story bits throughout the secret areas. There are other ideas I have for the story before the game, but it's not set in stone at this point.

Loving the minimalist asthetic, I hope its going to be as sadistic as Ninja Gaiden. 

It's definitely very hard, with some sadistic bits. I try to keep the hardest sections very close to checkpoints though 

Thanks everyone for the cheers, much appreciated 

Currently working on a hostile hatch
Some enemies I design by scribbling whatever my eyes closed, then duplicate, mirror and move around to find a shape that looks like something. This was one of those:

[MekaSkull]

Working on 6 stages at the same time to save time. I'll just draw things without thinking too much and categorize each item to an area that it fits in.

Here's the bioform hunt stage with a sufficient amount of content included:

[Silkworm]

This looks awesome, top-notch art all around, the color use is fantastic. Any plan on releasing something playable in the near future? (no need to stress though )

[EdFarage]

everything about this is amazing, keep it up

[rollthed20]

Just made an account to follow this game. Looks absolutely amazing and I can't wait to learn more!

[MekaSkull]

This looks awesome, top-notch art all around, the color use is fantastic. Any plan on releasing something playable in the near future? (no need to stress though )

I've been sharing a build with some people for feedback, but no public demo at this point.

Also thanks everyone for the kind words, I am humbled 

I could share a bit of my color choosing process. The method for choosing color is the same as many other aspects of the game. Rather than trying to make something, I try to find something. I find an enemy design in a messy scribble or a leveldesign in a randomly scattered map of tiles. This makes the whole process really fun cause I get to surprise myself with what comes out 

First I start off by doing just a set of basic grayscale tiles. I had no idea what they would be, just scribbling shapes. Then I start assigning them somewhat random palettes. I do this until some of the palettes start to give off a feeling of something.

Here I could feel the vibes for a forest, a desert, a dark cave, a steel refinery, a refrigerator . After this I make some shapes to fit the palette. Grass could obviously work with the green and ice blocks with the bottom right palette.

So the method is to maximize happy accidents and going forward by gut feeling.

[tuaarita]

This looks awesome, top-notch art all around, the color use is fantastic. Any plan on releasing something playable in the near future? (no need to stress though )

I've been sharing a build with some people for feedback, but no public demo at this point.

Also thanks everyone for the kind words, I am humbled 

I could share a bit of my color choosing process. The method for choosing color is the same as many other aspects of the game. Rather than trying to make something, I try to find something. I find an enemy design in a messy scribble or a leveldesign in a randomly scattered map of tiles. This makes the whole process really fun cause I get to surprise myself with what comes out 

First I start off by doing just a set of basic grayscale tiles. I had no idea what they would be, just scribbling shapes. Then I start assigning them somewhat random palettes. I do this until some of the palettes start to give off a feeling of something.

Here I could feel the vibes for a forest, a desert, a dark cave, a steel refinery, a refrigerator . After this I make some shapes to fit the palette. Grass could obviously work with the green and ice blocks with the bottom right palette.

So the method is to maximize happy accidents and going forward by gut feeling.

I am saving this post

[Artifice Machine]

Everything here is fantastic. I thought about offering to create some music but it looks like you've got it covered. Cheers!

[Rebusmind]

Yay, I'm happy you have a devlog here, I would hate to miss updates on Twitter.

I just love everything you've posted so far and hearing about your design philosophy for this game makes me even more excited (for whatever reason).

Keep'em coming!

[MekaSkull]

Thanks everyone
Here's a bit of insight about the most recent level hazard.

I check the gameplay using slow-motion, running the game at 10% speed.
With this I figured you need a tiny chance of escaping when the platforms crumble for good, so you can still jump off the platform for 200ms after it has crumbled.
I use this chart to get the starting values for reaction time based things, then adjust based on feel.
Basically 300ms (average reaction+average display lag) reaction time for easy stuff and 200ms (extremely good reaction+average display lag) for medium stuff.

Some new 4k TVs have a display lag of over 100ms . So playing with those you're gonna need to memorize patterns instead of relying on reflexes. I'm gonna make a simulation to test the game with that kind of lag too to make sure it's still playable.

[Oscar Blomqvist]

Love the graphics of this, feels very polished.

[Xonatron]

Wow! How have I not seen this before. This looks awesome. Coming from a huge fan of The Revenge of Shinobi!

[Skydsgaard]

happy accidents

<3
I have been following this project for a while now, and I don't even have a single comment in the devlog to say how much I like what you are doing! so here: This game is amaaaazinggg!!