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[Neeko]

Looks great. NES style platformers can really be hit or miss both in terms of gameplay and aesthetics, but you're really nailing the aesthetics perfectly.

[PoisoningWolf]

Hey there! This project looks amazing! I've played the old Ninja Gaiden games and am excited to see something similar to them. I have a few questions if you don't mind my asking.
1. Are you working on this alone?
2. What is the biggest challenge with making this game?

[MekaSkull]

Thanks everyone

Hey there! This project looks amazing! I've played the old Ninja Gaiden games and am excited to see something similar to them. I have a few questions if you don't mind my asking.
1. Are you working on this alone?
2. What is the biggest challenge with making this game?

1. Mostly. @Pentadrangle is doing the music and I do everything else, including SFX. There's also many super helpful individuals who have tested the game and shared excellent feedback.

2. Keeping things simple. It's quite tempting to overdesign when a simple solution might be way better. The recent firebomber enemies are a good example. I set out to give them a bit of AI that follows you around with line of sight, then retraces the steps back to starting position. This made the enemy way too good at killing you. So the better solution was to simply give it a pre-defined pattern to follow. It would react to you by dropping bombs when you're under.

The game is more fun to play too when the challenge is easily readable. Think of the enemies in Megaman games and you can see they're very straightforward. It's easier to combine them like this and the player can eyeball the area and figure out a way to complete the challenge. The difficulty is then in execution instead of finding out through trial and error.

That's the goal at least, it's up to the players to decide how well I achieve this simple-yet-hard approach. 

[MekaSkull]

Had to figure out a way to keep the player on top of the tank during the fight 

[pturecki]

This single screen independently is a bit unclear (at least as static image). But anyway I like it (and of course, the whole game too!). Nice work so far!

[kcbanner]

Just found this devlog, this is looking so good! Really like the insight into your art workflow 

[HyperAwesome]

Yes, yes, a thousand times, yes!

[SolarLune]

Yo, I'm following you on Twitter. This looks really great - excellent graphics! Games like Shovel Knight could learn a lot from you guys, haha!

[JaJ]

Oh wow, this looks amazing! I'm following!

[MekaSkull]

Thanks all 
Here's a breakdown of the tank boss:


I find myself making each boss more complex than the last....

[MekaSkull]

Decided to give the next boss a sword... and a huge gun 

[Eclipse]

sooo cool :3 already loving this game

[MekaSkull]

Just got a NES/SNES to USB adapter and played all of the game so far on a NES controller. My thumb hurts and it feels awesome 

Now with this guy beaten, I reached the 30% milestone.

[Jellyd0ts]

Just found out about this. Made an account just to comment on how well it looks.

Having read the comments, it's nice to see that you know of the "Ninja Gaiden-clones" Shadow of the Ninja and Shatterhand. I think you only need to add Vice: Project Doom and you've got all three of them! (Although Shatterhand and VPD also took some clear inspiration from Batman) 

From what I've seen it sorta reminds me of them, more so than Ninja Gaiden, actually(like how all enemies, besides bosses, in NG1 and NG2 die in 1 hit). I'm interested in seeing how this changes the flow of the game. But that might just be because of the lack of 3-damage outputting birds.

I imagine this isn't your focus, but speedrunning wise I'm really looking forward to how getting hit works, since that's one of the big changes in how the three games in the NES trilogy are played. For example in the first one, if you get hit, you lose time(since when getting hit forward, you still move slower). But sometimes it's used intentionally. Meanwhile in the 2nd game, when you get hit, you keep your momentum, so it's used more frequently(I don't speedrun NG2, so I just shamelessly took that from the WR video).

Having said that, congratulations on the 30% milestone! It looks great so far 

[MekaSkull]

Thanks Jellyd0ts.

VPD looks awesome and I've been playing it a bit. It's the only one I hadn't played before starting my game. Pretty cool how it has completely different gameplay segments here and there.

You start out as a weakling. I'm attempting to make the flow faster and faster as you progress. I've thought about the flow in Ninja Gaiden as it can be played without stopping at all. Currently I have quite a few bits, even level hazards, that make you wait in some places. I'll have to contemplate on those choices later on. Maybe gradually move towards the NG direction, so in the final third of the game you can just push forward.

Speedrunning has been on my mind, but not a focus currently. I've attempted to keep it as a possibility at least, so I don't make choices that hinder the speedrunning aspect. There are some things I've left "funky" in the name of speedrunning, like if you touch an enemy your back towards them, you can go through them, kinda like how you do it in NG.

Jumping has a little feature in the name of speedrunning I dubbed the "shadow jump". Basically if you press and hold jump 1 or 2 frames before landing, you jump again without touching the ground (you know you nailed it if it doesn't make the landing sound effect)

Another jumping related feature that doesn't quite work perfect yet, is the "edge jump". If you are 1-2 pixels too early or too late when jumping from an edge, the game will snap you to the corner of the edge so you can perform perfect jumps easier. (You know if it worked by an extra smoke effect left at the jumping spot)

The latest skill "lightning strike" has a tiny upwards push when you start it. It's something that was used as an exploit on Ninja Gaiden Black on Xbox, but I added it as a sort of intentional feature. I'll try to figure out a spot where it can be used to sequence break the game and finish it faster 

[Artifice Machine]

The shadow jump sounds great. Usually I program to remove that sort of instantaneous jump, but it makes sense for this game's character and design.

The edge jump is interesting. Wouldn't it look odd to have the player snap backward from a late jump? Maybe extending the jump duration for an early jump and shortening the jump duration for a late jump would be an alternative solution?

I was wondering what skill would be obtained from that boss. What's the control to perform a lightning strike?

Great to be seeing more of this game!

[Jellyd0ts]

Currently I have quite a few bits, even level hazards, that make you wait in some places. I'll have to contemplate on those choices later on. Maybe gradually move towards the NG direction, so in the final third of the game you can just push forward.

Speedrunning has been on my mind, but not a focus currently. I've attempted to keep it as a possibility at least, so I don't make choices that hinder the speedrunning aspect.

Yeah, I also think it shouldn't be a focus. Speedrunners will run a game if it's great, regardless of having to wait for some hazards. Heck, speedrunners tend to dislike RNG and autoscrollers, yet they still play several games that feature them. If it's a part of the awesome game that they love, so be it

There are some things I've left "funky" in the name of speedrunning, like if you touch an enemy your back towards them, you can go through them, kinda like how you do it in NG.

Yeah, this was actually one of the things that made me ask this, since I already saw one screenshot where I could potentially use this

Jumping has a little feature in the name of speedrunning I dubbed the "shadow jump". Basically if you press and hold jump 1 or 2 frames before landing, you jump again without touching the ground (you know you nailed it if it doesn't make the landing sound effect)

Another jumping related feature that doesn't quite work perfect yet, is the "edge jump". If you are 1-2 pixels too early or too late when jumping from an edge, the game will snap you to the corner of the edge so you can perform perfect jumps easier. (You know if it worked by an extra smoke effect left at the jumping spot)

That's an interesting feature. . With Ninja Gaiden it also feels like it has these features, although I suspect that it has more to do with Ryu's positioning box(being able to stand very far on the edge) and his jumping animation making it seem like he hasn't touched ground yet. And I'm not sure if this just happened to be a happy accident or something intentional the developers did for daredevils, but most "frame perfect" tricks in Ninja Gaiden actually have a 2 frame window, doubling a player's odds 

The latest skill "lightning strike" has a tiny upwards push when you start it. It's something that was used as an exploit on Ninja Gaiden Black on Xbox, but I added it as a sort of intentional feature. I'll try to figure out a spot where it can be used to sequence break the game and finish it faster 

That looks great. Again, I like how you're not making speedrunning your main focus, since I believe that making a fun game should go ahead of making a game ideal for a subset of players. But thanks for taking speedrunners into account

[MekaSkull]

shortening the jump duration for a late jump would be an alternative solution?

That's probably better, avoiding the backwards snap as much as possible. I'll try it out with only helping on a too early jump.

RNG

I have thought about locking RNG for "speedrun mode" but that's just on an idea stage at the moment. In effect it would make all random events behave the same on each playthrough if you choose the mode.

most "frame perfect" tricks in Ninja Gaiden actually have a 2 frame window, doubling a player's odds

Wow. That kind of things don't happen by accident 

Anyhow. I'm totally focusing on making one thing first. Maybe speedrunning mode could be an update down the line along with things like boss rush and time attack levels and such.

Thanks for the kind words 

[PetterBergmar]

Looks awesome and nostalgic in a good way. 

[cousin_it]

This instantly became one of my most anticipated games. Great job!