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TIGSource ForumsCommunityDevLogsArion's Break - A NES style action platformer
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Bitmojo
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« on: July 05, 2022, 10:18:01 AM »

Hello, everyone.

I'm happy to announce my first indie game i'm developing. After 10 years of making mobile games, i decided it's time to jump to my real passion: making PC and console games.

I decided to take this opportunity to learn C++, so i´m developing this game on a very low level programming workflow. So far, i'm using the following C++ libraries:

- SDL2 for rendering, input, audio and files
- ENTT for creating an ECS infraestructure for the game
- TinyXML2 for all the XML parsing
- tmxparser for parsing Tile maps

I'm aware i could work much faster using an engine like Unity but hey, where's the fun in that?


About the game itself: it's a NES style action platformer. My main inspirations are games like Castlevania  and Ninja Gaiden, and recently released games like Shovel Knight, Cyber Shadow and Bloodstained

Check out this video showing the advancements i've made:





and here's some gif animations:



You can see on the video that the custom engine i'm creating already has some basic functionalities like sprite rendering, animations, tile map rendering (with parallax effects and animations), and some basic collision system that allows the character to interact with the platforms

This game will be very story driven, with a lot of cutscenes and epic moments. A for the story itself, i don't want to spoil it much just yet, but i will tell you it involves greek mythology on a contemporary setting, so be prepared to fight mythical beasts as well as creatures of my own creation  Beer!

This project is on it's very early stage. I started it about two months ago. I dedicated most of the time to learn C++ (a much more difficult language than C# or Java that i was accustomed to work with). Now i started to get the hang of it and work on creating the content for the game. Hopefully i can work on things much more faster now  Wink
« Last Edit: July 28, 2022, 10:16:18 AM by Bitmojo » Logged
Alain
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« Reply #1 on: July 06, 2022, 02:22:42 AM »

Cool, I like the idea and visuals so far. Good luck with the development and keep us posted!
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mobilelast
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« Reply #2 on: July 06, 2022, 02:05:11 PM »

Toast Left to the attitude!

My road has gone another direction: from C++ to C# and below. C++ actually isn’t as hard as some think, but it can be unforgiving. You have to be more disciplined than with modern languages.

Your results look good already. And as the game progresses and you get hold of C++ as well as the low level stuff, you will have a strong basis for Unreal Engine to “work much faster”.
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Bitmojo
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« Reply #3 on: July 08, 2022, 05:15:05 AM »

Toast Left to the attitude!

My road has gone another direction: from C++ to C# and below. C++ actually isn’t as hard as some think, but it can be unforgiving. You have to be more disciplined than with modern languages.

Your results look good already. And as the game progresses and you get hold of C++ as well as the low level stuff, you will have a strong basis for Unreal Engine to “work much faster”.

Thanks for the words of encouragement. I really need them since i'm practically working alone on this project. Later when it's mature enough i'm planning to recruit a team and start a kickstarter campaign to make it more profesional

Anyway, these last 2 days i've been working on the design of a new enemy: Acephali, a mythological greek creature. It resembles a headless human with it's face located on the chest area:



And here's a short clip of Acephali implemented on the game:




I based the design of the enemy by googling some photos. These are some i found:








My next mission: implementation of the combat mechanic
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Bitmojo
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« Reply #4 on: July 15, 2022, 10:38:00 AM »

Combat mechanic time!!!

I've been working the last days on the implementation of the basic combat mechanic for the game. Here's a short video of the mechanic in action:





As you can see, the main character uses a spear to attack the enemies. The player and enemies use an HP bar system, and every time the player / enemy is hit, the damage HP is displayed on screen.

You can also appreciate that the player executes a 3-attack combo on the enemies. The second attack doubles the normal damage and the third attack triples it. When the player / enemy is hit, a small blood splatter is also displayed and when an enemy dies, it leaves behind a large pool of blood  Shocked

Also there's the invincibility period after being hit. On enemies it is displayed as a color switch of their sprites. On the player it shows the sprite flickering

This is just the basic of the combat mechanic for the game. More will soon follow. Also, i'm gonna spoil to you that there will be 3 playable characters, each one withtheir own weapon and abilities  Wink










The next order of the day is creating more enemies to fight. I'm thinking on some flying ones  Beer!
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Bitmojo
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« Reply #5 on: July 22, 2022, 06:22:54 PM »

Update time!!!

This week i've been working on designing new enemies. Check them out:

POULIPIOS:

A creature Half bird - Half scorpion







KOBALOS:

A creature from greek mythology similar to goblins. It is portrayed as mischievous and treacherous. On my game i designed them as warriors that come in two flavors: Spearmen & Archers

   









What do you guys think?
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JoeManaco
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« Reply #6 on: July 23, 2022, 01:42:19 AM »

Your game looks like it's exactly my cup of tea Smiley Really love the NES astehetics and the gameplay looks solid and fun.

I'll give you extra points for writing your own engine and not using Unity/Unreal.  Beer!
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Bitmojo
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« Reply #7 on: July 28, 2022, 10:28:25 AM »

I've been doing some game design this week. Have a lot of ideas on my mind for the game and i need to organize them

As i mentioned before, the game will have 3 playable characters so i want them to have distinct characteristics. The first character for example will be able to attack on 8 different directions with his spear, which will be useful for flying and above-level enemies







Also. he will be able to do a roll on the floor movement to evade enemy projectiles







i've also thought of a tentative name for my game: Arion's Break. What do you think about it?

The next step of my agenda is to make the design of the first area of the game to test the "feel" of it
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Bitmojo
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« Reply #8 on: August 10, 2022, 10:04:52 AM »

The last couple of weeks i've been tuning the gameplay and creating the first scenario in order to test the look and feel of the gameplay. These are the changes i made:

- Adjusted the walk speed and the jump length and speed to make it look more fluid
- The main character has a longer range weapon and changed the color to make it more noticeable
- The main character can now crouch and attack while crouched. The crouch movement is useful to avoid enemy projectiles
- Removed the ability to attack downwards. Turned out to be a bit difficult move to make and it wasn't very useful on the long term
- Redesiged the Kobalos enemies (archers and spearmen). They were a bit too big compared to the main character and didn't matched the aesthetic of the other enemies. Lesson learned: leave the big enemies exclusively to boss battles and occational beefed up enemies


With these changes i generated a mockup of the first scenario of the game and tested the gameplay. You can watch the video here:





Personally i think the gameplay looks solid enough. Still need a lot of working to improve the variety of the game: moving platforms, obstacles, boosters, etc. I also need to create the two other playable characters with their unique abilities. What do you guys think?

I also must confess that the most difficult task for me has been the scenario creation. I managed to make a decent scenario art but still i'm not satisfied with the results. I'm aiming to create dark and realistic environments with the limitations of the NES specifications by the likes of games like Batman, Castlevania, and recently Cyber Shadow. Do you guys have some advice, tutorial or documentation that helps me achieve that goal?

For now i'm gonna focus on the next scenario: think about new enemies and a few obstacles to add more variety  Coffee
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Bitmojo
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« Reply #9 on: August 19, 2022, 10:30:01 AM »

STATUS UPDATE

So, these days i've been working on designing the next scene, thinking about what enemies and obstacles to put. I must admit that i'm having a bit of a hard time creating the scene's pixel art, so i'm concentrating on what i can do best


GADFLY:

These nasty bugs crawl on floors and ceilings, attacking the player when on sight








ORTORAX:


Creatures with a tree-like cortex for skin. They attack by summoning spikes on the floor that hurts the player







MOVING PLATFORMS!!!


I've also created a feature that is common on many platformer games: moving platforms





They took me a bit more time to implement than static platforms. They are way more tricky to make them right, and i avoided using generic physics libraries like Box2D because i've read that for platformer games they can be really difficult to work the way intended
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