ZOE - A Drawn On Film Shmup - Steam Demo Now Live!

[Retchy]

ZOE is a drawn on film style shoot 'em up - a cross between Resogun, Cuphead and Splatoon, with bright, colourful and unique visuals set to an old style boogie soundtrack! Reclaim your territory from the annoying animator as you shoot their irritating creations to bits and destroy their tools of vandalism.

Steam - https://store.steampowered.com/app/1266610/ZOE/
Itch - https://retchy.itch.io/zoe
Game Jolt - https://gamejolt.com/games/zoe/336363



Hi everyone! My name's Graeme, long time shmup fan and forum lurker, first time game maker and forum poster. I've been putting this off for too long, but I finally plucked up the courage to post my little Shmup ZOE here for you to have a look at, if you fancy it.

It's got the looping level structure of Resogun/Defender, a visual style from the same era as Cuphead, and a territory reclamation mechanic sort of like Splatoon... sort of. The power up system is similar to Resogun as well, as you have to kill chains of enemies to trigger them, and you've got an invulnerable dash too. Energy and health are replenished by pounding the dots along the ground - if you miss one and hit the floor (or if you run out of energy), you'll be able to shoot in 5 directions, but your movement speed is considerably reduced, and you're unable to dash.

Territory is also reclaimed when you pound the dots, and the percentage you've turned back to blue once you've beaten the level is added as a multiplier to your final score, along with a time bonus. A multiplier is also built up and applied to your score during play by chaining enemy kills, so dashing between enemies becomes essential to keep the chain going.

I've been working on it for a year or so in my spare time. I'd really appreciate some feedback on it from you, such as how it feels to play, is it too easy / hard, is it fun? It'd be great to see what kind of scores you're able to reach as well, and if my scoring system holds up!

Ultimately I'd like to get four or five more levels done for a full release, but it's just the one level and boss fight at the moment.

I hope you enjoy it, but please let me know your thoughts either way.

Cheers!
Graeme

Version 0.14.1 update -
- New power ups!
- Power up Shop!
- New Dash and Pound charge mechanics!
- Apples!
- Bananas!
- New music!
- Improved hit boxes and lots of other game feel stuff

Version 0.13.2 update -
- A Mac Version!
- An Online Leaderboard!
- More Sounds!
- More Music!
- More Bugs Fixed
- Reduced screen shake

[Leander]

I haven't tried the game yet but it looks cool. Something that strikes me immediately is that most of the graphics appear quite blurry. I'm sure it's intentional, but I feel that you went a bit too far with the effect.

[Retchy]

I haven't tried the game yet but it looks cool. Something that strikes me immediately is that most of the graphics appear quite blurry. I'm sure it's intentional, but I feel that you went a bit too far with the effect.

Yeah the blur is really integral to the look and theme, but I take your point, maybe it's gone a bit too far in places...

[Retchy]

Hi everyone,

I've just updated ZOE, the main additions being a Mac version, and an online leaderboard.

Please check it out and let me know what you think!

Itch - https://retchy.itch.io/zoe
Game Jolt - https://gamejolt.com/games/zoe/336363

Version 0.13.2 update -
- A Mac Version!
- An Online Leaderboard!
- More Sounds!
- More Music!
- More Bugs Fixed
- Reduced screen shake

[Retchy]

Hello, I thought I'd share a few of the dev logs here that I've written during development of ZOE, documenting my progress with the project. Here's the first one from December 2017...

Dev Log Post 1 -------------------------------------------------------------------------

This year my spare time has been mainly about figuring out how to make games, at least when I’m not playing them. Or thinking about them. Or watching stuff about them. I’m obsessed really, which is why it’s ridiculous that it’s taken me so long to come to the conclusion that I should be making one.

Turns out it's a bit hard to do that tho, so here I shall document my struggles!



At the start of the year I bought myself a copy of the latest version of Game Maker Studio and got to work on some tutorials by the likes of Shaun Spalding and Gloomy Toad on Youtube. These guys, and I’m sure others, are great at taking you through the code and explaining what’s what. It’s extremely daunting at first for someone with zero experience with coding, but concepts and thought processes are slowly sinking in now, and I can start to go off the beaten track a bit and implement ideas of my own, albeit sloppily and inefficiently.



Having followed the Gloomy Toad platformer tutorial until there were no more videos left (footage of the results above) I felt able to adapt that code into my first idea for a Shmup - a Defender style game with a Zoetrope (my other obsession) twist! The idea being that the player slowly builds up the Zoetrope style animation by activating the frames, while fending off enemies, and then takes on a Boss fight at the end of the level as they accelerate to the right speed for the Zoetrope to come into effetc, providing a lovely animated backdrop for all the violence.



I got the general concept of it working relatively easily (probably about three weeks of struggle that a programmer could’ve done in a day) - you can get the general idea in the video above, probably best to full screen it as the Zoetroipe effect isn’t too clear when small. The feel and theme and context of it all was a complete mess tho, so I took a break from the coding side of things for a bit to try and nail down the visuals and come up with some sort of background and context for the game mechanics.





Hux (from the tutorial) made a comeback for a bit, and I cooked up some silly idea in my head that he was trying to stop an invasion of his planet or something by activating a defence system that happened to work very much like a Zoetrope. Pretty stupid, but it helped me push the visuals forward a bit (and away from the confines of pixel art, which was limiting my thinking a bit I think), and I also took a bit of inspiration from a lovely feeling, looking and sounding game called Gonner, by trying to simplify and clean up the visuals. Which in turn led me to just stick in some frames of an actual Zoetrope I’d made, to see how it might look.



It was getting better, but still felt wrong and a bit forced to me. I feel like someting has clicked into place now tho, with the latest complete overhaul of the visuals. The aforementioned Zoetrope frame I used was from this Zoetrope I made a few years ago, which was essentially utilising an enlarged version of the drawn on film technique that animator's like Norman McLaren were experimenting with in the 1930's and 40's, and which prompted me to look at the kinds of visual styles they were using back then.





This is as far as I’ve got so far, but it feels like I’ve landed on a good style - it’s unique as far as games go (to my knowledge), it’s nice and abstract so I don’t really need to worry about bothersome story and stuff, and it fits the Zoetrope concept really well!

Cheers!
Graeme

[Retchy]

Dev Log Post 2 -------------------------------------------------------------------------

I've been focusing on the look and feel of the game for the last couple of months, and it feels like something is starting to come together now. It feels pretty nice and responsive to control (many thanks to forum member Leandro Saccoletto for helping out with the code!), and even with the simple placeholder enemies it can be quite fun to play.



The music in the video below is ripped straight from the film “Boogie Doodle” by Norman McLaren and Albert Ammons, and is just dropped in there to try and get a feel for the vibe of the game at the moment - it’ll all be replaced at some point. My next little stint on this will be to implement some more of the game mechanics - some sort of energy bar that is depleted when you fire and dash etc, and which is replenished when you hit the buttons on the bottom - and some more interesting enemies.

[Leander]

Hey, I thought it only polite that I try out your game too (I had been meaning to for months but forgot...)

Here's some things that I think could be improved:

• - The length of the level. I feel like you could have split it into two levels. After dying at the boss I stopped because I wanted to play more but not through the entire level again.
  - I think you could increase the bullet visibility by making them flash more/different colours.
  - Almost every time I used the dash I crashed into an enemy so I ended up ignoring the dash completely.
  - Most of the enemy designs. I realise it's part of the aesthetic but I can't get excited about shooting black circles or yellow squares. I realise this is possibly unsolvable.

And here's some things I liked:

• - The general aesthetic. It doesn't look too blurry in game, I believe the blur level changes on the fly?
  - It's challenging enough to want to play more to get better.
  - Everything is really polished.
  - The scoring system seems solid - looks like you got moglar playing a bit so that seems like a seal of approval.

Anyway, nice work

[Retchy]

Ah, cheers, thanks for the feedback. I agree with most of it - definitely going to change up the level length once there's more levels done and I can get a feel for the flow of it all as a whole.

Maybe a brief extension of the invincibility after the dash would solve that issue - I was aware of it but wasn't sure how annoying it would be.

I'm working on some new enemies for future levels and have been trying to come up with some more interesting stuff, we'll see how it goes.

I think I dialled back the blur slightly a while ago, but it's not changing at all in game, it's just a static mask.

Thanks again!

[Retchy]

Dev Log Post 3 -------------------------------------------------------------------------

A fair bit has changed since the last update, both visually and behind the scenes.



The most obvious thing is the change in colour for the background I guess, which I did so that I could have more options for how the enemies look. Because the player is towards the green / blue end, it’d be a bit confusing if the enemies were similar colours, so freeing up the background from red allows me to play about with the reds for the enemies instead.

I also managed to design a simple multiplier mechanic and to tie it in with the UI at the bottom of the screen, along with the health and energy bars. I wanted it to be pretty bold so that the player can be aware of it without having to look away from the action too much. The multiplier bar increases with every enemy kill, pauses for a few seconds and then reduces until it’s at zero or you make another kill - when it fills up, the multiplier goes up by one and applies it to any subsequent scoring. You can also briefly pause the bar when it’s going down by popping one of the buttons in order to keep the chain going when there are no enemies around.



The visual design of the multiplier bar is based on another of Norman McLaren’s films called Sychromy, where he painted on the soundtrack of the film to make the sound - it's totally worth a watch, it gets pretty crazy!



The buttons also now spawn particles when they’re popped which get sucked in by the player, refilling the energy or health bars depending on their colour. I also simplified their design a bit and abandoned the Zoetrope effect when the player dashes, as it wasn’t really that visible when you’re concentrating on the game, and it was dictating the length and speed of the dash as well, making it feel too out of control. I’m still going to try to implement the Zoetrope frames appearing as the buttons are popped, as in previous versions, but I’m maybe a bit more open to just abandoning that altogether if it doesn’t feel right or is just too forced.



Lastly (I think), I designed an enemy wave / formation system and a couple of different enemy types that only spawn once there are a certain amount left in the level. I managed to figure this bit out all on my own, somehow! The enemies still need a lot of work so that there’s enough variety visually and mechanically, but I’ve got the systems set up so I can eventually design the level properly.

Oh, and a menu and pausing system too! And a badly done shader for pickups and damage feedback. Next time I hope to have a playable demo of some sort ready!

[Retchy]

Dev Log Post 4 -------------------------------------------------------------------------

Up until recently I’ve been using placeholder imagery for the enemies and haven’t really put much thought into their designs, either visually or mechanically. I’ve been avoiding getting to grips with how to properly control the animations and how they all interact with each other and the player.

So I decided to get stuck in a couple of months ago with this ‘Shield Spawner’ idea. I wanted something that would encourage the player to land on the ground a bit more often, so this enemy can only be killed from that position. It also spawns shields that make it harder to access the power-ups contained in the blue dots.



This enemy was an effort to bring a bit more life to the animation, as at this point I was just dealing with simple triangle enemies which were kind of sucking the energy out of the visual style. So this simple bullet sponge type is bigger than the others and just sits minding it’s own business until you assault it. I think the explosion needs a bit of work, and maybe the spawn animation, but I’m happy with it otherwise.



These are some really simple popcorn enemies for the player to just plough through, but again I was going for more energy in the animation. I also spent a bit of time on the enemy spawning and formation system so that they can appear around the player instead of always coming in from off screen, as I was doing before.



These squiggles replace the simple triangles I was using before for the horizontally moving enemies. I tried to inject a bit more energy into them and I think they’re working much better now - I really like how there’s a bit of a reaction to the player if they’re shot or if you get too close.



These enemies will appear throughout the level and give you a nice score bonus if you destroy the whole chain, or I might change it to a power up drop if I ever do power ups. I'm not really happy with the whole context of this idea, seems a bit random and maybe needs a rethink.



This one is a slow moving, fairly harmless squiggle until you kill it and it releases it's babies! This'll probably be a fairly rarely occurring enemy as the little guys are a bit aggressive, but I'm thinking of making a differently coloured variant that doesn't spawn them to add a bit more variety.



These guys move up and down, and I've done a variation that go left and right - they can form quite nice patterns in different, more dense formations and are a bit trickier to shoot when they dodge about.

[Retchy]

Dev Log Post 5 -------------------------------------------------------------------------

Most of my time on the project, until fairly recently, has been focused on simply getting things to work and making things look decent. I was working towards getting enough enemies designed so I could start putting together a level with a sequence of enemy waves and formations. Once I finally got there, and after some feedback from the first demo, it became apparent that the player really had no motivation or reason to shoot any of the enemies other than to just, you know, shoot all the enemies. I’m a big Shmup fan, and as such rarely enjoy or pay attention to any stories, especially ones that interrupt the shooting, but this forced me to acknowledge that of course all Shmups need a story or framing narrative of some sort. So it was time to try and figure out mine.

The first breakthrough I had, after a long struggle with ideas, came when I started working with my friend Tom Pegg on the music and sound design. The concept for the game had always been that we were watching a drawn on film animation, so when the music was put in, I thought it’d be fun to play about with a slow down effect and a camera pull out to reveal the edges of the film when the game was paused…



This test reminded me of something that had always kind of been at the back of my mind, which was to have the ‘animator’ as the main antagonist, a hand drawing in all the annoying enemies and becoming the boss at the end of the first level. I had to think about how I wanted to implement this tho, as I didn’t really like the idea of just having a cut scene play out at the start of each level - I wanted to try to somehow convey it all through the title screen and the context of the menus leading up to the first level. So for the last couple of months I’ve been focusing mainly on menu design and implementation, which I really wasn’t expecting to happen!

If I wanted this ‘animator’ to be the baddie, it made sense that we should see the player character relaxing at first before being interrupted or bothered by them, so I got to work on a title screen, and then started playing around with camera zoom levels and positions for the various menu and option screens.





I was happy that I was finally getting to grips with my camera system at least! The next task was to get the paint brush directly antagonising the character somehow - I’m not totally settled on the order of events here, and I think it all needs to be a bit snappier, but this is as far as I am at the moment.



I still want to have some sort of transition to the first level where the brush actually paints in a couple of enemies before it starts, and I might swap the sequencing of the brush swiping across the screen with the ink drip, so it feels a bit more threatening and leads more naturally into the painting. I really like the title music when it slows down, it feels like a real interruption to the character’s nice sleepy vibe, and I plan to add more sound effects for the brush moving about as well, to help sell the idea more.

This focus on the menus has really helped to bring the game together I think, and it’s lead to some changes that were needed in the actual gameplay as well. Because the brush vandalises our character’s world, it gives the player some motivation to restore it back to it’s original peace and tranquility, which has helped me finally figure out one of the main mechanics in the game as well - the popping buttons. The instruction to the player at the very start now is “CLEAN THE REEL!” ( I’ve not settled on that language, but you get the idea), and when you ground pound onto the first button, you see the background transform to it’s original colour. The percentage of the background you manage to clean up is also going to be tied in to a score multiplier at the end of each level, so there’s hopefully an interesting balance to strike between maximising your score and managing your finite energy and health resources (which also come from the buttons).



In turn, this inky style in the background has lead to some of the enemies leaving behind an ink splat as they die, which can also be cleaned up by the button pops, and generally makes the level feel a lot more dynamic and interesting, I think. My latest bit of work has been to change the way the path enemies look and to introduce the animator’s brush into the game proper for the first time…



Overall, I’m pretty happy with how things are progressing, and pretty surprised that focusing this much on the menus would help so much. I’m hoping to have a full on new demo done by around about the end of February, hopefully including a boss fight, so please keep an eye out for that, and please let me know what you think of all this - all feedback is welcome.

Cheers,
Graeme

[Retchy]

Dev Log Post 6 -------------------------------------------------------------------------

I’ve spent the last couple of months working on the first boss fight, and re-working the formation system, along with a bunch of other smaller tweaks.

Having finally figured out and nailed down the concept and context for the game (see my previous post for more detail on that), it was clear that the boss would have to be the animator’s paintbrush that’s antagonising the player throughout the level, but how would the battle actually play out?

I decided pretty quickly that I’d need to somehow pause the side scrolling and create some sort of arena in order to contain the fight, mainly because it seemed like it’d be a massive headache to deal with all of the scrolling and warping issues that would come up otherwise, but I also think it was the right call as it mixes up the gameplay style a bit, allowing the player to move more freely around the screen. To contextualise it, I came up with the ‘Frame Trap’!



The camera pulls out to reveal the black frame boundaries which also act as walls to keep the player trapped. I was really happy with this as it solved the game design problem and added to and reinforced the context of the game world.

From here it was relatively easy - I came up with a few ideas for the kind of attacks the brush could do and set about implementing them with a spawning system that randomises the order they appear in. There’s also a countdown to when the frame trap happens, so the player is able to get into a position where there are some health or energy resources to use during the fight. It’s a fairly easy boss to defeat, but there’s room to adapt the difficulty in the future, and I’m pretty happy with how it’s turned out.









Some of the smaller tweaks I’ve made recently include the mini map at the bottom of the screen which indicates where health dots are and whether any of the dots have been popped or not (I plan to make this scroll with the player, so that the green indicator (the player) stays in the central position and the others move around that, as I think it’ll make it much easier to read), a camera zoom out for when the brush appears throughout the level (but without stopping the side scrolling), to further emphasise to the player when it does appear (especially if it’s off screen), and again, to push the context even more, a slightly different order of events in the title screen, and a small how to play guide. I’m sure there’s other stuff I’ve forgotten.



Thanks for reading - please feel free to download the WiP demo and let me know what you think! https://retchy.itch.io/zoe

Cheers!
Graeme

[Retchy]

Dev Log Post 7 -------------------------------------------------------------------------

Hello all It's been a while since I've updated ZOE as I've had a little break from development to explore some other ideas, but I couldn't resist getting back into it to try and figure out how to turn it into a more fully formed game. My way back in was to have a go at designing the transition from one level to the next, thinking about it thematically and then how to actually implement it.

The theme of the game is a drawn on film animation, so I've always had the idea that each level would have a different tool of the animator tormenting the player throughout each level and serving as the end of level boss, and I had previously figured out that there would be a big brush that paints over Zoe's environment to change the colour of each level.

In the current demo build available here (it's just one level, so no transition in there), once the boss is killed the film comes to a stop and everything pauses , so that was the first thing I needed to fix to keep things moving and to actually have some sort of cutscene happening. Zoe now goes back to sleep, happy that her work is done, the camera slowly zooming in as the relaxing music starts up, and the game sort of reverts back to the title screen sequence only to be rudely interrupted again by the big brush as it splats down it's new coat of paint and shocks her into action. Then the new level boss (a knife this time) appears above her and taunts her before the first wave of yet-to-be-designed enemies attacks!



One of the ideas I was exploring during my break from ZOE was a point and click adventure which involved sorting out a cutscene system - that's not really come to anything yet, but the cutscene tutorial by Friendly Cosmonaut that I followed really helped out and I was able to apply it to this part of ZOE as well.

Of course the whole idea of transitioning the level and starting a new one threw up some unforeseen coding issues that I just hadn't even considered up until this point. I don't know if this is the right decision, but I decided to keep everything in the same room in Gamemaker, rather than transitioning to a new one for each level, so I had to figure out a system for resetting the buttons and the ink bleeds activated by the player during the previous level, and to disable the player object as the cutscene animations take place. After a lot of trial and error (I'm new to coding, remember!), it's pretty much there now and I think it's flexible enough to allow for different animations and sequences of events in between the coming new levels...

Although none of this stuff is in the current demo build, I'd still really appreciate any feedback on what is there if you get a chance to try it out.

Thanks for your interest!
Graeme

[Retchy]

Dev Log Post 8 -------------------------------------------------------------------------

Hello!

Ok, so I've been fairly busy with ZOE this month trying to develop the power up system into something a bit more engaging. The current idea is to have the powered up weapons consume energy, so they can run out of ammo if you don't keep replenishing them, and you can level up your standard weapon separately.

I started off just trying to implement some classic weapon types, taking some of the Contra 3 guns as inspiration (apart from the laser, I hate that laser) and took on the homing missile first.

It was pretty easy to get it functioning and to have the bullets target the nearest enemy, but getting it to feel and look good was a bit of a struggle - I wanted a nice curve on the bullet trajectory so it wasn't just immediately facing and travelling in the correct direction. My initial google search led me down an overly complicated route that had me calculating angles and circles and intersections and stuff that I was struggling to implement (although it helped me finally get to grips with point_direction and lengthdir_x/y properly!), until I tried searching again and found this script which I've used with a few tweaks. It's a bit buggy and bullets can sometimes get caught in loops or fly off in random directions, but I don't really mind that as it can be balanced out by the fire rate and damage stats of the bullets, and it kind of adds to the frantic feel of it.

With that sorted I focused on the look, as I wanted the powered up weapons to feel more special and have a bit more visual impact. I thought a kind of film burn effect might work so it looks like the film is getting scorched by the powered up shots. I'm not sure that's really communicated, but I kinda like how they look now anyway... Here's the homing shot as it is currently.



Next up was the spread shot, as I thought that would be pretty straightforward, which it was for the most part. It's a simple for loop with an angle change for each bullet, but the angles needed some adjustments when the x_speed of the player was added (which I do to sort of force the trajectories to stay relative to the player when they move). It was really just a lot of trial and error (my programming style, it seems!) to get it looking and feeling good.



I wasn't really sure at this point how to implement these new power ups though. The current system will spawn a predefined power up (gun, points or shield) after a chain of enemies is destroyed, and I initially had the gun power up version of that just cycle through the different new guns so the player could wait and choose what they wanted. But I kind of wanted to expand it a bit more with other power ups so it really needed a different approach.

After a Fantasy Zone session or two, I decided to steal it's shop mechanic! Enemies now drop apples (which start shrinking and losing their value after a second or so, so you need to grab em quick for max value) and instead of spawning power ups, the enemy chains now spawn the shop, where you can buy various upgrades... I might change how that works tho, so it's not tied into a specific player action and just spawns in at certain points throughout the level.



Pretty happy with how it's shaped up and functions!

Most recently, I just finished off the heavy shot, which is totally OP at the moment but I kinda like the chaos it causes. It spawns three explosions on impact that take out enemies.



A lot of this is still up in the air and it's all totally unbalanced - prices, currency value, power up stats etc all need some serious attention and testing, not to mention the whole shape of the level now that so much has changed - so I'm not totally convinced that this is a good idea yet. I think with a bit of work it could be the way to go though, and will hopefully help with the sense of progression and even add a layer of strategy to it all.

I hope to have a new demo with all this stuff figured out in a month or so, so keep an eye out, would love to know what you think...

Thanks for reading!
Graeme

[Retchy]

Mini update! -------------------------------------------------------------------------

I've known that there was something missing with ZOE for a good while now, and I wasn't really trying to figure out what it was because I just had no clue where to start. In hindsight, it's really bloody obvious it was this dash charge move.



Previously, the player would just be invincible while dashing or pounding and would move past enemies without any contact. For whatever reason, I just decided to try out a collision and hit pause on the dash this week, and it totally transforms the feel of moving about the level - there's more purpose to the dash and pound, large groups of enemies become fun to take out (they were just a bit boring to sit and shoot at before), the lines of enemies offer a nice mini challenge to try and line up and destroy, and it all feels nice and chunky.

I've tweaked some of the energy consumption variables so you're not discouraged from using it - the dash itself now consumes much less energy so you can move about without much concern, but when you collide with an enemy it depletes a bit more.

There'll be a new demo soon with all this stuff, coming to ZOE's Steam page https://store.steampowered.com/app/1266610/ZOE/

Cheers,
Graeme

[Keade]

There isn't that much activity in this part of the forums unfortunately.

The game looks really nice and with some original and fun ideas, like that paintbrush boss. I hope everything turns out well for the game and you !

[Retchy]

There isn't that much activity in this part of the forums unfortunately.

The game looks really nice and with some original and fun ideas, like that paintbrush boss. I hope everything turns out well for the game and you !

Thanks Keade!

[Retchy]

The new ZOE demo is now live on Steam, Itch and Game Jolt!

https://store.steampowered.com/app/1266610/ZOE/
https://retchy.itch.io/zoe
https://gamejolt.com/games/zoe/336363



- New power ups!
- Power up Shop!
- New Dash and Pound charge mechanics!
- Apples!
- Bananas!
- New music!
- Improved hit boxes and lots of other game feel stuff.

Please give it a go and let me know what you think.

Cheers,
Graeme

[Retchy]

Hi everyone!

It's been a while since I last updated here. I've been busy the last few months with the development of some level 2 enemies. The new level is based around the knife boss, so the enemy design has shifted a bit to a more cut out style, and I've used a black background to contrast with the light bullets. There's still a bit of work to do on the visuals to tie it all together.The first one I worked on was this worm thing which comes in various lengths and splits up when you destroy it's parts. If it's long enough it'll spew out some vertical walls of bullets...



These bats are pretty simple, but I had a play about with their spawning animation to get the knife coming in. I'm also planing a specific mid level attack from the knife which will introduce some bullet patterns.



This is an early version of the a simple fish type enemy that swims in formation.



I thought they were maybe a bit too basic tho, so I decided to make them scatter when the player dashes or pounds through them. They self destruct after a couple of seconds if you do so, but they won't give you any points this way - taking out large groups like this is much quicker tho, so you're more likely to get a good time bonus multiplier at the end of the level...



These Thwomp style enemies can be used to take out other enemies as well if you time it right. I've added a better visual cue to indicate they're about to fall since I made this gif...



I also took some time to beef up some of the visuals - bullets are much chunkier now, the death ink splats hang around a bit longer before fading away, and there's a bit more impact to the dash move which hopefully makes it feel more satisfying.

[FinalBaton]

the animations are super snappy and feel satisfyng with good weight and impact. it's obvious you've put a lot of efforts unto this. it's really polished and it's an important part of any 2d game. Just thought I'd highlight that. Very nicely done.

[Retchy]

Thanks!

[Leander]

Level 2 is looking like it's coming along great. The snake enemy is especially awesome looking

[Retchy]

Cheers! Yeah I'm getting a few more enemy bullets in there now to spice things up a bit. Working on some shielded enemies next that will force you into different positions to take them down...

[Retchy]

Hey, I got a couple more enemies done recently for the Knife level.

This one's invincible when it's spinning and spitting out bullets, and more sturdy if you try to attack it's spiky metal shields. If you take out the soft centre tho', it'll send the shields flying and taking out any enemies they collide with. I should be able to set up some potential chain reactions with these if they're taken out like that...



This mid-boss-points-bonus sequence spawns popcorn enemies at you that you need to take out for the banana points bonus, but if you get hit by one of them the chain will be broken.



Thanks for looking,
Graeme

[Retchy]

I've been making some decent progress with new enemies recently. The Knife level is pretty much ready to put together, apart from the boss, so I started revisiting some of the enemies to make them a bit more interesting. These flying things spit out bullets now and move in faster formations.



And these are the first couple of enemies in the new Marker Pen level. They're pretty much done but I'm thinking about making the babies spawn from the big one when you shoot it, have them sort of pop off it's back. They get angry when Mum dies



I just put this updated gameplay gif together as well...

[Retchy]

Worm evolution! Pretty happy with how these enemies have worked out - I'm gonna keep all three variations in the game which will hopefully make for some good escalation in the knife level.

You can dash through these standard ones and take them out pretty easily.



You can pound through the soft centre of the body of these ones, but not the metal bits.



And this one can only be shot, fires homing missiles and is GOLDEN.



These enemies worked out nicely too and add some immediate pressure to the player, as they stick to your position until they shoot. I just need to put all this together now and get the level done...

[Ark]

I love the originality. Animation brings life to the game

[Retchy]

Thanks!

[TrevorMcFurr]

Not played the demo yet but wanted to say how much fun this looks.

Thr graphics look really nice and they have a very distinctive art direction that kind of reminds me of the puzzle 'em up game Zoop! from the mid '90s.

I really like the wide range of enemies and how they are integrated with the design concept.

Keep up the good work!

Sent from my SM-A505FN using Tapatalk

[Retchy]

Hey, thanks very much! That Zoop comparison has come up a few times...