holy hell - shooting at the blocks

[genecyst]

hi guys, i'm new here and i want to write down in this forum some ideas that i'm putting in a game called holy hell for game boy advance...
it's a mix between a vertical scrolling shmups and a puzzle game in the vein of mrdriller or magical drop.

you are lucyfer, satan's good looking son, and you pilot a ship equipped with 4 elemental powers (AKA four different colours and weapon) and you can switch between these pressing B button (green -> pressB-> cyan -> pressB -> violet -> pressB -> red -> pressb -> green again).
every weapon destroys only blocks of the same colour and all the blocks destroy your ship.. green weapon -> green blocks | cyan weapon -> cyan blocks... and so on...
there are also special box-blocks that can't be destroyed but moved only one step for box with a deflector (L button)
hitting consecutively 3 blocks of the same color in a row you gain a chain point that doubles the chaining score made.
to defeat bosses you got to hit, with the right colour and multiple times, their core.
your mission is to stop the endless war between good and evil waking up the seven gods of the blocks... it mean (4 puzzle-level each boss) x 7 bosses.

i've almost complete the release of the first demo level, and i should want to know what you think about this gameplay idea.

here are some actual screens and sprites:
http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3205/310 ... d9.jpg?v=0
http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3245/309 ... 53.jpg?v=0
http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3018/309 ... d3.jpg?v=0

thanks! bye

[Udderdude]

Neat idea, would like to see a game demo.

Also I would suggest you change the color swapping to the L and R buttons, and have B fire the special shot. That way you can rotate the colors in both directions.

[jonny5]

mr driller meets a shmup.....sounds VERY interesting....i look forward to trying this..hopefully it will work on a GBA flash card....that would be cool

[genecyst]

i've got this "really really very early developing" demo, with a lot of issues at this time, but if you want you can give it a look at this url:

http://www.otouv.org/genecyst/lavori/hlyhll.gba.zip

it works on my supercard mini, i haven't already tried on a flash cart.

i'm thinking about changing colours with L and R, it should be good but
i'm afraid it will be less challenging than memorize well the colours sequence and use them as a "rythm" pattern to follow for collecting chains... i don't know if this sentence explain well what i mean...sorry...
bye

[Udderdude]

i've got this "really really very early developing" demo, with a lot of issues at this time, but if you want you can give it a look at this url:

http://www.otouv.org/genecyst/lavori/hlyhll.gba.zip

it works on my supercard mini, i haven't already tried on a flash cart.

i'm thinking about changing colours with L and R, it should be good but
i'm afraid it will be less challenging than memorize well the colours sequence and use them as a "rythm" pattern to follow for collecting chains... i don't know if this sentence explain well what i mean...sorry...
bye

Gave it a try, you really need to make it so pressing the color change button waits for the user to unpress the button before switching the color again. It's really hard to select a specific color.

Not sure if there's anyway to die, either. lol

[genecyst]

i posted an old file that i've already had on the net, because i was at work... :D... collision detection were deactivated for testing blocks' scroll... i'll take here a playable demo when it will be ready...

i know it's less important but i'm a graphic designer so... what you think about sprites?

thanks bye!

[Udderdude]

Sprites look pretty simple but still good.

[genecyst]

hi to everyone i put online a new early beta of the game, let me know what you think! thanks


holy hell is a puzzle game (mr driller, magical drop) with a shmup attitude, the goal of the game is to reach the end of every level trying to chain more blocks of the same colour together. you guide a little ship powered with four different coloured weapons. Every weapon can destroy only blocks of its same colour, so you must switch between them to blow up everything...
Brown blocks cannot be destroyed and must be dodged...

the game is built for Game boy advance so if you got a supercard or similar you can play it on real hardware too...

- A button - SHOT
- B button - select Colour/weapon

i'm now coding some boss fight to insert every 10 levels (they are really short) and a sort of bomb charged with the number of chains made...

some screens:

level design is really poor at this time, but i will create better levels when i'll finish all the game mechanics.

here you can download the beta:
http://www.otouv.org/hlyhll/hlyhll.zip

let me know!

[Udderdude]

Going to give this a try tomorrow.

[Udderdude]

Ok so I poked around with this. I pointed out issues with this game before, like changing the color swapping to the L and R buttons, and have B fire. That way you can rotate the colors in both directions. Also, when you rotate your colors, it doesn't stop once rotated, so it's really hard to choose a specific color. You should have it stop on a color until the player presses the button again, not keep rotating while it's held down. Other than that, it looks pretty good for a homebrew.

[genecyst]

You should have it stop on a color until the player presses the button again, not keep rotating while it's held down.

you're right, i haven't understand before due to my bad english... i'll do it tonight and think it will solve a lot of gameplay issues...


'bout L and R: i'm keeping that buttons for some special attacks...and also i think i will start the game with only two colours disposable... every 10 levels a boss which makes you gain another colour to switch in...

thanks

[genecyst]

a short video that show the gameplay:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jQ8rOi93j-Y



@ udderdude: color changing now works fine, i'll post soon a new beta

[genecyst]

added a lot of levels to the first demo.
now speed increase gradually level by level.
solved some minor bugs.

download from the button on my signature.
thanks.

[genecyst]

beta 1.3 online.

change log:
- blocks movement now works perfectly
- added charge bar which charge megabomb by absorbing blocks
- when charge bar is full you can release megabomb with R which delete any blocks at screen of the same colour of you without breaking chain count
- chain count increase shooting always at the same colour blocks, using absorbing ability and bombs for reach blocks that you can't shoot.
reached 100 chain it reset itself and add 1000 pt. at the score.
- n° of colours you can choose grows up any 10 levels (you start with the possibility of switching only between green and cyan, after ten levels you switch green-cyan-red and so on...)
- smooth animation
- reduced drastically slow down
- general big optimization

you can download it here:
http://www.otouv.org/hlyhll/hlyhll.zip

[TLB]

Looks cool, I'll be certain to check it out if I ever get a GBA flash card :)

[PC Engine Fan X!]

This little cool GBA puzzler works well with a GBA emu running on the PSP platform. Great to see your GBA game demo updated, genecyst. Yeah, it would nice to have a GBA flash cart to play on the real GBA/GBA SP/GB Micro hardware. ^_~

PC Engine Fan X! ^_~

[genecyst]

nice to know holy hell works well on psp emu.
i haven't already test it out on that board.

soon other updates like multiple ships to chose, and a new game mode (inspired by nes' quarth).

[genecyst]

hi,
i've updated my game holy hell,
not a big update but...i hope you enjoy it.

it's a GAME BOY ADVANCE rom, you can play it with a flash cartridge on real hardware,
or emulated with visual boy advance, or on psp emulated too.

change log:
- 3 characters/ship disposable with different speed
- 40 levels
- new graphics background and objects
- simply animated intro between levels
- improved animations
- no more slowdown in almost any part of the game

download it here for free:
http://www.otouv.org/hlyhll/hlyhll.zip

please give me some feedback. thanks a lot.

[Udderdude]

Will try it later.

[ptoing]

I love Mr. Driller and I love shmups, so this is right up my alley.

Some crits:

- Character selection is too fickle, I had problems getting back on Satan once I moved left or right.
- Colour Selection would be better on L and R since there are more than 2 (got to level 16 so far, are there more than 3?) The bomb could then be on B and shot stay on A
-Is there any point in moving half a block? It makes navigation a bit harder and it's easier to crash into black blocks.

These are my crits for now, since I have to play more first.

[genecyst]

udderdude already tell me about L and R used for switching and i'm creating an options page to completely customize the controls, using one or two buttons to change colors, couse i don't like that way to play but there are more people that asked me the same, so it seems to be the more democratic way to solve this issue...

character switching on screen selection will be changed so i haven't put a great effort on developing it... by now it's a sort of alpha alpha of the final selection screen.

i don't undestand very well the last thing, you wish to move one block a time?

thanks a lot.


NEW GAMEPLAY VIDEO:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KF5XHZ4Zlt4

[ptoing]

I meant the movement of the player. The player sprite seems to be moving in steps which are half a block. Perhaps moving one block at a time would feel better as that is the natural unit of the game, like in Mr. Driller. But this is just a guess and would have to be tested of course.

[genecyst]

when i started developing this game i've tried a similar solution but it removes completely the shmup attitude of the game, if you try to play with another character you can find different speeds so i think it's enough if you play with the one you feel better.
also i'm almost done with bosses just like these:



so having a fixed movement with a little bullethell game isn't good.

[TLB]

Still looking pretty cool :)

[Udderdude]

I tried it out, it's much better now. I still suck at it though.

[genecyst]

thanks for trying it out, nice it's not too easy even for shmups veterans...

[genecyst]

new update!

completely new scoring system:

shot 100 blocks of the same colour for reach colour COMBO, combo add your score 10000pt.
any combo loop you realize without dying makes you gain 1000pt x tot combo.
if you destroy anything inside a level you gain 30000pt.
if you NEVER shot and only "suck-in" blocks of your colour you gain 5000pt any level you pass and 1pt for block.
using bomb and destroying more than 10 blocks at a time make you gain 100pt
using bomb and destroying more than 50 blocks at a time make you gain 500pt
shooting a block will make you gain 10pt x chain.

i hope you enjoy it.
you can download it from here:
http://www.otouv.org/hlyhll/hlyhll.zip