Cosmic Prison Commando - Demo 1.1, Real Retro Platform Shooter Action Options

[Carnivac]

Ok this still needs lots of finetuning, bug fixing and other bits (and obviously the bosses and later levels) but I figured it's alright to post it here since I've never ever posted a topic in Game Creations or WIP despite using GM since Feb 2002.

If you're put off by the blocky wide-pixel 16 color graphics well then this ain't for you so get the hell outta my topic. This is 1980s retro and yeah despite the system being made in 1984 they still attempted to make the sprites actually look like proper things rather than squares. This game is inspired by the classic platform shooter series Turrican so if you like those games ya might like this. This game isn't innovative and it's not clever. What it is though is action featuring a angry muscley dude with a big gun who likes to shoot the baddies dead and ya know what, sometimes that's all a gamer needs.

Game starts off in Windowed mode. Press F3 or Alt and Return for a proper resolution change to nice and sharp 640x480. Scanlines are on by default. Check the readme (pasted below too) for config details if you want to turn them off or make them transparent. I have them on by default as that's how my old Amstrad monitor looks and I loves the scanlines. Pressing F4 makes the game fullscreen by stretching to your current desktop resolution but it really kills the look and blurs the heck out of everything in a really nasty way.

Here's some old (but not that out of date) screenshots. Ignore the bottom two as those are from later levels not in this demo.



Here's some more info I lazily copy/pasted from the Readme.txt file I wrote earlier. It contains controls and config settings and all that.

This is the latest demo of a game originally written for a Retro Remakes contest where the category was 'We Like It Retro' which meant making a brand new game in the style of machines of the past. In this case it's my first computer the 1984 machine, Amstrad CPC 464. It uses the same 16 colors on screen chosen initially from the 27 color palette of the machine and uses the wide pixel resolution like the CPC's Mode 0. This demo contains all of level 1 except it's boss. The amount of secret areas found and Amstrad CPC 464 icon's are temporarily on the Pause screen. These will likely appear at the end of a level in the full version where bonus points will be awarded for finding all of them. A lot of the bugs of the previous demo have been fixed though there are probably some others now. And yes I know there is still no proper death sequence. I'll do it later.

All graphics and majority of code created by me, Carnivac
Sound effects are temporary and were created in SFXR
Music used in the demo are Switchblade - Title Theme by Ben Daglish and Glider Rider - Bike Theme by David Whittaker

Full credits on the title screen


Keyboard controls:
cursor keys to move
S to shoot
D to jump
Return to Pause and go to menu
Press crouch then jump to drop through thin platforms
Press crouch (when not firing) on restart panels to activate them

F3 (or Alt and Return) switches to 640x480 fullscreen resolution (recommended)
F4 stretches to fill current resolution
F10 ends game instantly

Settings
--------

For now the Options menu is disabled 'til I fix it. In the meantime the following options can be changed by altering the config.ini file. More options will be in later updates.

[Control]
Set Joypad to 0 for keyboard control
Set Joypad Selected to 0 for the first joypad or 1 for the second
Set Joypad Config to 1 for PS2, 2 for PS3, 3 for PC pads with a POV d-pad, 4 for regular PC pads (untested) and 5 for Xbox360
0 for joypad 1, 1 for joypad 2

[Audio]
Music Volume can be set to any number between 0 and 255

[Video]
Scanlines can be altered by any decimal point between 0 and 1. For example 0.5 will set them at half transparency and 0 will appear to turn them off.


Please report any major bugs to http://carnivacgames.blogspot.com/2009/07/...o-11-topic.html

Anyone who has a regular PC joypad (not POV) and can test it with this game please let me how it goes because I cannot test it myself. I'm not sure it'll work as it is but if someone can report the correct values if it doesn't then I can fix it.

Please let me know if the game doesn't run at all for you. I know it happens with some machines. If so then I'll need your system specs and I'll work on a fix.

If for some reason you'd like to have a go then here be the link for the demo which is 1.84MB in size so it ain't much at all, eh?
Cosmic Prison Commando - Demo 1.1

If it's not working (or the screenshots or my sig images) it's because the host is temporarily down again (has happened a couple times lately). Just come back a couple hours later and it should be fine.

Ok then. Good. Right. Nice.... Holy crap I posted an actual gamey thing!

This post has been edited by Carnivac: Jul 25 2009, 10:08 AM

[ChevyRay]

Lookin' awesome, man. Cheers!

[3DMethods]

Wow, this game feels as though it could have easily been released back in the day. Great work on achieving that retro feel.

[Carnivac]

I wish I had been a game developer 'back in the day'. I was just a little too young though to be employed. Also I was crap at everything.

I know this game ain't fancy or anything but I just make what I enjoy playing, and I actually enjoy playing this... more so than making the darn thing. I do not have a programmers brain. Used to, when I was a teenager, but then it got smacked out of there by a metal pipe. Ah, excessively violent schoolyard fights how I miss those.

[histvan89]

Really nice work, the game truly has the retro style. It remembers me on Sega.

[dadio]

Very tasty retro style. Very tasty.
Like the scanlines!... like the chip music too.

Would love to see a massive game made in this style in the future.

[AuthenticKaizen]

wow... awesome carnivac! finally a updated demo

really good work with the graphics and all the details!
(i think a bit more energy would be nice...but it could also be that i played a bit sloppy with not paying too much attention to the actual bullets and enemies...)

moreover:
the hero - celestial force transformation animation looks fantastic!
(a demo would be much appreciated...! really looking forward to this one)

[Carnivac]

Would love to see a massive game made in this style in the future.

Massive? This one's getting big enough. About six levels and they're pretty large. Large enough that they're a total pain in the butt to make with Game Maker's crappy room editor anyways.

(i think a bit more energy would be nice...but it could also be that i played a bit sloppy with not paying too much attention to the actual bullets and enemies...)

Yeah I think you just weren't playing properly. I've finished the demo with just one life before and there are several extra lives to obtain.

moreover:
the hero - celestial force transformation animation looks fantastic!
(a demo would be much appreciated...! really looking forward to this one)

Everytime I feel like I might release a demo for that I then end up just wanting to get a lot more stuff done on it before anyone sees it. Right now I'm working on the main characters spaceship which is the hub of the whole game but it's needing lots of work and may or may not make it into the demo.

[dadio]

I notice on these forums that the only way to really get a decent amount of replies/feedback is to update your topic often.. so I'd say as soon as you add new things, update!

[Carnivac]

I'm not that bothered to be honest. I enjoy playing it (too much actually since I keep running it to test something and end up playing right to the end of the level a lot) and it's me who I make games for primarily since I'm an aging nostalgic fool who misses a lot about the 8/16 bit era. If I wanted more replies or whatever I'd chuck in mouse aiming or mmo capabilities or just replace the graphics with sprite rips from nintendo, sonic or mega man games. But then (apart from the fact the first couple things ain't remotely retro) I hate all that in a GM game so I won't.

Main reason I made a topic was that I thought after seven and a half years of being a GM user it would be nice to actually post something playable on the GMC forum for the first time.

[Zccc]

I just got surprised when I saw your name for the creator of this topic, because your pixel art is amazing and I know your site.

I remember those mockups from pixeljoint, so I just had to play this quick, and I must say it's a very good game, you programmed it well, too.
Do I notice some resembles from Universal Soldier?

Ok, the graphics are simply amazing, you know that xD. But the gameplay was too difficult, I couldn't dodge most of the enemy's bullets in small places, and the player seemed too slipery. I couldn't get to the end of the level, but I will try it again.

Keep creating games like this, congratulations!

[Carnivac]

Do I notice some resembles from Universal Soldier?

Shh...Don't mention that game. It was a hackjob of the classic Turrican II with a tacked on movie license.

But the gameplay was too difficult, I couldn't dodge most of the enemy's bullets in small places, and the player seemed too slipery.

Slippery? That sounds odd. He hardly has any inertia. Certainly nowhere near as much as say, Super Mario.

And the demo really is very easy. Reckon anyone who played the classic platform shooters on the 8 and 16 bit machines can finish it within their first couple of goes.

[x-death]

finally you release a demo!

and i can say it was worth the amazingly long wait. was hoping for hero - cf but. stilll good game. a little hard but still really nice game. my only complaint is those bloody flying things if you jump its hard to shoot them and you can't aim up to kill them so it makes it hard and long amounts of time to kill just a small number of them.

i would say an aiming system like the old metroid games would be a nice addition to this game. even if it is only up and down which gets added. but i agree with your previous comment about the whole making games for you and not really aring about the replies. personally i would say it doesn't matter a whoole lot what most say about the game, because fellow pixeljointers will know the peice for this game. and fellow gamers will know this is a great game.

but yeah if it had that better aiming in this i would say this is perfect game.

This post has been edited by x-death: Jul 25 2009, 02:48 PM

[Carnivac]

Reasons why you can only shoot left and right:

This is intended to actually be put on a real Amstrad CPC eventually and as it is it's already pushing the memory limitations (particularly with the multitude of tiling and the parallax scrolling which are doable but tricky). Adding new sprites (difficult to draw accurately too since you can't just rotate the gun as the pixels are wide) for the main character and his bullets would be too much and referring to the reasons below I just didn't think was necessary especially since not enough attacks you from directly above anyways and the rare cases it might happen just get out of the way and leap up. If the droid is too high at first just wait and dodge the shots til it comes closer (only the pinkish droid is in this demo and it's firing rate is very slow. The later ones fire much faster) or jump on and off a nearby 'chickybot' (the walking ones) to superjump.

In the actual CPC version there wouldn't be enough controls to do it succesfully. They only have one button joysticks as standard. Even as it is in this version I've given you two action buttons. On the real machine up is jump. Holding fire down locks the direction depending on which way you were facing.

It's actually really, really easy to hit the flying droids. Crouching, jumping, moving about holding fire down to lock direction. I've been able to go through the game shooting them as soon as I get near them without taking a single hit. I've started to think the game is too easy but then it just the first level.

What about Mega Man? He can only shoot left and right, with a lot less rapid shooting and the little idiot still can't duck.

Also, just get the darn multiple shot power up. It gives you extra angles...

If I wanted more aiming possibilites I would have done it from the start but it's just not needed.

Anyways if that still bothers you, don't play it. Hero - CF actually uses 8 way firing since it's more crucial in it's gameplay (you're mostly flying about and being shot a lot from all directions). Best played on a joypad though. D-Pad to move, and the four fire buttons on the right of the pad to shoot in 8 directions in the same way. Based on the set up to Robotron the best arcade game ever made in my opinion. Works ok-ish on a keyboard but I don't focus my games on the keyboard as I strongly dislike using it for anything other than typing. If I could I'd just be a console game developer.

Next update will be coming soon. Main changes include offering a no-surface-mode for better compatibility on Geforce cards that GM doesn't seem to like. And also the control configuration is getting an overhaul to deal with the vast differences between the many types of joypads and I'll be using these scripts in my other projects too.

This post has been edited by Carnivac: Jul 25 2009, 03:38 PM

[Revel]

Awesome! You made all the graphics yourself?

I generally don't like 16 color graphics, however the non-square pixels made it look a lot better. The game kept me going for a little while until I died great game!

[photocopier]

Been waiting for this game since I saw it on pixeljoint, for someone so self-depreciating you aren't a half-bad programmer

[ChaosKnighT]

Hey, this was pretty fun! I noticed that getting the multiple shots powerup, then upgrading your gun makes your gun the normal one again. Was this intended?

[Carnivac]

Eh?
Not sure what you mean.

Getting a blaster power up switches your gun to blaster and ups the level by 1. Getting multiple shot changes it to that and ups the level by 1 (obviously not past the max which is one less in this demo than in the full game, yeah the blaster gets even bigger). Getting killed decreases the level by one. The bottom level for all guns (including the ones not present in the demo) is the regular small blaster that you begin with.

And I swear if I get one more comment about not being able to shoot other directions like I been getting on my blog and email I'll go nuts (though those are outnumbered by people actually liking this game). Left and right is enough for any decent gamer. Don't see why I should change the gore gameplay just to suit someone else's preferences. Ain't like I'm being paid for this. It's my personal 'love letter' to my old 8 bit gaming days. Ah, how I miss those times.

[x-death]

i admit i thought it would be funner having the directions but giving the game more thought allowed me to fingure out better ways of beating the level which didn't require them.

made it alot more fun, i still can't beat the game no matter how much i play it. how annoying...and i consider myself a gmaer, a pretty bloody good game at that.

[Deadheat]

I passed it with about 1 or 2 lives left on my first try. I found a secret or two which I was annoyed at when the demo ended abruptly, as I couldn't go back and check them out! Heh. I glad your not putting in upwards aiming either btw, good to see you know how you want your game to be. Looking forward to seeing what the first boss is going to be like. I'd say just pop out a demo when you feel like it as I'm sure you will, otherwise I'll be playing it in bits and pieces haha.