So last week I released my game Demon Castle, a high score game heavily influenced by Castlevania. Currently this game sits at 37 active downloads VS 141 installs about 10 days post launch. Granted, this isn't great, but it's a pretty good performance based on other things I have released. There was a bit of buzz from the screenshots, but after the somewhat lukewarm response to the game, I'm left wondering if people were instead thinking this game was an outright clone, and were disappointed at what the game actually was (a high score endless platform action game). I seem to have set up expectations to things that were not there. You can try that game out here : https://forums.androidcentral.com/e...id=com.octobytegames.whippyguy&token=rbI7wdvq
I have decided to rectify this mistake.
This will serve as my Devlog for this project, known now as Demon Isle. Yes, it will probably change. Demon Castle actually started off as Demon Castle Medusa.
The major tenants of control will still be the same. I'm not interested in making another 4 virtual button (2 direction, 2 buttons) platform game. There are a thousand other style games out there that do exactly that (Gamestart 2015 is pretty damned excellent : https://forums.androidcentral.com/e...ails?id=com.eliphant.Gamestart&token=boeGMOhX ). I am interested in continuing the control style I have.
For those uninitiated, your character automatically moves forward at a somewhat slow (I call it deliberate) pace. You can halt your forward progress by whipping, which is useful for avoiding enemies. The bonus of this stopping is that it can be extended by jumping in the air when you are stopped in your tracks. Tapping on the right side of the screen causes you to whip (After a brief setup animation so the whip isn't instantaneous) and shoot out a fireball. Tapping the left side causes you to jump, but you only jump in a set arc. It's pretty simple, and I felt that some of the depth of gameplay for Demon Castle was embedded in balancing your forward progress by using the two in concert. This appears to have been a false assumption on my part, as most people seem to charge head on and get frustrated when they are immediately punished for it. To me, the game was all about planning just a few seconds in advance; hanging back just a moment and finding your groove.
Now when going from an essentially auto-scrolling game to a more classic game, I have to let the player move both right and left (SHOCKING). To accommodate this, the following changes have been instituted. While tapping the jump button again in the air, your character will change his facing, but not the direction of his momentum. This actually looks kinda bad *** when you do, as it allows you to whip behind you. The other change is you no longer walk against walls endlessly when you're blocked (A choice I made in DC to show you that you would still have forward momentum when you jumped.) I haven't decided how to add something to the whip button, though I'm considering a charging mechanism for subweapons.
The game is now in landscape mode. This is the default "real game" orientation after all, and will immediately differentiate it from Demon Castle, and I heard quite a few comments that they wished the game was landscape. (I kept Demon Castle in portrait because I thought that was more appropriate for a quick high score game).
The game will also have set levels. Whereas Demon Castle had level "themes", the levels in this new game will be set. And yes, there will be bosses. With the change to traditional level based gameplay, the one hit and your dead gameplay is gone. You now have have a lifebar, though classic game deaths still exist (Don't fall on spikes, etc). While this does increase the work that needs to go into the game, it also means I can design levels a bit better. The level design work in Demon Castle was kind of a pain, as a generated game, it was completely possible to make multiple pieces that would not allow a player to pass when paired up with another specific piece. Being set in stone as it were allows me to be a little more tricky with level design, as well as pass an overall challenge theme to each level, that I can then exploit in a boss fight.
Bosses are obviously a big part of moving towards a more classic gameplay model. The unique controls will actually play to my advantage somewhat in that regard and I look forward to doing some boss designs again; it's been a while.
I tore the Demon Castle engine down to the barebones and started rebuilding it the other night. Preliminary gameplay seems good, so this seems like a good candidate to move past Alpha. So I ask you gamers. Do you have any suggestions or comments?
Thank you all for reading this rather large message!
I have decided to rectify this mistake.
This will serve as my Devlog for this project, known now as Demon Isle. Yes, it will probably change. Demon Castle actually started off as Demon Castle Medusa.
The major tenants of control will still be the same. I'm not interested in making another 4 virtual button (2 direction, 2 buttons) platform game. There are a thousand other style games out there that do exactly that (Gamestart 2015 is pretty damned excellent : https://forums.androidcentral.com/e...ails?id=com.eliphant.Gamestart&token=boeGMOhX ). I am interested in continuing the control style I have.
For those uninitiated, your character automatically moves forward at a somewhat slow (I call it deliberate) pace. You can halt your forward progress by whipping, which is useful for avoiding enemies. The bonus of this stopping is that it can be extended by jumping in the air when you are stopped in your tracks. Tapping on the right side of the screen causes you to whip (After a brief setup animation so the whip isn't instantaneous) and shoot out a fireball. Tapping the left side causes you to jump, but you only jump in a set arc. It's pretty simple, and I felt that some of the depth of gameplay for Demon Castle was embedded in balancing your forward progress by using the two in concert. This appears to have been a false assumption on my part, as most people seem to charge head on and get frustrated when they are immediately punished for it. To me, the game was all about planning just a few seconds in advance; hanging back just a moment and finding your groove.
Now when going from an essentially auto-scrolling game to a more classic game, I have to let the player move both right and left (SHOCKING). To accommodate this, the following changes have been instituted. While tapping the jump button again in the air, your character will change his facing, but not the direction of his momentum. This actually looks kinda bad *** when you do, as it allows you to whip behind you. The other change is you no longer walk against walls endlessly when you're blocked (A choice I made in DC to show you that you would still have forward momentum when you jumped.) I haven't decided how to add something to the whip button, though I'm considering a charging mechanism for subweapons.
The game is now in landscape mode. This is the default "real game" orientation after all, and will immediately differentiate it from Demon Castle, and I heard quite a few comments that they wished the game was landscape. (I kept Demon Castle in portrait because I thought that was more appropriate for a quick high score game).
The game will also have set levels. Whereas Demon Castle had level "themes", the levels in this new game will be set. And yes, there will be bosses. With the change to traditional level based gameplay, the one hit and your dead gameplay is gone. You now have have a lifebar, though classic game deaths still exist (Don't fall on spikes, etc). While this does increase the work that needs to go into the game, it also means I can design levels a bit better. The level design work in Demon Castle was kind of a pain, as a generated game, it was completely possible to make multiple pieces that would not allow a player to pass when paired up with another specific piece. Being set in stone as it were allows me to be a little more tricky with level design, as well as pass an overall challenge theme to each level, that I can then exploit in a boss fight.
Bosses are obviously a big part of moving towards a more classic gameplay model. The unique controls will actually play to my advantage somewhat in that regard and I look forward to doing some boss designs again; it's been a while.
I tore the Demon Castle engine down to the barebones and started rebuilding it the other night. Preliminary gameplay seems good, so this seems like a good candidate to move past Alpha. So I ask you gamers. Do you have any suggestions or comments?
Thank you all for reading this rather large message!
Facebook
Twitter
Instagram