Ghoul Grind: Night of the Necromancer

Woogz

Member
6/09/20 UPDATE:

It's been a while since I've updated this thread. A lot about this project has changed. I've been fixing game breaking bugs, glitches, graphical errors, you name it. I've revamped the graphics, effects, sounds, and added new features as well. The game title has now been renamed "Ghoul Grind: Night of the Necromancer".

What is Ghoul Grind: Night of the Necromancer?

Ghoul Grind: Night of the Necromancer is a platforming autoscroller for the NES. You take control of the two main characters, Nox Francisca, and his girlfriend Veronica Mimeux, and grind your way through 6 worlds with 3 challenging levels and 1 boss each in order to stop your possessed necromancing friend Vladimir Drachovi from raising the dead and causing furthor havoc in the town of Crypton.

The game as it stands now is about 80 percent complete. All the levels have been fully designed and completed. All of them are being tweaked and tested thoroughly. The only things left to do as far as completing this project is to implement the last 2 bosses, and add the remaining cut scenes. The demo version of this game is almost complete and should be ready for the soon to be announced 2020 Byte-Off competition.

With that being said, I'd like to show off some progress gifs and show you what's going on with Ghoul Grind without spoiling too much before the competition. I guess you can consider this a sneak peak :D . Here's a few new features:
(any gif with slightly changing palette colors is due to my gif recorder so please excuse that)

NEW FEATURES:

Switching between Nox and Veronica:

https://imgur.com/a/6XQO4Al

In the old versions of this game, you could originally only play as Nox, but I felt that could potentially get boring, so I added in his girlfriend as the secondary protagonist.

They control similarly, however where they differ is in the way their projectiles handle. Nox will throw axes at a nice moderate speed, while Veronica's dagger will shoot a much faster magic projectile. Depending on what situation you're in, and your timing, you must choose which will come in handy when fighting the undead.

You can switch between her and Nox using the d-pad. As you can see here in the gif, there are color coded obstacles obstructing the path that are character specific, so if you see a block only Nox can hit, you must have Nox selected and use his Axes. If you see a block that only Veronica can hit, you must use the magic projectile from Veronica's dagger.

Character Palette changing to match the time of day in level:

https://imgur.com/a/9mjqwtx

Some levels take place during different times of day or have different types of "lighting" so the character and monster palettes will reflect that. As you can see in this gif, the sun is setting and instead of the characters being the same color in the prior gif, they are now a color that matches the aesthetic of the level to really sell that time of day change. (big thanks to Dale Coop and Kasumi who helped me figure this out back on the NESmaker discord last year :cool: )

Splash Screens:

https://imgur.com/a/wvwWKvs

This one took a lot of time to figure out. Using the regular screens and a special tile that warps you to the start screen, I managed to add splash screens (with my own ghoulified NESmaker logo ;) ) Still trying to adjust the title screen graphics so they're the correct palettes and are aligned properly, but everything seems to work fine for now. (If anyone needs help figuring out how to add extra splash screens with fades in 4.1.5 let me know and I'll see if I can make a tutorial) (Also thanks to Dale Coop once again for the palette fading AI action code he posted on the forums)

The Sweet Victory:

https://imgur.com/a/SmkKJME

Whenever you beat a level, you get a nice little victory dance from Veronica and a sigh of relief from Nox as it fades out and you enter the next level. A little fun bit of characterization.

Just for Fun, a graphical comparison with the old game:

https://imgur.com/a/Ag3sk27

The old game (on the right) used to be really simple looking, not bad, but not what I really envisioned. Getting used to the NES limitations over the past year has really help me push the limits of what I can accomplish with the limited space and colors I have to work with, and I'm really happy with how the graphics turned out so far. The sprites and tiles have much more detail than they did prior. Characters and Enemies are much more expressive than they were prior. (I took a screenshot of the old game from an older video on the NESmaker facebook page if you're wondering why the quality looks bad)

AND MUCH MORE TO COME:

Like I said, don't want to spoil too much with the game. Aside from the graphic comparison I just showed you, I only demonstrated footage from the tutorial level, and the beginning of a level in world one. The soon-to-be released demo will have cut scenes, more levels, more enemies, and a boss. Just be on the lookout. ;)
 

Woogz

Member
Thanks you guys! I'll probably post some gifs of some gameplay once I get all the graphical effects working properly.
 

Mugi

Member
i was gonna say that the health bar looks awfully familiar xD
nice graphics, looks really good :)
 

Woogz

Member
Mugi said:
i was gonna say that the health bar looks awfully familiar xD
nice graphics, looks really good :)

Your Shatterhand style health bar was hard to pass up on when Nightser was gonna be a regular platformer :mrgreen:

and thank you!
 

Woogz

Member
I got some gifs of some "effects" I've been trying to polish up. They work pretty well for the most part.

2ksNjJe.gif


In this one, when the Axe hits an enemy and it destroys, it makes a "dust poof" destroy effect. And when the enemy dies, it makes the same effect as well, except it creates a 100 points object (which im trying to get it to line up correctly at the moment).

FbRBxqM.gif


and in this one, whenever your axe weapon hits a solid from the side, it has the same destroy effect as when it hits an enemy.
 

Mugi

Member
Woogz said:
Your Shatterhand style health bar was hard to pass up on when Nightser was gonna be a regular platformer :mrgreen:

Atleast it got some use afterall.
as far as sprite HUDs go, you'll propably be hard pressed to write anything more efficient for that, I sort of optimized it to hell and back for my own game.
but yeah, the functionality is what it is, so if you need more than 8 HP or whatnot, might wanna tailor Jorotroid's original or go with the Icarus HUD that's also posted somewhere on the forum.
It's much heavier code vise but highly customizable.
 

Woogz

Member
Thanks Dirk and Dale! I appreciate the kind words. :)

The sprite HUD you made is very efficient Mugi, and I'm sure when I get finished with Nightser I could have use for it in a slightly more ambitious project.

As far as Nightser goes in it's current state, I might go for a one or two hit kill system, and forgo the sprite based HUD. I'm not sure about making this game revolve specifically around score or anything, so
bringing back the standard nesmaker HUD could potentially be unnecessary.
 

Woogz

Member
Finally managed to get my "Rygar Sun Effect" except with a moon. Thought it was cool, so I made a little gif of it on an early WIP of a level to share it.

Making use of Monster Objects and making background effects with them has been made a whole lot easier now that this is an autoscroller.

EdEaUDx.gif


My gif recorder messes with the orange color on the pumpkin enemies, so they dont flash in and out like that in-game.
 

Woogz

Member
Thanks Dale! :) I'll be posting more screenshots and gameplay gifs very soon. Hopefully some with some potential autoscroller obstacles.
 

red moon

Member
Fantastic looking game Woogz...I am really excited about the tone and feel of what you have! The animated GIFS are a nice way to showcase the FX too!
 

Woogz

Member
Thanks red moon, I appreciate it :) I'm going for a kinda alternative/gothic/halloween type tone for the game. Got a lot of ideas for this game, for sure.
 

Woogz

Member
wallmasterr said:
Love that point spaf when u kill enemies

Ha, thanks. Funnily enough this game looks completely different nowadays. Graphics and effects have been revamped, I've created new music and sound effects have been made, cutscenes are fully functioning. A lot has changed with this game. Even the name of it.

I was going to wait until the Byte-Off to show off the progress I've made along with a demo, but in lieu of this bump, I think I'll show off some new gifs sometime soon and update this thread ;)
 

Jonny

Well-known member
Lovin' the chunky blocks! I kinda like how the 100 bouces towards the player, it didn't look wrong to me tbh.

I've just found the post about graphic huds in the archive. I'm going to see if I can make it work with my game Bad Hare Day.

Some really great ideas here, thanks for sharing
 
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