Space Raft Demo Updates ***(11/9/19)

red moon

Member
I did Raft and I am really excited to play the newer iteration of the game. I actually really enjoy playing the early version as they develop and seeing the new features and changes that occur. Very exciting!

And the explanation of the edge totally makes sense. The self destruction button is quite hilarious, I am looking forward to giving that a go.

You may want to consider embracing the "edge of death" at present, and make some sort of sprite right behind you so it appears that the vehicle is being pursued. JIt would serve as a visual indicator to reinforce the danger involved in going backward that far. It could be a fire wave, a flood wave, storm clouds...there are lots of options in that regard. I cannot wait to try it. I will be looking our for an update!
 

Raftronaut

Member
red moon said:
I did Raft and I am really excited to play the newer iteration of the game. I actually really enjoy playing the early version as they develop and seeing the new features and changes that occur. Very exciting!

And the explanation of the edge totally makes sense. The self destruction button is quite hilarious, I am looking forward to giving that a go.

You may want to consider embracing the "edge of death" at present, and make some sort of sprite right behind you so it appears that the vehicle is being pursued. JIt would serve as a visual indicator to reinforce the danger involved in going backward that far. It could be a fire wave, a flood wave, storm clouds...there are lots of options in that regard. I cannot wait to try it. I will be looking our for an update!

Hey Red, Ultimately I would like the edge behavior to simply stop the player and destroy the player only when getting "pinched" between the screen edge and a solid object.. Though when the screen edge destruct code was added I was so relieved that I had a functional work around that I almost decided to write it into the game with some sort of visual cue at the screen edge, like fire or a wave, but ultimately that would simply work against my sprite scan line limitation and cause flicker.. I have been plugging away at it and currently have a boundshandler that doesn't crash my game (though it allows you to pass through solid objects if pressing into the screen edge when collision is made, which is unintended)...

Development has been in fast forward the past couple of months, once I have all my new game mechanics fully developed I will release the demo again to show off how everything works.. It's killing me though, I've been dying to show off these updates, the game is completely torn apart while I make these major changes.

SOON SOON SOON!
 

red moon

Member
Of course, having it function as intended is the best possibility!

And yes, the sprite count would be a bit excessive with all that would need to be drawn in behind you. I am really looking forward to seeing the new changes as well, I am really interested in the tweaks that you mentioned.
 

Raftronaut

Member
Wow,

It's been a while, I have some fairly dramatic updates coming on a new version of the demo I hope to release here later this Month.

All sorts of gameplay kinks have been ironed out as well as a laundry list of features added including many of the items mentioned my initial post's wish list. The game itself now is shaping up nicely and is hopefully much more fun to play and a much deeper experience.

I have some cool new dialogue boxes working, some interesting new people and places from our local rock scene (used with full permission), as well as the beginning of my boss fight system (which is still going to take a lot of work). The scope of the project has nearly doubled since this last update, I should have been keeping better production notes so I could have more easily have shared them here.

soon soon soon!
 

Bucket Mouse

Active member
Hey....how did you pull off the switching between four characters thing? I'm most curious about the fact that each character uses a unique palette. I thought only two were available for the player sprite.
 

Raftronaut

Member
Bucket Mouse said:
Hey....how did you pull off the switching between four characters thing? I'm most curious about the fact that each character uses a unique palette. I thought only two were available for the player sprite.

This was done with some hard coding of the monster palette by Dale Coop. He helped me create the input command to both switch to a new monster object serving as player object, but also simultaneously changing the palette loaded into that spot. So you can only have 4 sprite palettes, but technically you can cycle them in and out if you disable a reactivate them. I would share the input script Dale created with his permission, but there are a ton of caveats attached that are Game specific to what is happening here that would likely need to be edited out. As well, there are other unexpected surprises to take into account when doing this, like what to do with player death, or power ups. AS well, the bonus player object has to use of the two monster palettes. creating even more limitations.

Hoping that once I get a chance to settle in and get things going again I can work with Dale to maybe produce a vanilla script for this sort of character changing.

As it stands, the feature has really opened up my game. I have more plans as far as how to manage each character strength vs. weakness in level designs, but have a whole list of other things I am working on as well.

Thanks for taking the time to play ;)
 

Dirk

Member
Your game is so cool, I love it!
I had a minor problem, when I switched one guy would be placed lower so he could be placed out of bounds. Therefor I couldn't walk anymore until I switched to someone else.
 

Raftronaut

Member
Dirk said:
Your game is so cool, I love it!
I had a minor problem, when I switched one guy would be placed lower so he could be placed out of bounds. Therefor I couldn't walk anymore until I switched to someone else.

Ah yes! I noticed this too, it's on my list, but a minor concern for me at the moment, since you can simply press the button again to disengage from the solid collision.
It is happening because Jon is taller and uses 16x24 sprite instead of 16x16.
I will correct it soon :)

Thanks for testing!
 

Raftronaut

Member
Hello Again!

I just wanted to pipe in here with a progress report. There have been a ton of additional features added since the last update prior to PRGE in November.
Completed:
-All 6 driving levels have been completed
-All 6 driving bosses have been completed
-Script is done and cutscenes have all been finished. (the game now has a beginning/middle/end)
-21 single screen levels completed, including exteriors
-2 free roaming "dungeon" style levels added.
-Dialogue box/start skip glitches removed.
-Added extra hit points in the single screen sections for the characters without ranged attacks.
-hitbox issues from last version have been corrected, no more character switching soft-locks
-myriad of soundtrack updates and sound design tweaks.

I am essentially rounding the bend and heading towards the finish at this point. Everything is in place and a few features and areas need to be designed, but almost ready to begin stress testing.

My big To-Do list keeps shrinking, but things I have to work on yet include:


-Design Dungeon Levels (currently still in wip mode, still determining how to implement the trigger system needed to pass locked doors) The themes and graphics are already designed, I just need to structure the gameplay a little more succinctly to make them more intuitive. It offers a 3rd variety of gameplay to the action and I don't want it to feel shoehorned.
-Credit's screens...I have a lot of people to mention, my cast includes something like 53 NPCS now (all real people used with permission),as well as those who will be working on box art
-sound test menu (once I figured out how to display all the necessary text for the credits screen, I may as well tackle a sound test menu)
-Add nesmaker logo to my credit's screen. CHR data storage is very precious at this phase, but I would very much like to include the
logo from NM in the end credits, I may have to achieve this by using sprite objects, or perhaps my final screen specific CHR row...It's going to be tight!
- Cover Art, I am planning to make a scale model of my Van out of clay and have the band's photographer photograph it, as a nod to both
Earthbound (mother) but also to our art team.
-Manual, I haven't though much about this, but the print manual will be fairly important to adding backstory to all the NPCS included, I plan on having "cast notes' with a short bio of every person featured including their favorite NES game as a bit of trivia. (I asked for favorite NES game as I was getting their permission to add their likenesses to the game)

Hoping the first couple of those items will not take me more than a couple of weeks. The Box and Manuals will take much more time. My Pla is to start creating those as I start beta testing in the coming months.

When all is said and done and beta testing is completed, I hope to run a pre order campaign for cartridges. My friends and I are experienced enough with doing DIY vinyl/CD/Cassette runs for independent music releases, given I can get the cartridges from INL, I'll be able to turn them around with labels, manuals, and boxes fairly quickly. I have no idea how to gauge interest in physical copies for this yet, since my target audience are Rock fans who are also interested in old video games, I find that many of my record collector friends are also into some sort of retro gaming, so hoping to scoop in some new bodies into the homebrew scene.
To achieve that, I also plan on releasing the full game in rom form for free, as well I will be planning to build an NES emulator into the DMR web page to increase exposure.

I am excited to share the new features with the community, but 1st need to make sure my dungeons can function as intended, then may splice together a new working demo while I begin beta testing the final version.

Here are some random screen shots:


Thanks for checking in!
 

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Dirk

Member
Raftronaut said:
When all is said and done and beta testing is completed, I hope to run a pre order campaign for cartridges.

My wallet is weeping.

Raftronaut said:
To achieve that, I also plan on releasing the full game in rom form for free, as well I will be planning to build an NES emulator into the DMR web page to increase exposure.

My wallet is rejoicing!

Well, of course do I want to buy a physical copy. At the moment I have to live on a tight budget though. And buying games via Kickstarter also comes with added taxes, 10€ (~11-12$) handling fee and often postage of about 25$. The guy who made the NEScape! game had an agreement with an European NES developer though who handled shipping in Europe and this saved some money.

Long story short, I want to buy this game in the future, when I have the money and it's still available ^^


Raftronaut said:
I am excited to share the new features with the community, but 1st need to make sure my dungeons can function as intended, then may splice together a new working demo while I begin beta testing the final version.

I can't wait to play your demo, the screenshots (and what I've played so far) are looking pretty sweet :)
 

Raftronaut

Member
Dirk said:
Raftronaut said:
When all is said and done and beta testing is completed, I hope to run a pre order campaign for cartridges.

My wallet is weeping.

Raftronaut said:
To achieve that, I also plan on releasing the full game in rom form for free, as well I will be planning to build an NES emulator into the DMR web page to increase exposure.

My wallet is rejoicing!

Well, of course do I want to buy a physical copy. At the moment I have to live on a tight budget though. And buying games via Kickstarter also comes with added taxes, 10€ (~11-12$) handling fee and often postage of about 25$. The guy who made the NEScape! game had an agreement with an European NES developer though who handled shipping in Europe and this saved some money.

Long story short, I want to buy this game in the future, when I have the money and it's still available ^^


Raftronaut said:
I am excited to share the new features with the community, but 1st need to make sure my dungeons can function as intended, then may splice together a new working demo while I begin beta testing the final version.

I can't wait to play your demo, the screenshots (and what I've played so far) are looking pretty sweet :)

Thanks for the interest Dirk!
I am hoping that pre orders may be able to fund a general release of the cartridge. I really have no way of gauging demand at the moment, so hoping Pre orders would at least fund the 1st production run and essentially be limited edition versions. I hope to make them as affordable as possible for anyone who wants one, but still have to explore packaging production. One of the bigger homebrew package material makers is located here in my home state, and it may make more sense to go through them than do it independently, since they'll know what works best for adhesives and which papers make the best manuals etc. AS well, it is possible I could work out some European distro to help with taxes on your side. The band had worked with Wild Honey records and Otis tours in Italy, and it is possible I could line something up through their mail order distribution as well, shipping copies there bulk to save shipping and taxes for Europeans. I have a lot to think about on that front.

Making a good game is my first task to finish though!
 

Dirk

Member
Sounds pretty promising ^^
I looked it up, it was Broke Studio, who made Twin Dragons. They also sell Micro Mages and Nebs 'n Debs in their store. Maybe this could be an option too for you.

Well, either way I'm looking forward to playing future versions of your game. And especially listening to the soundtrack ^^
I think I'll start saving some money starting today, because you've said the magic words: "limited edition" :lol:
 

Raftronaut

Member
Dirk said:
Sounds pretty promising ^^
I looked it up, it was Broke Studio, who made Twin Dragons. They also sell Micro Mages and Nebs 'n Debs in their store. Maybe this could be an option too for you.

Well, either way I'm looking forward to playing future versions of your game. And especially listening to the soundtrack ^^
I think I'll start saving some money starting today, because you've said the magic words: "limited edition" :lol:

Oh yeah, I love Broke Studios, their web store is great. I'm big fan of Twin Dragons and have very reasonable shipping rates to the US. Khan's NEScape! game did very well on Kickstarter and KHAN has a good reputation in the community which is probably why they chose to distribute. This being my first NES release, I doubt they would have much interest. As well, I am hoping to push this on the rock n' roll community so offering it through a record label seems to make sense.

Don't hold me to anything yet! I still have a lot of work to do before I can have the entire project completed. A lot could change yet with the way I choose to roll it out. My biggest goal is to ensure it is as accessible as possible to those who have interest in the game ;)
 

Dirk

Member
The more time you take to finish your game, the better (for me ^^).
Yes, pushing it through the rock 'n roll community sounds really cool and reasonable. Do you also release your music on vinyls? I have one or two NES game soundtracks on vinyl records and I love them!
Ok, I haven't listen to them since I gifted my record player to my sister, but one day I'll have one again.
 

Dirk

Member
Austria, interesting, my home country ^^
A red vinyl? How could I resist? I'll place my order after my account gets activated :)
 
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