[Byte-Off 2020] Spirit Impel

PasseGaming

Active member
What is Spirit Impel?
Spirit Impel is a "love-letter" to the Gradius series, specifically it's spin-off Life Force. At it's core, Spirit Impel is a horizontally auto-scrolling Shmup (shoot'em up), designed to pull on those retro-gaming heart strings, while taking the occasional pop-shot at a notorious game developer. All in good fun of course!

What's Spirit Impel About?
Like the games of this era, Spirit Impel's plot is fairly simple. you take control of Vin Katana, and your goal is to destroy the intergalactic corporation known as Ultra, before it turns another one of your favorite video-game series into a pachinko machine. Oh no!

Why are you Making this Game?
That's a simple question to answer. I am creating this game as a gift for my best friend of 25 years, who like me is a big fan of retro-gaming. He absolutely loves Shmup's and of course Life Force is his favorite on the NES. So, i am going to give it my best and make him something special.

What are your Goals with this Project?
I'd like to have a working demo to enter into Byte-Off 2020. This may or may not be a pipe-dream. As a husband and father of two, my time allotment to put into this project varies day to day. Not only that but I am currently fighting depression and I am a slow learner to boot. So, I have quite a mountain to climb if I want to reach that goal. Fortunately I have some experience with making hacks of NES games from my past and the fantastic community at my disposal. My ultimate goal is to have the game completed by Christmas 2020. So, I have quite the task ahead of me. Wish me luck!

Screen Shots
game-000.png
game-001.png
game-002.png
game-007.png
game-015.png
game-020.png
game-024.png



Updates
10/26/2020: We now have a game over screen! I am going to try a new pause script I found then begin working on power-ups again and see what happened. Progress has been somewhat lately but things are beginning to pick up again.

10/07/2020: We have player and monster death animations with sound! Simply amazing, thanks to Davey yet again. Such a small thing really adds to the overall feel of the game. Now just to figure out pause, and try to make a game over screen again. My last attempt failed miserably, game kept tweaking out when I added it in. Wanna get this stuff done before finishing the last three stages... I may do a small release, depends on the interest in it. We'll see, haven't had much yet. I don't think the game is quite polished enough to get that kind of interest.

9/30/2020: The demo was submitted on time, probably should have included that fact in a update. I took a small break of a week or so to recoup before getting back to work on it. Though I can take my time now that the ByteOff crunch has passed. At the moment I am working on death animations for both the player and enemies and making progress thanks to Davey. Logana has updated the sound track, I'm excited to put the newest version in. Planning on tackling power-ups and pausing once I finish with the death animations. Then the horrifying project of gutting the engine some to try and help with the slow-down issues. That way I can possibly pump in a few more enemies and tweak the stages some to be less difficult (navigating-wise) as that's how the difficulty is measured at the moment due to the slow-down and not being able to put more baddies on screen.

9/18/2020: Welp, the third stage was completed few days ago. Spent some time tweaking the difficulty then play tested it on real hardware. The game actually ran better on the hardware then it had on MESEN. So, that's definitely a plus. I also completed the magazine ad and instruction manual. An this morning I submitted it. You can find the download at the ByteOff compatition page. Think I was the 10th person to submit their work at the time. Anyhow, I'm going to take it easy for the next few days. Then get working on completing the game for this holiday season. I'd like to do a limited release if possible. I'd have to wait and see how much interest there is in this game... Also been planning my next project, don't expect to get to it anytime soon but I have a solid idea and some resources already allotted towards it.

9/13/2020: So I've made some more progress on the game. Third stage is nearly completed. Just need to populate with monsters and some obstacles. The music is fully implemented and a special shout out to my composer Laguna (should Spirit Impel win the music category, the prize is his, I'm just happy with the accolade). Still trying to figure out a blasted pause script... maybe Dale can help out once this is all over as I fully expect to finish the game. The new stage intro screens are pretty cool. Also hammered out a horrible bug having to do with checkpoints. Caused a full on panic, luckily with some aid from Davey we figured out it was just a typo on the original script. I reported it in the bugs section if you want to look see. The box art and advertisement is nearly completed, I am really excited to share that. Anyhow, that's probably the last update until the deadline. Thanks again for following along.

9/8/2020: Screen shots are already out of date, changed some of the colors around to make things pop more. Also managed to add 1-ups to the game. So we've made some decent progress today. Tried to implement boss block tiles and while it does work the game doesn't want to continue scrolling afterwards. So I've had to trash all that work and turn the boss back into a sprite. Was hoping to use the background to release slow down. Once I finish the second stage I am going to add sprite flickering so that monster projectiles don't vanish during game play. Doesn't look all that easy but it's worth a go. I think I will also add a stage name screen before each level so to prevent the werid glitch that messes with the graphics when going from a 16x16 screen to a 8x8. That's about it. I'll be happy if I can get a third level built before the deadline for submissions. So, we'll see.

9/7/2020: Oh, boy. So, I ran into a issue I wasn't expecting. When the player dies regardless of what stage they were on, they get transported back to the first stage. Anyone happen to know how to fix this? Gonna hold up progress as I try to figure this out and we are nearly half-way to the deadline! On to better news, I've managed to get the collision finished for the second stage, started working on the sprites for that stage as well. Still having some slowdown on the first stage, going to spread the monsters out some. I decided that it would be a good idea to speed the game up some to add to the difficultly, while removing some of the baddies. began work on the label and box art for the game, as well as my promotional art. Gonna be a few more days before I can share that.

9/6/2020: Ugh, getting the kids ready for distanced learning has really eaten up most of my time lately. I have managed to get the screen shots uploaded. First stage is complete, though it needs some futzing around to try and alleviate the slow down. It was to be expected with the MOD_shooter scripts. Seconded stage is designed, just need to fill it with monsters and collision. I am also still toying with the game over/continue screen. Music has been implemented. Though sound effects have not just yet. Getting there.

9/1/2020: Still haven't yet completed the first stage, I am trying to figure out a script that will allow the first stages boss to move up & down and shoot at the player, tried many methods but none have seem to work up to this point. Good news is we now have cut-scenes for the beginning of the game. An they are skip-able. also progress is being made on the music and it is sound very good. Still haven't figured out where I can host screenshots. I am thinking Facebook maybe? Lastly I am working on a old school magazine advertisement for the game. It'd be part of my entry for Byte-Off 20202. Thats about it at the moment.

8/30/2020: Power outage due to a storm slowed progress some friday. Today I spent the entire day working on figuring out monster health, we managed to find a way. So now the only hurdle I have left for the moment is death animations. Still stumped on that one. While I futz around with that I am going to actually begin finishing the first stage. I have a handful of new monsters specifically for it. Just need to make up a boss and figure out how to trigger night so I can use the boss sprite. Progress!

8/25/2020: I've managed to not only figure out the snags I've been hitting with the sprite animations and input controls, I've actually got a title screen now and the first stage practically constructed. Making some solid progress, I'm already far deeper into the game then I had gotten with 4.1 that took me weeks a few months ago, I've finished in a matter of days. At the moment I am trying to figure out how to do a cut scene that displays the plot of the game. Tried a few different methods with no luck. I plan on putting some more time into it tomorrow and finishing the firs stage! I also have someone who will be composing the music for the game, as I don't have one bit of musical talent. I'm lucky to have found such a great community!

08/23/2020: I've been working on sprites over the summer when I managed to find the time and motivation to do so. Now that the shooter module is available I have begun importing my graphics into the project. As of now I am trying to work out a few snags regarding animation and input controls. I'll have some screen shots and whatnot in a few days.
 
Cool stuff, PasseGaming. Looking forward to the demo. I have similar goals to yours. A complete game by christmas. As a gift to my brother. Trying for a Demo release for ByteOff. I'm hoiping to set up mechanics withing the next 2 weeks, and then a week of level building, setting up dialogues etc. and a spare week for fine tuning.

Keep it up man. United against Pachinko
 

dale_coop

Moderator
Staff member
Great project, take your time... make a fun demo... then you will be able to improve it during the following months.
I know being a father and a husband is SOOO much time consuming. I have not enough for myself, I can't even work on my own projects.
But NESmaker is kinda in our everyday life now, as I introduced it to my son (he was almost 6 at that time) and we do a fix NESmaker sessions every months (twice or 3 times). My son loves it, he loves creating NES games <3

Can't wait to see how your project will progress.
Following!
 

PasseGaming

Active member
Thanks for the words of encouragement, I've been making some decent progress and only bugging people for aid occasionally when I get stuck with a concept. Though, lately I've been figuring them out on my own by fiddling around with the tool. I am excited to try and pump out at least two stages for the demo. Seems like a decent start.

I should get some screen shots of my work and share them.
 

PasseGaming

Active member
mouse spirit said:
Hey , i noticed that you dont have an animal character.
Whats wrong with you?!

lol. I know right? I've seen about 5 games featuring a cat alone. I feel like I'm missing out by not stuffing some sort of animal into the game.
 

PasseGaming

Active member
I am taking a short break today before I have a stroke with this flipping code. Gonna play some Black Box Challange on my NES!
 

PasseGaming

Active member
alrighty, I managed to find someplace to host the screenshots and I have em uploaded for your enjoyment. Also put the latest game development update. Enjoy folks!
 

Logana

Well-known member
i made a playlist of every song relooping twice https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oyWrxzJgsF0&list=PLIEKTDLGlRtlBFmJA1pWVQQSoohE2J65K so yeah you can add the soundtrack so people can listen before you finish the demo :3
 

PasseGaming

Active member
Added todays update and issue I am having at the moment. Anyone who happens to know how to fix this, please let me know!
 

Logana

Well-known member
On the tile the player warps in place a checkpoint tile in the adventure module, should work like a charm
 

PasseGaming

Active member
Logana said:
On the tile the player warps in place a checkpoint tile in the adventure module, should work like a charm

Yes, thank you bud, I downloaded it! Also, where can I find the script for the checkpoint tile?
 
Top Bottom