neMULEsis Single-Player ROM Now Available

[vanderblade]

Hey all,

The single-player mode for neMULEsis is now released. It's fully playable from beginning to end.

I will continue to tweak the game over the next year, hopefully with some player feedback, as I also work on trying to get a working 2-player mode implemented.

Thanks to everybody who has helped me along the way.

You can grab the game here: https://johnvanderhoef.itch.io/nemulesis

 

[Jonny]

Having recently discovered Contra this is right up my street. A lot of great work so far but also a couple of things I noticed need work (IMHO). You probably already know (and are working on these) but just a little feedback which I hope helps...

• When player falls at the start of the stage, if you hold left as falling you can end up in a state with no player and screen scrolling right. Not sure how because you seem to have solid tiles down the entire left side.
• Objects overlap screen and appear on the left very noticeably. If you find +checkRightForDrawingOffCamera in your doHandleObjects I think that's where you can tweak that.
• After shooting and dying, holding a direction keeps the player in idle state because input for change to moving isn't being pressed.
• Only other thing it the slow down. The boss stage is the worst for it. Some people don't mind slow down but personally it put me off trying again to beat the boss.

Looking great though, nice monster designs etc.

 

[mouse spirit]

Looks really cool. I'd love to play and debug and or give feedback.
One suggestion if i can, is to maybe ad some palette cycling.
To add more life to the stages. Just a small thing really.

Edit: I played it through. I enjoyed it.Fairly solid. Good work!

 

[mouse spirit]

Jonny makes some good points. I noticed the boss slowdown, but i didnt notice how bad it was the whole time until i killed everything on screen and the game got fast!
I just thought it was a kinda slow game ha. But it was constant slowdown.

If i may add some ideas,some you may already have. Granted i only played a two level demo on itch.

1. Possibly make different enemy bullets. I know you have octo bombs and bullets, but i mean varying speeds, maybe some big ones.You enemies are cool to be sure,especially the meteorite guy!

2. Add pallete cycling for some background life. The levels look cool.

3. The controls were alright. I liked shooting up n stuff. But like jonny mentioned, theres times when im not moving because i was already pressing something at a certain time or something. Like after dying.

4. Some Tall things would be cool. I mean retractable flames and lightning.

5. Sidetracks. Maybe have in the middle of the level, a door to a mini game or level. Then return. If possible ( Im not versed in scrolling problems in 4.5)

I will play more n get back to you.

 

[tbizzle]

@Jonny You just now discovered Contra? Super C is pretty good too. HMU if you want to play online P2P!

 

[tbizzle]

@vanderblade plays great! Great job man!

 

[vanderblade]

Having recently discovered Contra this is right up my street. A lot of great work so far but also a couple of things I noticed need work (IMHO). You probably already know (and are working on these) but just a little feedback which I hope helps...

• When player falls at the start of the stage, if you hold left as falling you can end up in a state with no player and screen scrolling right. Not sure how because you seem to have solid tiles down the entire left side.
• Objects overlap screen and appear on the left very noticeably. If you find +checkRightForDrawingOffCamera in your doHandleObjects I think that's where you can tweak that.
• After shooting and dying, holding a direction keeps the player in idle state because input for change to moving isn't being pressed.
• Only other thing it the slow down. The boss stage is the worst for it. Some people don't mind slow down but personally it put me off trying again to beat the boss.

Looking great though, nice monster designs etc.

Thanks, Jonny. You've a good eye. All of those are known issues.

• I honestly have no clue about the auto scroll. I've thrown my head at the problem a lot and can so far not think of a solution.
• I'll look into the overlap issue more closely, although this was common in many NES games. CRTs generally cut off the far edges of the screen.
• I'll try to zero out player input for this one. Although honestly, it's whatever.
• The slow down is just NESMaker and chunky sprites. You should see this game without all the tricks I'm already using. It's a NES game with a lot of objects on screen and a very inefficient way of handling those. Can't be helped. But if anybody has ideas beyond what I'm already doing (bespoke draw code for almost all objects except the player, as much "no collision" checks as I can when applicable, etc., I'd love to hear them.

I really appreciate the feedback. While I was aware of these issues, I can see that players may be more sensitive to them than I am after spending hundreds of hours with the game. Hehe.

 

[vanderblade]

Jonny makes some good points. I noticed the boss slowdown, but i didnt notice how bad it was the whole time until i killed everything on screen and the game got fast!
I just thought it was a kinda slow game ha. But it was constant slowdown.

If i may add some ideas,some you may already have. Granted i only played a two level demo on itch.

1. Possibly make different enemy bullets. I know you have octo bombs and bullets, but i mean varying speeds, maybe some big ones.You enemies are cool to be sure,especially the meteorite guy!

2. Add pallete cycling for some background life. The levels look cool.

3. The controls were alright. I liked shooting up n stuff. But like jonny mentioned, theres times when im not moving because i was already pressing something at a certain time or something. Like after dying.

4. Some Tall things would be cool. I mean retractable flames and lightning.

5. Sidetracks. Maybe have in the middle of the level, a door to a mini game or level. Then return. If possible ( Im not versed in scrolling problems in 4.5)

I will play more n get back to you.

Thanks for the feedback!

• I have my game objects maxed out, and while I can use action states for different sized projectiles, I'd have to also then figure out how, with code after the creation point, to manually change the speed. But all that is technically doable, so I'll explore this more. Edit: I guess I could use monster objects for additional projectiles too, so that's an option.
• My static bank is FULL to the breaking point, and I'd like to also eventually get 2-player code in the game. Therefore, I just don't think I can get the palette swapping stuff in the game. I might harness the extra CHRs for animation I already have in the game and see if I can use that without adding more code to the static bank.
• Outside of what Jonny mentioned, there should be no time where the game doesn't respond appropriately. It controls pretty tight for the most part. Maybe if you showed me specific examples?
• Not bad ideas, but I have to always consider object limits and sprite limits, and long objects contribute to more slowdown.
• As I'm going for a Contra or general run and gun action vibe, I'm not sure side areas would fit with the peddle to the meddle tone of the game, but it's a neat idea.

 

[mouse spirit]

My player just wouldnt move, only happened once.
Didnt seem to be holding up or down either.
If it happens again i will try to debug it.Maybe my imagination.

1.Also when holding down, i cant turn around.

2.I can spam pause and shoot, and shootmany bullets, you still hav them limited
if more enemies are on the screen somewhat so that can take care of it.

3 After releasing duck, i always face right.
Also happens when releasing shoot up.

4. When i drop from the muleship, i can duck in the air.

5. Dont' take this the wrong way, but i was inside the boss!

6. Less of a glitch or mess up, but when i jump, i want to shoot UP into the air!

I will say that it would be nice to be 2 player,but this game has no need for it and yes with
nesmaker and how its currently set up, you cant even add a second player to this one
without even more extreme slowdown. Sorry. BUT great as a one player game. I really enjoy it.

 

[mouse spirit]

Also this happens

Also it looked like i accessed a grenade throw animation?
May have just been a glitch that looked like it.

1.Some light green blocks actually cant be jumped on?
Mainly ones with worms possibly.

2. When i hit the top of the screen, my character stops also.

3. In the starting screen where you drop, alot of stuff can happen,
including glitching out the entire first level.

 

[tbizzle]

Did you ever try to get diagonal shooting in your game? @vanderblade

 

[vanderblade]

Also this happens
View attachment 5269
Also it looked like i accessed a grenade throw animation?
May have just been a glitch that looked like it.

1.Some light green blocks actually cant be jumped on?
Mainly ones with worms possibly.

2. When i hit the top of the screen, my character stops also.

3. In the starting screen where you drop, alot of stuff can happen,
including glitching out the entire first level.

• Thanks. I'm working on that first screen stuff. It has to do with bugs in everything from collision to scrolling to input. It's insane. I may just drop the idea of "dropping" into levels since there are too many variables and ways for things to break. Thanks, NESMaker.
• Some of those platforms with the worms are purposefully left null, but I'll take a look.
• Because of an issue I just posted about in the forums, I have to have solids lining the top of my screen to absorb player projectiles. They don't destroy on screen edge as they are suppose to. So it's normal for the player to hit a solid and trigger the stop on solid reaction.

 

[vanderblade]

My player just wouldnt move, only happened once.
Didnt seem to be holding up or down either.
If it happens again i will try to debug it.Maybe my imagination.

1.Also when holding down, i cant turn around.

2.I can spam pause and shoot, and shootmany bullets, you still hav them limited
if more enemies are on the screen somewhat so that can take care of it.

3 After releasing duck, i always face right.
Also happens when releasing shoot up.

4. When i drop from the muleship, i can duck in the air.

5. Dont' take this the wrong way, but i was inside the boss!

6. Less of a glitch or mess up, but when i jump, i want to shoot UP into the air!

I will say that it would be nice to be 2 player,but this game has no need for it and yes with
nesmaker and how its currently set up, you cant even add a second player to this one
without even more extreme slowdown. Sorry. BUT great as a one player game. I really enjoy it.

I appreciate the feedback. Some of those are practical considerations because of the way different scripts were interacting with each other and transitioning from up and down to upright and trying to figure out player direction and projectile direction can get messy. But it's worth trying to unpack going forward. I realized the inside the boss thing too late, haha. It's another consequence of needing solid tile reactions for the player projectile even though I would prefer for them not to have those. Anyway, thanks.

 

[vanderblade]

Did you ever try to get diagonal shooting in your game? @vanderblade

For many reasons, including no more space in my game objects CHR to change character position and how complicated 8-directional shooting can be to program, I'm leaving that out. Honestly, my code is a mess as is. It needs the tender care of a more competent asm programmer.