Squirrel Chaser WIP - BETA AVAILABLE!

SciNEStist

SciNEStist

Member
Squirrel Chaser

EDIT 3: DOWNLOAD THE BETA HERE!!!

EDIT 2: early demo here
EDIT: heres a youtube video:
View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nc-Xr3hoB4o


This is a game I've been at work on where you play a dog. Roam around your home and neighborhood chasing squirrels and do other dog stuff.

It is based on the adventure module with several modifications to the scripting that I hope will make the game stand out.

features:
-8 directional movement/attacking
-enemies run away when hit
-Charge up projectile system - hold down a button to growl and charge up your bark. When you release the button, a bark in the form of a soundwave projectile is launched. the longer you charge up/growl, the further the bark goes!
-diverse enemies with unique behaviour (not just squirrels, but skunks, cats, porcupines, and some other surprises / bosses
-large map that includes a park, streets, houses, and others

I'm currently focusing on getting the core gameplay to be fun and reliable while making a large and varied map to roam around in. Once that is done, Goals and missions will be added that unlock areas and give a narrative.

I'm still learning more about 6502 assembly and getting better as I go thanks in a large part to this forum. I hope to eventually be able to help others just as much.

title screen, like most of the art, is in progress and sort of a placeholder for now.

skunks shoot deadly gas clouds, while squirrels just dart around.

growl animation. growling gets faster the longer you hold down fire.
 
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dale_coop

dale_coop

Moderator
Staff member
Wow! This game looks awesome! The "Charge up projectile system" sounds very interesting. SciNEStist, can't wait to test the first demo. Great job!
 
SciNEStist

SciNEStist

Member
Thought I would put out a video showing a little of what has been made so far. Still very early days, but I'm just getting started.

https://youtu.be/Nc-Xr3hoB4o
 
red moon

red moon

Member
This is great progress, it is nice to see a complicated 8 way movement with sprites set up that way. And he cat boss was amazing! Loved it!
 
SciNEStist

SciNEStist

Member
The built in nesmaker emulator puts the 2nd pulse wave on the right channel and the 1st on the left. Since my music is only using the 1st and my sfx only the 2nd, thats why we got the separation.


I suspect they did it that way for this exact reason, so we can tell the difference between sfx and music while developing.
 
SciNEStist

SciNEStist

Member
Happy MAR10 day! (MARch 10th)

To celebrate, I figured I could drop a demo of what I've been working on, in the hope of getting feedback. I'm still figuring things out as I make them.

The story (which I hope to add cutscenes for) is that something has stolen your favorite bone, and you need to get it back!

the house exists as sort of a tutorial area to teach how to play, then the real game starts outside!. I've scattered various enemies around the neighborhood, so if you just want to wander around instead of going to an objective, you certainly can.

controls:
A - Sniff/Interact
Press/Hold B - Growl/charge attack
release B: attack/ bark


known bugs:
- Hud only works on some screens
- sometimes your first bark after moving to a new screen hits an invisible enemy. Not sure what is heppening here, likely something isnt being cleared properly in the screen change.
-slowdowns occasionally
-the first 2 screens have boundaries that need to be re-added

Definitly looking for constructive criticism here.
- are the controls okay?
- is it easy to figure out where to go?
- any suggestions on making things work better?
-any suggestions to improve sprites, music, sfx, etc ?
-are the enemies too easy, too difficult?
 

Attachments

  • Squirrelchaserdemo.zip
    34.4 KB · Views: 91
Dirk

Dirk

Member
Hi, this is not a full review or test of your game, since I should have gone to bed hours ago, but I wanted to give it a quick test anyways.
How did you make the walk behind tiles?

Okay, what I wanted to tell you...

When I walk downwards from this screen

Squirrelchaserdemo_001.png

I get stuck in the trees here

Squirrelchaserdemo_002.png

(Luckily I have a "rewind" button on my controller so it doesn't matter for me, but for a regular player it would of course.)

Personally for me the dog is too slow so I cheat and use the "faster" button on my controller. But that's probably something you don't want to change or even can't since your A and B buttons have already functions assigned to them. Maybe "B + direction" would still work, or you could add a "double tap" function so pressing a direction once and then again would make the dog run. I have no idea how to implement this though ^^

Well, I'll head to bed now. I love the concept of your game. It's very creative and imaginative. I also love the cat ^^ (and the cute squirrels)
 
SciNEStist

SciNEStist

Member
That is very weird, the top of the fence is walk behind, but the bottom of the fence is supposed to be a solid, so you cant walk through it. the only way out is supposed to be the door, so I will fix that tonight. Until then, pretend the fence and house are solid :oops:

Just my luck that the first screen is glitched.

The trick to making good walk behind tiles is to make sure the tiles around it are blank, since the game engine puts the sprite behind ALL tiles when in contact with a walk behind tile. In this case, the transparent color is bright green instead of black so it looks more like grass.

I was concerned about how slow the main character is, I suppose I can either speed him up a bit or add a run button. Thank you for your feedback so far
 
Dirk

Dirk

Member
I don't if I understand correctly. At the beginning I walked to the right and - I think - left the room how you are supposed to leave it. Then I walked to the left, beneath the fence on the grass. Then I walked down and got stuck in the trees. Or am I not to supposed to even be able walking under the fence like in picture 1?
 
SciNEStist

SciNEStist

Member
correct, it was my fault that you were able to get around there, you were not supposed to be able to escape the yard except for going through the house. Thank you for pointing out the flaw.
 
Dirk

Dirk

Member
Ah, okay. That also explains the noisy screens when you continue to the left. I didn't mention them as I thought they were simply placeholder screens.
 
SciNEStist

SciNEStist

Member
updated with some fixes from feedback I got.

I fixed the issue on the first screen and sped up the player.
 

Attachments

  • Squirrelchaserdemo.zip
    34.4 KB · Views: 109
Dirk

Dirk

Member
I love the sniffing animation and those scent lines afterwards, very creative!
I also love the humor (for example: the toilette and the mortal enemy ^^)
Personally, for my taste, the dog is still a bit slow and his movement feels a bit slippery. I mean they way he stops has this "walking on ice feeling".
A general problem I have with games made with this module is the movement of the enemies or to be more precise how to kill them. Since they walk around randomly I have a hard time killing them. Until I've reached a good "killing spot" they've wandered off again. Also, since I don't stop immediately it makes positioning myself a bit harder. Maybe increasing the barking radius would help.

Oh, I also love how the dog doesn't die, but curls up the rest <3 At least that's how I'm interpreting it (I hope it's meant this way ^^)

(Re-reading my post... a lot love ^^)
 
SciNEStist

SciNEStist

Member
Still working on this! I was a little sad that I couldn't submit this game to the Byte-Off since It doesn't really fit the theme of the competition. (TIME). Perhaps next year. :cry:

Speaking of time, I've been using my spare time to keep improving and adding to the game. Here's a few screenshots:





 
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