Since everything seems to be fine, I think it's safe to release the demo version.
You can download it here:
[Geisterhand Trial]
Aside from several missing sound effects (mainly for the boss),
everything is implemented into the game.
The CG for the boss isn't included, but of course it will be included in the full version.
(it's just that we decided that having 4 out of 13 CG scenes in the trial version, should be enough)
If you're not able to read japanese, you can switch the language setting in the main menu.
Known issues:
- there are some typos in the CG scenes
- on "very easy" there is a bug with the respawn function, but it's nothing critical
(respawn does work, but sometimes you respawn right on the spot)
Taken out of the readMe file:
(there is also a japanese readMe file)
===[Controls:]===
* Arrow keys for movement.
* When you're caught by an enemy or a spider net, randomly hit ANY keys to free yourself.
* Press [Arrow Down] + [Space] to fall through certain platforms.
* Perform wall jumps by pressing [Space] when you're clinging to a wall.
* Press [Arrow Up] + [D] to shoot upwards.
* Press [Arrow Up] + [W] to shoot charged special shots upwards.
[Space] - jump
[A] - bullet time/time alter/slow time
[D] - shoot
[W] - charged special shot (only available after beating one of the bosses in the full-version)
[S] - change ammo type
Btw. clinging to a wall in order to enable wall-jumps does NOT work if you're falling too fast.
This means, if Sheyla starts to drop (losing height) after jumping, or if you fall down into a pit etc.
This is also the case when trying to wall-jump over too long distances.
It's no bug, it's fully intentional the way it is.
(2 out of 10 testplayers wondered about this, so I thought I should mention it)
Simply said: "if you fall too much, you can't cling to a wall."
And yup, this means a broken wall-jump-chain makes you fall all the way down.
Have fun playing the game, and please report bugs and other issues!
P.S:
Just in case someone is bringing the topic up again:
No, the DL link is not broken, I uploaded the trial version on Mega, that's all.
I've read the ToS of several other hosters, but everyone seems to prohibit adult stuff... so yeah...
Mega is the only choice right now.
I'm okay with people uploading the demo version on other hosters, as long as they link to this wegblog.
But I'm not doing it myself, since I don't want to deal with deleted files, blocked accounts etc.
(well, that would be the consequence for uploading adult stuff I guess... at least that's what happened on mediafire last time I did it)
Tuesday, August 13, 2013
Saturday, August 10, 2013
Music implemented - final testing of the demo
Good news, everyone!
We've got all the important pieces of music for the demo version.
So the critical release condition has been fulfilled!
I'm just doing some final fixes, small adjustments, as well as... uh... yeah... "blocking" some of the content that's not supposed to be in the demo version.
I also implemented some sound effects, but lots of sound effects are still missing.
After I'm done with these things, I'll hand the demo-version out for testing.
If no critical bugs get reported within 48 hours after handing it out, I'll release the demo-version on this blog.
So... yeah... I'll finish work on the demo-version today or tomorrow.
That means it'll get released on this blog in about 3-4 days, I guess?
(if no critical bugs get reported... otherwise it might take a couple days longer, but I believe this won't happen)
P.S:
Geisterhand still needs only ~250 MB Ram on my notebook.
The game also starts up pretty fast.
So yes, I'm convinced the final version will run on nearly any computer ^^
I also want to thank everyone who helped correcting the tags on the Paperheads gallery.
(the stuff I mentioned in the last post)
Thank you very very much!
We've got all the important pieces of music for the demo version.
So the critical release condition has been fulfilled!
I'm just doing some final fixes, small adjustments, as well as... uh... yeah... "blocking" some of the content that's not supposed to be in the demo version.
I also implemented some sound effects, but lots of sound effects are still missing.
After I'm done with these things, I'll hand the demo-version out for testing.
If no critical bugs get reported within 48 hours after handing it out, I'll release the demo-version on this blog.
So... yeah... I'll finish work on the demo-version today or tomorrow.
That means it'll get released on this blog in about 3-4 days, I guess?
(if no critical bugs get reported... otherwise it might take a couple days longer, but I believe this won't happen)
P.S:
Geisterhand still needs only ~250 MB Ram on my notebook.
The game also starts up pretty fast.
So yes, I'm convinced the final version will run on nearly any computer ^^
I also want to thank everyone who helped correcting the tags on the Paperheads gallery.
(the stuff I mentioned in the last post)
Thank you very very much!
Tuesday, July 23, 2013
Monday, July 8, 2013
Geisterhands heroine: Sheyla
Today I wanted to tell you guys (and girls) something about Sheyla,
the main heroine of "Geisterhand".
Geisterhand is german and means "ghost hand" in english.
And yup, it's the name of our second game.
Unlike Paperheads which was a spin-off, Geisterhand is the real thing.
Uhm... maybe I should explain this a bit more in detail.
While Paperheads featured some of the characters you might see in future games of us,
they were almost all out-of-character in Paperheads.
For example:
Verdani wouldn't dress herself like she did in Paperheads.
(originally she doesn't even like makeup)
Also Neamera would never even want to be the boss of such an organization.
While Chao wouldn't work together with Neamera,
and Ledun is "originally" some guy that transforms into a werewolf.
Furthermore the world of Paperheads has nothing to do with the "original story",
or the world the original story takes place in.
(in Paperheads all the characters had been depicted as "normal" humans,
but in the original story all of them are not regular human beings)
That in mind, lets get to the core.
Geisterhand plays in a world similar to ours,
were demons and monsters appear occasionally.
The story takes place in a modern world,
similar to our world as it is right now.
The main character 'Sheyla', isn't an everyday human being.
Aside from firing regular bullets,
she's also able to focus soul-power into her bullets.
This way she's able to fire strong shots with special properties.
(yes, you can view this as "magic", though I refer to it as "soul-power" (SP),
basically I guess it's the same as MP, Mana, whatever you want to call it)
After defeating the bosses she absorbs their powers,
in order to be able to use a new type of charged shot.
Sheyla is really swift and agile,
in fact she's one of the fastest beings on earth.
She accomplishes this by using soul-power to boost her movement (and the speed of her bullets), though she can only keep this up for short periodes of time.
If she uses this ability, her senses are also sharpened to keep up with her movement speed.
The bullet time/time alter mode shows this by reducing the speed of everything except Sheyla and her bullets by 50%.
This means that she's able to move twice as fast as normally possible.
(as well as shooting twice as often,
in the same period of time that the enemies experience)
What's not directly shown in the game:
Sheyla is a trained and experienced assassin,
and she's mainly working as an agent for the government.
Taking on risky jobs is pretty normal for her,
as well as killing all sorts of opponents, including demons and monsters.
Though being send onto a monster infested island is a completely new experience for her.
Sheyla is a pretty sweet girl, naturally friendly and cheerful.
(though beware, some of this is only faked, since well... she's an assassin,
and being "underestimated" is always good)
She's really brave, though she's not that self-confident.
Wait what? Brave but not that self-confident?
How does that work out?
Well, view it like this:
She tends to be brave, but she knows her limits.
Especially because she's an assassin, she likes to pick her enemies off guard,
or surprise them with her swift movement.
If she somehow fails, she's tending to escape quickly.
She likes to pick fights with strong enemies,
but she's not dumb enough to keep on fighting when she's at a clear disadvantage.
Hence she's kinda brave, but not too confident in her skills in a head-on engagement.
Well, since she's a woman she has a disadvantage in strength against most enemies anyway.
At any rate, she knows what she's doing,
and she's being successful the way she's doing things.
If you've got any questions about her, feel free to ask.
On a side note:
Sheyla is the very first character I ever created myself, this happened more than 8 years ago.
I've also used to draw her myself, but currently Crescentia is drawing her.
the main heroine of "Geisterhand".
Geisterhand is german and means "ghost hand" in english.
And yup, it's the name of our second game.
Unlike Paperheads which was a spin-off, Geisterhand is the real thing.
Uhm... maybe I should explain this a bit more in detail.
While Paperheads featured some of the characters you might see in future games of us,
they were almost all out-of-character in Paperheads.
For example:
Verdani wouldn't dress herself like she did in Paperheads.
(originally she doesn't even like makeup)
Also Neamera would never even want to be the boss of such an organization.
While Chao wouldn't work together with Neamera,
and Ledun is "originally" some guy that transforms into a werewolf.
Furthermore the world of Paperheads has nothing to do with the "original story",
or the world the original story takes place in.
(in Paperheads all the characters had been depicted as "normal" humans,
but in the original story all of them are not regular human beings)
That in mind, lets get to the core.
Geisterhand
Geisterhand plays in a world similar to ours,
were demons and monsters appear occasionally.
The story takes place in a modern world,
similar to our world as it is right now.
The main character 'Sheyla', isn't an everyday human being.
Aside from firing regular bullets,
she's also able to focus soul-power into her bullets.
This way she's able to fire strong shots with special properties.
(yes, you can view this as "magic", though I refer to it as "soul-power" (SP),
basically I guess it's the same as MP, Mana, whatever you want to call it)
After defeating the bosses she absorbs their powers,
in order to be able to use a new type of charged shot.
Sheyla is really swift and agile,
in fact she's one of the fastest beings on earth.
She accomplishes this by using soul-power to boost her movement (and the speed of her bullets), though she can only keep this up for short periodes of time.
If she uses this ability, her senses are also sharpened to keep up with her movement speed.
The bullet time/time alter mode shows this by reducing the speed of everything except Sheyla and her bullets by 50%.
This means that she's able to move twice as fast as normally possible.
(as well as shooting twice as often,
in the same period of time that the enemies experience)
What's not directly shown in the game:
Sheyla is a trained and experienced assassin,
and she's mainly working as an agent for the government.
Taking on risky jobs is pretty normal for her,
as well as killing all sorts of opponents, including demons and monsters.
Though being send onto a monster infested island is a completely new experience for her.
Sheyla is a pretty sweet girl, naturally friendly and cheerful.
(though beware, some of this is only faked, since well... she's an assassin,
and being "underestimated" is always good)
She's really brave, though she's not that self-confident.
Wait what? Brave but not that self-confident?
How does that work out?
Well, view it like this:
She tends to be brave, but she knows her limits.
Especially because she's an assassin, she likes to pick her enemies off guard,
or surprise them with her swift movement.
If she somehow fails, she's tending to escape quickly.
She likes to pick fights with strong enemies,
but she's not dumb enough to keep on fighting when she's at a clear disadvantage.
Hence she's kinda brave, but not too confident in her skills in a head-on engagement.
Well, since she's a woman she has a disadvantage in strength against most enemies anyway.
At any rate, she knows what she's doing,
and she's being successful the way she's doing things.
If you've got any questions about her, feel free to ask.
On a side note:
Sheyla is the very first character I ever created myself, this happened more than 8 years ago.
I've also used to draw her myself, but currently Crescentia is drawing her.
Saturday, July 6, 2013
Small status report
The last 2 weeks we made no real progress,
since Crescentias notebook broke down and it had to be repaired.
Well, everything is fixed now.
Since we do backups of everything on a regular basis, nothing bad happened.
It's just that no graphics had been made during this period.
We also decided to not do any hentai animations for the bosses,
because the character sprites are way too small.
You can't even see anything specific on them...
so creating those sprites is just wasted energy I guess?
(well, maybe for some people it's still good despite being such small sprites, but it's hard to satisfy everyone without making compromises, and we rather invest our working time into something else)
Since we're short at least 2 weeks, we decided to cut down from 15 to 13 CG scenes.
(well, we want to get it done as soon as possible, while being as good as possible, and I doubt that those 2 scenes would make a big difference in game quality, but it allows us to finish the game in less time)
Well I'm a bit clueless about the CG scenes narrative as well.
So it's better if I only have to come up with scenes for 13 instead of 15 CG scenes.
I guess I should try to explain this a bit more detailed:
I don't know if my CG scene texts are good enough, and I find it especially difficult to write non-repetitive text, since well... it mostly happens the same.
The biggest difference is that on each CG a different enemy has sex with the heroine.
And while on some CG scenes she enjoys it, on others she doesn't.
It's not that it's the same text all the time, but you could say that there is a similar feel to it.
At least that's what one of the testplayers told me, and I think she's got a point.
Well... it's always:
Heroine loses --> gets captured --> gets fucked etc.
Since the monsters mostly can't talk, there isn't that much room for dialoge.
(it's mostly just Sheyla saying something or thinking)
The biggest thing I learned out of this is, that in future games,
I'll do the CG scenes more as part of the story, so I can avoid this repetitive feeling.
E.g. if the heroine has to rescue some girls from slave traders,
and she fails, she gets sold as a slave herself etc.
That way the CG scenes narrative, as well as dialoge during CG scenes, isn't repeating itself.
Because it's not just being fucked, it's also happening something else, at least in theory.
But of course this means, that doing one CG scene per enemy isn't quite working out.
(it's more of a "one CG scene per stage" then, well... this cancels out the need to lose all the time, so the player just has to lose once to get the CG and then he/she can concentrate on winning the stage)
It's just an idea right now, and I'll have to think more about it.
At any rate, this only matters for future games.
(the current game is fully planned out and it's on it's way to completion)
Good news is, that we found someone who is supporting us by doing music for the game.
I can't share that many details yet, but I'll give out some information as soon as possible.
So I guess it's not that long until the demo will be released.
(and yes, we suck at doing music ourselves... we completely wasted our time, but well... you never know unless you try)
Originally I wanted to write about the improvements I made to the game while Crescentia's notebook was being repaired.
But this post is already too long.
Well, I'll do that some other time.
Tomorrow, or maybe in the next couple days I'll write an article about the heroine.
And yup, I'll also post a nice artwork of her which is NOT in the game.
(well... it actually is... but in the game it doesn't have all the colors it originally had, so the version of the artwork I'll post here is better than the one in the game, because it has full color instead of being yellowish)
since Crescentias notebook broke down and it had to be repaired.
Well, everything is fixed now.
Since we do backups of everything on a regular basis, nothing bad happened.
It's just that no graphics had been made during this period.
We also decided to not do any hentai animations for the bosses,
because the character sprites are way too small.
You can't even see anything specific on them...
so creating those sprites is just wasted energy I guess?
(well, maybe for some people it's still good despite being such small sprites, but it's hard to satisfy everyone without making compromises, and we rather invest our working time into something else)
Since we're short at least 2 weeks, we decided to cut down from 15 to 13 CG scenes.
(well, we want to get it done as soon as possible, while being as good as possible, and I doubt that those 2 scenes would make a big difference in game quality, but it allows us to finish the game in less time)
Well I'm a bit clueless about the CG scenes narrative as well.
So it's better if I only have to come up with scenes for 13 instead of 15 CG scenes.
I guess I should try to explain this a bit more detailed:
I don't know if my CG scene texts are good enough, and I find it especially difficult to write non-repetitive text, since well... it mostly happens the same.
The biggest difference is that on each CG a different enemy has sex with the heroine.
And while on some CG scenes she enjoys it, on others she doesn't.
It's not that it's the same text all the time, but you could say that there is a similar feel to it.
At least that's what one of the testplayers told me, and I think she's got a point.
Well... it's always:
Heroine loses --> gets captured --> gets fucked etc.
Since the monsters mostly can't talk, there isn't that much room for dialoge.
(it's mostly just Sheyla saying something or thinking)
The biggest thing I learned out of this is, that in future games,
I'll do the CG scenes more as part of the story, so I can avoid this repetitive feeling.
E.g. if the heroine has to rescue some girls from slave traders,
and she fails, she gets sold as a slave herself etc.
That way the CG scenes narrative, as well as dialoge during CG scenes, isn't repeating itself.
Because it's not just being fucked, it's also happening something else, at least in theory.
But of course this means, that doing one CG scene per enemy isn't quite working out.
(it's more of a "one CG scene per stage" then, well... this cancels out the need to lose all the time, so the player just has to lose once to get the CG and then he/she can concentrate on winning the stage)
It's just an idea right now, and I'll have to think more about it.
At any rate, this only matters for future games.
(the current game is fully planned out and it's on it's way to completion)
Good news is, that we found someone who is supporting us by doing music for the game.
I can't share that many details yet, but I'll give out some information as soon as possible.
So I guess it's not that long until the demo will be released.
(and yes, we suck at doing music ourselves... we completely wasted our time, but well... you never know unless you try)
Originally I wanted to write about the improvements I made to the game while Crescentia's notebook was being repaired.
But this post is already too long.
Well, I'll do that some other time.
Tomorrow, or maybe in the next couple days I'll write an article about the heroine.
And yup, I'll also post a nice artwork of her which is NOT in the game.
(well... it actually is... but in the game it doesn't have all the colors it originally had, so the version of the artwork I'll post here is better than the one in the game, because it has full color instead of being yellowish)
Thursday, June 6, 2013
A game without music?
(Below you'll find some information about the game mechanics)
We are working on changing some things in the menu, as well as changing stuff on the HUD and lots of other minor stuff.
(all of this basically according to feedback from our testplayers, so it took some time until we had the feedback to work with)
It seems that we'll also implement a "very easy" mode, so less skilled people can enjoy the game, too.
(the game is originally intended to be played on "normal", while "hard" is for those people who think it's too easy)
Other than that... what does a game feel like, if it doesn't have any music at all?
Well it's... weird...
So yes, we are currently working ourselves on doing some music of our own.
(since we have a tight budget)
But this will take some time, since we haven't done it before.
Basically this means:
We have absolutely no idea, when the demo version will be released.
It might be next week, but it might also take another 2-3 weeks.
(well we are working on the graphics and CGs, even the stuff that isn't in the demo... but as long as we don't have any music, we thought it would be better to not release a demo, because this time, we want to show what we can really do, and we want to present it as good as possible)
I noticed I haven't talked about the game mechanics yet.
So lets get to it.
Game mechanics:
Basically in this new game, you play as "Sheyla".
She's some kind of agent (actually she's an assassin), and she takes on various kinds of dangerous missions.
In this case she's on a mission to take out several dangerous demons.
Before she can kill the final boss, she has to take out 3 different bosses first.
In the "full version" you can select the several area's and play them in whatever order you see fit.
You can also replay every stage as often as you like, since there are HP and SP upgrades hidden in the levels, it's possible that you have to replay some stages, if you don't want to miss them.
Sheylas main weapon is her gun.
You can load 3 types of bullets into it:
First of all the "regular" ammo, you've got unlimited of it.
But it doesn't do anything special.
Then there is "armor piercing" ammo (AP), which is especially effective against armored enemies.
It also pierces several enemies in a line, so it's good against enemy crowds.
Last but not least, there is "high explosive" ammo (HE), uppon contact it explodes, doing AoE (area of effect) damage.
Since the explosion stays for a brief moment, it even hits enemies that run into it.
Damage wise this is the strongest ammunition in the game, but don't waste it on weak enemies!
After beating one of the bosses, you'll unlock 1 of the 3 special bullets for each ammo type.
It's a charged shot with special attributes.
They are also needed to gain access to some of the hidden areas in each stage.
So if you haven't got the necessary special shot the first time you play a stage, you might have to come back later.
(special shots are not unlockable in the demo version)
I should also mention, that you can shoot upwards.
You can't move while doing this (this is intentional).
This might seem weird to some people, since Sheyla is pretty agile at everything else.
(I somehow felt that shooting upwards shouldn't be "always" possible, well, there are only some occasions where shooting upwards makes any sense at all)
Bullet time:
Sheyla has the ability to slow down time.
This effects everything else, except Sheyla and her own bullets.
So this skill gives her a significant advantage in nearly every situation.
(basically it slows everything down to 50% of it's original speed)
There are several points in the game were you should use this skill in order to get past enemies more easily.
Movement:
The game has a lot of commonly known platformer aspects.
For example moving platforms, platforms that crumble away if you step on them etc.
It does NOT have any "death traps", instead of this, there are several "traps" that reduce your health over time.
Sheylas main abilities are dashing and walljumping, and you'll have to use both of them a lot.
Dashing is a fast move, and it also makes Sheyla "smaller" (as it is in some Megaman X games).
This enables her to dodge some attacks, as well as dashing through narrow passages, where she doesn't fit in while moving normally.
Dashing is also necessary to jump further.
The walljump I decided to use might feel unusual to some hardcore gamers, but I decided on a relatively simple to use walljump.
Walljumping "actually" never fails, and it needs no special timing or skill to execute.
The only "rules" (and this might be the "odd" thing) that apply to walljumping in this game are:
- you can only stick to a side of a wall ONCE, you have to switch wall sides after this, or you have to land on solid ground
(this means, you have to jump from left to right, right to left etc. you CAN'T stick to one side only)
- you stick to a wall about ~1 second, after this you'll fall down
(you can't stick longer than ~1 second to a wall and after falling down, you can't stick to a wall again, unless you land on solid ground first)
- if you fall "too fast", you can't stick to a wall
(if you fall down for ~2 seconds, your falling speed is too high, and you can't hold on to a wall anymore)
Aside from these simple "rules", walljumping is always working.
(and yup, those "rules" are necessary to not make walljumping too easy, because then Sheyla could climb up anywhere... and I didn't want this to be possible in this game)
I'm currently thinking about making changes to this system... but actually it works out pretty well.
And changing anything would mean to change quite a lot of stuff.
(it's not impossible... but since it works out as intended, I think it would be a pitty to do changes, if it's not required and if the majority of people like this kind of walljumping)
Well I guess it depends on the feedback I get after releasing the demo version.
This time the game also has "continues", which means, you'll have to lose all continues in order to get a game over.
But you can also switch the continues off, so you'll instantly lose once your HP hits zero.
(this is only recommended for experienced players, or if you like to see all the CGs pretty quickly)
Other things worth mentioning:
Most enemies don't damage you, if you touch them!
(but there are some who will... slime monsters and certain others, but they are a minority and they are not included in the demo)
But if you run into attacks/bullets, you'll obviously take damage.
CG scenes have effects (flashing etc.) and lots of text, but no sound effects.
There are several secret areas throughout the game.
If you're paying attention, you can find some extra ammo or continues.
Basically you can dodge anything that comes at you, it just needs some skill to do so.
(or the use of Sheylas bullet time skill)
Well, I hope that we can present you a fully working demo version with music soon.
If everything goes according to plan, you'll get one completely working demo version, instead of some beta-pre-version of the game.
If you have any questions regarding the game, controls, or anything else, please feel free to ask.
We are working on changing some things in the menu, as well as changing stuff on the HUD and lots of other minor stuff.
(all of this basically according to feedback from our testplayers, so it took some time until we had the feedback to work with)
It seems that we'll also implement a "very easy" mode, so less skilled people can enjoy the game, too.
(the game is originally intended to be played on "normal", while "hard" is for those people who think it's too easy)
Other than that... what does a game feel like, if it doesn't have any music at all?
Well it's... weird...
So yes, we are currently working ourselves on doing some music of our own.
(since we have a tight budget)
But this will take some time, since we haven't done it before.
Basically this means:
We have absolutely no idea, when the demo version will be released.
It might be next week, but it might also take another 2-3 weeks.
(well we are working on the graphics and CGs, even the stuff that isn't in the demo... but as long as we don't have any music, we thought it would be better to not release a demo, because this time, we want to show what we can really do, and we want to present it as good as possible)
I noticed I haven't talked about the game mechanics yet.
So lets get to it.
Game mechanics:
Basically in this new game, you play as "Sheyla".
She's some kind of agent (actually she's an assassin), and she takes on various kinds of dangerous missions.
In this case she's on a mission to take out several dangerous demons.
Before she can kill the final boss, she has to take out 3 different bosses first.
In the "full version" you can select the several area's and play them in whatever order you see fit.
You can also replay every stage as often as you like, since there are HP and SP upgrades hidden in the levels, it's possible that you have to replay some stages, if you don't want to miss them.
Sheylas main weapon is her gun.
You can load 3 types of bullets into it:
First of all the "regular" ammo, you've got unlimited of it.
But it doesn't do anything special.
Then there is "armor piercing" ammo (AP), which is especially effective against armored enemies.
It also pierces several enemies in a line, so it's good against enemy crowds.
Last but not least, there is "high explosive" ammo (HE), uppon contact it explodes, doing AoE (area of effect) damage.
Since the explosion stays for a brief moment, it even hits enemies that run into it.
Damage wise this is the strongest ammunition in the game, but don't waste it on weak enemies!
After beating one of the bosses, you'll unlock 1 of the 3 special bullets for each ammo type.
It's a charged shot with special attributes.
They are also needed to gain access to some of the hidden areas in each stage.
So if you haven't got the necessary special shot the first time you play a stage, you might have to come back later.
(special shots are not unlockable in the demo version)
I should also mention, that you can shoot upwards.
You can't move while doing this (this is intentional).
This might seem weird to some people, since Sheyla is pretty agile at everything else.
(I somehow felt that shooting upwards shouldn't be "always" possible, well, there are only some occasions where shooting upwards makes any sense at all)
Bullet time:
Sheyla has the ability to slow down time.
This effects everything else, except Sheyla and her own bullets.
So this skill gives her a significant advantage in nearly every situation.
(basically it slows everything down to 50% of it's original speed)
There are several points in the game were you should use this skill in order to get past enemies more easily.
Movement:
The game has a lot of commonly known platformer aspects.
For example moving platforms, platforms that crumble away if you step on them etc.
It does NOT have any "death traps", instead of this, there are several "traps" that reduce your health over time.
Sheylas main abilities are dashing and walljumping, and you'll have to use both of them a lot.
Dashing is a fast move, and it also makes Sheyla "smaller" (as it is in some Megaman X games).
This enables her to dodge some attacks, as well as dashing through narrow passages, where she doesn't fit in while moving normally.
Dashing is also necessary to jump further.
The walljump I decided to use might feel unusual to some hardcore gamers, but I decided on a relatively simple to use walljump.
Walljumping "actually" never fails, and it needs no special timing or skill to execute.
The only "rules" (and this might be the "odd" thing) that apply to walljumping in this game are:
- you can only stick to a side of a wall ONCE, you have to switch wall sides after this, or you have to land on solid ground
(this means, you have to jump from left to right, right to left etc. you CAN'T stick to one side only)
- you stick to a wall about ~1 second, after this you'll fall down
(you can't stick longer than ~1 second to a wall and after falling down, you can't stick to a wall again, unless you land on solid ground first)
- if you fall "too fast", you can't stick to a wall
(if you fall down for ~2 seconds, your falling speed is too high, and you can't hold on to a wall anymore)
Aside from these simple "rules", walljumping is always working.
(and yup, those "rules" are necessary to not make walljumping too easy, because then Sheyla could climb up anywhere... and I didn't want this to be possible in this game)
I'm currently thinking about making changes to this system... but actually it works out pretty well.
And changing anything would mean to change quite a lot of stuff.
(it's not impossible... but since it works out as intended, I think it would be a pitty to do changes, if it's not required and if the majority of people like this kind of walljumping)
Well I guess it depends on the feedback I get after releasing the demo version.
This time the game also has "continues", which means, you'll have to lose all continues in order to get a game over.
But you can also switch the continues off, so you'll instantly lose once your HP hits zero.
(this is only recommended for experienced players, or if you like to see all the CGs pretty quickly)
Other things worth mentioning:
Most enemies don't damage you, if you touch them!
(but there are some who will... slime monsters and certain others, but they are a minority and they are not included in the demo)
But if you run into attacks/bullets, you'll obviously take damage.
CG scenes have effects (flashing etc.) and lots of text, but no sound effects.
There are several secret areas throughout the game.
If you're paying attention, you can find some extra ammo or continues.
Basically you can dodge anything that comes at you, it just needs some skill to do so.
(or the use of Sheylas bullet time skill)
Well, I hope that we can present you a fully working demo version with music soon.
If everything goes according to plan, you'll get one completely working demo version, instead of some beta-pre-version of the game.
If you have any questions regarding the game, controls, or anything else, please feel free to ask.
Tuesday, May 7, 2013
Cleaning up
As you can see, we've got a new header, and I took my time and cleaned up the blog.
I hope it's much better now.
(and yup, I deleted the old votes, and I brought the links to other blogs up to date)
All the Paperheads related stuff is in the [Paperheads] category now.
While you can find some fan-stuff (though it's only one patch so far) in the fan-based category.
Thanks to Russ you can find a russian patch in this category.
Thank you very much for your contribution!
Other than that, we took a bit longer than expected (as usual lol).
But it's nothing bad, just a slight delay.
All that's left to do is the graphics for the boss and the boss battle itself.
I've made some screenshots of the game, enjoy!
I hope it's much better now.
(and yup, I deleted the old votes, and I brought the links to other blogs up to date)
All the Paperheads related stuff is in the [Paperheads] category now.
While you can find some fan-stuff (though it's only one patch so far) in the fan-based category.
Thanks to Russ you can find a russian patch in this category.
Thank you very much for your contribution!
Other than that, we took a bit longer than expected (as usual lol).
But it's nothing bad, just a slight delay.
All that's left to do is the graphics for the boss and the boss battle itself.
I've made some screenshots of the game, enjoy!
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