[Release] The First Age of Extreme

[atte]

Game is here now: https://atteo.itch.io/thefirstageofextreme

 

 

The First Age of Extreme - An action platformer inspired by NES and Amiga games like Rygar, Castlevania, Turrican and Shadow of the Beast.

I love traditional 2D platformers, and this is another chance for me to practice making them. I'm using GameMaker again and for the scary movement/collision stuff I'll probably use HeartBeast's Movement Engine. It took me this long to start this thread because I was away for the start of the jam and then for some reason decided that I needed to finish a rough version of the complete map before posting anything... Here's what I have done in Photoshop so far.

 

[ke51n]

Your pixel art is the best.

[zerofiftyone]

Atte! Really happy you're doing something for this jam.

[theschap]

The art in this game is fantastic. It has a great atmosphere already.

[Ash_NR]

The emptiness of the sky really contributes to the bleakness of the rest of the level. Looking really good!

[atte]

Atte! Really happy you're doing something for this jam.

Of course, WizardJam 4 Life! (I couldn't find a blushing emoticon, so now my true feelings remain hidden)

 

I will update more frequently next week when I have some of the enemies working in game, but for now here's a player run cycle that  I copied from was inspired by Shadow of the Beast.

 

[badatstuff]

This looks incredible, will it be needing music perhaps?

[Ahr Ech]

Man, this is so cool! 2D platformers can be a lot more work than you'd think, but it sounds like you've got things on lock so far. Can't wait to see where this goes.

[Xeneth]

I contemplated this pixel art and seem to have a problem; I'm trying to locate my jaw somewhere on the floor over here...

 

Ah, I see the problem. My head appears to have exploded with enough force to drive the errant jaw into a nearby wall.

 

Carry on.

[Akidu]

I love this so much. I don't know who's doing the music but it would be sweet if there were three tunes for each general area. Descending in tone; Becoming darker and more static as you approach the angry god. 

[z_bill]

Yes! Yes! This flipping rules!

Rygar & Shadow of The Beast are great inspirations. I love the sorta "alt platformers" like that.

[atte]

Thank you, thank you, I really appreciate all the kind comments.

Here's finally some hot in game action:

 

One hit kills and deaths because it is the Age of Extreme... And because now I don't need to worry about health systems and good feeling knockbacks.

I try to do the audio myself. First I was really excited about this huuuge archive of old Amiga samples but after testing them in Reason, it is really stressing me out how many of the samples are in different pitches (+there's some other minor inconveniences). Music creation is something I'm not super confident about, but I still really want to try something out here (...and I might be a boring cheat and just modify some of my old tracks for this).
 

[zerofiftyone]

That death screen is incredible.

[theschap]

I love the death scene. It has a great Red Dead feel.

[phill]

Thirding the death scene love, slick as!

[Xeneth]

I love the little red eyes peering out from the hole in that skull/rock.... totally a sucker for details like that!

Do you think you'll have time to give them a little blinking animation or something?

[atte]

Yeah, one of the big reasons why I'm so attracted to making lo-res 2d games is that adding interesting and fun details is usually extremely simple.

Here's a title screen (there's no dragons or broken swords in the game...), ending screen and a testing room where I can now easily test/check enemy animations/behaviour/graphics.

 

[zerofiftyone]

Man, this is killing me. It's all so good!

[Dr Nick]

I am really impressed with how good this looks!

[theschap]

Love.

[phill]

This

[Xeneth]

Checking in on this thread, I just caught myself involuntarily humming a song from Castlevania... and I have to stress that this was SUBCONSCIOUS- Not like:

 

"oh man this reminds me of that"

 

More like:

 

"I'm humming something... I'm humming? What am I hummi- OH WOW IT'S LIKE A NEURAL LINK THING"

[atte]

From my last year's WizJam thread:

I really like how you used the Zelda 2 soundtrack for The Wizard, though in retrospect it may have just been playing in my head and not through my speakers. Still!

 

It seems I'm getting good at evoking memories of NES soundtracks!
Here's a pretty complete Somekind of Drifter (The Wizard is red because of invincibility mode).

 

[Ahr Ech]

Great effects! I love those fireballs.

[atte]

Effect creation can sometimes be really fun.

 

I wanted a simple way to show some info and start the game, so I changed the title screen to this.