Crystal Towers 2 - First Boss

[davidn]

Well, I have to say that I'm beginning to regret not buying a whole lot of furniture last Spring. But at least Boston's decisive win against Colorado in the World Series (which doesn't actually invite competition from more than one country) means that there won't be any massive crowds of people in red shirts during my commute home in the next while. It's almost enough to get you to start caring about baseball - I'm only vaguely aware that it's nice that a team that previously seemed to be totally useless have won twice in such quick succession.

For carefully thought out attention-getting reasons, I'm going to stop putting Crystal Towers 2 progress posts exclusively in its own journal and include them here under a tag instead (I'll backdate them when I shovel over the rest). To give the best impression of what the game looks like to date, I have hit a new low and posted a video on YouTube.

This video shows a weekend's work on the first boss of the game, which I finally sat down and wrote after weeks of not doing anything. Most of the graphics are yet to be drawn, but it shows what the general gameplay of it will be like, and I'm rather pleased with the result. Bosses are very difficult things to program, needing a complex attack pattern based on several different states and branches, but I think this is the most competent one that I've done yet. The only bit of this one I'm not totally happy with is the large length of time that it spends just sitting on the ceiling if you destroy all the bouncing bombs quickly, so I might have to think of something to do there.

You can also see two transparent areas on the left and right of the playfield, which restore the magic points you have available. Usually you restore your magic in-game by picking up white vials, but this situation needs something to allow you to rapidly get back to full magic and back to attacking again, but I don't want them to make it too easy (particularly as you can also use magic to heal yourself, and if you have an inexhaustible supply the boss becomes impossible to lose to). I could either disable curative spells or make them affect the boss as well so that there's a disadvantage to using them. I may replace the restoring fields with one "magic field" that floats from left to right, then reduce the hit points of the boss a bit to balance things out.

The eventual goal of the game is to find eight instruments and restore music to the Music Castle (an idea that I only noticed I'd stolen from Zelda well into making the game). The instrument carried by each boss is random, and as luck would have it, on that attempt I got the only one I hadn't drawn. The name of the instrument is chosen at random, too, which explains the strange names that appear at the end of the video.

Comments

[whinknee.livejournal.com]

I hope one of those instruments is an ocarina... hehe.

I like the idea of having curative spells affect the boss too. It makes it more difficult. I also thought you could have magic vials appear at fixed intervals in thos corners. That way magic isn't unlimited, but it is readily available if you need more. Just a thought. Love you.

[davidn]

It was Link's Awakening! I only got around to actually completing it towards the end of school on an emulator. The bits I remember most were being zapped by the storekeeper (and having your name automatically changed to THIEF for the remainder of the game) if you stole anything, and being attacked by an army of chickens if you harassed one of them too much. It's the little hidden things like that...

[jeremylinnell.livejournal.com]

Sounds excellent, I thoughroughly enjoyed the first one. Small comment is that the players projectiles and the bosses are a little too similar. Fine for now, but if a boss is more bullet-hellish then it may get too confusing, and not in an intended manner. Lookin great so far though.

[davidn]

That's a very good point, actually - I'll have to experiment with that. At that stage of the game you've got a choice of two projectile attacks, so I'll have to try and get them to all look unique.

(Hopefully most of these graphics will eventually be replaced entirely, but the spriter who was going to work on the game with me has had some problems in real life...)

[dr-dos.livejournal.com]

What's stopping me from just standing on the magic restoring squares? Most of the time it looks like you could safely.

[davidn]

That, indeed, is half the problem with them (you can see I abuse it a bit near the start). I might change it to some sort of pickup that has a chance of appearance when you're in need of it, or enable/disable them according to certain conditions.

[thackary.livejournal.com]

Is it just me who finds the term "Oboe of Venus" somewhat vulgar?

Looks like good gameplay, and the music is spot on - it's intense, but doesn't quite make it to mind numbing. Nicely done!

[davidn]

Thanks - a lot of people seem to think of the music as the highlight of my games, so it's good to know I'm getting it right :)

[starfishchris.livejournal.com]

Bass of Nattress? TDC reference there?

Perhaps you could have the magic field appear only occasionally, e.g. the end of the boss's attack pattern, or when it releases those bouncing bombs. As for the curative spells... you could write in some story about the boss's field of evil preventing life-giving magic, or something like that...