Rendezvous Delano, Metroidy shoot-em-up for NDS

[DeProgrammer]

Oh, how hard I have been working on this, my friends! I started Monday and stayed up late every night trying to finish...something. I have completed much, but I lack the resources to do some things--certain graphics, sound effects, and especially music (the current music)... Anyway, what we have here is a nice demo that's just beginning to show how Metroidy a shoot-em-up can get. Power beam, missiles, wave beam, charge beam/missiles, energy tanks (although the items are not currently implemented, the results of the items are), the ability to explore by choosing paths... There are some incomplete sprites in the current version, so don't mind how the space pirate ships (which were done by Kenji) say "TAILL" where there should be a tail.

How little I have done, and how much more is to come!
But nonetheless, I digress. Now, I think, it's time to link:

http://dpmm.110mb.com/temp/RendezvousDelano.zip



Download away, and have a nice day.


Some screenshots, oldest to newest:





Edit: Hey, nifty. I added an option (while paused) to check for updates. Not that it'll update itself...but it'll tell you if there's a new version to download!

Edit 2: Bunch more stuff added, plus a video showing off nearly all of it.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=63OUeKeFs3M

[DeProgrammer]

You guys are terrible excuses for Metroid fans. I'm needy. I need replies, stuff like "neat idea" and "you should add this."

Updated more and more and more. Added weapon explosions, upgraded boss, added stuff to the HUD, and so forth. I am working on this every day. Rendezvous Delano is up to version 9... same link. Go get iDeaS and try my game!

I need help, too, and I've had three people offer...but I've only seen one thing from any of 'em, and that was a not-completely-finished Space Pirate ship from Kenji! (Also, Emperor helped 'cuz I told him to. )

I guess I can supply some new media, too... *Gets some screenshots.*

[fly_boy42]

DO A BARREL ROLL




No seriously, where are the barrel rolls?

[DeProgrammer]

Dang! I knew I forgot something from StarFox!

Actually, about the whole exploration system--if the idea didn't come to me directly due to StarFox 64, I'd be surprised.

But I'm not going to make it so that if you get hit a few times on one side, you lose your weapons.

[kenji imatake]

I thought I PM'ed you the space pirate ship... hmm, Ill PM it again.

[DeProgrammer]

I didn't get it. *Shrug.*

Incidentally, Kenji, if you want more work to do, the boss could do with some real graphics. If you wanna work on that, there should be some flaps that open sideways (about 11 different frames over 11/15 of a second, but I can change that), done in separate sprites. Also, it'd probably be a good idea to make the gray/yellow areas (while still gray/yellow) into separate sprites, and rounded, with a brightness-flickering animation.




(And yeah, the flaps should fit the open areas of the boss.)

So basically, these separate images...
Boss without flaps or weak spots
Boss with flaps closed completely
Flap opening/closing animation, approximately 11 frames at 1/15 second each
Yellow-orange weak spot flickering animation
Gray weak spot flickering animation

Of course, if you're not interested, lemme know and I'll do it myself, set Metroid Zapper on the task, or try to convince someone else (like Rundas) to do it.

[kenji imatake]

reminds me a lot like the hammer from super metroid affiliation or something like that... k, I'll see what I can do.

[MetroidMaster1914]

This is super awesome. Please keep working on this.

[DeProgrammer]

At your service, MetroidMaster1914.

I'll probably have the next version uploaded tomorrow. I've implemented 3 difficulties in different ways so far, plus one new enemy, and I'm going to finish two or three more enemies and do the remaining 2/3 of the first area some time tomorrow...hopefully.

[DeProgrammer]

Several days' worth of updates, including a few more enemies and a complete first area, have been finally uploaded. Pause the game and press X if you want to have all the weapons/abilities. (Some parts of the first area are meant to be played with certain ones.)

http://dpmm.110mb.com/temp/RendezvousDelano.zip

The leftmost path is the easiest, and it takes about five and a half minutes to complete. The game is set to the easiest difficulty level (I'll put in a GUI for players to change that later) and I can beat it without dying, so it's surely not hard, although several parts (especially in the rightmost path) may take two tries because you can't see what's coming until it's too late.

[DeProgrammer]

New version up; this one has three available difficulties (check out the right boss on hard mode) and an example of what I've been calling "nebula" all along. (This means you won't be able to see anything correctly for the first ~20 seconds of playing if you use the current version of iDeaS, but Lino said he'll work on fixing that bug.) Additionally, I made the passing of pick-ups, items, checkpoints, splitters (the huge "blow'd-up ship"), and mines faster.

I worked a little bit on the portal system but I haven't even included the .c in the project yet, sooo... It'll probably be a few more days until the next upload, once again, even though I'm working on it every day.

http://dpmm.110mb.com/temp/RendezvousDelano.zip

Edit: Spent 2 hours updating to a really recent beta version of PAlib that I found, so in my private build the update button doesn't work, but now it can play IT and XM due to the library packaged with libnds. (Had to change all the sound code and even the file formats and layout for that.) So... No more struggling with MOD conversion! IT files can be made out of MIDIs with ease.

[kenji imatake]

I Pmed you the WIP of a ship... hehe. on MFM.

[DeProgrammer]

So hey guys, let's hear your ideas for items that could work in this game. I've already got quite a few, but I'm not gonna list 'em because you gotta get some kind of surprise from playing the game! I mean, you're one of my very few audiences! I will list the ones I've already told people about, though, for examples:

Energy tanks
Varia Ship (nullifies damage caused by nebulae; reduces damage from energy weapons)
Morph Ball Ship (faster + smaller to dodge bullets better; also lets you use some specific portals)
Charge Beam/Missile/Mine

Yeah... I've got a few more interesting things up my sleeve. But I'd like to hear what other people would want to see!

Also, if someone would like to help me by making nebula tiles/sprites, feel free! They're half-transparent in-game, so be sure to use saturated colors. (I'll post again here in the event someone on M:FM decides to take care of it for me.) Whatever large circular or rectangular shapes you can manage, as long as they'll all fit in my 32x32 grid of 8x8 tiles (256x256 pixels). Actually, I can probably bump the size up to 256x512 if more room is needed.

[DeProgrammer]

Fine, fine...no brainstorming for you!

So I decided to go ahead and upload my current version of the game, which really isn't fit for a release (I'm missing far too many sounds and graphics at this point, and the second level only has a few example enemies)... Anyway, it's up now. And I decided I'll spoil the stuff!

So now, the item list is...

Energy tanks
Morph Ball Ship
Charge Beam/Missiles/Seekers/Bomb
Varia Ship
Gravity Ship
Missiles
Wave Beam (now stuns enemies)
Cluster-Seekers
Power Bomb (it's a li'l one!)

And the current enemy list:

Flying Saucer
Asteroid
Space Pirate
Power/Wave/CS Mine
Zapper (the metal ball--that's not the final graphic)
Normal/Wave Turrets
Atomics (aka. Bombus)
Wavers
Metarees
Hunter Mines

---

I have 9 more enemy designs and one or two more weapons, plus one tentative ship upgrade.

[Axion]

Win.

I am delighted that you are putting so much effort and time into this game. One of the main reasons I bought my M3 DS Flash cart was so I could play non published games that others had made, home brew applications like Colors! and Doom. I had no idea I would get to play a Metroid oriented scrolling shooter that in its early stages, trumps even some published games.

Keep up the good work, I know I tell you this over MSN all the time De, but the game is sick. I can't wait to play more.