[Devlog]Cyber Shadow - NES style Ninja platformer

[huZba]

The main devlog with the general stuff is gonna be at https://forums.tigsource.com/index.php?topic=52597.0

Here I'll post on some of the harder things I'm wrestling with.
To kick off, I really want this kind of corridor worm thing, but the 8 sprites per scanline thing is sort of limiting.

Maybe have the "face" as a sprite and the body as scrolling tiles.
I'm already cheating a lot, but I'm actually thinking about going through some areas to make sure I cheat less and less.

This is the palette I'm using:

It's something that was posted here ages ago and I've used it ever since :X. Not sure how it was constructed.

The game is going to have a regular wide screen option and a "classic" mode. Enemy spawners and ranges will shorten a bit for classic mode, but most things seem to work pretty good on either mode with the same values. The blue UI icon will need to be player sprite color for classic mode too.

Wide:

Classic:

[Probo]

Mate it looks great! Really reminds me of natsume nes games. I wouldn't worry too much about some slight cheating on the restrictions, I think people have an idealised vision of nes games in their head and making it look a little bit better than perhaps it could've done back then wont register with them, and in fact will play up to these rose-tinted expectations. Plus some cart hardware bent all kinds of rules! I hear Retrousb are releasing a NES/Famicom hardware clone soon that even ups the sprite count per scanline from 8 to 15. I think emulators have been able to do this forever but hardware!!

is there a playable demo yet?

[Seiseki]

Oh, I saw this on Tigs!
It has a really sick dystopian cyberpunk vibe to it! I love it! 

[huZba]

I -kinda- wanna keep going after the NES specs, though not gonna flicker stuff and so forth. Just to keep it from feeling too advanced.

Just a sidenote, it seems you can define priority for the flickering. Like the first boss in Contra seems to have too many colors, but it doesn't flicker even if you spam laser on it with the turret still intact next to you.

I like how the NES palette is forcing me to use colors I normally wouldn't just to make barely functional palettes XD

And yeah,  I really like sick depressing dystopian cyberpunk vibes XD. The story is super duper depressing too, so look forward to that XD. It's gonna have minimal dialog. Gonna do it all by showing instead.

I'm planning to have a sequence in the main menu that you access by waiting long enough. You enter the dream that you're experiencing while in your cryotube thing. Gonna do my best to make it depressing as hell. Think of the megaman intros, but playable.

[Kasumi]

Except for the guy on top, and projectiles, the first boss in Contra appears to be entirely the background so it wouldn't be affected by flicker. (The turrets in the level are the background too.)

But flicker is indeed 100% defined by the programmer. The console itself just stops drawing sprites, flickering is a result of programmers shifting sprite priorities so different things aren't drawn on alternating frames. You can arrange it so your player character never drops at the expense of other things getting dropped more, or try to show the corners of things, or any number of other behaviors. 100% software.

[Probo]

just so you know I wasn't suggesting you start adding snes levels of colour and forget about the nes look, absolutely not, this looks great! just that if to represent your vision you had one more 4 colour sprite palette on-screen than the nes could actually do, for example, it would still look like a nes game to the vast majority. don't cause yourself too many headaches for a similar result

the title screen gameplay sequence thing sounds like a really cool idea, and I love dark stories! My own game's story is going to have its dark moments, when I get round to that part of the game XD

any estimate on a playable demo?

[huZba]

Good to know about that flicker priority thing. Didn't even notice it before, but most projectiles in Contra flicker by default even when they'd be well within the limits. Also the flickering looks like it's happening at 60fps? I can do transparency effects with that. The only drawback is that it looks bad if you record it at 30fps. You can see in some let's plays sprites disappearing completely for a while when taking damage.

As for the other limitations, there are some bits where I have too many palettes, like currency and skill point drops that are always yellow or blue for convenience and I don't count those to the 4 sprite palette limit. Some games I can't believe how well they've designed around the limit. Like how bullets and drops in megaman are megablue or megafacecolor.

I've been sending a playable build for a few people at different milestones. So if you're interested in trying it out and giving some feedback, you can give some contact info and I'll send a build at the next milestone.

[Probo]

maybe you could add a 'streaming transparencies' option that replaces the on-off flashing transparency effect with a 50% alpha of the sprite?

Some games I can't believe how well they've designed around the limit. Like how bullets and drops in megaman are megablue or megafacecolor.

yeah, and because of the sprite palettes the ammunition drops change colour to whichever palette/weapon megaman is using at that time, but its clever because it only gives ammunition for the currently equipped weapon, meaning the ammo colour is always correct.

yeah man I'm definitely up for some playtesting, ill pm you.