[authoreyes]

Hi everyone -

Here is a quick tech demo of a side scroller engine I am developing in C++ (using sdl / opengl) for the Pandora. Most of the game engine is done....Eventing needs a little work, but most of the framework code is there. The art is temporary as I am a coder, not an artist....

As such, I have recruited an artist with a flair for the surreal/comic-gothic to provide the pixels so within the next few weeks hopefully this will get much more professional looking. The gameplay is slated to be a facsimile of Super Castlevania 4, one of my all time favorites...

Video Link :

http://vimeo.com/7759306

This post has been edited by authoreyes: 23 November 2009 - 09:50 PM

[KodeIn]

It's great, I always loved Castlevania games.
I'm really happy to see that kind of old school platformer coming to the Pandora. :D
Do you plan on making the player able to play with the whip like in the original game?


I would like to make a Castlevania Symphony of the Night clone, but with 3D graphics using irrlicht (a bit like the remake of Dracula X on PSP).
But at the moment I'm far from having enough knowledge to do anything as great as you've done. :P

[Dead1nside]

That looks pretty awesome. Thanks for sharing. It's always great to see the original work people are planning for the Pandora.

[authoreyes]

Wow -

Thanks for the kind words!

As of right now, I am totally open to suggestions regarding plot points, etc...

I really have focused the last few months on making the engine as re-usable as possible (as I have other ideas for games past this) Content wasn't a focus as I knew I wanted a real artist to do the graphics.

Now I have one, someone specializing in comic stylings as well as surrealistic fine art, so the plot, locations, characters, can now start to take shape.

So, what do you guys think? I haven't decided on melee or projectile weapons (or both) yet...

I meet with the artist this week, so if anyone wants to suggest possible direction, feel free!

[B-ZaR]

Sword-chucks! :P

Okay, seriously. How about having a changeable main weapon? Something like Summon nights' sword/axe/spear/drill/knuckle, except maybe the drill... a whip?. You could start without a weapon, but quickly get one from an enemy wielding one or an item drop.

[Miner49er]

I reckon you should have parallax scrolling for the floor. Don't need any fancy 3D/OGL stuff, just 3 or 4 levels of scrolling. It would look sweet, that.

I've been looking at this page http://sprites.walen.se/ for sprites, might look better than you DIY stuff until you have official ones.

[authoreyes]

Yup -

The engine has handlers for parallax scrolling for floor/clouds/etc, just haven't made any gfx to use it. The sprite collection is cool as well, but at this point I prob won't take any more time with throw away gfx..

As for weapons, that would be the best, but I just wanna make sure I don't bite off too much right up front...Was thinking for the first level to focus on one or the other (melee vs projectile), and work on switching them in further levels, just to get keep momentum....I have been on too many projects at work where we tried to do everything from the get go and we end up perpetually stalled. :)

[JackTheKnife]

Which toolchain config did you use to code this?

[GunPei2X]

You could riff on Evil Dead and have the character lose his hand part way through the game, to have it replaced by a Chainsaw.

[Xian Long]

lasers.

[authoreyes]

Right now,

I am just coding/compiling on linux/windows using SDL/OpenGl/C++. I haven't actually looked into compiling pandora friendly yet. Basically just keeping everything as portable as I can.

On target! I was actually thinking about the Evil Dead story, or more specifically, Dead Alive (or Braindead I think in New Zealand?) The great Peter Jackson gore flick.

As a side, I got some sample backgrounds from the artist, and I think they look great. I plugged them into the tile engine and played a bit. We may be going with a fully handrawn, black and white comic book style with colored accents. Things are moving...