Posts tagged " retro "

Pre-Alpha Build and Live on Kickstarter!

March 16th, 2017 Posted by Games, News No Comment yet

Hello All!
We’ve released the Pre-Alpha Build of Battle Princess Madelyn on Steam at http://store.steampowered.com/app/603930/

Click Download Demo to give the first level (five stages, 3 main and 2 secret) a try !

Also, we’ve launched a Kickstarter!

Come check out some of the unique Battle Princess Madelyn rewards on offer while the campaign is still going at: http://www.battleprincessmadelyn.com

Thanks to all of you for your support so far in the journey through Greenlight,  and we have a lot more exciting information on the game coming ahead!

-Chris and Daven
Causal Bit Games Inc.

Battle Princess Madelyn and the Normal Maps!

May 28th, 2016 Posted by Games No Comment yet

Hey Guys!

We’re still here working on Maddi’s game – busy with our day jobs as usual but still squeezing in the time to get the game up and running in Unity and then some! Here is what we’ve been up to in the past little while:

New levels/stages designed:

On top of porting the rebuilt original stages from the prototype, we’ve also been building entirely new stages too. The “Winter Level” as we call it right now, is pretty much finished aside of a few enemies and working out the boss fight for the 3rd stage of level. On top of the artwork and coding for those stages, we’ve also been experimenting with the lighting using unity’s lighting and normal maps. Some of it has turned out pretty good and only requires minor tweaking while other bits were not so hot on yet. Overall it’s adding an incredible amount of depth to the artwork that wasn’t there before. Bloom and Glow give off a misty effect as you blast through the rebuilt boneyard stage, while light shafts and candle light show you the way through the old crypt. The winter stages end up getting lots of twinkle and glow from the crystals in the rocks while lanterns swing in the mine!

Another set of stages we’ve been working on are the ruins in the swamp. This stage comes directly after a bonus level of coffin riding out of the side of the crypt (stage 1-3 cutscene). Demon Bugs, swamp ghouls, mutant rats, skeleton fish and giant frogs are just of the few of the baddies you’ll encounter in this stage. Giant trees and breaking branches along with retracting vines will make up the challenge for the stage.

 

Continuing the porting of the C2 prototype/engine to Unity:

Daven has been hard at work, coding/re-coding the AI and event systems from the prototype and our designs. We’re on track for development as he is moving into the pick up system. Base AI for enemies is pretty much completed aside of fine tuning. Daven has switched the Unity 2d Physics based collisions he had originally done over to a ray casting solution for high precision detection.

Though the ideas behind all of the events in the prototype translate over to the Unity just fine, the event system does not exist. Daven has recreated some “behaviors” from the prototype over to C#, a hefty task since the visual events in C2 don’t convert nicely into code. Instead, he has gone by the feel of the C2 prototype while playing it to get as accurate of a recreation as possible, while researching the best practices of Unity to avoid any performance pitfalls and overhead.

Currently he’s working on porting the first boss fight over which is tricky since the boss is split into many pieces, and so that part of the C2 event sheets becomes basically useless for translation too. So far we have the animations rebuilt and in some cases they’re even slightly better. And we should have a video showcasing clips of the original stages rebuilt as well as some of the newer work in the next month.

 

We’re super exited to be sharing video footage of the game soon. It’s not too far off but we want to make sure it’s looking great before we show full clips!

For now we’ll leave you with some screen shots of the game from both the Unity version to see the progress, and the raw levels that are currently being built and tested in the C2 prototype!

 

Unity Shots of completed/mostly completed stages:

runToTheFood2 13271789_10209852156922574_1640114218_o stg2a stg1b stg1a

C2 WIP stage shots:

winterCave80percent runToTheFood saturday

Chris and Daven

 

It’s Official! Battle Princess Madelyn is a Go! Happy Birthday Maddi <3 <3

November 18th, 2015 Posted by News No Comment yet

Happy Birthday to my beautiful princess Madelyn who turned 5 today! You get your own video game!

My daughter wanted to be in Ghouls ‘n Ghosts and fight “Green Head”, I said it was someone else’s game but I could make her one that was like it. Then she said “But girls can’t be knights, Daddy. Only boys…” to which I answered “Pshh…What color do you want your armor to be?”. The answer was pink 😉 And that’s how this game started. My daughter Madelyn loves the first stage of Ghouls ‘n Ghosts and makes me play it over and over because she want’s to see me fight “Green head”, the Shielder boss at the end of the first stage. It’s not hard for her to twist my rubber arm as it’s been my favorite game since it came out years ago.

So here we are almost a year after I started tinkering with the graphics to a full blown polished prototype. We have all of the pieces in place with this one! Using Unity as our engine not only for reliability but moving to consoles where people wanted our last game to be. A beautiful movie quality sound track. An actual cut scene artist. And oh yeah – a children’s Author to co-write the game plot and dialog with me (this is based on a story I wrote when I was 9 year old… it needs heavy editing 😉 ). We’re going to take our time on this and not give a release date until we are satisfied that we will hit no snags with development.

That being said – the prototype is pretty much the full 3 stage playable training tutorial and the full 3 stage first level of the game! The player graphics are 90% finished. I think 6 or 7 different Enemies, 2 bosses. But that’s far from what we’re planning. Depending on the story, we’ll aim for 7-8 Levels of game play each with 3 stages.  Tons of cut scenes! And for the hard core GNG fans there will be a “Loki” Mode where you can (like in the original GNG) get sent back to the start of the game to replay it again to get a different ending. But the twist here is that you have to play as Daddy (who’s graphics are about 90% completed as well) with a slightly altered version of the stages as you can only use Daddy’s cursed sword (Insanity’s Blade)!

Onto the gameplay features! Aside of the basic GNG style game play we’ve added special weapons and abilities as well as items you can select to alter the way you play a level. Your ghost dog has different abilities depending on which armor you are wearing. He always has a charge attack which works in different ways depending on the armor you wear, but he cannot do his basic shoot attack until you have beaten one of the bosses in the game. The shooting is also changed by what armor you wear. One set of armor will allow you to climb in unreachable places!

And as if the dog’s abilities weren’t enough already – he has the power to resurrect the player. You cannot die! The one problem people always complain about in the GNG series is the difficulty. The half way check points drive most regular gamers nuts. Only the hardcore survive the real ghouls n ghosts (apparently I’m very hard core then ;)). So the dog collects spirit orbs as you destroy enemies. The orbs keep his magic level topped up. Using his charge attacks drain the magic a little at a time but resurrecting takes half of his magic away. As long as you are destroying enemies, you can’t die. The only time it gets really tricky here is when you get to a boss. But the bosses all have attacks that unleash minions, and these guys are destroyed to get the orbs.

Onto Quest items! As you progress through the game, you will receive items that can boost your performance during the game. One of the first quest items you obtain will be a magical bag which you can store an item in which will aid you. Basically this is an equip slot. The dog’s fire power is one of the items that can be placed here, a second set of armor, and a few other items which will enhance an aspect of your game play. They can be equipped on the map screen. This lets the player choose which object and strategy they will use for a stage. Some people may find blasting their way though to the end is best with the dog, or having the ability to have a second set of magical dragon armor during a boss fight to be much better. The choice will be up to the player.

Self adjusting difficulty. If the game finds you are struggling, it will ease off on what it’s throwing at you etc, If it sees you are having way too easy of a go, it will throw more at you. The player will never be penalized for the adjustment in difficulty. And it will allow beginners and pros alike to enjoy the same gameplay without having to alter or lose anything. One game for all!!

Game progression. This one is for the completionists!! Stage stats – Hidden Chests found, Hidden Areas Found, Hidden Items Found. Get 100% if you can! This is something that got cut from our previous game because of the addition of the second player. There are hidden areas in every level that contain different items. Some can only be found when you are using a special weapon.

So that’s it for now! We’ll be posting dev blog updates as we progress. Screens and vids, and also be featuring some of the music on our site! And stay tuned today for some more news and videos of the prototype! I’ve dropped some screens on here to hold you over and now I’ve got to get back to the birthday girl!

– Chris