Project "Sword"

If you follow me on twitter, you may have seen that I posted a screenshot of a new side project. I don't like to sit still, so while waiting on new art for Halcyon from the talented Frankengraphics, I decided to start a new medium-sized project: an action side-scroller platformer. The bread and butter of the NES, but I've never actually tried making something in that genre.

This game will be taking a lot of cues from Ninja Gaiden and Batman: focusing on fast-moving action like ninja gaiden (with lots of enemies that swarm at you, but go down in a single swipe of the sword), with wall physics a bit closer to Batman.  I'm working with Jordan (who did the NES homebrew game Space Raft), to get some nice looking art into the game.

While this may be my first action platformer, I've still done enough platforming code in Halcyon that things are moving along quite quickly. Being a lot simpler than Halcyon, I was able to throw together a scrolling engine (which, like Mario 3, is 8 way scrolling but with limited vertical height) and basic physics pretty quickly. Now I'm working through enemies and enemy animations. Once those are in place, it's a matter of content.  

Content will be interesting, because unlike Halcyon (where the action is supposed to be relatively easy, so each room isn't fine-tuned in difficulty), this game will hopefully be somewhat difficult. So tweaking the level and enemy layouts might take some work.

That all said, as usual, early builds are available for patreon supporters for all my games* at https://www.bitethechili.com/patreon/ and I've added Sword (not the final name) to that list. There's not a whole lot there yet, but you're welcome to try it out and give me feedback about the character movement physics.

Again, thanks for your support!

Nathan

* Anguna is currently NOT included in that list for a short time, to avoid people trying to grab the rom early during the kickstarter. It will be back once the backers get their copies.