Spoony Boy's Last Crusade
Have you got what it takes to take down the Dino Bois? Spoony' Boy's got one
oversized spoon and one even bigger thirst for vengeance--and it's time to take out
the trash!
Special Moves/Spoonyisms
- Zoom back and forth freely with Spoony Boy's Rad Dash technique!
- Defy the laws of gravity with a simple second jump press to hang in midair
- until you feel like obeying them again! Collect the Star Jump powerup from certain chests to show an even stronger disregard towards Isaac Newton and apples!
- Press down and attack while in mid-air to hit them where they least expect it with the powerful Down Bonk!
Dev Notes
This game ended up being much smaller in scope than what I had originally
anticipated making. I got really stuck during the jam on making little logic
adjustments to things like dash and jump to make them feel more interesting and
responsive. The jump mechanics are heavily inspired by the Sega Genesis/Mega Drive
classic Alien Soldier, one of the finest run 'n guns ever made, and for sure one of my
all-time top 10 favorite games. The dash is heavily inspired by Mega Man X, which
was my introduction to the addictive combination of responsive dashing and 2D
action-platforming. The downthrust is heavily inspired by Muramasa: The Demon
Blade's, a wonderful and beautiful game which has one of my all-time favorite snappy
2D combat systems. Vanillaware are wizards.
This is my first original game and gamejam entry. I figured I'd force myself to submit
something since this jam coincided neatly with the end of my self-imposed year-long
Unity boot camp. Any feedback or comments are greatly appreciated. Credit for
(almost) all the sprite assets goes to the amazing Anismuz. If you enjoy this 16-bit-
inspired pixel style, go check out his page! There's plenty more where that came from.
Download
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Comments
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Took 3 tries, pretty cool first game brother!
I especially like the challenge from dying and enemies respawning, good choice instead of a life mechanic :D
Some criticisms:
The ground on the lower areas doesn't quite feel right. I think Spoony is floating a bit above the ground.
The spoon's hurtbox seems to be quite a bit further & up and down from the spoons animation & sprites. Once you realize this, you can easily 'float' above enemies' heads and 'snipe' them from above.
I've never played a game with a pause mechanic in air, only the usual suspects--double jump, dash, etc. I'm not a fan of the pause option but i can see the potential in level design down the road, and if I took the time to get used to it, I might come to love it in a really fast and chaotic side scrolling game where pausing is a breath of fresh air. I think having Spoony kick his legs while he's in midair or some other animation (a rocket pack from his back starts firing?) would help the player know that the pause is intended and not a glitch. Also incorporating an area that you can only access if you use the pause mechanic to teach the player how useful it is and what it's intended for. Just spitballing here but maybe 'level select' being a kind of narrow tunnel that you fall down and pause in order to dash through narrow openings or some other design that rewards timing like an optional end-of-level-lottery where you fall down the tunnel and get 1 of the rewards in 1 of the 'caves' that you dash into.
On death there is still collision sometimes. I think it would be cool on death if something happens to the spoon itself--maybe it flies off and sticks into the ground, an enemy picks it up, or it grows eyes and legs and walks off angrily. IDK lol.
Recoloring enemies and having them be mini bosses would be cool, maybe just giving them a dash or something.
Random NG drops from enemies would be a pretty cool feature as well.
Thanks for the useful feedback, bromigosabe! I think the issue with Spoony's collider is that it's just a static collider that gets spawned and I should probably have it resize itself throughout the attack animation. Also, going to have to tune all the hitboxes in general. We'll see how adding a double jump and then putting the freeze option on a separate button with a timer works, I think that will be way more intuitive for players than the Alien Soldier-style double jump I spent way too long wasting time implementing during jam dev time. Definitely going to add a mid-air freeze animation that properly conveys what's going on, I obviously failed at conveying it through gameplay. I'll check out that death animation too. I like the idea of rare spawn variant versions that could appear somewhat randomly or if certain conditions are met, and maybe they spawn unique and powerful powerups. Thanks again, bro! Have a good one!