Castlevania-like Flash Game

[Sound-O-Vision]

Hey,

My name is Chris, and recently a good buddy Wright and I completed a flash that made it to the Newgrounds frontpage, Bacon Samurai . So Wright, another friend (an Experienced programmer), and I were talking about making a Bacon Samurai game in the fashion of Castlevania, here's some ideas we've flushed out:

One large map
Ability to Save
Items and RPG style equipment (a la Final Fantasy)
Special abilities to allow further exploration of the map
Experience and Level ups
Bosses drop equipment or abilities
Animated cut scenes explaining some of the huge Bacon Samurai backstory
Breakable environments

Our programmer (his name is Clayton) has little experience with Actionscript, but is an exceptional coder who has worked for the US Government. Wright will design characters, write the story, and animate movements. I will function as producer, help design weapons, abilities and enemies, as well as fill in the gaps in production to make an epic flash experience unlike anything we've seen.

The purpose of this post was to drop this idea on this community, to see what people think about it. Also, if anyone would like to lend a hand (we could use help coding, animating, planning and testing). None of us have made a flash game before, but we're an ambitious group of total nerds who are bent on creating an immensely enjoyable gaming experience.

Thanks for reading this through. Hope to hear from you.

-Chris
Moving Box Studios

[Luis]

Good luck, keep us posted. I think people will get more excited with the project as you start getting some traction and post some spy shots and stuff.

:)

[Tri-FusionMedia]

Hello. I loved the Bacon Samurai Trailer. I think the idea is really great. And as much as I would love to help, im really tied up (seeing as how no one still hasnt even heard of tri fusion.) But I would love to help test the game. I know what the crowd likes, and i know how to fix glitches. My email is [e-mail]. So if you need a tester I can help.

[Jimp]

Yeah sounds like a cool idea! I loved the castlevania games it would be awesome to see something near that depth on NG!

[ShooterMG]

A buddy of mine and myself are also planning on creating a "Metroidvania" type game as well. Everything you've listed in your game specs are completely do-able in a Flash environment. The first thing that we're doing (have already done, technically) is created a tile-based graphic system. This allows you to create maps of near-infinite size without slowdown of any kind. It also puts less stress on the artists as they only have to create a set amount of graphic tiles which they can then have duplicated as necessary. Check out the tile based tutorials over at www.gotoandplay.it

[Sound-O-Vision]

Thanks, tri-fusion! I'll drop you an email when I've got something for you to test. Thanks for the assistance!

ShooterMG, your idea metroidvania idea sounds awesome. Perhaps we could combine forces? Don't know how far along into production you are but it sounds like a sick idea. The tile based graphic system sounds very much like the idea I have for designing the map, but I'm not sure how I could impliment that in flash. I'll check out that site, thanks for the link!

I'm glad to see this community is interested. We'll do our best to make greatest breakfast-based battle game on the internet! Should have some concept sketches this evening.

-Chris

[BlackmarketKraig]

At 6/27/07 05:32 PM, Sound-O-Vision wrote:
One large map
Ability to Save
Items and RPG style equipment (a la Final Fantasy)
Special abilities to allow further exploration of the map
Experience and Level ups
Bosses drop equipment or abilities
Animated cut scenes explaining some of the huge Bacon Samurai backstory
Breakable environments

If you can achieve all that and do it well, you will have made the best Flash game on Newgrounds, bar-none.

No offense to Neg, Luis and MindChamber. I love Rumble. =]

[JamesKnight]

Hi Chris, I may be interested in doing some testing, I work in QA over the last 5 years in the games industry, and I quite liked the Bacon movie :)

My Blog Future Snow

[Sound-O-Vision]

Thanks JamesKnight! We'll be in touch.

-Chris
Moving Box Studios
http://movingboxstudios.blogspot.com

[BaconSamurai]

Hey everyone, I'm Wright, the creator of Bacon Samurai.

I have to thank all of you for being so supportive of our project. All of you are awesome.

I've been hard at work designing the Bacon game and I have the first new concept sketch. You can see it full size on the Moving Box Studios blog .

I'll be uploading new sketches, designs, and animations regularly.

- Wright

[KamiiKoneko]

Hello. I am Clayton Stetz, and will go under the moniker KamiiKoneko. For some background, Kamii Koneko is Bacon Samurai's spirit kitten sidekick, and can be seen at the end of the bacon samurai flash trailer acting as the replay button. In Bacon Samurai the game, he will be what enables Bacon to perform supernatural spellcasting-type attacks. In the story he will act as comic relief.

As for myself, I am taking on the lead role in developing this project. It is currently a two-man team, the very talented Wright Wrickman, creator of the Bacon Samurai universe, as the animator, and myself as the programmer. We both are looking forward to making a game that raises the bar and is fun to play while still filled with art and beauty that we can be proud of.

This post serves the dual purpose of introducing myself and of making it known that as we develop an action plan and get beyond the basic physics, we may be looking for volunteers to help animate, program and design, and our end goal is to maybe get this game out to a console (I'm thinking DS, for dozens of reasons). This is just like being in a rock band but with coding and sword fighting.

Here are some interesting features we have decided we will be implementing and I hope it's as exciting to you as it is to me:
- Platformer in the style of the Castlevania series
- Character skill/spell customization through leveling, equipment, and collection
- A weight system that affects your fighting style
- Unique use of an alchemy/ingredient item system
- Large number of attacks and skills
- Unique boss battles spanning multiple gaming genres
- Soundtrack by multiple production artists

This forum is open for ALL suggestions and offers for help. We will be posting questions here and publicly for algorithms and techniques. We are highly ambitious and have all the skills and plans set up, but we have much to learn and a strong desire to do so.

Thank you everyone, for reading and lending your support. Talk about the cartoon, and the game, and voice your thoughts, every single word will be considered and taken very seriously

Signing out,
Kamii

[FlukeDude]

Feel free to PM me with any Actionscript problems. Also how long are you roughly planning to develop this and with so much in it you may want to split it into chapters and submit them separately.

Sounds great!