yeah, its a head scratcher. I can't seem to figure out exactly WHAT gms2 uses as the border... I've tried multiple different sizes, I even tried making a 64x64 sprite with just a small image in the bottom of it and tried multiple different collision mask sizes, origin point positions... and the only on that has an effect is moving the origin point because that is where the path is drawn from.  I'll let you know if i have a breakthrough! 

Bringing Life to Pixels

Pixel art is great, I love its simplistic complexity! Just one pixel placed in the right way can change how an entire piece feels. its also immensely satisfying to work with if not quite time consuming. Today i've been working on the art, as well as implementing some potions and a small inventory system that the player can use to keep hold of "keyitems"

CHARACTERS

I do always like to draw characters full size first and then attempt to downsize the design to pixels. I find working this way helps me solve design issues. Starting with a high detail solid base, then figuring out what works and what doesn't work at a small scale. This is Ravnna, (Rav-Nah), She is the protagonist of this story. I'll give more details on her soon, but for now i'm going to focus on the pixel design and why I made certain choices.  The combat involves using a sword, and casting spells. so the art needed to allow a free hand for spell casting. I ditched the shield, and for blocking I will just have her using her sword to deflect blows and absorb magic projectiles. having her "casting hand" open and outward will be good for visibility in the "up" and "down" walk /attack cycles. having clarity on the sprite in multiple situations really is important... and it looks good too :P 

How I work on a sprite

Typically I start with a black outline scribble and then refine it, add some base colours, then begin shading/tweaking moving bits around until i'm happy.  I added some glowy eyes in the skull on her shoulder armour, I think it looks cool but also adds a nod to some of the story elements. she, can capture souls to boost her equipment stats. Maybe one of the souls never left that skull on her armour..? potential for an NPC sidekick to offer helpful hints? I like this part of the process as aside from having a good direction with a game design document, when you start getting into the art and the design fully, these small ideas can lead to adjustments that can really improve the game,  lead to some brilliant new mechanics that you couldn't have thought of before.  Did you know that in crash bandicoot it was a very last minute decision to include the "boxes" yeah you know that thing you love to smash and try to find all of them through those levels? Very nearly didn't happen.  The gaming industry is FULL of stories like that, if i remember anymore through out these dev logs i'll be sure to drop them in where appropriate. 

 On the colours, they are more vivid than the original concept, although this will be a dark fantasy title, I think its OK to have some bright colours. using darkness and contrasting it with bright and colourful magic and supernatural stuff is always going to look cool! for pixel art its also important that you maximise contrast between the characters and the backgrounds. I see a lot of sprites that get "lost" in muddy backgrounds so i'm going to negate that by ensuring the sprites for the enemies and characters are nice and bright and the floors they walk on will always be dark!. 

HEY! 

Thanks for reading this far, if there's anything specific you'd like to know more about, then drop me a comment below and i'll respond. and if its a really good question  I might just dedicate a whole devlog to it. 

see you in the next one!  Bren. 

Ok, i've done this now, each child objects of the enemy parent just tells it what its own pursue speed is. so it can be unique to each enemy. its working great so far.  thanks for the tip! 

Hey, thanks for having a read through :) 
so without seeing the rest of the code I can see why that could look odd, Its set there simply because there is a cool down on the pursue speed when the enemy reaches the player. Say the enemy reaches you, but you run away, I didn't want the skeleton to immediately chase you constantly. so I just reduce the pursue speed to 0, and then there's a timer that ticks down to say when they can pursue again. 


If the player moves far enough away from the enemy, they will return to their ROAM state. so in that case i wanted to just hard reset it there, so if the player gets close again the enemy would resume at the correct speed. 
 
I could've also temporarily stopped the path action, but I didn't think it would hurt to keep that going and checking the players position for when they can move again. and instead just reduced the speed. 

I should mention i'm still very much learning a lot about code, so I don't always get it right or have the most efficient approach. but i'm getting better.  I've been dabbling on and off with different projects since about 2018,  but i'm a silly artist that hates math, so my progress isn't the fastest.

Again thanks for commenting. 

LOGIC OF THE HUMBLE SKELETON

Shout out to the sketchy scribble of a skeleton warrior in the gifs below, its a test thing so it's ok for it to look like that.  For Disavowed I've chosen for the enemies to utilise the mp_grid functions of GMS2.  It makes the most sense to allow enemies to follow the player around and avoid walls. I've applied a base tile-map just to have something other than a black screen to look at whilst testing and setting up behaviors. 

STATE MACHINE 

There's various methods do achieve enemy logic but the form i'm most comfortable with is using an enumerated state machine. I find them easier to read, and understand, this helps a lot when the logic starts to get more cumbersome. and its easier to expand on if you have a few brain waves later on in production. This Skeleton warrior can do a few basic things and i'll likely keep it that way, as they don't need to be too complex right off the bat.  The break down of the enum is;

enum EnemyState{
    ROAM,
    PURSUE,
    ATTACK,
    COOLDOWN,
    KNOCKBACK
}

While in Roaming, the enemy will pick a random point and move towards it, rest for a moment, then pick another direction to move in.

switch (state) {
    case EnemyState.ROAM:
attack_cooldown = 0;
        pursue_Speed = 2;
        if (roam_timer <= 0) {
            roam_direction = irandom(359);
            roam_timer = roam_timer_max;
            // Calculate a random point to roam to
            var roam_target_x = x + lengthdir_x(100, roam_direction);
            var roam_target_y = y + lengthdir_y(100, roam_direction);
            //make roaming path respects walls
            if (mp_grid_path(obj_gameControl.mp_grid, path, x, y, roam_target_x, roam_target_y, true)) {
                path_start(path, roam_speed, path_action_stop, false);
            } else {
                roam_timer = 1; // finding a valid path in the next step
            }
        } else {
            roam_timer--;
        }
        if (instance_exists(obj_player) && distance_to_object(obj_player) < 80) { // Detection range
            state = EnemyState.PURSUE;
        }
        break;

This lets them bumble about and not be just static. Once the player gets near enough, they will come after them, close the distance until they are in their attack range (this range will be unique to the enemy as some will be ranged enemies) but our sword Skelly here will rush in for some melee attacks. I won't break down all the code, but you can see how from the ROAM block in the state machine, its easier and tidy to keep these actions segregated.  I've added a variable in for "sword_swing_time" so this will give the player a visual cue when the skeleton raises its sword before striking. the 10 frames should be plenty to hold on a small animation with the sword glinting. Although the mechanic isn't in yet, the player will be able to block attacks if timed correctly.

 Having the enumerator will allow to easily add more logic to the enemies as the game expands. this could mean three different skeleton soldiers all using the same enumerator but with certain sections blocked out for "ranged skeleton" and "shield skeleton" shield skeletons could block players sword attacks for example where as those unfortunate to be without one can only get slapped by the players steel!

MAGIC

The player will be able to collect scrolls to learn different spells. Currently you can just find them lying around to make it easier for testing, but I plan to have them in chests, or purchasable from the village area. Spells, once acquired will use mana, you'll never lose them once learned, you just need to make sure you've got enough mana.  I'll dive deeper on those in another devlog, but my reason for mentioning it here is that there is an override on the distance detection for all enemies if they get hit be a projectile. so if you decide to snipe ol bone bonce from the other side of the room, he will ignore his regular distance check and just come at you! 

All the enemies base logic for moving around is being handled by a parent and the enemies are child objects of that parent. doing my very best to keep things nice and tidy  so I can run the game fluidly without performance loses. There are a few things that help with that, the skeleton (and other enemies) will only check for the players position every few frames and randomises its timer so all enemies check for the position on different frames.  This may be overkill as I don't plan on the player having to face down HORDES of enemies at one time, but its a nice to have and good to set up now. Trying to account for that down the road would mean a lot of re writes of how the enemies work and its just not worth the hassle. 

Development moves swiftly on, I'll likely spend some more time working on some better sprites now, as it would be good to get the logic working with those too. specifically the skeletons attack telegraph. as that would allow me to open up some testing with the player using timed blocks. This won't be anything CRAZY, this is after all a small dungeon adventure! But I do want to make it look nice! 

it's available now at the bottom of the page 

sure, I can upload a downloadable one for you. 

DARK MOON

Now playable in the browser! I've embedded it into the page now to make it easier for everyone to have a quick blast. have you managed to complete it yet? give it a shot - https://projectlevel.itch.io/dark-moon

About Dark Moon

Dark Moon, dark retro horror shooter, styled on old atari classics. 20 levels, tough, and 2 different endings. great for a quick horror fix. 

Can you survive Dark Moon? 

Controls

V1.6 CONTROLS

KEYBOARD
WASD - Movement
F - Melee
Space - shoot

KEYBOARD & MOUSE
WASD - Movement
LMB - Shoot
RMB - Melee

XBOX CONTROLLER
Left stick - Movement
Dpad - Movement
Right Trigger - Shoot
Right bumper - Melee

BIG UPDATE

I've just released a major update to my retro arcade horror title Dark Moon. I'm in the phase where i'm testing difficulty, I can complete it fine (it's only 20 levels)  I've tagged it as 90% complete because there's always room to do a little more before I call it done. would be great to get some feedback from more than close friends and family, so if you want to give it a shot and let me know your thoughts, id appreciate it. 

Dark Moon is a strict "joystick with only 2 buttons" type game. that's the restriction I set and i'm trying to stick rigidly to it. its meant to be a retro shooter so it has to feel like one.  I say this because a lot of people ask "Why can't I aim with the mouse?" well now you know. I like working with limited controls :) 

THE DIFFICULTY

I've been told its too hard, I've spent some time tweaking settings today to balance that out some more. But i'm at a point where I could really do with a wider feedback pool to really benefit the games direction. Would love to hear your thoughts, and your help in shaping it up to the finish line would be greatly appreciated. 

here are the latest patch notes for version 1.6

VERSION 1.6 IS HERE!

Important Info

MAJOR - *Added enemy knock back and increased their health (details below) - Fixed soft lock issue with storage boxes on a rare occasion not spawning the exit key. - Increased amount of enemies in each level

MINOR - Updated the exit door sprite - Updated the Oxygen UI sprite - Added a flash to enemies when they are hit for better player feedback. 

*ENEMY KNOCK BACK Details

When you hit an enemy with the melee attack, they will stagger back and flash green giving you a bit of distance. With the buffed melee attack speed, i've increased the enemies health over all.  The melee attack is a last resort or to be used to push enemies out of your way. Some of the enemies can be a lot harder to kill with it, and it will slow you down. not ideal when your oxygen is running out.

I've just released a huge free update to my arcade horror game Dark Moon. fresh graphics, bunch of new features including a simple crafting system for extra strategy! check out the page here - https://projectlevel.itch.io/dark-moon

WATCH THE TRAILER

About the game

Dark Moon is a single player horror survival arcade shooter. Styled on classic retro titles from the Atari days, you'll be trudging across the surface of an alien world, collecting your equipment from scattered containers, looking for any way out. A test of endurance, can you manage to escape the horrors of Dark moon?    Dark Moon is procedurally generated and is randomized to be a fun and unique play through every time. it features  a gripping horror atmosphere, Lovecraftian  storyline and great action.

Nice work, I need to play some more but initial thoughts are

+ Movement is good,
+ Shooting and the UI is self explanatory
+ Progression pace is good

- Hard to see the platforms
- despite a lot of health re gen perks dying is very easy
- sound effects on the shooting can stack and get on the loud side

Bugs
I noticed I would often get gifted a triple jump without needing to unlock it.

I'll play more later, but yeah. well done!

Thanks so much! :) 

Hey all, the game is "finished"... as in, its fully playable from start to finish and doesn't crash! :) But i'm still tinkering with it and making improvements over time. I've got some great ideas to improve it further, and a sequel/expansion to it.  But i'd like to get more people involved and hear more feedback. Would love to hear your thoughts on the current version. 


Latest devlog - https://projectlevel.itch.io/dark-moon/devlog/740365/big-update-version-11-mixes...

Retro horror fans! I've got a treat for you. Get all the details here - https://projectlevel.itch.io/dark-moon

I realize this was almost a year ago, but Thanks for playing and you have to HOLD the Y button on the candy cola machine. It costs some of your score, but you can buy back a life :) 

Thanks for the feedback. 
The art is all drawn at the same resolution. But, we have an active camera that changes distance at certain points during gameplay/cutscenes. The UI will likely be altered more as we go forward as there are a few issues with it that we are currently working through.  A new demo is on the way that has already addressed a ton of issues. So we look forward to getting that version into everyone's hands. 

Hey, thanks so much for playing! We're actually about to release a newer demo that has another level unlocked for players to try. 

Great video, glad you liked it and congrats on escaping the school! 

For more info checkout our website www.bubblegumzombie.com and from there you can join our discord too. We highly value player feed back to help shape the game so please come join us :) 

Also love your fan art of Kaylee 🤩 we have a fan art channel in the discord too. 

Thanks for playing and have a great day.

Hey Liam. 
Great update, fixed a lot of issues and added some great features. Its great to be able to see how many points you need to get the A ranks. i've been trying to get them all! 
I've now finished the game and have some more feedback :) 
I'm having a couple of issues with 2 of the levels and trying to get the A rank. 

Level 4 -1 - when you take control of Ava, the first section has three instant death glitch boxes you have to avoid in a free fall.... The positioning of these boxes makes it extremely tight to make it through and I drain all my lives trying to get through it. Or I get lucky and scrape through but then i've got no way of building my score back up to get to the A rank. 
As a suggestion, perhaps space the boxes a bit further apart to give the player a slightly better chance of getting through. Or instead of 3 boxes reduce it to 2. 

Level  1-5 - I think I'm just missing some enemies on this level, however when the BIG robot starts chasing you it happens very quickly and can result in an unfair death sometimes. Perhaps start him a little further to the left to give a little more breathing space at the start of this sequence. 

Is it possible to get a rank for 4-2? On the level select screen there is a blank space next to it. 

Lastly I have some feedback on the final confrontation with Dr Glitcher. Love that the fight is on jet packs above the planet! However I found the only way I could beat him is if I stayed on the ground and waited for him to drop down so I could land a few punches. When flying around he's so quick to throw out the glitch attacks that he kills me very quickly, and with him having a lot of health it makes the final bout very hard.  
As a suggestion, maybe keep it the same but reduce his health or reduce the speed of the glitch boxes that he fires.  As you are flying around it might be cool to have the glitch boxes he fires super slow but deal a lot of damage if you are caught in them.

Hope that helps somewhat, I've had fun trying to get an A rank on every level as I do want to see the final secret cutscene. 

Kind Regards
Brendan Toy  - Project Level Studios 

Hey Liam,

Firstly, I love your dedication to this series, and I appreciate all the hard work you've put into it, I'd like to point a few things out as I genuinely would like to see Smash Ringtail Cat improve and reach more people.  
I bought and played the digital deluxe version (not finished my playthrough yet) I just wanted to bring a couple of things to your attention that are causing difficulties with progression.
here is a list of some important issues to look into and some suggestions overall. 

- At the end of one of the Dr Glitcher castles there's a spring board that launches Smash upward and you have to aim between some instant death glitch boxes. Nothing wrong with that, but if you die, or run out of time in this section, no matter how many lives you have remaining the game quits to the main menu forcing you to have to reload and start the level from the beginning.

- I like the ranking system and love the secret coins, but it might be helpful to have some indication of what the point thresholds are to achieve an A rank? As a suggestion perhaps put the rank letter you are currently achieving next to the score on the games GUI.

- I like the variety of combat moves you can do with the characters and each feel unique from each other, (Bash's flying kick is the most satisfying to use!) There are however  numerous issues with the controls causing the characters to get stuck in scenery, or certain moves to feel a little underpowered. Smash being the main character I feel his punches could be more visible, its currently a little difficult to tell if you are actually hitting the enemies at the moment. perhaps a visual can help with that?    

- The other versions of Smash Ringtail Cat that i 've played in the past had more level variety with how they look, (forests, cyrstal caves, castles etc) and this one starts strong but there's a lot of levels using the same grey castle tiles before it gets back to the forest. (i'm at the point in the game where you are sent back to the alternate timeline to find the gems!) Not that this is a huge issue, I just think it would be nice to have more of a visual mix in the levels. 

- I love all the extra work you put into the cutscenes and the story, the new animations are more ambitious and show more movement, I'm genuinely impressed with them. some of the text though slightly overlaps at times on a double line, perhaps increase the spacing slightly to help this. 

- Also with the text, try to use a spell checker and just double check that the sentences are structured correctly, I saw a few mistakes here and there so if you can get someone to go through them and grammar check them that would be a huge improvement. 

I hope all that was useful and helps towards the constant improvement you are striving for, I've had a lot of fun playing them over the years and have really enjoyed seeing it go through numerous changes and improvements. Thanks for your continued efforts! I'll be jumping back in to KICK SOME TAIL as soon as I can. 

Kind Regards
Brendan Toy - Project Level Studios

Thanks so much for playing!  Great video! and we will be dropping a new update soon with a fresh demo! And yes, it's fast and deadly! 

Great demo! Thoroughly enjoyed it! I had an incident where I defeated the boss that stole mr Cupcakes, I defeated him and got locked in position just as a rock hit me and I had to fight him again!!!! arghagrhga. but it was fine, the second time I smashed it! 

Cute story, brilliant aesthetics, great sound track. i'm easily putting myself down for a copy of this when its all done. hoping for a physical release! sign me UP. Bottle Boy for the win!  

Bubblegum Zombie Hunter

Thanks for your support and kind words 😊

Bubblegum Zombie Hunter

BUBBLEGUM ZOMBIE HUNTER

https://projectlevel.itch.io/bubblegum-zombie-hunter

https://projectlevel.itch.io/bubblegum-zombie-hunter

BUBBLEGUM ZOMBIE HUNTER

Thanks! 

Twinstick Horror Shooter

Bubblegum Zombie Hunter is a fast paced twin stick retro styled horror shooter! It's quirky, spooky,  frantic action, secrets and frights will keep you coming back for more! If all of that sounds interesting to you, then we invite you to play our latest Demo giving you a polished slice of the full game. It's out now! We can't wait to hear your feedback and meet more of you! Come join us today.

https://projectlevel.itch.io/bubblegum-zombie-hunter

Does the game actually Run on xbox series S? it keeps looping the intro video and not loading

BUBBLEGUM ZOMBIE HUNTER

https://projectlevel.itch.io/bubblegum-zombie-hunter

Thank you so much. we love seeing it improve too! :) its come a long way. thank you for your support. 

Bubblegum Zombie Hunter

 https://projectlevel.itch.io/bubblegum-zombie-hunter

Thank you :) 

Haven't played through all of the new version yet, however here are some more notes and observations for your consideration. 

recommended text alterations to the controller instruction screen.

"Smash Ringtail Cat is playable with a keyboard and fully compatible with any bluetooth controller! An Xbox or Playstation controller is recommended."

in the scene select screen, you can infinitely scroll down past the last entry "Binary appears" 
advice, have it jump back up to the top if player presses down on the very last entry. 

Donate option is broken. accessing it leads to a blank screen with a broken link. Check what URL this button is pointing to. 

First instruction after starting the game is to "press x to jump"
advice - if player is using an xbox controller, change the text to relate to the controller they are using. 

jumping on the spot, and standing still causes ava to spin constantly until you move again.

Avas jump is set to occur when the player releases the jump button. advice; any partner character should jump at the same time the player presses the jump button. This should help stop them from falling into pits and off platforms. 

How to play screen, this I feel should display controls based on what the player is using. 

An instruction screen says there are difficulty levels/options when pausing the game, but I couldn't seem to access these. 

Pausing and un pausing halts enemy movement. 

framerate in 1 - 1 and a few other levels is very choppy. (browser version tested) 

When moving on a sloped collision block you can't jump. 

Red Punching bags that contain items - recommend reducing their hitpoints to just 1. just to make grabbing the items easier/ more satisfying.

The heart icon doesn't seem to give you much health, perhaps increase the amount it can give you to make it more worth while?  

level 1 -4 (glitch house) the level end is a glitch box. players have been taught to avoid these. maybe change the sprite so its more obvious you need to touch it to progress. 

If you die fighting dr glitcher in the first encounter in dr glitchers castle, on restarting at the checkpoint, the level music doesn't play. 

When advancing dialogue in the cutscene after fighting dr glitcher avas sprite changes size.

That's all for now. You have been doing really well fixing all the previous bugs i pointed out, nice work.  

I can continue to test things and play it when I can if you feel my notes are helping you. I don't want to over load you haha. 
Take care.  

Hi there. played through the game and found some issues you might want to address :) hope the following notes are helpful. 

if you die at the 2nd boss, when you restart at the last check point the level music isn't playing. 

Pressing Enter multiple times during the opening cutscene stacks all the dialogue on top of eachother

On the level 1 - 4 if you die, the music stacks so its louder when you restart. 

in the cutscene after the big robot chasing you Ava's sprite is constantly sliding to the left during the dialogue

the aspect ratio shrinks when starting act 2-1

aspect ratio zooms in during the first chase of dr glitcher

If you don't catch, or attack dr glitcher during that first chase, the level is impossible to complete.

The invincibility collectible on act 2-3 can't be picked up and its audio loops rapidly

act 3-3 dr glitcher is facing the wrong way in the boss fight

The safe zones at present are pretty clear cut, always in specific rooms. So the rooms entrance is where the gramophone is effective from. 

We don't plan on having the gramophones out in open areas, they will always be tucked inside smaller rooms :) 

If it causes confusion we can perhaps add a glowing line to the ground to further highlight it. But for now they are sufficient. 

However thank you for that suggestion and that would certainly be a great tool for us to be able to place gramophones out in open areas if we ever needed to do that. Multiplayer survival modes perhaps. 

You don't like smooth jazz? But it could save your life!!!!!!!

Its a little hard to see, but the game also crashes when you punch this enemy. I was invincible at the time managed to replicate it multiple times. If you DON'T collect the invincibility power up then the crash doesn't happen must be tied to that.  Also if you quit the game and select load game the aspect ratio is restored.  

couple of things I've noticed, Dr Glitcher seems to be upside down in this cutscene


And the aspect ratio shrinks after the first cutscene has ended.