itch.io

I have downloaded this when it first came out, before any of the fixes. I'm haven't played it yet I'm saving it for when my KS3 arrives to experience it on real hardware instead of an emulator. Now I see there are 4 fixes, how do I apply them? Or is the latest download already patched with the all the fixes? 

As a big adventure game fan and a fan of the Police Quest series by Sierra I am really looking forward to this game. This game is exactly what the Next needs as the arcade / platform genre is well represented but there are very few point and click adventures and RPG's.

where can I get physical versions of any of these Next games? These are some of the very best Spectrum Next games I need to a physical version of at least one game. BTW if you need a distributor in Australia let me know I have a retro gaming website and online store.

yes I have discord. what's your game about? I am unfamiliar with playdate... so it's similar to the Game Boy DMG? My game is actually for GBC.

would you be willing to download my game and play it and give me some feedback? I can do the same for your game too if you like.

BTW since I made this post I have overcome the issues I'd been having with programming so I think I'm good on that front for the moment. I just need feedback from people on what they think of the game as it is right now

50+ views and no replies? If you have played my game please feel free to let me know what you think.

I have recently released v0.027 which has a lot of gameplay elements integrated that I was struggling with before. When enemies are killed the enemy sprites disappear. Multiple enemies appear on one screen and whichever one is defeated will disappear. After a battle is won the player sprite reappears in the same spot where the battle was initiated. You now get EXP points when you win a battle. Also color has been added to some of the game screens.

The next things to be programmed in are: 

• Firearm attack so there are two attacks - melee and ranged attacks. 
• Level up so when a certain amount of EXP is reach the player will reach Level 2 and stats will increase. 
• More screens in the Black Caverns to create the game's first dungeon maze.

Hi. I'm new to being an indie developer. I have started my first true project an RPG in GB Studio and I have gone as far as I can without any help. But now I'm stuck. I really need help from veterans of GB Studio to help me. Ideally a mentor would be great but I would be incredibly grateful to get any help. I made a thread in the Dev Log section of the Itch.io community but no-one has replied and it's only got about 30 views. I get the feeling that people on Itch.Io don't really care about Game Boy games or GB Studio very much. The PC games get all the attention.

Specifically I am after someone who has had experience with making RPG's on GB Studio but I'm sure that someone who has made any game with the software would know far more than me and hence any help they can offer me would be extremely beneficial and useful to me. At the moment I am having trouble coming up with a system for keeping track of dead sprites that won't take up a global variable every time an enemy dies because the game would end up with hundreds of variables just to keep track of dead enemies. I was considering using a bitwise type of strategy but I do not know how to implement it. It's incredibly complicated and confusing to me.

My GB Studio RPG (work in progress): https://x-avy.itch.io/seatropilis

My thread in the Dev Log forum: https://itch.io/t/6086045/seatropilis-underwater-rpg-for-game-boy-color-gb-studi...

Any help will be greatly, greatly appreciated...

Hi retro gamers and retro game devs,

This is my first ever game, or at least the first serious game project I have undertaken. In the past I have only dabbled in BASIC and C and never reached the point where I could create games with graphics. My only other game-related experience was making my own Doom II WAD file for a Doom II-based game engineered for cooperative multiplayer. I spent years working on it but it only ended up having two levels.

After that I created a very simple proof-of-concept project to get familiar with GB Studio. It was just to prove to myself that I could create an RPG battle engine. The game consisted of a few rooms where the player talks to an NPC, which triggers a battle screen. The player fights the enemy until it dies, and that was essentially the whole project.

After getting familiar with the basics of making an RPG in GB Studio, I started working on a story concept for a more serious game. The game is called SeaTropilis, and this is the itch.io page:

https://x-avy.itch.io/seatropilis

The project is currently at v0.025 (it started at v0.001), so it has gone through about 25 revisions. I have been working on it for about a year, although not consistently.

The game follows a character named Leo Xeen, who has just graduated from university with a degree in Marine Biology and gets a job as a field scientist for an organization with a research base located 40 meters underwater near the Galápagos Islands.

The game begins with Leo writing a diary entry explaining to the player that he has just finished university and has accepted a job with Oceanographica Scientifica to work at the underwater base SeaTropilis. After finishing the diary entry, the phone rings. When the player answers it, Leo's new boss tells him to obtain his diving license from the dive shop and gives him access to a company account with $5,000 to purchase diving equipment.

The player then controls Leo and walks outside his house to go to the local dive shop. In the shop there are two characters: one provides Leo with his commercial diving license (which he obtained training for during his studies), and the other sells the SCUBA equipment required for diving. At this point the player can purchase the gear.

Leo then returns home where his parents are now present. The player can talk to them for advice and encouragement. Interacting with the diary gives two options:

1. Write in the diary (save the game)

2. Catch some Z's (sleep until the next day)

Sleeping triggers a cutscene where Leo automatically catches an early-morning flight.

In the next scene, a plane transports Leo across the world from Kraków, Poland, to Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, and then onward to the Galápagos Islands. From there he takes a submarine down to the underwater base SeaTropilis.

When he arrives, the base overseer Captain Murphy greets him and shows him around the facility. Leo then sleeps in his new quarters. The next day he meets the Chief Scientist, Dr. Psy Ants, who assigns his first mission.

The mission involves locating the source of a distress signal coming from an uncharted underwater cave system called Black Caverns. The signal is coming from a dolphin that works for Oceanographica Scientifica as a field agent but has become trapped somewhere in the cave system. Dr. Psy Ants gives Leo a tracker device and a harpoon gun.

Before leaving, Leo must purchase any remaining diving equipment from the SeaTropilis shop (if he hasn't already), including a diving knife for combat. The gear is equipped in the locker room where Leo changes into his dive suit.

Once equipped, Leo can enter the Moon Pool, which provides access to the open ocean. When the player enters the water, Leo is automatically placed in the entryway of the Black Caverns.

Here the player encounters an enemy sprite — a vicious Moray Eel. When the enemy sprite approaches the player sprite, the game switches to a battle scene similar to traditional RPGs.

The battle system itself is intentionally simple and based on randomness combined with player and enemy stats. When the player defeats the Moray Eel using the knife, the battle ends and the player returns to the Black Caverns entryway.

And that is where development currently stands.

The next major problem I need to solve is how to keep track of enemies that have been defeated.

Many RPGs do not display enemy sprites in the overworld, instead triggering random encounters. However, in SeaTropilis the enemies are visible sprites that wander around the screen. After defeating one in battle, I want that sprite to remain gone when the player returns to the overworld.

Using a standard variable seems like the obvious solution, but that would result in potentially hundreds of global variables being added to the game.

I previously asked ChatGPT to help me with this problem, and it suggested a bitwise system where binary values could track which enemies had been defeated. Unfortunately it could not produce a solution that worked properly with the structure of my battle engine.

The battle engine currently works like this:

Each enemy type has its own stat values (Max HP, Strength, Endurance, Agility, etc.). Moray Eels, for example, have a defined set of values for these stats.

I then have a set of global enemy stat variables used during battle (Enemy Max HP, Enemy Strength, Enemy Endurance, Enemy Agility, etc.).

Each enemy type also has an ID number. The Moray Eel has ID 1. A script checks this ID and loads the correct stat values into the global enemy stat variables before the battle begins.

When the enemy sprite moves within a certain range of the player sprite, the current scene is stored on the stack and the game switches to a close-up battle scene.

In that battle scene, a script identifies the enemy type, loads the correct enemy stats, and compares Agility between Leo and the enemy to determine who takes the first turn.

These systems are handled through called scripts, rather than being written directly into the battle scene.

Another script manages the turn system. It generates a random number to determine whether an attack hits or misses, compares player and enemy stats to calculate damage, subtracts the damage from the opponent's HP, and checks whether the opponent's HP has reached zero.

If the opponent is still alive, the turn switches. If HP reaches zero or below, dialogue appears stating the enemy has died and the script returns to the previous scene.

The problem is that when the scripts finish and the game returns to the overworld, the scene loads again from the beginning, so everything resets exactly as it was when the player first entered the Black Caverns entryway. The enemy sprite is still present.

I also tried resuming the previous scene from the stack, but the script still restarts from the beginning, which results in a never-ending loop where the player must keep defeating the same enemy.

At this point I am unsure how to proceed.

Any suggestions, comments, or advice would be greatly appreciated, especially from developers who have experience with GB Studio RPG systems.

If you have any questions about how my systems are structured, I would be happy to provide any additional details.

it sucks that you have to be rich to afford a homebrew MVS game 😥, i wish I could get one for my collection but I just can't justify paying so much

can a physical version be released on the MVS that doesn't cost 250 EURO? something affordable would be nice for a change. like maybe 100 EURO and that is still heaps expensive for a game

no download? is this a SNES ROM or a windows file? if it a PC game - meh

Game Plot: You are Leo Xeen who get's a job as a marine biologist in an underwater research base in the sea surrounding the Galapagos Islands known as SeaTropilis. In this exciting and unique adventure you get to experience what it's like to be a scientist that lives and works underwater. The base is 40m deep which means you can SCUBA dive for long periods (saturation diving) as the body adapts to having higher levels of nitrogen dissolved in the blood. You will experience underwater adventuring as you explore reefs, caves, shipwrecks, crevices, undersea structures and many other exciting and mysterious undersea environments. 

This is an RPG the likes of which have never been seen before on the Game Boy Color or possibly on any other console. The RPG turn-based battles are underwater and involve the use of a knife (melee weapon) and harpoon gun (ranged weapon). You will face many real enemies as it's not a fantasy game, like moray eels, sharks, barracuda, sea snakes, sting rays as well as human opponents such as pirates and rival competing organizations. Be ready to experience an atypical RPG, no swords and sorcery here though fictitious everything is based on real world technology, enemies and locations. Become immersed in a world that's believable yet incredible and experience an epic adventure.

General Info: This is my first game, I have already spent months getting it to this point. It's a story driven unique RPG, I wanted to do an RPG with a completely different setting to anything that has been done before. I also wanted it to be rooted in real life, not fantasy so that people can relate to the character more and get that feeling of being the main character in the game's world. The story is believable yet incredible and the game is going to be atmospheric and have an exciting story that draws you in and keep the player in a curious state wondering what's going to happen next. It was originally meant to be for the DMG but due to limitations of the amount of on-screen text available in DMG games I changed it to the GB Color. So while the graphics are mostly monochromatic their are some minor enhancements with sprites and other elements having their own palettes. So it's like a DMG enhanced or a DMG + game if you like. It's going to be a typical turn-based JRPG style game but with an atypical setting and plot.

Preview: The game is currently in the prototype, playable stage version 0.016 (1.6% completed). So far I've just been working on setting the scene to tell the story of how the main character get's to where the game takes place. The main character Leo get's hired by a marine research organization and catches a couple flights and a boat ride to get to the undersea base where he will be working. Take a look at the youtube video that plays through the starting sequence of the game thus far:

https://x-avy.itch.io/seatropilis

Feedback: As I mentioned this is my first game, please let me know what you honestly think of it. Is the concept interesting? Does this demo make you want to experience this game when it's complete? Please bear in mind that I haven't got up to the first battle sequence yet, this is just the introduction to the game to set the story. I'm very keen to hear what your opinions are of what I've done so far.

Thanks

X-Avy

I have tried running this on my FXPAKPro. It ran but the SNES sprites flicker like anything. I thought that was supposed to be fixed? I tried updating to the latest firmware (2023) and tried running it again but there was no change.  Have I done something wrong or missed something? It flickers like the description of the original design flaw which was supposed to be fixed. Very perplexing. I'm writing a blog post on this and I'll be forced to report that it doesn't work properly on an FXPAKPro unless you can tell me how to fix it. Thanks