[Aband-O-Prototype] Resonance - Metroidvania shooter
Once upon a time (in 2010, when dinosaurs and World Cup tourists roamed the Earth) I decided it would be a brilliant idea to make a Metroidvania shooter in Game Maker. And lo, I did. I called it Resonance, because the other, better, point-and-clicky Resonance hadn't been made yet.
Particles!!111!one
I was enamoured with Super Metroid and Shadow Complex, and felt that I could pull it off. I also decided to do it in all three of the Dees, because I was stupidly ambitious, Unity had only just been released for PC, and I was feeling a bit cocksure regarding my hawt GM7 skizzles.
Textured cubes!
It was a challenging but fun project, and let me try my hand at (terrible hard-coded) animation systems, cubes, semi-procedural level generation that took a lot of the pain out of manual level design in the GM room editor, (terrible) 3D modelling and UV mapping in Blender, cubes, some of my (not as terrible) nascent attempts at game audio, and cubes. I got pretty far too. Three full areas with their own bosses and environmental hazards, a bunch of upgrades, far too many text logs lying around for no apparent reason that told the player how to win, and cubes. All that sort of thing, minus bucketloads of polish.
Reception was fairly good at the time, for what it was. People seemed to enjoy it despite its issues, feedback for improvement was excellent, and I was a bit upset when I abandoned the project because (a) my lack of design skills meant that I ran out of ideas for content, and (b) hand-importing and algorithmically animating a bunch of increasingly complex 3D enemies and environmental details made me want to throw GM into an industrial food processor.
Like this one!
Unity is a thing now. The question is whether to resurrect this bad boy, or let it moulder in the stygian pits.
The last playable demo contains pretty much all the content I created, and a good idea of the feel and experience I was working towards. It's... not polished. In fact, it's pretty terrible in many respects, but I beseech you, Makegamessa, to give it a play and tell me whether it's worth rebirthing with a shiny new coat of paint, updated design, and a title that contains 100% less lawyer bait.
Resonance is downloadable HERE (10MB ZIP).
Hit F1 once you've spawned to toggle the lolinnovative real-time control help overlay on and off.
Particles!!111!one
I was enamoured with Super Metroid and Shadow Complex, and felt that I could pull it off. I also decided to do it in all three of the Dees, because I was stupidly ambitious, Unity had only just been released for PC, and I was feeling a bit cocksure regarding my hawt GM7 skizzles.
Textured cubes!
It was a challenging but fun project, and let me try my hand at (terrible hard-coded) animation systems, cubes, semi-procedural level generation that took a lot of the pain out of manual level design in the GM room editor, (terrible) 3D modelling and UV mapping in Blender, cubes, some of my (not as terrible) nascent attempts at game audio, and cubes. I got pretty far too. Three full areas with their own bosses and environmental hazards, a bunch of upgrades, far too many text logs lying around for no apparent reason that told the player how to win, and cubes. All that sort of thing, minus bucketloads of polish.
Reception was fairly good at the time, for what it was. People seemed to enjoy it despite its issues, feedback for improvement was excellent, and I was a bit upset when I abandoned the project because (a) my lack of design skills meant that I ran out of ideas for content, and (b) hand-importing and algorithmically animating a bunch of increasingly complex 3D enemies and environmental details made me want to throw GM into an industrial food processor.
Like this one!
Unity is a thing now. The question is whether to resurrect this bad boy, or let it moulder in the stygian pits.
The last playable demo contains pretty much all the content I created, and a good idea of the feel and experience I was working towards. It's... not polished. In fact, it's pretty terrible in many respects, but I beseech you, Makegamessa, to give it a play and tell me whether it's worth rebirthing with a shiny new coat of paint, updated design, and a title that contains 100% less lawyer bait.
Resonance is downloadable HERE (10MB ZIP).
Hit F1 once you've spawned to toggle the lolinnovative real-time control help overlay on and off.
Comments
I'd say recreate it if you feel like it was fun - that it was well received is certainly a big plus, and you'll have much more joy in 3D with Unity. You may even just make better stuff than what you had :) Easier! :)
The juicy gameplay centre, fortunately, can be carried over, which is why I'm hoping people suffer through it for a bit and tell me if it's worth it. :P