Post-August Update

I uh ... will be taking some time off Labcoax and sinking them into this other game I'm making. It currently has no name but the project file is named "AoD".

The planned design for AoD is simple. You are sand-boxed within the arena grounds (or you can jump off  into the unpleasant pits below), made to fight through many waves of enemies, with a boss at the end of every X number (say 10'ish?) of rounds.

Here's a few working screenshots I have:

The H-mechanics are still WIP
Planned multi-participants in H-scenes

Enemies knock you down to initiate H-animations

Ignore the green circle (indicates center of view)

Okay I give. Honestly the progress with Labcoax has been agonizingly slow (for both you and me), it saps away my enthusiasm for game-making. Can't let that happen!

Starting AoD took my fading eagerness and resuscitated it. Using my completely undependable calculations, I should have an AoD prototype up by this month.

P.S. Labcoax is not forgotten, revisit from time to time. I apologize for this, will reply to comments.

But it ain't so bad since ...

Noaika demo is out (14-08-31) - Kyrieru

Blog link to Noaika

The first demo of Kyrieru's new platformer (will break your back) has just been released on his blog. It's title name is tentative as of now. The game has a new juggling mechanic in which the heroine can lift the enemies into the air with an uppercut and pummel them. Darker environments seem to be the setting for Noaika, firing bullets will temporarily light-up the areas ahead.

You can play up until the second save-point, with the demo areas sand-boxed by impassable blocks. There are 4 obtainable power-ups and an animation each with the 4 different enemies you will encounter. Great demo. Check it out.

Post-July Progress

So July is ending and a fully functioning demo* is still far from reach!

What I did (and on-going):-
1. Tilesets
2. Ammo-types shown below
3. First mini-boss (H-animation not done)
4. First boss (intro scene & H-animation not done)

Here's a picture on two of the ammo-types made:-

The floating rock is actually a shield against enemy projectiles.

I understand that Labcoax development is going painfully slow and updates are scarce. I will attempt to power through the next month and put up more updates along the way.

---
I've been pretty out of touch with the H-platformer scene lately. Maybe y'all can point me to any new development(s)? LAB2 (ULMF link) by nekonomeme was the last I heard.

Configurable Controls - Finally

Writing Japanese in such low res is hard

So I've added keyboard-config & gamepad support. GM:S newer gamepad functions only works with newer controllers (using Xinput), but in hopes of making Labcoax compatible with older gamepads (using DirectInput), I've added the older functions. I've tested the old functions but i'll need to get a new controller to test the newer Xinput functions.

Programming the input configurations took a good amount of time. The UI too. It'd be great if I could know some of your go-to control schemes for platformers. Example below:

Directions: Up, down, left and right  (Up in Labcoax is an 'interact with objects' button)
Shoot: Primary attack
Jump: Self-explained
Weapon/Ammo change: Switching between 4-5 different shot types
Skill/Evasion: For maneuvers like backhop and etc.

Keyboard

Direction: Up, down, left and right arrow buttons
Shoot: C key
Jump: X key
Weapon/ammo change: V key
Skill/Evasion: Z key

Gamepad (modify button names as per your controller e.g. PS2/3, XBOX, ... )

Direction: D-pad
Shoot: [ ] button
Jump: X button
Weapon/Ammo change: Triangle button
Skill/Evasion: O button

Though it doesn't really matter what schemes since it'll be configurable via menu options, I just wanna see if some of you might have crazy configurations. Crazy configurations give rise to possible scenarios in which my configurations handler would fail.

*Note: From what I've gathered, GM:Studio's latest gamepad support functions (for Xinput) is most compatible with XBOX controllers. For everything else, there may be a need to emulate your non-XBOX controllers as XBOX controllers using programs like xbox360ce and the like.

P.S: My translation is shit

More planning

I've done a few things, mainly re-iterating the 'plans' on the map layout, the skills/augments and ammo-types obtainable in Labcoax. The pickups in game will look like below:-

Differing shot types - obtained from bosses

Player upgrades - obtained from mini-bosses

Map reveals as exploration expands

I've been programming and preparing Labcoax to accomodate the plans, so far so good as I've managed to fix most of the logic errors with my limited testing. What do I mean by plans? I had to revise old plans many times. Plans such as the x number of bosses, the different map zones, placement of upgrades, and then justifiable obstacles that ensure the player don't sequence break and crash the game. The plan is far from final, but it gives me something to work with as I continue to piece this mess together.

After this post, I would be shifting focus to adding some content (as opposed to preparing Labcoax FOR content like past months) like new tilesets.

In the previous post there have been a few comments on the inclusion of key configurations for keyboard and controllers. I think this will have to wait (a long while) until I get to the part where I make the OPTIONS menu.

Not dead. Just not sure what else to post or write about.

It's a long road.

2014 March Update - Release v0.5

EDIT#1:Uploaded v0.5b. Check release notes below for changes and bug fixes. Main fix was escaping grapples being too tough.

So many months have past since v0.4, apologies for keeping you waiting for v0.5. I swear I could've given up, but I know nothing good will ever come out of that. Release v0.5 is not a big update, but most of the changes required me to do some refreshing on my codes after being away from Gamemaker for awhile. I hope v0.5 can help tide you fellas over until v0.6.

In a pinch
Labcoax - Alpha v0.5

Labcoax - Alpha v0.5b
Download links (est. size 7.0 MB)
Password:- dtny (パスワード)
[Mega]
[Rapidshare]
[Depositfiles]
Links are also added under the 'Downloads' section.


Release Notes for v0.5b:

• Slight change in code handling jump-through platforms. Fixed bug of being unable to jump when in contact with jump-through platforms.
• Aerial enemy 'Poltergeist'.
• Grapple mechanics changed; now damages-on-struggle-input and loops until player breaks animation.
• Breaking grapple becomes increasingly harder further into a single loop. Breaking grapple only becomes harder following player inputs for the loop, to encourage attempting escape in one-fell-swoop. New loop resets the escape bar drop rate.
• Introduced ammo drop and ammo alternate attack. Obtained via lockers.
• A fresh labcoat has 3 hitpoints, gives 20% damage reduction, is finally useful. Obtained via lockers.
• Two sets of player sprites: Sprite with labcoat equipped & the other without.
• Save-point now interactable but save function is not done, serving only as placeholder.
• Zoom-in/out now for more close-up pixel fun! Just press the  'space' key.
• Press F3 to cycle through a few window sizes when not under full-screen.
• Skill list now visible in pause menu.
• I think pause menu is now prettier.

As usual, couple of notes:

• When equipped labcoat destroyed, chance to respawn as a new labcoat.
• Both shotgun shots are the same. They're to tell me I got the functions working.
• New game & continue game starts the player in the usual test room. Both options are no different for now.
• Choosing difficulty still makes no difference.
• Tell me if v0.5 is working for you by voting in the poll to the right (not visible on mobile view)!
• If you found a bug, tell me in the comment section below!

...
I'll start putting up projected work that I should aim for the next release so I can look back and be reminded what the hell I was actually suppose to do.

Projected v0.6 release:
[Primary]
> New game intro using timeline.
> Continue building actual levels.
> Event triggers.
> ...
[Secondary]
> At least one new enemy.
> Environmental hazards.
> ...

Done some thinkin'

So 'Witch Girl' is out and I'm chugging caffeine

I'd like to know what you fellas think about Witch Girl because I am surprised at the number of sales they're doing. I'm guessing KooooNSoft has plans for releasing future patches with additional stuff since they charged a hefty USD19.00+. I never thought RoR side-scroller to be so popular.

Back on topic...

[the Labcoax progress]
Yet another late blog update, but I'm putting as much time as I possibly can into Labcoax' development. There have been a little running back and forth as I revisited some of the older codes because they were badly coded and were impeding further proper coding. Apart from that, been redoing a few other things:

[the labcoat]

I've decided that there'd be 2 states of the standard player sprites; one with labcoat on and the other without. I'm still deciding what are the bonuses for having equipped a labcoat but as of now, it gives a 20% damage reduction and takes a few hits before being destroyed, from which the heroine will take 100% damage until finding another labcoat. Lockers dispense ammo (for alternate attacks) and labcoats. Enemy grapple destroys labcoat.

[enemy grapple]

In v0.4, enemies will disengage grapple once they climax and drop the heroine before starting over, but I've gotten a few suggestions to make it last indefinitely until player decides to exit the grapple.

Q: Do you think rape grapples should do damage? Should it keep going until player stops the grapple?

[other_things]
I decided I'd complete a short 6-7 panel comic on photoshop because believe it or not, I don't practice much on photoshop if at all. Here's the short comic on Kyrieru recently breaking his stylus, featuring Kuro from Kurovadis. I got lazy half-way coloring.


On the side note ...

Tacokurt created another fanart of Labcoax a couple weeks ago, this time featuring the slime from Labcoax! You can check out his other works at tacokurt@furaffinity (NSFW).

See his previous fanart of Labcoax under the Sketches page.



Also, v0.5 to be uploaded in a day or two - shhhhh

Enemies Mockup

Hey peeps, just wanted to say ...
Lawd it's already December and I can't even see the finish line! Sometimes I keep questioning myself whether I could even finish this. Maybe even this project this is too ambitious. Dangit.

Anyway, I've spent the past week creating mockups of a variety enemies for Labcoax. When creating the mockups, I also have to plan for the enemy's attacks so that it is easy to manipulate ready-made spritework to make them (I'm lazy like that). Here's a couple of mockups compiled:-

Mockup of enemies

*Fanart monster 'Russa' by Tacokurt pixelized!

More mockups

EDIT #2: More mockups added

I might add to this post as I made more, but in the meantime, if you guys & girls thought of an enemy or monster that would fit in the Labcoax world, suggest them in the comments below!
...