Pomy Blog

Drivin' Breach

So this was started in part based on my desire to create something utilizing the Grenade Volley world with a more "safe" gameplay style. I absolutely love old distance games, like Learn to Fly, Kitten Cannon, Shopping Cart Hero, etc etc but I realized it wasn't a super common style of game these days so wanted to take a crack at making one.

I had the basics of it going and I was pretty proud of what I had artistically and in terms of tone. Ambitiously, I even wanted a fully animated opening cutscene, but in hindsight that might've been a bit much to try and pull off.

To try and set it apart, I imagined that one main hook would be having a wide variety of "special items" that you could used to propel yourself further, each one controlling differently for players that wanted some variety, and maybe even implementing individual upgrade lines for said special items. I wanted to make the "Magic Tail" item a buttplug tail.

After a bit of time of working I just realized things weren't coming together how I would've liked them to. Physics weren't quite satisfactory, I couldn't figure out how to implement gliders, and I wasn't super confident about balancing it to stretch the game out but also make it feel rewarding. Those combined with waning passion for the project just kinda killed it off. I was pretty proud of the art and stuff I did for it, though, and what I had going so far.

I also ended up applying some of the code (where the world moves around the player, allowing for infinite movement) to Downhill to Infinity!

(Also that shop music you here is Closed on Sundays by Mana Junkie, a CC3.0 track I found online)

Earth Servant Ms. Usagi

I was super enthusiastic about this one for a while!! I was stoked about the idea of making a game using Ms. Usagi because she was one of my many characters made with games in mind from the get-go. I ended up settling on this weird mix of Megaman-style, fast platforming, and stylish melee combat. Notice, though, the animations are not finished at ALL.

I wanted to push fun and snappy combat, encouraging the player to bounce between enemies while using environment and speed to their advantage. Think like a hectic anime fight where the main character is running around boppin' every bad guy while darting between them. A style meter was also applied, rewarding chained attacks.

To go over the moveset: Attacking from a standstill performs an uppercut, attacking in the air performs an air kick. If you only tap the attack button for the air kick, it stops Usagi in mid-air and keeps her close to the enemy. If you hold it, however, it will both put her current speed into the kick AND launch the enemy according to said speed. Holding down while attacking in the air will slam to the ground. She also has a blaster move that's especially good for continuing combos. For defense, I added dashing maneuvers and a block/parry inspired by MGR.

I still think this kick feels fuckin sick to pull off.

Few problems came up. First one was just plain ol' being scared of level design, but that one I coulda bruteforced through. More importantly at one point I took a break and went back to it later only to realize that it Wasn't Fun. Movement felt way too slippery, I wasn't making the fast momentum-based movement blend well with the fast combo-based combat. If I wanna do anything like this again, I'd have to figure out a better way to blend this.

Either way, I know for certain I'd LOVE to make a Ms. Usagi game in the future, I think she could make for something very fun and poppy and stylish.

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