Christmas Time Heroes

[Strife]

I have a bit of a gift for my testers and anyone else in the NTWF. ^_^ I built this game for the Daily Click Christmas Competition for game development, and I also want to share it with you guys if you're interested:

Download Link (beware - here there be ads)

Christmas Time Heroes is a side-scrolling action platformer set in a sci-fi world. The Spectrum Force - a group of explorers and peacekeepers - has stumbled upon a strange moon that has ties with the Christmas holiday. Upon reaching the surface, they learn that a civil war is about to begin between the spirited Fawnful and the jealous, militaristic Rednoses. The Fawnful are on the losing side, and it's up to Indigo Sun and Violet Star to balance the scales and figure out what's going on. Can they stop the fighting in time for Christmas?

The game plays similar to Jade Phoenix, but there is a bigger focus on combat, the levels are more open-ended, and the enemies and bosses are more difficult to compensate for its short length. This is by no means an easy game. Each of the two playable characters - Indigo and Violet - have a different play style, so it's definitely worth it to try out both of them. ^_^

There are 3 stages in total: Holiday Hill, Sleighbell City, and North Pole. Each stage has 3 different missions to complete, and all of them can be unlocked and accessed through a central hub area. At the end of each mission, you'll recieve Spirit points based on how well you did and how much time you took to complete the mission.

As I said previously, I entered this game into a Christmas competition for game development, and it is currently being reviewed by the judges along with 12 other games. I probably worked harder in this past month than I've ever worked before on a game, so I hope that the results are worth it. ^_^

Happy Holidays, everyone! =D

[Ian Wolf-Park]

Neat-o, Strife. Anyways, minor bug that I spotted. Some of the speech boxes don't immediately disappear after hitting the q button, leaving a 'phantom' one in its wake. Not sure what's causing it though.

[Strife]

Thanks! =D

That bug is caused by a display issue with the text boxes, since I set them to an invisible state rather than removing them. I'm not sure of the best way to fix it yet, but fortunately it doesn't cause issues. Thanks for the heads-up. ^_^

Also, I should take this time to mention that you guys can report bugs if you want, but you don't have to. :3

[Tam]

Although I can't play the game, I've gotta say that this looks and sounds fantastic, Strife! =D I'm blown away by how hard you always work on your projects and how incredibly detailed and creative they always come out, even when you're working on with an impossible deadline. xD Way to go!

(And "Christmas Time Heroes" is a fantastic name. xD)

[Terra]

First of all, this game is really difficult (for me, as a non-gamer), but really awesome! It's really creative and pretty and I love the music and it's just awesome. XD

Secondly, something really, really weird happened.

SPOILER: Click to show

I opened the game, and then I went into another window to do something, and when I came back, it was suddenly in the portal area, except all of the portals had been unlocked and had high scores in them and everything, and a dialogue with one of the reindeer-guys started in which he was thanking me (or Violet) for rescuing everyone from General Rudolph and telling me about Lord Sled. XD; (EDIT: Or something along those lines. I didn't catch everything. XD It appears to be the end of Stage 2, though.) And I hadn't done anything except open the game window! And the player character wasn't even the one I had been using in the last save (in which, by the way, I had only made it to Mission 2 of the first stage). I have no idea what happened. XDDD

[Goron]

Dec 25, 2010 0:15:40 GMT -5 Terra said:

First of all, this game is really difficult (for me, as a non-gamer), but really awesome! It's really creative and pretty and I love the music and it's just awesome. XD

Secondly, something really, really weird happened.

SPOILER: Click to show

I opened the game, and then I went into another window to do something, and when I came back, it was suddenly in the portal area, except all of the portals had been unlocked and had high scores in them and everything, and a dialogue with one of the reindeer-guys started in which he was thanking me (or Violet) for rescuing everyone from General Rudolph and telling me about Lord Sled. XD; (EDIT: Or something along those lines. I didn't catch everything. XD It appears to be the end of Stage 2, though.) And I hadn't done anything except open the game window! And the player character wasn't even the one I had been using in the last save (in which, by the way, I had only made it to Mission 2 of the first stage). I have no idea what happened. XDDD

I had the same problem, I had to erase my save file and start over. XD
EDIT:
Come to think of it, I should make a copy of it just in case it happens again. ^^;

[Strife]

Thanks Tamia! =D

And everyone... I think I made a terrible mistake. xD I left in my debug key on the Title Screen, in which pressing the Spacebar advances you past Stage 2. Rats.

EDIT: Okay, updated the download link with a new version.

[Omni]

Okies. I just sat down and tried this out. First off, you know how you mentioned making enemies harder to make up for the short length? It shows. XD; I find myself using my heal pretty much whenever possible. I've also made a mental note to avoid getting cornered if possible.

SPOILER: Click to show

You know the spot near the beginning, where there's a speed boost, an arc full of... spirit bells(?), and then a portal ring? I am having a surprising amount of difficulty getting that ring. I step on the speed boost, time my jump as best as I can, and it seems like the best I can do is just barely get under the middle of the ring, and thus I don't collect it. I've probably tried it a few dozen times with no luck so far. It seems odd because I can get the rest of the rings with relative ease. Is it supposed to be like this?

Actually, I'm kind of wondering if there's a slight bug, or if the download was just a bit off, or something. The ring doesn't really seem to complete the arc of bells. It's like there's an arc of bells, and then a portal ring just slightly to the right of the end of the arc. I can get all the bells just fine, but it's like I have to jump a little later or higher (if that's even possible) in order to get the ring.

And in case you're wondering, yes, I've tried looking for alternate routes. I'm pretty sure I've explored every place possible.

Playing as Violet Star at the moment. I like her character design. =) And the game concept. And the music. And the way things animate; things move surprisingly smoother than I'd expect from a game with this art style.

[Strife]

Regarding that ring - You have to do an air kick in order to reach it. I usually time it so that I press Down + Jump right as I'm collecting the final bell. It actually never occured to me how difficult it would be for most people to figure out, so maybe I should move it in the next version.

Also, thank you! ^_^

(Oh, and to everyone else who downloaded the game - I updated the link yesterday with version 0.92, which makes the gameplay a little less frustrating and makes a few other adjustments - namely in the fact that enemies now flash when hit.)

[Killix]

Hey, I see that you won first place!
Congratulations! :D:D:D:D

[Tam]

Eee, CONGRATS STRIFE! =DDDDDDDD That's incredible!

[Terra]

Ooh, wow! =D Congratulations!

[Strife]

Oh wow, you guys found out about it! =D It really warms my heart that you've been keeping track of the competition even though I never posted any links. ^___^ Thank you so much, everyone!

The judges were playing the very first version without the fixes and such, so as I expected, I lost points for the extreme difficulty. xD I was also criticized for the backgrounds, which the judges felt didn't match the style of the game. Aside from that, though, I got high scores in all the other categories. You can find the results page here:

create-games.com/uploads/xmas2010/results.htm

I'm pretty happy with the latest version of the game, so I think I'll hold off on additional changes until the next Time Heroes. Until then, I'll take a little break to work on FableQuest some more. :3

[Nova]

=DDD Congrats Strife!

[Omni]

Don't know if you're planning on doing any more little fixes, but I picked this back up and found a number of little things. Maybe at the very least, you could use some of it to consider for the actual Time Heroes/Spectrum Chase? (Assuming the engine and stuff are close enough, of course.) Hope at least some of it's useful.

SPOILER: Click to show

There are some narrow spots where they seem like only Violet is supposed to dash through them. However, if you play as Indigo and dash when you're already as close as you can get, you can get stuck in the wall and float through it, going upwards, as well as the direction opposite of any horizontal button you might press. Thankfully, I haven't spotted any places where this con be used to cheat or break the game, but it's something to look out for.

When loading the splash screen, a new level, or somesuch, there seems to be a very brief flash of the screen going all-white, then all-black before fading in. It's only about one frame worth, though still somewhat... distracting? Seemingly seizure-inducing?

I seem to sometimes get something where the last speech box doesn't fully disappear after a section of dialogue. I haven't got a picture, yet... I think it's generally in the same area? I might need to give it another look.

I noticed some odd stuff with the layering of things, like the Sled Bots, where sometimes it seems like something (e.g. you) are in front of something else (the Sled Bot leg closer to the camera), even though it shouldn't be. Or those spiky-retracting-pillars penetrating over the area around them, instead of into. I know that the game was only a quick little one, and I figure that putting an object into different 'pieces' is probably tricky, but maybe it's at least something to practice?

When you die, but before the level fades out, the healthbar appears to reset back to 'full.' I'll have to take another, closer look for this one. Yeah, I caught it again.

Something really weird happened to me in the second level of Sleighbell City... I went through the alley recommended to me by the Faunful, from the right, headed out the left... I forget what happened exactly, but I think I dash-jumped into the lasers around when the two Rednoses spawned underneath. The Rednoses (or at least one) started continuously falling through the floor and respawning. Stopped around when I attacked.

I also seem to keep dashing backwards... when hitting 'jump' and the directional arrow at once, I think? ; Possibly often near walls? No really, he's traveling in the direction opposite of where the thrust of his jetpack is sending him (sprite is reversed), and it doesn't help that he goes the opposite direction of the way I want to go (I press left and he goes right). Actually, I seem to keep dashing by accident in general... I don't think I'm hitting the 'side' button twice, or 'down' while hitting space. Just space, side, and maybe the attack button. (I'll probably swap to just down+jump soon, just in case.)


I haven't tested with Violet yet, but at lest with Indigo, these boxes take one hit worth of damage when you dash at them from a distance, but not when you're already as close to them as you can get.


Game froze right here. Music was still playing, didn't react to any keys (well, at least not for several minutes, and by then I'd hit alt+F4). Generally speaking, sometimes the game doesn't seem to handle 'a lot of things going on at once' very well.

EDIT: The 'stuff at once' thing seems to be particularly bad on the last level, and particularly with the fire weapon. I flamed the box with the key and the still-wrapped presents above me opened. Then when I came back after dying and they opened when I saw them, with the items inside self-destructing. Most of the enemies at the very-end also were already dead (except one of the flying cannons). I'll try to grab a video.
-I didn't have the best recording software on hand, but you can still see that several item boxes open and their contents disappear before I get to them. Aaaand as I found out later, even if I hit 'return' after dying and went to another level, the same glitch still happened. Item boxes still open and such. And by now I'm reasonably certain that at least the 'enemies dead before I get there' part had to do with me attacking at least two things at once (one behind another, with my flamethrower) in an already-crowded area. At least twice I saw and heard things dying around me as I destroyed multiple spiky-retracting-thingies simultaneously.
-It doesn't help that the flamethrower is now my new-favorite weapon. @.@

You'll probably also notice that my Stardust gauge is hugenormous. I don't know if this is intentional, but if you die, your gauge stays the same size as before, letting you pick up the Stardust-boosting item over and over again every time you die. Admittedly, I've been making use of this, especially in the harder levels.

Also, one little request: For the last level, could you add a checkpoint not too far behind the last boss, please?

SPOILER: Click to show

It's just a liiiiiittle frustrating to have so much trouble beating the final boss, and then having to start back at the beginning of the spot the rings teleport you to - which I already find fairly difficult - and there's not even a Stardust-capacity-booster... tome-looking thing... I wouldn't mind as much if the checkpoint was a little further in before that chamber. So unless you have a particular reason for having the last checkpoint that far back, I'd appreciate it if you could add another. Thanks.

EDIT: A pause button would also be appreciated.

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