Pixel Ninja

FULL VERSION: http://www.stencyl.com/game/play/18631

ITS BACK! For the Stencyl Jam, I will be bringing to you the new Pixel Ninja!

What's so new about it? Well, for starters, its a much different game than the one I was broadcasting some months ago. See, after some consideration, I came to the conclusion that Pixel Ninja had strayed from its orignal focus. Not to mention it had been somewhat sloppily thrown together, despite all the bells and whistles I did get working. So after mulling over some of the gameplay mechanics, reworking our ninja, and brainstorming for the jam, this is the product I came up with.

Still, I haven't said much about the actual game itself. Again, just what is this new Pixel Ninja? What kind of game is it now? Will I ever stop rambling?

Pixel Ninja is still a game with platformer mechanics. But this game is a survival platformer. After getting dumped into a survival stage, our ninja will have to fight off incoming retroids (the baddies, for those who are unfamiliar with my previous thread). All the while, you gain points for felling enemies. Things may start off mild... but it can get crazy fast... and then downright absurd. How long can you survive?

• Three stages to play, with difficulties ranging from stuff like "This is easy!" to "NOT THE FACE!!!"
• Once you earn points in battle, stop by the shop to upgrade your ninja with amazing attack power, defensive goodness, and all manner of tricky wonderfulness.
• You can go classic ninja with the improved "Stealth Mode" power, or master one of two special weapons, the Warp Shuriken or Cyclone Shuriken.

Run, wall jump, slash, serve up retroid pie. Its Pixel Ninja.

I've been wanting to start this thread for awhile, but I've wanted to get some good screenshots first. These still don't show completed screens, but they're better than what I would have had before. The first one is the title screen that lets you choose your stage (the stage buttons don't have completed graphics right now), go to the shop, or take part in the opening tutorial. The second one shows a rough layout of the shop. More to come on both, of course. Enjoy.

I have released a playable beta! Still a lot of work to be done, but I would really like some feedback on the core mechanics. Quite excited; my first playable material published to the arcade!

That being said, I've still got kinks to work out. Saving doesn't appear to be working yet, but maybe that's just me. It should be saving the experience points you receive, but when I refreshed my browser it wasn't showing that. Whether or not that is a problem with my specific browser is unclear, so I would like to know if you guys notice the same. No mute button yet, and pause is not working? I thought that little pause menu was built in, but again maybe not.

But at any rate, let me know what you guys think about it!

Quick update:

• I appear to have fixed the saving issue. Turns out, if you want a saved game to mean much of anything, you have to load it.
• Took out a lot of unnecessary print statements to unclutter the console.

Again, any feedback would be great, especially on the whole load/save thing; I seem to remember people have had funky issues with that before (i.e. loading for the first time doesn't work right).

One more update! Probably the last one before the official contest submission.

First, I've wrapped up the implementation of the classic form ninja. He can tenatively do all that he is supposed to do. Mainly, in contrast to the other forms I hope to add, this one can use stealth and throw normal shurikens (after both are bought). Shuriken throwing will be even more unique with some of the other forms; for instance, in the planned Warp Form, your ninja can warp to the location of your thrown shuriken as long as it is still on screen.

Second, the game now records your longest survival time for a stage.

So yeah, there you go. With that, I pretty much have the core of the game solidified! Its now a matter of (hopefully) getting the other stages and ninja forms I want in there. What do you think? Does the combat feel and flow right? Do you like the shop aspect of it?

Also, a quick question for those of you who have published games before: when you update your game, does it erase the previous saved GA values? I didn't think it did, but my testing seems to show that.

Pixel ninja is awesome.

A very coherent experience, the music, movement, and graphics all match up very nicely

Not entirely sure what the purpose of turning invisible is? Literally an escape mechanism when surrounded is my guess, well my reactions aren't quick enough to take advantage of it

Never saw an arena other than wooden, but my time to playtest is very limited today (lol).

Purple blob spewing treemen should appear in every game.

Thanks MyChairHasALooIn! I really appreciate your input.

Yes, stealth is essentially for those tight situations where you need to get out of harm's way.

As for the arenas, Wooden Arena is the only one up right now. At least one more is coming.

As I approach the "t-minus 12 hours" mark, there is still a lot of work to do. I'm almost done with the material for the Grand Gearhouse stage (I have one more enemy to implement) and then I will need to implement the spawning schematic. I also came up with another nice retro tune for that stage as well... one I was very pleased with!

Time to get it done. The end is in sight! Also...

Purple blob spewing treemen should appear in every game.

LOL

Whew! I finished the soundtrack for Pixel Ninja! Music was one of my biggest concerns... I'm all right at it, but my patience when it comes to composing is not always great.

Now, if I can scorch through the rest of the simple graphics I need and churn out the remaining code for the last stage and enemies (code/behaviors are my strong point!), I'll be ready to roll. LET'S DO THIS!

 

No seriously. I ran that down to the wire.  ::)BUT I DID IT.

Pixel Ninja's full version is now up on the Arcade (link above)! WOOHOO! How exciting... maybe I'll feel a little bit more so once I sleep...

To clarify, I didn't implement any of those fancy tricks with the ninja I had talked about. I realized the formula I had going was working great and that I might get a little too gimmicky adding that other stuff. It was working well, so why mess with it? So I didn't. Its just "classic" ninja, as I'll call it, and it keeps a certain simplicity to the game that I think fits it well.

Beyond that, everything appears to be working great! I think I did a good job of balancing the difficulties across the stages too. Wooden Arena starts "light" though it does pick up. Zolcher Factory jumps right in and has an interesting mechanic for you to deal with. Fireball Mines... um, get used to the game and buy some upgrades first. No joke, its difficulty rating is "Lunatic" for a reason.

It was quite the ride. I did everything myself; art, music, coding... whew! So ENJOY! Hope you have fun! As it says in-game...

"Go out there and KICK PIXEL!"

Hey everyone. Pixel Ninja has been updated!

First, I didn't realize until last night that some of the buyable upgrades were not being saved correctly. I believe the issue flew under the radar for me because I think it was only happening for whatever power-up you bought last before exiting the shop. When I would test offline and buy all the power-ups at once, it wasn't as apparent. It should be fixed now. Sorry!

Second, I made it so you start out with a little experience for spending when you first start.

Enjoy!

hey , i looked for your game in newgrounds , i couldnt find , did you upload it on other sites other than stencyl arcade  ? if no , why not  ?
well..
pixel ninja is a really fun to play game , and highly addictive , but it lacks the rewarding elements .
as a gamer a fell in love with the game , but there is nothing pushing me to play more and more ( except the shop ) .
you must reward your players in some way other than the in-game content .
newgrounds medals and a leaderboard I suggest .. then upload it on newgrounds bring it to the world .
who knows it may get a a newgrounds sponsorship ( it deserves it )  , it's a high quality game , gamers would love it . just bring it to them 

Thanks for the feedback! The whole point of the shop was partially to be a system of reward. Perhaps the game needs a little bit more in that regard. I had wanted to do in-game achievements, but frankly I ran out of time with the jam. It would be a good consideration to go back and implement that.

Being my first published game, I wasn't overly concerned with publishing it elsewhere. Getting it up in the first place was one of the main goals! Now that I've accomplished that, broadening my horizons is definitely something I should look into and try to figure out the next step.