Finally, it's here! A demo of my latest project: Ninkatsu.
This is what I've been working for quite some time and kept under super-wraps. First, let's start off with what you really care about: some screenshots.

http://www.loomsoft.net/images/ninkatsu/1.png http://www.loomsoft.net/images/ninkatsu/2.png
http://www.loomsoft.net/images/ninkatsu/3.png http://www.loomsoft.net/images/ninkatsu/4.png
http://www.loomsoft.net/images/ninkatsu/5.png

Now, onto the important stuff! Ninkatsu is a fusion of multiple game elements and doesn't really have a category of its own. It looks like a scroller, but has puzzle elements that walk hand in hand with some good twitch action. In the end, though, all we care about is who gets the high score! The game features goodness like six enemies with unique skills, score multipliers, special "combo" attacks, and a "dictionary" with unlockable entries that provide background information about game objects/characters.

I invite all of you to give it a try, and tell me what you think. This demo release is mostly to get feedback on what does and does not work with the game. Right now I'm in search of what types of things you'd like to see added in order to keep you coming back for more. I'm only interested in system specs if the game doesn't work, or runs super sluggishly. Also, the game will probably appear to be very difficult at first. If so, try mastering the advanced techniques, especially double jumping. It's incredibly important. That said, I would like to know what each of you think of the overall game difficulty, and how it affects whether you want to play more, or less. I'm in a constant struggle with making the game adequately balanced. Right now, the overall difficulty is up in the air (it seems easy to me since I've had so much exposure to it, so it's hard to gauge).

All of the game content (music, art, everything but the fonts) is done by yours truly. Beware of the incredible stick-man programmer's art. And, while I'm on that note, I'm in need of an artist and musician. If you know anyone who is interested in working on an essentially-complete version of a game in either department (for free), please let me know, or just have them contact me directly.

Some things you'll probably want to know:

• Either read the supplied documentation, or play the in-game tutorial. Otherwise, the game won't make any sense. You've been warned.

• The dictionary is not complete. Only the first 17 items are unlockable.

• There is a storyline/backstory for the game. It is not featured in the demo. If you are really interested, let me know and I can make it available

• There are only a few "Power Combos" (in the docs/tutorial) available at this time. These include all combinations consisting of either two, or four of the same type of seed. There is one additional combo and that is two wind + two water seeds, in any order

• "Power Combo" intro sequences (these play when you execute a power combo) are not implemented for all the currently available power combos. This feature may or may not be removed in the future. Please feel free to comment on it

• The default controls are hard to get used to. I suggest you configure them to something more comfortable for yourself (no "modifier" key support yet)

• The menu system is not very coherent, I know. No need to bring that up. What would be helpful though, is suggestions on how you would expect it to behave and what you'd expect to see. Or, if you think it's coherent and nice for some odd reason, please let me know why

• Joystick/pad support is not implemented, but is scheduled for implementation

• There is no Linux version at this time, and the source is not available. Sorry Linux people.

Whew. That was a huge long explanation. Now, go ahead, download, and have yourself some demon slaying fun! Don't forget to post your high scores and highest level!

Windows binary ~7.8mb
OS X (PPC) Binary ~8.7mb

Addendum:
This problem seems to be coming up a lot, and I don't want it to be missed within the thread. This is just a copy/paste of my reply to Trezker about combos

I'm looking forward to trying this when I get a chance this weekend. Looks like a really cool concept.

Glad to hear you've been hard at work since Zep!
-Flecko

Unfortunately, not yet, no. I won't be releasing source, so that means I'd have to go the static build route. Getting a static build isn't incredibly easy, especially since my Linux machine is uber out of date. With the fact that I have a general demo out now, it will be easier to get testing on various machines done to see if a static Linux binary will work. I'm considering doing a build next week. I'll keep you guys posted.

Combos seem to be throwing people off, and probably for good reason: they aren't explained very well in the tutorial, and they're not really complete at this stage here. Here's a quick and dirty rundown:

Power Combos are basically a "special" move that can be executed that only requires you to press the combo key once, and everything else takes care of itself. The range of combo possibilities is limited now, but in the end will range from healing, damage, aoe, and more.

Combos work in the following way: once at least two to six seeds fill in spots in the indicator, a combo might be able to be executed. There is no visual indication as to whether that said combo will work or not. The premise behind this is that the user is supposed to experiment and try to "discover" valid combinations.

However, due to the state of combos in this demo, doing this seems to make the combo system make absolutely no sense: there simply aren't enough combinations coded into the game to make "discovering" a proper combination easy.

As I've stated in the original post, the only valid combos at this point in the game are:

• Two of the same type of seed in a row

• Four of the same type of seed in a row

• Two wind and two water seeds, in any order

Since they aren't described anywhere, I'll give a rundown on what each combo does. Each tier 2 and tier 4 combination of the same color has the same effect, except that the combo that requires four seeds has a longer or more powerful effect

• Water combo: heals the player

• Fire combo: throws a fireball at Akumotsu

• Earth combo: heals the earth

• Wind combo: slows down all falling seeds to the slowest fall speed

• Dark combo: while active (there's an animation on the player), will convert all damage to health

• Light combo: while active (animation on player), will prevent all damage

All other technicalities about combos is explained in the tutorial, such as how combos requiring more seeds take precedence over combos that require fewer seeds.

All of this explained and said, it appears that there needs to be some retooling of the combo system to give the player some kind of sign that there either is, or isn't a valid combo that can be executed. Constantly pressing the combo key in order to see if a combination "just works" is, in fact, kind of annoying. It's noted. With the above information about what combinations are actually valid, however, there's no need to "discover" any combos. You already have the master list!

Good catch on that bug. I must be forgetting to reset some values when entering/leaving/starting a new game from tutorial mode after you die and fill out a high score. If you enter the main game mode twice after this happens (without going to the tutorial mode again), the game should start up normally.

As for the gameplay, that's all for now. The game is intended to be a "get the highest score possibly only" type of game. There aren't any plans for stuff like falling powerups and the such, but those things aren't completely out of the question. Enemies will be revamped once I can get some animations for their attacks. A lot of the enemies don't do much right now but move around the screen and simply prove to be a nuisance. And, obviously, there will be a lot more combo effects to discover during gameplay. Different weapon types is one possibility I've thought about, but I'm not sure exactly what I would do with that.

All of that said, if you have any suggestions of what you'd like to see in the gameplay, or what might make it more fun/appealing/enjoyable, by all means go ahead. One of the main reasons of this thread was to analyze what aspects of the gameplay are good, bad, boring, etc, and to enhance them (or add new ideas to the game to make it enjoyable).

Jay! Finally the curtain is withdrawn! Yippie!

It's great to see a demo. I've been reading your blog every now and then and it's always interesting to hear about your adventures in game development land! You seem to have a really stable framework up and running where you can add and modify lost of little things. Good job! I played the game a couple of times and I started to think about it, what worked and what didn't.

Here's some suggestions/feedback/thoughts that I thought of, feel free to do with them what you like, some might contradict your original vision/design all together.

First things first. All mighty Shigeru Miyamoto says all games start with the interface. If the interface is whack, no one will be able to play the game. Listen to Miyamotosan! Your game has too many and/or too complex controls/functions to keep track of in the heat of battle (heck, outside too ). This is an action game and since it's on the PC, players probably wont have and gamepads, although even with a gamepad I think there are too many buttons. First I'd get rid of the up attack as it mostly just messes thing up when you need it the most. Can't you just extend the ordinary right/left attack so that it hits above the avatar as well? Second, the teleport functionality also feels more like a fix than a feature. What is it that makes you want it? Can you somehow change the gameplay so that it wont be needed?

If you manage to remove the up and down keys I think you've won a lot. But I still think there's stuff to do. Double jumping is probably the most essential skill in the game as it's played very much in the air. It must be perfected or else your game will break. At the moment I think you can tweak it and make it better. To me, the avatar feels a bit too heavy, I don't really have the reflexes to time it all right. For instance letting go of the jump button sends the avatar down very fast instead of dropping. Also timing the jumps is really hard. What I'm trying to get at here is that double jumping is very close to the core of the gameplay and I think it should be a lot easier. You can add complexity in the outer layers, but in here I think it should be really easy actually.

Something I've been thinking a lot about lately is providing gameplay on many levels. As a player plays through a game she becomes better and better. Once one skill has been mastered, she will seek out something new to learn. Each function that the player can do should have it's own rewards. That way you can ensure that no matter how the player plays the game or who skilled she it, at least she will get something in return. Maybe the ground is located higher up on the first few levels and then lowers, increasing the distance needed to double jump per level? That way you van maybe even remove the need to double jump in the beginning? (If the avatar jumps a little higher too...) I think that in the current state your game requires the player to use the complete feature set at once all time in order to get rewarded, something that is really hard to pull off unless you've mastered the controls and the journey to get the skilled will be tedious and unrewarding. Which leads me to...

...the learning curve. A tutorial, how good it ever is, is never enough. You really need to introduce the player's powers one by one in the game. At the moment I felt like the only thing that changed during the gameplay was speed. I had to use everything and it went faster and I had to use my reflexes better and better. This is one way to increase difficulty but it punishes the player severely. Some simple games can pull it off, but your game is so complex that I think you will need a different strategy. One idea might be to only have one single type of seed type per level the first three levels or so. The player can then familiarize herself with a special type of enemy and can also learn the basic combo (three of the same, etc). Then you can have two different seed types for a while and the player will learn that, then three etc etc. This will allow the player to slowly build up both knowledge and skill about the game while still playing it. More advanced players can quickly progress thought these levels buffering up combos or whatever.

Also, at the moment I can stay on level 1 for as long as I like, just picking off seeds as they come. It's not very fun, but it's theoretically possible to get all your highscores on a very low level if you're a determined player. Either the reward for progressing must be very good (ie exponentially more points) or you will have to add something that makes the level harder within the actual level. Speeding it up could work in this case, but it's not very fun. Maybe just speeding up the falling seeds, and not their drop frequency could be a way. Or have the earth detoriate by itself at all times to force the player to progress (or do earth combos). What I'm trying to say is that there are loopholes that will ruin it as a highscore beater.

Good game design (IMHO) is very much about removing stuff. You have your spark of genius and you build your dream world, but that's not going to be a good game. You need to wreck it and find the core. The little things. Maybe just two or three simple game mechanics that will make the game fun. Then you add things to it. Rebuild your dream with this as base. It might look different, but it will surly be a better game

Ehum, sorry for the long rant. But I needed to get that off my chest.

Good night.

Johan, thanks for checking out the game and writing up a big slew of stuff to consider. I'll try my best to disect and respond to all of the main points.

Do you really think it's whack!?

I find I need it most when I'm on the ground and have a seed falling directly on top of me. As for using it while in mid-air, I can't really say. I'd have to fire up the game and see what I do. All the wonky controls just come naturally to me as I've, obviously, had so much exposure to them.

I think the main issue regarding the upwards attack is when used while jumping, since you have to manage moving left/right, your jump height, and pressing up, and then pressing the attack button. Your suggestion of having the side attack also reach upwards might work well, but I think I would only like to implement it while jumping is happening. That is, while you're jumping, your attacks will technically surround you, eliminating the need for more keypresses. Whether or not I'd like this to apply while you're on the ground is another story.

One of the hard things to balance is the difficulty between choosing whether to go after an enemy, or a falling seed. If the attacks you dish out affect a super wide area, you can basically kill everything all at once, which I don't want to happen.

Hm. It definitely was not put in as a fix and it's too bad it feels that way. Honestly, I don't think the gameplay requires the teleporting. I view it as more of an extra technique players can pull off if they're in a super tight pinch. The scenario is usually like this: Player is on the left side of the screen. A medium speed seed starts falling on the right. Then, a slow seed starts falling on the left. They jump up and kill the slow seed, teleport to the ground, and then dash to the seed on the right to nab it before it crashes. It's basically just for being able to get to the ground in a snap, but only if you have to, and only if you want to. That said, one might wonder: "could the player have reached the other seed without the teleport?" The answer to that is "probably."

Because teleporting was there, did you feel that it was vital to the gameplay and should be used more often? I'm curious. It's not meant to be integral like double jumping is. That said, I honestly believe it can be removed without any alterations and the game will play generally the same. Did anyone else find it either complicated things more, or was simply useless?

I agree. This is something I'm constantly working on. The current jumping scheme isn't the end-all be-all. Increasing the slow down and "drift" times will make double jumping dramatically easier, and I'll be looking at how natural it feels, etc. Some other suggestions I recieved were not allowing a jump to be stopped prematurely (making the player fall at fastest speed). Either this, or, when the player lets go of the jump key early having he/she still do the "drift" are both viable options. There will be updates to jumping, for sure.

That's because it's true! Well, partly. The enemies/seeds/Aku gain more or less health, depending on the level and speed of the seeds.

This is a suggestion I've been getting from various people, and I think it's a good one. I'm considering implementing it, but there are some things to watch out for. For instance, I'll need to have some sort of check for preventing more than X amount of enemies from appearing on the screen. When there are many of the same enemy on the screen all at once, things start to look ugly (at least, in my opinion). This is actually an easy fix that wouldn't require too much code work.

The player can currently do this, but it would take forever. The scoring scheme will work in a fashion where any score you get is multiplied by the current level you're on. So, as you progress you are able to get much, much higher scores. Consider level 10: each thing you kill gives you *10 more points than on level 1. I believe I have implemented this already, but there may be a chance that I think I did, but actually didn't code it in.

Something I thought about is having a time limit that decreases during gameplay. If you don't progress to the next level before the time runs out then bad things happen (ie: you die, or, take considerable amount of damage over time). Completing each level would add a generous amount of time to the count-down timer; thus forcing the player to always be on their toes (as if they aren't already...). Adding an extra component to worry about might possibly be too much.

However, that coupled with very basic and slow beginner levels (1-10) could work well. In fact, the timer could show up only on later levels.

-----------------------

All of that said, I have been thinking a lot about how to make the game essentially "just fun." I'm going to be looking at different ways the game might be played to make it exciting and enjoyable. For instance, maybe playing with the mouse (clicking to destroy seeds) will be potentially more fun than moving a character on the screen? It's a possibility. This is one of the more extreme ideas, of course.

I do want to make the game fun, but I don't want to make it so "stupid dumb easy" in the beginning levels that people just get too bored with it. Finding that happy medium where levels get progressively harder and require more skill is the key.

[edit]
Talking in #gdr I was going over some stuff about my game and it occured to me that this is my main concern, over all: If I make the intro levels easier to play, and the controls a bit less complicated--essentially making the game easy to approach and not frustratingly hard: is the game fun enough that people will play in order to get a higher score than their last run? The question is about the basic, core game idea. Running around and killing falling stuff while the main objective is to kill some thing at the top of the screen. Thoughts? That's the core idea behind the game, really.

That's a good question. Chopping seeds as they drop should be fun. Battling the demons should also be fun. But, trying to manage destroying Aku while preventing seeds from hitting the ground is supposed to be the most fun: managing a complicated scenario. Do you let the seed hit the ground in order to get that strike on Aku? Or, do you play it safe and only strike him when you know no seeds will hit the ground? For each player (agressive, careful, all-around) the game plays a bit differently. One person may let seeds fall in order to get that combo that they're waiting for. Another might just kill all seeds and only use what combos are available. Many choices, and many decisions to make, all in a split second.

This is exactly what I don't want to happen in the beginner levels. Once you get very good at the game and can reach the higher levels, the seed speeds and drop rates change in such a way that sometimes it's impossible to nab a seed before it hits the ground -- so, you won't have to let one drop through just to have "something new to do".

I fear this may be one of the "larger" problems facing acceptance of a game like the one I'm creating.

I'm confused. That is how you advance from one stage to the next!

Wait, what? There's no indication of Akumotsu's health anywhere on the screen. How did you know you were taking 25% of his health off? Are you confusing Nin's (the player) health (indicator on bottom right) with Aku (enemy at the top) health?

The only way the game "ends" (eg: asks for high score or just "game over") is when your own health (or the earth's) reaches zero.

Now that you know what's going on, do you think the levels should start off easier or, with only one type of seed dropping, etc?

Fire combo will toss a fireball at him, doing damage without having to get near him. There will be more combos that directly damage Aku, of course -- they're just not implemented yet!

Another problem you might want to watch out for is colliding with him when you go to hit him. General collision danage is going to be cleaned up a lot. Currently it's way too easy to take damage from collision as bounding boxes for everything are just the size of their sprites as opposed to their general shape.

If you're always using the up attack to get him, you should be able to do it in only two jumps if timed just right. An easier method is to jump up beside him and hit him with a side attack.

Not to sound rude, but; did you guys go through the tutorial and pay attention? It does state that bringing Aku's health to 0 will progress the level. The only mention of the game ending is when the player's, or the earth's health reaches zero. Maybe I need to make it more clear? What was happening that gave you the impression that damaging his health was ending the game?

Of course, I can't lay all the blame on technicalities of a tutorial. I'm not trying to defend a confusing aspect of my game by hiding behind a "it's in the tutorial" statement. At this point in time it isn't incredibly obvious when you've killed something except for in the case of seeds. There's a lack of animations for all deaths, including Aku. I'm guessing that if he had a death animation, it would be apparent that bringing his health to zero was progressing the level.

This is easily doable. Something I've been considering, but haven't decided upon yet.

As for jumping on walls on the sides, it might work, but then all of the action will be focused to the sides of the screen. Something that might be easier to implement is a raised area on each side of the screen that will make reaching Aku a bit easier, but doesn't force you to always be using the sides of the screen only in order to reach him.

I think this is one of the interesting aspects of the game (or, at least, what I would like to be an interesting aspect). Depending on which type of, and how many, enemies are on the screen, your behavior needs to change drastically. Having some sort of mode to introduce the player to each enemy's attacks and skills will be useful, so that then the player can anticipate what he/she needs to do. Maybe it's hard to get used to an ever changing playfield? I thought it would be fun to have a hectic field that's constantly shifting, forcing you to adapt your play style and choose different methods for approaching the current state of the playfield.

The point I'd like to stress is that, even though it's more hard than some people can handle right now, and it will be made easier in the beginning, the game is supposed to be a bit difficult. What's the point in playing game for a high score where it's very difficult to lose? I suppose I'm battling with making the game extremely easy from the get-go, but also much more worth it if you practice and become very good at handling the situations thrown at you.

I suppose I'd like to compare the game to Tetris. While incredibly different, I'd like it to work kind of the same. Things start out slow, and speed up. What you can do in the beginning, you can do in the later "levels" of the game. Everything changes depending on what actions you take. If you blunder, then you will make up for it later. If you're careful, things will be easier, but take longer. However, in the end, you will lose, eventually.

I wonder if, because of how the game looks and somewhat because of how it plays, people expect new gameplay elements to be introduced every few levels or so? In games like Tetris, Bust-A-Move, etc, this never happens, but nobody expects it to, either. Do you think it's possible to get players to have the same kind of mindset about my game? Or, do you think it's a terrible approach for my game and how it's played?

As always, more comments, thoughts, suggestions, bashing, whatnot is appreciated. I don't want "nice." I want honest! Thanks for the great feedback so far, everyone.