Love it.
Thank you for giving the game demo a spin! I really appreciate that you gave the game a video run-through too, those are super fun to see! Some of my replies in regards to some of the commentary:
- The Metanet Hunter Series is fairly obscure, but hey, what can I say, sometimes we get together and these happen. To answer that specifically, I am generally the lead designer behind these projects. Sometimes I'll bounce ideas back and forth with the Executive Producer (Qig) for how some bosses should be or what kinds of weapons, levels, or other goodies we should add.
- We did get Metanet Hunter CD on Steam! In fact, we got it Greenlit! It took 9 days, and I'm very very surprised it got its way onto there. It is a huge deal to me. I did not think it would get Greenlit. You are right about CD being slightly more just classic 16-bit style, where G4 is more of a throwback to Metanet Hunter 1/Metanet Hunter SE (in fact, the default game palette is the same as Metanet Hunter SE)
- I do have plans to get Metanet Hunter G4 launched onto Steam, it's just a matter of getting together the finances to make it happen! I kind of want to do some slightly heavier marketing before it gets launched onto there, and give it some nice, fresh new promotional art; the whole 9 yards, y'know. I will certainly get in touch with you to get you a Steam Key once that becomes available. I'm not sure about the inner details of Steam Direct, but I'm going to try officially getting it launched there sometime in late August, early September. If people really end up enjoying it, I'll try to get it out even sooner!
- Metanet Hunter G4 certainly has a bunch of old-school 90s platformer influences. I couldn't deny that in the slightest as I grew up with such classics like Donkey Kong Country, Super Mario, Mega Man, Ninja Gaiden, Castlevania, and the works. The latter three certainly influence it the most!
- You can even run to go faster in the demo and full versions! Just like Mario, you gotta hold the shoot button down. If you are wondering why it is like this, it's because I had/have the sadistic idea to port this game onto Gameboy Advance as a sort of demented science project, and wanted all the game controls to fit on a Gameboy Advance controller!
- The screen transition system certainly took one heck of a long time to implement! Primarily because I did get it to handle diagonals. It certainly isn't perfect (ha), but hey! That was a tough one. It's fully dynamic for better or worse, and I absolutely, absolutely should have just had it go left/right or up/down. Took the longest time to iron out many of the bugs! I think I spent at least a week on that one.
But, a big thank you for trying out the game! It means a lot to me, this was one heck of a project to get together. Stay tuned for August 4th, by the by! I might have some new content for free available.