itch.io

Thanks! Hoping to have the first town and the combat system up and running soon so I can release a proper playable demo of the game!

I'll hit them up! Thank you for the recommendation!

Hey weird question, but would you be at all interesting in collaborating to port this game to the NES? I'm currently experimenting with a NES visual novel engine and this game would look extremely good in it.

If you wanna see how the engine runs, you can see the game I'm working on here:

https://destroyed4com4t.itch.io/senseless-city-space-jesus

This is actually built in Retro Puzzle Maker by NES developer ChrisCCP, although I did heavily alter it afterwards with my own code to do things like add extra characters and stage designs not available in the original project. I'll probably come back to it this summer and flesh it out further, but I'm currently working on a much more ambitious visual novel sequel which has a demo available here:

https://destroyed4com4t.itch.io/senseless-city-space-jesus

Glad you liked it!

Thanks! There was a sort of Renaissance for them in the late 80s on Famicom and Famicom Disk System but they were mostly murder mysteries.

It's actually kind of weird more folks aren't making them now. I do plan on making a more graphically modular version of this engine that will produce graphics similar to The Portopia Serial Murders but I just really wanted huge splash graphics on this game.

Yeah the game has a really enduring fan base among the Famicom hackers I was basing a lot of my early experiments in NES hacking on, and then the more I learned about it the more I got invested in the idea there should be a build of the game that works so players can actually invest themselves in the story.

Oh hey I saw some of this on the PIGSquad stream! Looking good!

I've signed all the paperwork with Mega Cat for the release, so it's definitely happening. There's going to be a Kickstarter next year with a full-on professionally animated trailer. Getting all the marketing stuff for the trailer seems to be the thing we're all waiting to come together now. So stay tuned!

Yeah I probably shot myself in the foot with this, running two similar games against each other in a competition like this. But I'm pretty excited about what each bring to the table. I'm mostly in this to make connections and get my stuff out there anyway.

Yeah there's really so much I can do there as far as changing up the filled holes. There may actually be something to work with in the recently updated engine but I haven't dug into it yet (it builds down to Mapper 2 instead of Mapper 0 so I would have to rewrite all of my engine hacks from scratch). I'm also considering making a sequel in NESMaker, someone built a Sokoban puzzle patch into the Zelda-like adventure module and I could do some wild stuff with that I'd imagine.

But yeah I'm also pretty obsessed with fonts. This one took months to fine-tune.

This game showcases a lot of cool stuff I've never seen executed on the NES! Also dig the attention to detail of making the sprites and game look like something from the early days of the NES/Famicom with the color choices and designs! Like if someone told me this was a lost Famicom Disk System game from 1988 I would believe them.

Oh you did Animalia Dreamland? That game is adorable!

Yeah I get that playing games with the same engine can feel a bit hard to differentiate but I did try to shake things up by hacking in a run button, changing the control structure, and there's even some cheat codes!

Thanks! You made a clever Metroidvania yourself! Good job!

Thanks! Knurp's Egg Rescue is really cute! Really leans into the Eggerland/Lolo aspect of Retro Puzzle Maker. It's fun seeing how many wildly different stories everyone has been able to tell using the same engine! 

Thanks! I got some of the visual ideas from a Russian hack of the game and cleaned them up for this.

There's a great Namco Ms. Pac Man level editor called Blinky if you want to try your hand at making something similar.

Unfortunately I am already sold out of the prototype carts. There will be an official cartridge run by Mega Cat/Video Game Sage in the next few weeks, so keep an eye out for that!

Really interesting game concept and execution! Incidentally, how did you set it up to get the NES ROM to play in the itchio browser window? I assume there's a hidden "play in browser only" zip file with the ROM and an index.html that calls a HTML5 NES emulator, right?

You know, when you say that, it seems really obvious. I honestly didn't think it through any further than "People like free stuff! I'm gonna give away more cool free stuff!" I didn't even decide to have two demos until an hour after I uploaded the first one. Sorry for any confusion. I have re-labeled and re-uploaded the demos to make it clear which one I designed specifically for the compilation (which is basically a mini-version of the complete game, covering the first 12 stages) and which one I designed as a fun "out-take" version of the game with beta build graphics and first-draft puzzles that didn't make the cut for the final game.  Thanks for checking in!

Thanks! I've hacked this game before, many times, but wanted to develop something that enhanced the actual game, rather than trying to turn it into something else entirely.

Thanks! The game gets a bad rep because it was released in the US in the late 80s after many much more elaborate JRPGs had already become popular here. It's also very non-intuitive and quirky in a way that makes more sense when you contextualize it as a  very, very early Japanese computer game (it was originally released in 1984!). I figure a nice polish and coat of paint might go a long way to making the game more enjoyable.

Demo is available for free now, thanks for checking in!

For the record, I'm not the original dev of Retro Puzzle Maker but I have put together a project in it (GRAVEYARD DUDE), and am currently working on a second, that involve heavily changing the code of the base and as such have been in pretty regular contact with Chris, the Retro Puzzle Maker dev to share code. Anyway, I can confirm that it conforms to the requirements. I've even managed to successfully add GRAVEYARD DUDE to a multicart (Super Mario Bros + Duck Hunt, basically the original multicart!) in a previous experiment developing multicart ROMs myself.

Oh lol I just realized comment is because of my entry of this game into the NESDev Coding Competition 2022. I genuinely hope that not having a public demo available already wasn't considered untoward or inconsiderate, even if it technically doesn't break the rules.

I guess there's no real - reason - I couldn't just make the demo public right now instead of two days from now. But I also guess it wouldn't make a huge difference either way this early in the competition.

I'll resubmit after the demo goes live. This won't be my only entry. Thanks for checking in!

Way ahead of ya! Check back in two days, was already planning on releasing a public demo on September 1st.

The original GRAVEYARD DUDE demo was a commissioned piece for the INDIEPOCALYPSE indie games bundle, which is its own cool project and I didn't want to step on their ability to make sales by offering content from it for free. But September 1st marks three months on there, which I figure is a reasonable enough time for them to have gotten all the initial sales out of the way.

Not to give the impression this was their decision, they specifically only had distribution rights until the end of June and it was released back to me at the beginning of July. I just chose to keep it behind a paywall for a couple more months to support them.

Thank you for understanding and I hope you enjoy the demo when it goes live! Stay tuned!

I am working on English patches for Hokuto No Ken 3 and 4 (as well as an overhaul hack for 3). They are just really, really long games so it is gonna take a while.

You need an IPS patcher. The one I use is LunarIPS, and I highly recommend it, but there are a ton of them out there, even online ones. I hope you enjoy the hack!

Thanks! Admittedly the gameplay changes in this one were pretty subtle, compared to some of my other NES overhaul hacks. Stuff you wouldn't notice unless you were also under the hood looking at the game code. Nerfed some enemies, changed the experience point system to make leveling up easier (especially later levels), made some Easter Eggs (and the wizard battle) easier to pull off. I just took all the stuff that seemed non-intuitive out of it.

There's a reason there is a cigarette and a matchbox.  Maybe they have to do with each other.

At this point you have to pay $2 to get all of them.

Oh thanks! I had a hard time settling on how that creature would look.

Game is still in demo format. I actually just did a massive update so you can find more things.  I'm glad you like it!

NEW UPDATE!

Basically made public the update I created for the Portland Retro Gaming Expo. Added some new scenes and items and monsters and all sorts of fun stuff!

Testing out the other areas that give the "Disk Two" display, which is meant to be a notation of where the demo ends, looks like the best course of action is to prioritize adding the room I have planned to the south of the morgue in the next update. Apologies that this glitch caused you to lose progress.

Thanks for the heads up. Looks like it's doing the thing I mentioned in the game description about "ghosting" commands if you click on it too quickly. I'll try to come up with a solution in the next update.

I've expanded the demo, adding more magic and monsters and rooms and stuff.

Judging from the commentary I'm seeing from folks, seems like the route maps are difficult to figure out. Keep in mind that since you start from the bottom of the map, you are ALWAYS facing towards the top of the map at the beginning. You turn in the direction of the next block on the map.

Another thing, if you go off course (Dead End or Skid Out) and are allowed to return to the map, you wind up MOVED FORWARD a space on the map.

Hope that helps folks!