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 Kiku of the Miracle Star

Well, where do I even begin? After a few fangame projects on MFGG, one of which was finished and enjoyed moderate success and acclaim with a Game of the Month and a "Most original gameplay" Game of the Year award, I've just started my first major indie project, and I want to discuss...well, pretty much everything. So, I'll just start with what the game is actually all about.

It's a bit complicated, but to put it semi-briefly, it's a Metroidvania-style action-platformer-adventure with a story and tone inspired by the old Kirby anime, a bit of Kirby and Yoshi influence in the gameplay, a ton of collectibles, a few very light RPG elements, and a rather unique character with a rather unique moveset. It's actually a lot simpler than it sounds, but it's kind of hard to condense it into words.

So, we'll start with Kiku herself. What is Kiku? She's a Nova Jelly, which is a...uh...she's from space.
Here's a bit of (read: a lot of) concept art.


Now that you're nice and confused on multiple levels, here's the gist of the core gameplay. Everything that Kiku eats gets digested into Nova Dust, and with a sticky chameleon-like tongue, an elastic body, and a stomach that compresses space by reducing the distance between the atoms that constitute its contents (because science,) she can certainly pack it away.

What's so useful about that? Well, her tail just happens to be a sort of biological rocket engine that runs on Nova Dust! No seriously. She can fly at very high speeds, but only the Nova Dust in her tail can be used for propulsion, and its capacity is much lower than her stomach, which serves as a reservoir that refills her tail when she's on the ground. This serves to balance the high-speed flight concept, giving you a large overall fuel capacity but preventing you from basically being able to fly over everything. I'm also thinking of adding fall damage to punish the player for using or abusing flight too recklessly.


Well, that's all for the core gameplay, but now it's onto the game's structure! As stated before, it's a 2D, semi-open-world, Metroidvania-style affair. To try and describe it as concisely as possible, there are three major units of area; Regions, Zones, Town Zones, and Dungeon Zones. A Region basically represents a difficulty tier, and each Region contains multiple large Zones, all of which are close in challenge level. The Zones within a Region are all interconnected with each other and Town Zones at various points, and you can tackle them in any order you want, but in order to reach the next Region, you must beat every Zone boss in a region to unlock that region's Dungeon Zone; a much more linear, "level" like area that culminates in the Region Boss. Beating the Region Boss opens up one or more options to proceed to the next zone. Town zones

I'll just give an example using the scenario I have planned for the first Region. Every time you beat one of the three Zone Boss monsters of the region, you obtain a piece of the Palace Gate Key. Collect all three and you can journey to the castle right outside the Region's Town Zone, enter the region's Dungeon Zone, and knock some sense into the king, who is under the true villain's control. After that, he'll open the gate to Region 2's swamp Zone (Reluctantly. He...STILL doesn't really like you that much.) but if you don't want to take on the swamp Zone right away, you can buy some dynamite at the shop that opens up in town, go to the forest Zone of Region 1, blow up a big boulder, and enter Region 2's cave Zone.

Also, here're a few prototype sprites:


More concept art and details will be posted as I come up with them.
 
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C

Comedy Rotten

Guest
Looks (and sounds) pretty solid and well thought-out. You've put a lot of effort into this! Can't wait to see where this goes! Sounds very much like the old Kirby games, only with a bit more "open-world" style to them.
 
Looks (and sounds) pretty solid and well thought-out. You've put a lot of effort into this! Can't wait to see where this goes! Sounds very much like the old Kirby games, only with a bit more "open-world" style to them.
Kirby is definitely the primary source of inspiration. My goal is, in a way, to do a lot of the things that a Kirby game does but in very different and unique ways; what I'm going for is "To Kirby as Freedom Planet is to Sonic," not "To Kirby as Mighty No. 9 is to Megaman."

I'm actually conceptualizing a bit of an "elemental powers" mechanic, but once again doing it in a new and unique way that kind of ties in with the collection and quazi-RPG mechanics. I already have a bit of an idea, but I want to work out all of the details before I discuss it.
 
M

McWolke

Guest
this looks like a combination of yoshi, sonic, tails and star guardian skins from league of legends! i love it :)
 
Well, here it is; the last major concept dump before I start actually...y'know...working on the game proper. So, here's the weird fusion of Kirby Copy Abilities and quazi-RPG character progression that I was talking about yesterday.


As for how you'd switch modes, you'd simply hit shift, which would pause the game and allow you to scroll through your currenty-unlocked biomodes with the arrow keys and select the one that you want with X. One cool perk is that you'll be able to initiate a switch on literally any frame that you have control, which will allow you to chain together some nifty multi-mode combos.
 
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That concept art is really nice, I kind of wish that was in the in-game art.
Really dig the concepts you laid out, I hope it all goes well for you.
 
Well, I've got a couple things today. First of all, in the department of actual game progress, here are a few early animations:


Secondly, you might notice that she looks a bit different. That's because, after receiving a few polite critiques on MFGG, I did a minor redesign of the overall character. Overall, I added onto the "bug" motif a bit, as well as giving her a more small, round and pudgy look. Also, her eyes now actually kind of fit on her face!
 
J

JoltJab

Guest
I'm not sure the animations posted correctly, but everything else looks cool!

Edit: Oh wait, never mind it just didn't load on my screen.
 
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Thanks! Just to let you all know, I've already completed most of her basic actions, and once I finish up the last few I'll put up a playable test room.
 


It's here! A quick playable test room where you can try out all of Kiku's basic actions. Give 'er a go and tell me what you think! http://www.mediafire.com/file/nka35pengun2ccp/kiku_testroom.exe


Controls:

Arrow keys: Walk, double-tap and hold to run, fly. Tap down with an enemy in your mouth to swallow it.

X: Jump, Press and hold midair to fire up her rocket...tail...thing. Can only fly when mouth is empty, and can't jump when she's carrying a big monster.

Z: Hold to wind up a pounce, release to fling forwards. Pounce into a big monster, and you'll stick on; tap repeatedly to suck it into your mouth. Press with a full mouth to spit.

C: Nova Stinger

Down Arrow + C Midair: Nova Bomb

(The C-moves have no effect on the "enemies," which don't really have any AI yet either.)

Space Bar: Reset the room and do everything again. And again. And again! AND AGAIN! AND-


Flying mechanics:

If you don't press any arrow keys while flying, Kiku will hover. Pressing up or down makes her rise or descend, and holding the left and right arrow keys accelerates her in the corresponding direction. It takes a few seconds to reach full speed, but her top speed is very fast.

In order to fly, Kiku needs Nova Juice. There are two fuel tanks: the Stomach and the Tail. The Tail holds your "usable" juice; once it depletes fully, she'll stop flying. As long as her stomach isn't empty, however, it'll slowly refill her tail when she's on the ground. Though her stomach may look a lot smaller than her tail, and it...TECHNICALLY is, it generates a spatial compression field, which shrinks its contents down by reducing the space between the atoms that constitute anything on the inside of...it's bigger on the inside than on the outside. While this last one might sound like a bit of a no-brainer, you can refill your stomach by swallowing stuff.
 
B

Boogery Boogers

Guest


It's here! A quick playable test room where you can try out all of Kiku's basic actions. Give 'er a go and tell me what you think! http://www.mediafire.com/file/nka35pengun2ccp/kiku_testroom.exe


Controls:

Arrow keys: Walk, double-tap and hold to run, fly. Tap down with an enemy in your mouth to swallow it.

X: Jump, Press and hold midair to fire up her rocket...tail...thing. Can only fly when mouth is empty, and can't jump when she's carrying a big monster.

Z: Hold to wind up a pounce, release to fling forwards. Pounce into a big monster, and you'll stick on; tap repeatedly to suck it into your mouth. Press with a full mouth to spit.

C: Nova Stinger

Down Arrow + C Midair: Nova Bomb

(The C-moves have no effect on the "enemies," which don't really have any AI yet either.)

Space Bar: Reset the room and do everything again. And again. And again! AND AGAIN! AND-


Flying mechanics:

If you don't press any arrow keys while flying, Kiku will hover. Pressing up or down makes her rise or descend, and holding the left and right arrow keys accelerates her in the corresponding direction. It takes a few seconds to reach full speed, but her top speed is very fast.

In order to fly, Kiku needs Nova Juice. There are two fuel tanks: the Stomach and the Tail. The Tail holds your "usable" juice; once it depletes fully, she'll stop flying. As long as her stomach isn't empty, however, it'll slowly refill her tail when she's on the ground. Though her stomach may look a lot smaller than her tail, and it...TECHNICALLY is, it generates a spatial compression field, which shrinks its contents down by reducing the space between the atoms that constitute anything on the inside of...it's bigger on the inside than on the outside. While this last one might sound like a bit of a no-brainer, you can refill your stomach by swallowing stuff.
This is interesting. I like the flying mechanics, feels good. But damn it runs out too quickly ;(
 
This is interesting. I like the flying mechanics, feels good. But damn it runs out too quickly ;(
As mentioned in the OP, there will be "level up" items that upgrade various stats and abilities, one of which is flight duration. The demo gameplay represents Kiku at her "minimum" power.
 

Gravedust

Member
Very cool! Movement feels solid, animations look great and I like all the little touches. Interesting concept too. I'll be watching this one for sure. :)
 
Made a bit more progress over the last few days. First off, another design overhaul:

Kind of the same thing as last time, in a way. She's smaller, rounder, simpler, buggier, and...big-pants-y-er.


Secondly, and more importantly (I guess?) I've got a new and improved demo up! http://www.mediafire.com/file/tbxejzytb6nlcyy/kiku_testroom_v2.exe

Changes:

- Walking and running speed was increased by a bit.

- Forward momentum now carries over into her pounce attack; if you merely tap Z while running at full speed, you'll go about the same distance as you would had you charged it fully without a running start.

- Her pounce attack now charges twice as fast.

- Kiku can now jump significantly higher while running at full speed.

- Catching an enemy in your mouth doesn't slow you down quite as much as before.

- Kiku can now run with her mouth full, even if the enemy in her mouth is of the "large" variety. Currently shares the "walking with mouth full" animation.

- Swallowing animations and sound effects have been altered to be less...yucky.

- Nova Stinger doesn't absolutely murder your momentum when used on the ground.

- Nova Bomb has slightly less startup lag and shoots a bit farther horizontally.
 
What time is it? Update time! But this isn't just ANY update time, this is HAND-DRAWN ART ASSET update time!


Yup, I went there. No assembly pieces, no spine animation, no pre-rendered models, just pure, hand-drawn, not-quite-HD-but-whatever goodness!

Aside from the obvious change in artstyle, there're a few minor tweaks here and there. Most notably, I worked on momentum a bit more, and made Nova Bomb slightly better; it now travels further horizontally, and Kiku's forward momentum is factored into its speed and trajectory.

I also made the health system and changed the HUD into something a bit more stylized and not-disgusting. The placeholder monsters now deal damage and knockback, as well as an idle animation, but still have no AI and don't react to Nova Stinger or Nova Bomb. Kiku also currently has no death animation, since I want to save that for when I actually get into the nitty-gritty of checkpoints, respawning, and all of that not-so-fun stuff.

Additionally, the healing system is also in place; when Kiku's stomach is above 50% capacity, it will drain by a bit more but also restore a little bit of health per tick.
 
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