Digimon: Heroic Battle Spirit (SAGE 2014 Act 1 Demo)

Digimon: Heroic Battle Spirit (SAGE 2014 Act 1 Demo) - Printable Version

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Digimon: Heroic Battle Spirit (SAGE 2014 Act 1 Demo) - Candescence - 03-15-2014

It's been a while since I've posted in this place, but... Well, I figured, since I'm going around promoting my latest project a bit, I might as well post here.

[Image: HBSTitle.png]

So, this is a thing I've been working on lately, as part of an effort to build up a mutiplayer platform engine in Construct 2, as well as experimenting with new methods of conveying narrative that don't rely on non-interactivity. I've released a demo for SAGE, with a single-player demo and a multiplayer mode capable of supporting up to four players.

As a Construct 2 game, the demo will be playable in all HTML5/WebGL-capable browsers. But, thanks to the power of Node-Webkit, there are also Windows, Mac and Linux executables if you prefer that.

Screenshots:

Work in progress, obviously, just to note.

Spoiler

Overiew

Digimon: Heroic Battle Spirit, made in Construct 2, is a fan-made 'expansion' on the three Digimon: Battle Spirit fighting games for the Wonderswan/GBA made by Dimps, one of which, Battle Spirit 1.5, never left Japan. The idea is to include nearly every existing playable character from the first two games at least, hopefully add more fighters from more recent Digimon series (Digimon Savers/Data Squad and Digimon Xros Wars/Fusion) , enable four-player multiplayer, and include a special Metroidvania-like story mode with innovative narrative mechanics that attempt to do away with the need for cutscenes in most cases.

The demo is an attempt to demonstrate a basic idea of the direction being taken for both single-player and multiplayer. It's not exactly 'polished', nor 'balanced', but very much playable.

Playable Characters

In the demo, there are three playable Digimon - Agumon, Gabumon, Renamon and Kazemon, each with unique movesets.

[Image: Agumon.png]

Okay, that's not quite true - there's a fourth character, but he's not a Digimon - a special guest fighter for the demo. And since SAGE has passed, it's Sonic.

Story Mode Synopsis

The first thing you remember is waking up in a cell in a dungeon.

[Image: Cell.png]

You manage to escape, but you find yourself in a castle filled with strange machines you've never seen before that are hostile to your presence.

[Image: Castle1.png]

And to make it worse, there's no way out... Without treading a lot of water. And you sincerely doubt you can swim that far.

[Image: Castle2.png]

An exploration of the castle finds you battling an old enemy, but even he is subservient to a greater power. Without your partner, you're left alone trying to figure out how to escape the castle, where he and your friends have gone, and who imprisoned you in the first place...

Open-ended environments inspired by the likes of Metroid and its many imitators.
Multiple characters with different abilities.
Sub-weapons that augment your character's fighting abilites.
A 'narrative button' that provides dialogue options ala Mass Effect, but in real-time, with an adjustable slow-down effect.
A 'look' mechanic reminiscent of old-school adventure games.
An adjustable, zoomable camera system that accommodates any number of screen resolutions.
A 'fog of war' system that hides unexplored areas, and fogs explored but unoccupied areas.
Beware, not all boss enemies will be content to sit around and let you walk up to their doorstep, and some may start hunting you on their own volition...
Possible extra for later on: 4-player co-op.

Multiplayer

[Image: 4PlayerDemo.png]

Fully-featured classic Battle Spirit gameplay, now with 4 players! (In the future, depending on what happens with Steam Controllers and online multiplayer support in Construct 2, up to 16 players might be supported.)
Dynamic camera system that keeps every combatant on-screen.

SAGE 2014 Act 1 Demo Download

Readme
(Please read!)

Web Player
(Web HTML5, no plugins needed, Chrome or Firefox absolutely reccomended)

Executable Download
Windows
Mac
Linux (32 Bit, 64 Bit)

What about the future?

Well, what happens in the future is going to be a bit interesting. Right now, with this demo, I'm pretty much limited entirely to existing game assets (and not just from Digimon games) and open-source assets, which are both neat, but they have their limitations. Long story short, if I want to really complete this game as I envision it, I'll need help. Aside from presenting a demo, I'm using SAGE as a platform to advertise for artists and other people who are interested in making this whole thing work.

Primarily, I'm looking for an artist(s), an optional plural, because I intend to redo as many assets from scratch as possible, from level art to character animations. The existing assets are great, but I don't really want to be restricted to what there is right now, if I want to expand the gameplay, for example (the existing sprites were designed for a rather simple fighting game, let's be honest), not to mention I want a consistent art style across the board, which is important. And I'd like to be able to have higher-quality art assets, which would be neat.

What I'm mainly looking at for animation work is the program Spriter, by Brashmonkey. It's tech that is similar to what is used in games like Rayman Origins/Legends, and anything Vannilaware's done (Odin Sphere, Muramasa, Dragon's Crown, etc), and when the tool is used properly, the results can look superb. As well, animations can be created and tweaked much more easily than traditional animation, scaled better, enables character customization, heavily reduces RAM usage, includes support for stuff like collision rectangles, and already has native Construct 2 support. I like traditional animation as much as anyone, but I'd like to save my time and my artist's time when it comes to creating assets, animations, and iterating on them. If nothing else, Spriter is great for easily prototyping animations.

Also, I had a Digimon World DS-styled project from a while back (both demos of that were kinda crappy, to be honest, but still). Well, it's mostly been scrapped. Changes to my outlook/philosophy on game development and where games need to advance has made the idea of making a turn-based RPG a lot less appealing to me. I like playing some of those, but for the most part, the genre isn't really compatible with what I want to do with the medium. Now, making an action RPG is a whole different story, but it would be incredibly impractical in 2D with Digimon, so in order to make a 3D game, I'd need to brush up on working in something like Unity, and recruit someone who can actually model and animate stuff, and that's not an easy task. But the idea of a 3D Digimon action-RPG is certainly exciting to me, and it's something I'd love to do.

Still, we'll cross that bridge when we get to it. Enjoy the demo!