Ahem. Let me introduce you to my flagship project, that ended up top-15 in a competition with 300 entries. Final Columbus.
What is below is just a copy-n-paste of the GMC topic of the game. It should get the message across even if you don't know some of the abbreviations. Play and have fun, 12+ hours promised.
If you have played Cave Story, you will feel like home. If you haven't, hopefully my intinutive level design and HUD will take care about that. But being a TSR member, you're obviously a real gamer; you'll have no problem.
Note: big-sprite scenes are still work-in-progress.
![[Image: fc125screen0.png]](http://img28.imageshack.us/img28/6987/fc125screen0.png)
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Final Columbus v1.2.5
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Final Columbus was my comp06 entry, although it has evolved a lot since then. It´s a Cave Story-length 'flatform' shooter, based more on shooting than platforming, and more on exploration and collecting than on beating levels. "Levels" in this game is what you gain after killing enough enemies, and you can select what stat (HP, Attack, Defence,...) to upgrade, actively! Tanking or sweeping? Survive or dominate? Up to you.
On top of that, the game features a complex plot - ten to fifteen hours of gameplay - with carefully designed characters. Just a few minutes in, you start to notice that everyone has some unique traits, and as you overhear discussions and pick up lost items, everyone's backstory slowly comes together.
NAL himself rated this game #2 in his personal top-50 list of the entries in Yoyogames' competition06.
Players of the Comp version will notice heavy graphical improvement in sprites and tilesets in 1.2.5.
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![[Image: fc125screen4.png]](http://img825.imageshack.us/img825/5086/fc125screen4.png)
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Part of an exploration team, you are sent to a ruin City to search for old, forgotten science materials that might be of use for the post-apocalyptic community that lives in tomorrow's US. Being the youngest member of the group, you're treated with disrespect from the scarred soldiers that make up most of the rest of the group, but find support in the "official nick-namer" Cain, the underestimated nerd Sarah, and the coffee-addicted medic Al, whom you know from before.
As a young soldier, your duty is to protect the scientists while they survey the sites of the City, as well as to locate and extract Lore from the areas and dungeons that are too dangerous for unarmed people to enter. You will find overgrown greenhouses, runaway thermal plants, ancient Egyptian-ish sandtombs, caves filled with poisonous mushrooms and/or lava, and flooded slums with the skeletons of your Ancestors still intact. You will fight living robotic fans, angry birds, defective turrets, rats on caffeine, and mutated three-eyed electric turtles in your underpaid quest for knowledge. You will need to select each stat upgrade with care to get the upper hand against all the trials that try to make your life, and the lives of your friends, end early...
When strange events take place in the Water Tower, the group is scattered and you suddenly have to think more about surviving than your original orders... but without forgetting your original reason to join: to find out the truth behind the death of your father.
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![[Image: fc125screen3.png]](http://img268.imageshack.us/img268/377/fc125screen3.png)
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The game offers varied gameplay in three levels of difficulty (Casual, Intended, Hardcore), having you alternate between exploration of the abandoned city, shooting your way trough tight corridors in best Metal Slug style, protecting scientists from enemies coming trough walls, ceiling and background, driving and mastering several kinds of veichles... including battle mechas with and without gatling gun turrets, a helicopter, and a subway train.
NAL himself rated this game #2 in a top-50 list of the entries to Yoyogames' competition06, in particular because of the gameplay.
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Game Size: Around 5 Mb.
Game Version: 1.2.5
Game Maker Version: 8.0 (Pro)
Screen Size: 480 x 272 (Windowed, selectable, does not change resolution, F4 for fullscreen)
Genre: Platform shooter / Exploration / RPG
Players: 1
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PAGE ON YYG
Final Columbus is a Featured game at YYG, in other words a Staff Pick. It is filled with roughly 12 hours of varied gameplay and has 6 different endings.
BOX.NET MIRROR
This mirror isn't updated as often as the YYG version, mostly because of my memory
. You can use that if you prefer hosting sites over gametube.
==========================================
![[Image: fc125screen2.png]](http://img713.imageshack.us/img713/7601/fc125screen2.png)
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Even More Screenshots (some of them are outdated):
S-ATG Laser in action. Poor rats.
Title screen
Hovercopter scene - with the improved 1.2.0 tileset!
Big-sprite chitchat scene
She talks a lot, right?
Fishes in the sky
Cutscene with a mystical man...
Grass Dungeon - battle generic monsters
Monster Nests in action
Pause menu
==========================================
Just play it already! You're missing out on something fun!
==========================================
What is below is just a copy-n-paste of the GMC topic of the game. It should get the message across even if you don't know some of the abbreviations. Play and have fun, 12+ hours promised.
If you have played Cave Story, you will feel like home. If you haven't, hopefully my intinutive level design and HUD will take care about that. But being a TSR member, you're obviously a real gamer; you'll have no problem.
Note: big-sprite scenes are still work-in-progress.
==========================================
Final Columbus v1.2.5
==========================================
Final Columbus was my comp06 entry, although it has evolved a lot since then. It´s a Cave Story-length 'flatform' shooter, based more on shooting than platforming, and more on exploration and collecting than on beating levels. "Levels" in this game is what you gain after killing enough enemies, and you can select what stat (HP, Attack, Defence,...) to upgrade, actively! Tanking or sweeping? Survive or dominate? Up to you.
On top of that, the game features a complex plot - ten to fifteen hours of gameplay - with carefully designed characters. Just a few minutes in, you start to notice that everyone has some unique traits, and as you overhear discussions and pick up lost items, everyone's backstory slowly comes together.
NAL himself rated this game #2 in his personal top-50 list of the entries in Yoyogames' competition06.
Players of the Comp version will notice heavy graphical improvement in sprites and tilesets in 1.2.5.
==========================================
==========================================
Part of an exploration team, you are sent to a ruin City to search for old, forgotten science materials that might be of use for the post-apocalyptic community that lives in tomorrow's US. Being the youngest member of the group, you're treated with disrespect from the scarred soldiers that make up most of the rest of the group, but find support in the "official nick-namer" Cain, the underestimated nerd Sarah, and the coffee-addicted medic Al, whom you know from before.
As a young soldier, your duty is to protect the scientists while they survey the sites of the City, as well as to locate and extract Lore from the areas and dungeons that are too dangerous for unarmed people to enter. You will find overgrown greenhouses, runaway thermal plants, ancient Egyptian-ish sandtombs, caves filled with poisonous mushrooms and/or lava, and flooded slums with the skeletons of your Ancestors still intact. You will fight living robotic fans, angry birds, defective turrets, rats on caffeine, and mutated three-eyed electric turtles in your underpaid quest for knowledge. You will need to select each stat upgrade with care to get the upper hand against all the trials that try to make your life, and the lives of your friends, end early...
When strange events take place in the Water Tower, the group is scattered and you suddenly have to think more about surviving than your original orders... but without forgetting your original reason to join: to find out the truth behind the death of your father.
==========================================
==========================================
The game offers varied gameplay in three levels of difficulty (Casual, Intended, Hardcore), having you alternate between exploration of the abandoned city, shooting your way trough tight corridors in best Metal Slug style, protecting scientists from enemies coming trough walls, ceiling and background, driving and mastering several kinds of veichles... including battle mechas with and without gatling gun turrets, a helicopter, and a subway train.
NAL himself rated this game #2 in a top-50 list of the entries to Yoyogames' competition06, in particular because of the gameplay.
==========================================
Game Size: Around 5 Mb.
Game Version: 1.2.5
Game Maker Version: 8.0 (Pro)
Screen Size: 480 x 272 (Windowed, selectable, does not change resolution, F4 for fullscreen)
Genre: Platform shooter / Exploration / RPG
Players: 1
==========================================
PAGE ON YYG
Final Columbus is a Featured game at YYG, in other words a Staff Pick. It is filled with roughly 12 hours of varied gameplay and has 6 different endings.
BOX.NET MIRROR
This mirror isn't updated as often as the YYG version, mostly because of my memory
. You can use that if you prefer hosting sites over gametube.==========================================
==========================================
Even More Screenshots (some of them are outdated):
S-ATG Laser in action. Poor rats.
Title screen
Hovercopter scene - with the improved 1.2.0 tileset!
Big-sprite chitchat scene
She talks a lot, right?
Fishes in the sky
Cutscene with a mystical man...
Grass Dungeon - battle generic monsters
Monster Nests in action
Pause menu
==========================================
Just play it already! You're missing out on something fun!
==========================================