Zero Quest

development blog for Zero Quest: a video game about video game characters

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Video showing reworked combat system

✓ More fun combat!

I’ve reworked the combat system! No more micro-games (for now... they’ll be back in some form) - instead it’s all about SPACE and POSITIONING:

Basic attacks now knockback enemies!

Knock an enemy into another enemy? They both take damage!

Knock an enemy into another player? You deal SUPER damage! And look cool!

Each character now has a new move that uses SPACE:

Platformer dude can JUMP onto far away enemies

Magical girl can HURL enemies (or players!) far away

Robo shooter can SHOOT far away enemies

Ms Arcade Ghost-vader can SUCK (inhale) to pull far away enemies (or players!) closer

Cursor can SHIELD players (or enemies?) to negate the next damage they take this turn

I’ve made a video showing this system off. It’s too large to upload to tumblr (16mb) so I’ve linked it up top instead.

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✓ New Demo!

It’s been a while since my last post, but I’ve just finished a new alpha prototype demo for Zero Quest! This one is a lot more user-friendly than my last one. It’s got a brand new 10 minute long tutorial / story introduction!

Check it out if you’re feeling adventurous. You might even find it funny.

https://zeroquest.itch.io/zero-quest-demo-day-9-prototype

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✓ Title screen / Main Menu (in progress)

✓ Saving / Loading (in progress) 

The characters randomly animate on the main menu - sometimes it looks like they’re reacting to each other...

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✓ ITEM GET!

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(Warning: this video has sound)

✓ New Enemy: Gunslinger

✓ More real-time elements

✓ Level-up animation

✗ Choppy video near the end (sorry, WebMCam went a bit wonky...)

✗ Still need to update the header image to replace Contra-dude with Robo-dude

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I’ve received a few questions regarding how one of Zero Quest’s characters is a bit too similar to an existing copyrighted character. You’re right! Sadly I think it may soon be time to say goodbye to “Not-Contra-Dude”.

During development I often use sprites ripped from other games as placeholders. Each of the main characters started this way: the Cursor was from Maplestory, Ms Ghost Invader was an actual Space Invader, and so on. Over time I’ve replaced each of them with my own sprites, and “Not-Contra-Dude” was the last one left.

Here you can see the new character design I’m working on. It’s based on Probotector, the censored European version of Contra that replaced human characters with robots. I think it fits quite well into the “rag-tag group of B-grade video game heroes” theme.

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✔ Real time action! (that doesn’t involve minigames) ✔ Improved UI further (and made it work with both mouse + keyboard)

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Video game development checklist

✔ Morality system

(Warning: there may be consequences)

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New enemy: Ghost

It’s completely invisible during your turn. After it attacks, it turns invisible again and teleports to a random nearby space. You can guess where it is by watching the camera just as it’s turning invisible (it will follow the ghost when it teleports away).

The Ghost re-appears when it’s damaged, so use “AOE” attacks (like Heart Beat Mania) to flush it out. Quickly defeat it before it turns invisible again!

(Why must ghosts in video games always be annoying hide-and-seekers?)

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Your game looks fantastic so far! One of the things that I like the most are the beautiful backgrounds that you have. They remind me of the Earthbound battle backgrounds. What have you done to achieve the background effect that you're using for your game?

Here’s how the Earthbound-style backgrounds are implemented (note: Zero Quest is developed in Game Maker, but I’ll keep the explanation generic enough to work in any engine):

1. Get a bunch of psychedelic tileable pattern images. Like this:

2. Draw your pattern image tiled in the background of your game scene. It should now look like a fairly repetitive desktop wallpaper.

3. Add a new shader to your game. We’ll be using this shader when drawing the tiled pattern images to create the effect. You should use a simple pass-through vertex shader as all the magic happens in the fragment shader.

4. In the fragment shader we want to shift the texture coordinates for each pixel over time in order to create the distortion effect. The method you use for shifting the coordinates is more of an art than a science. You’ll likely need a lot of playing and tweaking to find an equation that looks nice.

Fortunately a very cool person by the name of “Mr Accident” was able to determine the equations Earthbound uses for its background distortions. You can find their post here.

Using “Mr Accident”’s post I was able to implement the Earthbound-style equations in my shader. Here’s what the fragment shader looks like:

https://gist.github.com/jfact0r/10c78d38e48fb2468fe9a81a33562ace

(note that parts of it are specific to my game, such as the perspective shift)

5. Apply your new shader when drawing the tiled pattern images and it should now look like an Earthbound battle background!

6. To jazz it up, get a LOT of pattern images and rotate through them randomly every few seconds. You can also shift the hue (like in my shader) or do other snazzy effects to keep it from getting repetitive.

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Thanks everyone who gave feedback on the alpha prototype! It seems most people like the aesthetic/style/story of the game, but found the game itself rather confusing / user-unfriendly.

That’s why I’ve decided to start focusing on the UI/UX more. Here’s some work on improving the menu (and many under the hood improvements that can’t be captured in a screenshot).

One slightly interesting thing: I’ve changed "skills" to "games". So you don't use a skill, you play a game! Each game is stored on a game cartridge. You can find different game cartridges throughout the world (some more useful than others, some usable by any character, etc). You can also find sequels for cartridges to upgrade them (e.g. "Jump Dude 2"). I may even add variations for cartridges (e.g. “Bootleg Jump Dude” may cost less AP and “Collector’s Edition Jump Dude” may deal more damage) to make the random loot system more interesting.

The number of cartridges you can equip / the "total power" of the cartridges you can use will be based on your level (sort of like the badge point system in Paper Mario, so at level 5 you can equip 5 level 1 cartridges or 1 level 5 cartridge).

(the “Items”, “Power Ups” and “Quest” menus are still a work in progress at the moment.)

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No fancy video to show this time, sorry! Just working on improving the UI and adding an XP/leveling system.

However, I have also just uploaded a super-duper early testing incomplete prototype alpha in-development build of the game to my new itch.io page. So if you’re the sort of person that doesn’t mind playing around with a broken mess that barely has half a level included, feel free to check it out here: https://zeroquest.itch.io/zero-quest

Warning: May not actually be fun yet. Fun is still in development.

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This video shows another microgame I made earlier but forgot to post about. It’s for the “Ms Ghost/Invader” character and is based on Pacman. The skill (Bonus Fruit) requires you to quickly navigate a maze to grab some fruit, which you then throw to another character in order to heal them.

I’ve also changed the way damage works in the game. You can no longer take fatal damage if you have more than 1 HP. Instead, it reduces you to 1 HP (at which point you are no longer safe - any amount of damage will kill you!). This lets me be a bit more risky when designing enemies as I no longer have to worry about players being one-shot out of nowhere. This also leads to some tense situations where your entire team is on the cusp of death, requiring you to perfectly complete all action inputs / microgames just to survive. I’ve also added some new animations to show this “near death” state.

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I really like how the game is turning out so far, keep up the good work! But question: will you be incorporating different art styles based on different consoles, like a red Virtual boy land or a grey scale Game boy land? Also, how much will the game cost and where will it be sold?

I’ll definitely be incorporating art styles from all of video game history. The “Ms. Ghost/Invader” character is an example of this. Applying this to the game world itself is a really neat idea that I’ll have to try! The freedom to have all these ‘clashing’ art styles work together thematically is my favorite part of the concept.

As for selling the game - I haven’t even thought about it yet. It’s still very much a personal hobby project for me that’s still a few years off from completion. That said, it would most likely be available on Steam and be reasonably cheap ($5 - $10).

Thanks so much for your interest!

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New enemy: a whole football (soccer) team!

(I might add the ball too at some point - perhaps as a projectile attack, or as something you can kick around that they’re attracted to)

(It’s really satisfying to hit them with an AOE attack - it makes a loud crunch when they all disintegrate at once)

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Added another microgame move: this time for the Cursor. “Inspect” allows you to identify a monster, which reveals its stats, a short description of it and adds it to your monster log (like the “Tattle” move in Paper Mario).

The microgame here is based on the Concentration/Memory card game (card and simulation games are the Cursor’s forte). You flip cards and attempt to match the two cards depicting the monster. I’m planning to add special “bonus prizes” under each (incorrect) card, to provide an extra risk/reward for matching the other cards in the limited time available.

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Progress on the introduction to Zero Quest. It starts off as a generic platformer (one of those silly “product tie in” games that companies used to make). However, once you make it half way through the level, the world suddenly disintegrates... and you’re sucked into the void.

You (the main character of the platformer game) wake up in a strange place. You’re told that you have been “rescued” from your game.

So begins your adventure on “the ROM hosting server” - home for all “rescued” video game characters.