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[Franklinator]

Overtime Mode sounds great, hopefully you reach that goal.

 

[Akainu]

I don't think my mind will be able to handle it when a game is called X meets Demon's Souls.

 

[Gbraga]

I think we're just going to flat out do this and not put it as a stretch. it's not that hard to set up after you already design all your bosses. I'm moving toward just wanting my stretches to be non-frivolous and really substantive.

I love you, and Overtime sounds great, I hope we can make it!

Could you elaborate a bit on the melee part of the gameplay? A melee buton that'll have different animations depending on what you were doing before (like a dash acting as a modifier for a melee that will be a launch or something)?

 

[remist]

Awesome stretch goals. I hope this hits $30,000. This game needs MAGS.

 

[Morrigan Stark]

yep, amazed by the response, and will not forget it. neogaf and kickstarter have made this possible. neogaf will get SOME form of reference somewhere in the game (not sure what yet, but I must do this) and I also committed to reserve 5% of the retail proceeds from Ghost Song to give to other KS projects. I'd love to money bomb someone with a great project in their darkest hour.

If that happens... May I suggest the poor struggling Shadowsof the Eternals? >_>

re. the characters -- there are no textboxes for dialogue at all. when people speak, it's during gameplay, and you hear them. no button prompts to "trigger" them, no cut scenes, no control lost (well, except during extremely specific, rare cases) It'll be full VO and totally ambient/natural. All this is important to me.

Could you still have an option for subtitles? Sometimes I miss out on dialogue when it's drowned in music or sound effects and non-native English speakers usually have an easier time understanding by reading.

 

[Jobbs]

If that happens... May I suggest the poor struggling Shadowsof the Eternals? >_>

It'll be a while before Ghost Song is finished and being sold to users, so unless SOTE is up on KS again or something -- It won't even be possible.

Could you still have an option for subtitles? Sometimes I miss out on dialogue when it's drowned in music or sound effects and non-native English speakers usually have an easier time understanding by reading.

I understand this reality, subtitles will be an option. Personally I think the "true" experience will be without them.

 

[Fireblend]

I understand this reality, subtitles will be an option. Personally I think the "true" experience will be without them.

If you need someone to translate text into spanish, I've always wanted to try my hand at it

 

[MaGlock]

Any chance if we reach the goals this could make it to ps4/X1 (with the nice indie stances were getting now)? Or too early to think about such things?

 

[Jobbs]

I love you, and Overtime sounds great, I hope we can make it!

Could you elaborate a bit on the melee part of the gameplay? A melee buton that'll have different animations depending on what you were doing before (like a dash acting as a modifier for a melee that will be a launch or something)?

I'll talk a little bit about how I'm envisioning the next evolution of the combat mechanics/controls. Please keep in mind that the game hasn't been rebuilt yet, these mechanics aren't in place yet, and it's completely subject to change.

I intend the shoulder buttons to be for dashing left or right (if you are facing left, then the R shoulder button will make you do a "backwards" dash and remain facing the same way, and vise versa). These will be ghosts dashes in a manner somewhat similar to what I have already -- In the sense that during the dash you pass through objects.

The ordinary cannon -- When not charged or empowered (charging is when you hold the fire button to build up a charge; empowering is when you dash through an enemy and temporarily power your weapon), will offer a little pushback and not be overly damaging.

My current concept of the melee attack button is it'll be sort of a "shove" -- it'll push most ordinary enemies back or make them fall down, especially in the case of regular weak mutants, who may be wobbly on their feet. Most enemies will be able to be flinched, stunned, pushed, or knocked down.

The flow of combat will largely involve deftly avoiding damage and positioning yourself by way of the dashes, keeping things away from you with gun pushback or melee attacks -- and looking for chances to pack a wallop, through charging, empowering, or special weapons. So -- avoidance, crowd control, look for openings to do big damage. It'll be almost like a mixture of a metroid style pew pew with some brawling.

Please keep in mind that what I'm describing is sort of my starting point for where I want to take the combat -- It is completely subject to change, it is not a promise, I could change my mind tomorrow. Or maybe we'll start building these mechanics and start testing and decide it's not fun or doesn't work. Or maybe you guys all say this sounds like a horrible idea and you make me feel and I come up with something else.

So -- Take it with a grain of salt for now.

 

[Morrigan Stark]

If you need someone to translate text into spanish, I've always wanted to try my hand at it http://i.imgur.com/3AQmK.gif

Haha. If he adds multiple languages as a stretch goal, I call dibs on French.

 

[Deleted member 102362]

re. the characters -- there are no textboxes for dialogue at all. when people speak, it's during gameplay, and you hear them. no button prompts to "trigger" them, no cut scenes, no control lost (well, except during extremely specific, rare cases) It'll be full VO and totally ambient/natural. All this is important to me.

Will there be optional subtitles for all spoken dialogue? Also congrats on reaching your initial goal!

Also, the OP should mention the availability of the Paypal option in the first post.

 

[guit3457]

If you need someone to translate text into spanish, I've always wanted to try my hand at it

I can help translating text to spanish if you need it too.

Well done sir!!!

 

[EhrgeizVII]

Yay, Paypal! Donated $15. Can't wait (even though it'll be another year heh).

 

[Gbraga]

I'll talk a little bit about how I'm envisioning the next evolution of the combat mechanics/controls. Please keep in mind that the game hasn't been rebuilt yet, these mechanics aren't in place yet, and it's completely subject to change.

I intend the shoulder buttons to be for dashing left or right (if you are facing left, then the R shoulder button will make you do a "backwards" dash and remain facing the same way, and vise versa). These will be ghosts dashes in a manner somewhat similar to what I have already -- In the sense that during the dash you pass through objects.

Cool, very cool

The ordinary cannon -- When not charged or empowered (charging is when you hold the fire button to build up a charge; empowering is when you dash through an enemy and temporarily power your weapon), will offer a little pushback and not be overly damaging.

My current concept of the melee attack button is it'll be sort of a "shove" -- it'll push most ordinary enemies back or make them fall down, especially in the case of regular weak mutants, who may be wobbly on their feet. Most enemies will be able to be flinched, stunned, pushed, or knocked down.

Is the empowered shot a different kind of shot or like an insta-charge? Is it possible to use Ghost Dash to get your empowered shot, melee as soon as you're out of the recovery frames to knock the enemy down, and then instantly jump and shoot down with your empowered shot? Or maybe the Ghost Dash power up doesnt' last that long?

The flow of combat will largely involve deftly avoiding damage and positioning yourself by way of the dashes, keeping things away from you with gun pushback or melee attacks -- and looking for chances to pack a wallop, through charging, empowering, or special weapons. So -- avoidance, crowd control, look for openings to do big damage. It'll be almost like a mixture of a metroid style pew pew with some brawling.

I love it, reminds me of Capcom/Platinum TPS because they don't limit themselves to be cover shooters, instead they give you several movement and melee possibilities with a lot of depth to be explored. Kinda makes me wish this game had a Mercenaries like mode, but I guess a Boss Rush mode is even better for a 2D game, for some reason I feel like I enjoy 2D bosses way more than 3D bosses in general.

Please keep in mind that what I'm describing is sort of my starting point for where I want to take the combat -- It is completely subject to change, it is not a promise, I could change my mind tomorrow. Or maybe we'll start building these mechanics and start testing and decide it's not fun or doesn't work. Or maybe you guys all say this sounds like a horrible idea and you make me feel and I come up with something else.

So -- Take it with a grain of salt for now.

Ok, thank you for answering!

EDIT: One more question, can you cancel the Ghost Dash animation just to get an empowered shot?

 

[Bboy AJ]

Man, awesome. The game looks great. I don't back projects anymore out of principle but I'll be tracking your game very closely. It would make a great Vita game, heh.

 

[Jobbs]

Cool, very cool


Is the empowered shot a different kind of shot or like an insta-charge? Is it possible to use Ghost Dash to get your empowered shot, melee as soon as you're out of the recovery frames to knock the enemy down, and then instantly jump and shoot down with your empowered shot? Or maybe the Ghost Dash power up doesnt' last that long?

The way it works now is that they are different. Charge shot is like a big KAPOW! that clears through everything -- sort of mega man X style (as seen in the video and gifs and stuff). Empowered shot, which I may show soon, is a bit different -- your regular bullet spam just gets chunkier and meaner for a short time. What you propose is possible but whether it's a good strategy remains to be seen.

EDIT: One more question, can you cancel the Ghost Dash animation just to get an empowered shot?

Ghost dash will instantly cancel if you let go of the button. If you do this while still touching the enemy you may be damaged by it.

 

[JDSN]

I can help translating text to spanish if you need it too.

Well done sir!!!

Ditto, id be happy to help on the translation, Jobbs. I also sound like young latino James Earl Jones. *wink*

 

[FlyFaster]

C'mon Wii U stretch goal c'monnnnnnn.

.


also,
Congratulations Jobbs! I can't wait to see the final game. I will certainly be buying it.

 

[Makai]

Congratulations!

 

[LordOcidax]

Wii U stretch goal please. I want to back this game. Looks amazing

 

[desu]

Totally awesome that you made it. Game was also covered from the German pcgames.de which is a pretty decently sized site, awesome!

 

[FlyFaster]

oh my god.

just read the stretch goals on the KS page.

Hardcore mode and especially the Enhanced Pet System is great.

I love that you are thinking of using the Phantasy Star online MAGs as a base for the pet. excellent idea man.

 

[Five]

This was an easy one to back. There are some games that you can just tell are going to be great, and this is one of them.

I pledged at the beta level, because betas are fun and feeling like you had a hand in development is always neat.


Something I'm wondering, after quite happily backing Shovel Knight, is what your community interaction will be like, if any. Obviously, here at NeoGAF, you're posting lots of comments, but do you have plans for more?

For example, Yacht Club Games has been having lots of real neat design hangouts for those who backed enough, send out progress emails every once in a while, and have live casts on Twitch every couple days of their artist doing work. Clearly, this would be a lot for just one person to accomplish, but it's all served to keep lots of their backers interested in the project and offering to pledge more money.


Anyway, congrats on meeting the KS goal. Hopefully you make enough to be able to spend more time on the project.

 

[Gbraga]

Ghost dash will instantly cancel if you let go of the button. If you do this while still touching the enemy you may be damaged by it.

Interesting, and it has fast recovery? If so, I can see why you can't have instant charged shots

EDIT:

Maybe if you make it so if you press the shoot button in a certain frame windows (3~5 frames maybe?) during/after a ghost dash you'll get a buster as your first shot (or only shot if the Buster is way too strong to come out with empowered shots)? So you can ghost dash through an enemy and hit him with a buster in the back by timing your shot. If you think that's way too tight for the kind of gameplay you want, you could also make it so if you use Ghost Dash to actually dodge an attack, you'll get a buster. For both cases, something like this could happen:

A boss/mini-boss is throwing axes at you, the easier way to fight this would be jumping over them, but that would grant you very few (if any) punish, and you'd have to wait for him to "recharge" or whatever, but if you can time a ghost dash through the axe you can punish him right away with empowered shots, and if you time your shot during the ghost dash (or not if you're going with the second option) your first/only shot will be a buster.

For that to work in a balanced way you probably wouldn't be able to charge while ghost dashing though, otherwise it wouldn't be worth learning the timing. And it would be cool to time it right and do something like releasing your buster right before an enemy attack, ghost dashing through the attack and hitting the enemy with a buster again.

Another possibility to put the melee in the mix would be to have levels, much like Akihiko's sway in Persona 4 Arena, so you have level 1 shots (regular shots), level 2 (empowered) and level 3 (the buster, and you can still get it just by charging, of course), so if you do a ghost dash, you'll be in level 2 stance, so shooting during/after a ghost dash would give you empowered shots, or a level 2 melee if you press the melee button, and if you time it right in the frame windows and/or shoot/melee after going through an enemy attack, you'll get a level 3 shot/melee, and those would be different and serve their purpose.

Might not be the kind of thing you want for your game though, so feel free to ignore me.

 

[LSauchelli]

BTW, Jobbs, do you have any more images of other bosses/mini-bosses?

 

[Novocaine]

C'mon Vita stretch goal c'monnnnnnn.

Fixed that for you.

Can't wait to play this game, it looks so tight.

 

[Charles Alan Ratliff]

Very cool. Will be backing this.

 

[AuthenticM]

Backed.

And please bring this to the Vita !!!

 

[JawzPause]

Can I ask why it is easier to develop for the wii u than PS4/XB1?
Also, please consider releasing on PS4/Vita if you can
Game looks awesome.

 

[CTLance]

I want my Mag NOW. Even if all it does is give me different ending cutscenes, I want to feed it junk. Then again, this does take away from the isolation...

Hardcore mode sounds awesome. Hardcore+ with a one-hit-permadeath version of the armor would be hilarious. All that rage...
Bonus points for optional ridiculous armor design (Swim/Papillon Suit on a robot).

Can I ask why it is easier to develop for the wii u than PS4/XB1?

What it boils down to is that Nintendo is apparently seriously courting Indies at the moment, and that their dev kits come with a free "Pro" level license of the engine that this game will use. Less hassle, less investment.

 

[JawzPause]

What it boils down to is that Nintendo is apparently seriously courting Indies at the moment, and that their dev kits come with a free "Pro" level license of the engine that this game will use. Less hassle, less investment.

Ah, makes sense in their situation.

 

[Instro]

Question for Jobbs(perhaps this has already been asked):

Given how related this is to Metroid and all, do you have any interest in intentionally including ways for the player to sequence break in the game?

 

[Jobbs]

I want my Mag NOW. Even if all it does is give me different ending cutscenes, I want to feed it junk. Then again, this does take away from the isolation....

the pet is already in the game -- it always was. you can see it in the videos and gifs and stuff. the only difference is that if we reach that goal, the pet will be able to do some more things.

Little blue floating thing.

BTW, Jobbs, do you have any more images of other bosses/mini-bosses?

I plan to show a couple more things, I didn't know we'd already be funding in 2 days and everything would be moving so fast -- But yeah, I plan to show a couple new things during the KS period. I'm trying to be disciplined. Also in a couple cases something is NEARLY ready to show but needs a bit of work or fixing up first, I might be doing that sorta thing if I ever get away from all the social media wackamole.

 

[jimjonjimmy]

Wow, this looks really good. If this comes to Wii U I'm getting it guaranteed.

 

[Dmax3901]

Looks amazing and I backed it a couple of days ago.

My only request would be to have lots of story stuff, data logs that you can find and collect, that flesh out the world and give backstory and so on, that sort of thing.

 

[DualX]

This looks fantastic! I'm really excited to see that it has been fully backed so that we'll all be able to jump back into what seems to be a true spiritual successor to Super Metroid. I can't wait!

Ghost Song on the Vita would just be icing on the cake.

 

[desu]

I plan to show a couple more things, I didn't know we'd already be funding in 2 days and everything would be moving so fast -- But yeah, I plan to show a couple new things during the KS period. I'm trying to be disciplined. Also in a couple cases something is NEARLY ready to show but needs a bit of work or fixing up first, I might be doing that sorta thing if I ever get away from all the social media wackamole.

Yeah, you basically loose a whole month dev time with the campaign as you're busy all day responding to people.

Totally looking forward to the bosses/mini bosses.

 

[Mupod]

the pet is already in the game -- it always was. you can see it in the videos and gifs and stuff. the only difference is that if we reach that goal, the pet will be able to do some more things.

Little blue floating thing.

I got way too attached to my Mag in PSO. I couldn't imagine using anything but Apsaras after having that big bastard floating around behind me for hundreds of hours.

So yeah, that feature's already a hit with me.

 

[CeruleanSilver]

This looks fantastic! The preview video totally hits the Super Metroid lonely planet atmosphere– love the music, art, and feel. I've never backed anything, but I can't wait to play this and just kicked-in.

 

[Jobbs]

This looks fantastic! The preview video totally hits the Super Metroid lonely planet atmosphere– love the music, art, and feel. I've never backed anything, but I can't wait to play this and just kicked-in.

thanks I can't wait to get started remaking the game with balls to the wall everything!

I got way too attached to my Mag in PSO. I couldn't imagine using anything but Apsaras after having that big bastard floating around behind me for hundreds of hours.

So yeah, that feature's already a hit with me.

this brings back memories like hell. I played the fuck out of this game -- It was my first real online game. I had my dial up connection going into my dreamcast. I remember the latency seeming uncannily good for the time, and I quickly speculated that what was going on on the screen was full of paradoxes. But it didn't stop the fun. Playing that game with my friends (and we occasionally got a little naughty when it came to other people dropping their stuff, I must admit) and all the laughs we had remains among my favorite gaming memories.

 

[CTLance]

Oh please, put some PSO cameos in the game. A deceased crew member named Rico Tyrell or a damaged message recorded by Red Ring Rico would be awesome and not too damaging to the immersion, methinks.

 

[Messofanego]

yep, amazed by the response, and will not forget it. neogaf and kickstarter have made this possible. neogaf will get SOME form of reference somewhere in the game (not sure what yet, but I must do this) and I also committed to reserve 5% of the retail proceeds from Ghost Song to give to other KS projects. I'd love to money bomb someone with a great project in their darkest hour.

Can I suggest TANGIERS, surreal Thief-inspired game made by 2 UK guys? They're on their last push.

EDIT: nevermind, your kickstartet wont be finished by then. Oh well, worth a try.

Tangiers Kickstarter

Greenlight Page

 

[DracoBlade]

The sense of isolation, the cruelly cold atmosphere....

 

[fred]

Looking great so far. A Wii U SKU should be a no brainer too, dev kits are cheap and you get free use of Unity, Havok middleware, Autodesk middleware and Greenhill's MULTI IDE. Plus Nintendo are apparently loaning dev kits out to indies temporarily, letting developers set their own prices and released dates, not charging developers for patches and are rumoured to be offering a similar cut of sales as Steam does. Plus the GamePad would be awesome for a game like this.

If it comes to the Wii U I'll jump on it on day one, I've bought every single indie game from the eShop so far and haven't been disappointed.

 

[RawNuts]

Nice stretch goals you've added there.

 

[Jobbs]

Looking great so far. A Wii U SKU should be a no brainer too, dev kits are cheap and you get free use of Unity, Havok middleware, Autodesk middleware and Greenhill's MULTI IDE. Plus Nintendo are apparently loaning dev kits out to indies temporarily, letting developers set their own prices and released dates, not charging developers for patches and are rumoured to be offering a similar cut of sales as Steam does. Plus the GamePad would be awesome for a game like this.

If it comes to the Wii U I'll jump on it on day one, I've bought every single indie game from the eShop so far and haven't been disappointed.

I'm close to making a decision on the wii u thing. I talked to Adelman over email. It does sound doable. Suffice it to say there are costs beyond just getting the dev kit.

I also just made contact with someone from sony and I'm going to find out what's going on with PS4 if I can.

 

[one_kill]

Congrats on the funding success Jobbs! I hope you at least reach $30,000 before the funding ends!

 

[Fireblend]

Well, he needs less than $1k a day to reach the 40k goal so I'd say chances are very good. Consider the surge in funding we'll start seeing if he offers a final Wii U version stretch goal and I'd say those extra features are pretty much confirmed

 

[everyday math]

I'm close to making a decision on the wii u thing. I talked to Adelman over email. It does sound doable. Suffice it to say there are costs beyond just getting the dev kit.

I also just made contact with someone from sony and I'm going to find out what's going on with PS4 if I can.

Now this is awesome news.

 

[Jack Cayman]

Backed if a Wii U version would be available later I would prefer this version. That gamepad off TV Play would be awesome.