AGDG DEMO DAY 68

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A jam submission

Can You Beat Chroma?View game page

Play the game of your childhood, and try to beat it using guides and glitches.

Submitted by rioreur — 2 days, 23 hours before the deadline

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Can You Beat Chroma?'s itch.io page

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brimstonewalker191 days ago(+1)

https://www.twitch.tv/videos/2766992406

I sometimes watch pokemon and romhack vids on youtube, so the concept is not alien to me, but I'm too much of a scrub to perform those tricks myself. And yeah, sorry, I may be a bit too dumb to read everything properly. Sorry, that's on me.

But it... feels? or seems? extremely accurate and faithful to the actual glitch/exploit experience, which is extremely cool! Absolutely loved it!
Though I think it's a bit too... railroady, I guess? Pokemon games feel much more open by themselves, while this game feels like you actually must use hacks and glitches to proceed. Which is fine, since this game is about hacking a pokemon-like, but also feels a bit too restrictive imo - like you're hitting a wall immediately at start. It's not really a complaint, just something I felt. Don't know if that was your goal or not. It's probably fine for a metagame about hacking an old game, but the game itself (the game inside the game, that is) feels a bit too restrictive.

But kudos for making it feel authentic, it's great! Actually amazing, absolutely loved it.

rioreurDeveloper190 days ago (7 edits) (+1)

Thanks a lot for trying it out!

What you're talking about is one of the hard balancing aspect of my game... There is the goal of my game (performing glitch to go forward) and the goal of the game inside the game (collecting the 8 badges? Catching them all? I don't know).

Those goals are kinda opposite to each other because the first is more about research, experimentation, and managing to unlock progression through new discoveries, while the other is more about a steady adventure you can go through by level uping your creature, finding better ones, using items, etc.

One is more of a puzzle game, while the other is more of an adventure game.

If I try to have them both, one tends to prevent the other from working.
For example, I didn't put a leveling system in my game because if I did, the chromatic creatures would become useless (as you could just grind your way to victory). And the duplication glitches could make the battles too easy if they were planed for a more "normal" type of game.

So yeah, how the game feels right now is intentional. It's not perfect, but I want to have those roadblocks and I want to focus on the puzzle aspect. My priority is to convey the feeling of discovery. Of progressing in a way not planed by the game. I want this game to be about emergent gamplay.
Though I don't want them to be skill checks, and I don't want them to prevent the player from doing anything.

I actually added a few systems to help with that. For example, there is an auto-correction when you try to get a chromatic creature if you miss it by a frame or two (which can be increased in the option menu by the way, if you struggle).

I also plan to add other stuff so you're not so "alone" when you get stuck (instead of a big game manual you have to analyse, I plan to have something a bit more interactive to get hints and instructions).

Anyway, thanks again for the your feedbacks.

I'm watching the stream VOD right now, I'll answer the questions said there once I'm done

rioreurDeveloper190 days ago (5 edits) (+1)

Ok, I'm done watching the video.

God, those are always so weird. On the one hand it's super cool to watch someone play your game, but on the other, it's really hard to not feel awkward about it xD.

Anyway, some very interesting points were brought up :

The tablet would be better if it was a booklet : YES, absolutely right, and that was the original plan... But it took more space (as you would need to fit two pages in the screen if you wanted to be coherent) and it required additional animations and sound effect for the page flipping. At the end of the day, I went with something simpler to get shit done... Also, the tablet will work better with what I have planed in the future.
Waiting isn't fun, that could be a problem : Indeed, at least when discovering the game. Though since waiting is important to the mechanics, it's not really easy to completely remove it... If I want to make it so you need to wait less when searching for a chromatic creature, either I make it so they are easier to find (which means people could completely ignore the mechanic and just try their luck by resetting the game a lot), or I increase the frequency of random calls (which makes the timing harder). Though I have tools to help with that, and can change that independently for each creature... Maybe I should make Tortolodon easier to get just so people can get into the game with minimal amount of waiting...
I hope the game isn't as precise as the real game when it comes to RNG manipulation : it isn't. Real pokemon games back then ran at 60 FPS, so you needed to be precise to a 1/60th of a second for those manipulation. In my game though, I slowed down the RNG so it's only 1/16th of a second, and I also added an "Encounter Assist" which automatically corrects the result of the RNG if it is only one frame off, so it's actually 3/16th of a second. You can also change this encounter assist in the options. It can go up to 17/16th of a second if you really struggle (so about a full second of leeway). Though this feature isn't very visible... Maybe I should add a difficulty screen when first starting the game...
We don't know if we're too early or too late : I wanted to add speach bubbles to your "outside of game" character which would say things like "arf, too early" or "arf, too late", to give you an hint. I ended up cutting it because of time, and because the "outside of game character" narration I initially planned was trashed in the end... Maybe I should add it back.
The sea near the side of the island is square : Indeed. I could create additional sprites, but at the end of the day, I think it has some retro-charm x). I might change my mind though...
The controller seems to not be optimal : actually, you showed an issue with my game I hadn't anticipated. Based on what I saw, I assume you have a 4K monitor, or at least a 2K. I set the cursor speed based on my own monitor which is a 1080p monitor, so the cursor ended up being two or even four times slower than what I intended for you. I need to scale that with screen size... Although, two things that you missed I think : the game console can fully be controlled using controller without having to rely on the cursor, and you can change the cursor speed in the option. It's better on keyboard and mouse, but I think the game still remains pretty playable on controller.

And yeah, you definitely speed through the manual and its instruction which resulted in some mistakes, but it is a tough read, I understand that. You still managed to get 3 chromatic creatures so I guess it still somewhat worked as intended xD.

Anyway, thanks again for playing! And having two people watching you play and comment, as well as a twitch chat reacting is definitely precious feedbacks

brimstonewalker190 days ago (1 edit)

No worries, we had a lot of fun playing it!
The reading issue is definitely on me, because usually I just skim through text and go back if it didn't work. I'm kinda impatient lol.

>The tablet would be better if it was a booklet
I feel like if you want to go with the tablet guide - maybe you could emulate GameFAQs look&feel instead of a PDF? I think we mentioned it on stream. And it would definitely fit into the overall feel of a retro game being played (I still look up some stuff on GameFAQs for some older games that I replay every now and then)

>Waiting isn't fun, that could be a problem
I honestly don't think waiting turned out to be as bad once I figured out how to do it (aka - read the manual properly lol). That, and being less precise with the RNG is probably okay. So I dunno, it might just be a bump in the learning curve. I caught the third shiny on my own volition just because I could, so there's that. Initial attempts were a bit frustrating, but having a manual right there next to the cartridge definitely helped with that.

Also - side note - I just remembered - maybe you could add some SFX to the flipper device used to hack/assist with the glitches? To the buttons and stuff? I recall some parts of the game being a bit too silent in terms of user inputs. But again - maybe it's just me.

>We don't know if we're too early or too late
Yeah, I can absolutely see why you have concerns about that. I honestly don't know how to fix/help with that. Maybe you could add a "kotaku journalist playing cuphead" option in the menu, that adds some OOC speech bubbles with hints?
I don't think it's needed, but I also have some knowledge about rom hacks/glitches, so I might be a bit more in the know about that. Dunno about an average person though.

>The sea near the side of the island is square
This is probably something WAY beyond your scope, and a pointless feature that nobody would ever notice - but you could try limiting yourself to 96 sprites per scene (the limit of actual GB hardware). That would both give you an out when people are complaining about "square edges" and give you something cool to brag about. But that might be extremely... niche and not worth the trouble.
I didn't even notice the issue, but I'm not an artistic person, so there's that.

>The controller seems to not be optimal
Yeah, full native 4K. I get lots of issues with that, but... good for playtesting and finding issues causing by large resolution lol?
I ended up not using the controller. Maybe I should've used it just for console and kb+m for everything else for extra immersion - that could've been cool - but I didn't think that far ahead lol.

>So yeah, how the game feels right now is intentional
Yeah, I get that, which is why I'm not complaining. It's just that I have experience with pokemon games, so it took a bit to readjust myself. So no worries.

Thank you very much for the demo, and I hope our playthrough helped. Please keep it up, its a very unique and interesting demo!

rioreurDeveloper190 days ago(+1)

About SFX, that's clearly the less polish aspect of my game. I did that last, and I have absolutely no experience on how to do proper sound design (mind you, I also had absolutely no experience doing music... But I had more time and motivation left in me xD).
You don't have sound for most of the "desk items" (as, game manual, encounter tool, etc.), you also don't have sound for attacks, nor for the different creatures... I kept it to the strict minimum so it's functional, but at one point I will need to tackle that issue...

The fact that you have a 4K monitor is actually really nice for me because I wasn't able to test the game at that resolution (only up to 2K). And even if the gamepad cursor didn't work as intended, the automatic scaling of every "desk items" as well as the HUD did, which is great!

It would have been problematic if the game console screen was outside of the window xD

brimstonewalker190 days ago(+1)

I don't know your workflow for music/SFX - but I think this VST might help (most DAWs support VSTs, so you probably won't have any problems)
Dunno if it will actually help you or not - but I'd use it for retro sfx. You could just play one note, and pitch-shift it around for different buttons.

But yeah, I understand you had time constraints and stuff, no worries.

rioreurDeveloper189 days ago(+1)

I actually just discovered what "VST" and "DAW" means right now :V

I did all the musics using JummBox (which I learnt to use specifically for this game), and did the few SFX either by using jsfxr, or recording things with my headset microphone xD.
(If you're wondering by the way, the "click" of the game console in the game is actually from an actual OG gameboy)

I'll try to look into what you sent, but it will be low on my priority list x)

brimstonewalker189 days ago

Oh, gotcha. Never heard of JummBox and jsfxr before, but yeah, they seem like pretty decent free tools.

Cool detail about the click sfx, didn't notice it, but it's also been way too long since I touched my GBC (and it's in another city). But that's a very nice touch!

Don't worry about the VST if you're not familiar with those, if you got your workflow working already - then it's cool. Just wanted to share stuff that I thought might be helpful.

LiteralWhoDevSubmitted196 days ago (1 edit) (+1)

Tried it out, it already feels polished, nice art, nice music and SFX, it fits together well. I don't think I ran into any bug while playing. Very cool gimmick, unique game, I've never hacked a pokemon game or anything but it really feels like an introduction to it

I liked how responsive the UI is as well, feels nice to just reboot the gameboy instead of navigating menus to restart and stuff

Submitted

rioreurDeveloper195 days ago (1 edit) (+1)

Thanks a lot for the let's play video!
It's always super useful to have those around to see what works as intended and what doesn't. The latest version changed the game manual to guide the player more through the early game, and at least for you it seems to have worked as intended.

I'm surprised to have compliments on the SFX though, because for me that's the thing that is the most lacking xD

ManusCSubmitted196 days ago(+1)

Well this game proved me that I am not as good at following instructions as I thought I was. Still, I'm at awe.

I know you wrote that you just did it to learn making games and use GMS2, but I am still really impressed. Making a game inside of a game, writing a whole manual, telling enough, but still leaving things to figure out. The way the little game boy's buttons are pressed, all really nice.

Didn't quite figure out how to get the Chromatic version of the fish, but I am the second strongest trainer on the island. Cool game.

rioreurDeveloper195 days ago

Thanks, and congrats on the three stamps!

There isn't that much to know about how to get the Chromatic Eldalodon to be honest... I don't really consider that to be one of the "secrets" so if you want, I could quickly explain x)

ManusCSubmitted193 days ago

Yes please. From what I can tell, there is some randomness as you try to catch the fish in the minigame, that I am not sure how to calculate with the save editor.

rioreurDeveloper193 days ago (1 edit)

It isn't that different from what you did to get the Tortolodon at the start.

You prep as usual, with no delay on the encounter tool's timer, and you need to time the start of the battle to that timer.
The added difficulty just comes from having to keep the cursor on the fish while waiting for the timer to run out.

So yeah, if you want to see how it's done, Hap.dev did so in his video at 43:58 (the comment above yours)

Penguin GardenSubmitted197 days ago(+1)

Well it's certainly very unique, I don't think I've seen a concept like this in a game before. It's a bit too much effort for me though, I couldn't even do the first part properly. I think you'd have to be a big pokemon fan to be invested enough. It's also kind of hard to tell what exactly you did wrong.

It does look and play very well though, pretty impressive from a technical standpoint

Submitted

rioreurDeveloper197 days ago

Well, the base concept is pretty niche and I'm limited in what I can do to make it easier to tackle with.

There is an option to facilitate the timing required to get chromatic creature if you want ("Encounter Assist" in the "General" option menu).
It corrects your timing automatically if you are off by a small margin. You can crank it up to 8 if you want, which is about a second of leeway (-0.5 to 0.5 seconds around the correct timing).

But yeah, kinda hard to find a way to introduce all the concepts without getting boring. I have a plan for that in the future, but for now it's just a big game manual to read...

AzurdevSubmitted197 days ago

>Main character doesn't look like Konami

Mediocre -_-

Submitted

Children of Azur

rioreurDeveloper197 days ago

True :c