Studio Besus Demo Disc

BesusDemo01Nostalgia is something all too common for me and in my most recent bout of it, Playstation demo discs attacked. Going through many of my older ones, I yearned for the exciting days of getting a new one. I discovered countless games I otherwise never would have thanks to them; Ape Escape, Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater, and Bloody Roar just to name a few. With broadband internet as common as it is and demos becoming less and less common for games, they are certainly a dying (already dead?) breed. I wanted to change that, or at the very least, revisit my nostalgia.

To do so, I decided to use my engine of choice: Unity. Thanks to the System.Diagnostics namespace, I am able to open external executables from the “launcher” using: Process.Start(path to exe). But before launching the demo, I open a brief description of the game and give the user the chance to back out or start it. Upon doing so, I pause the music and bring up a new UI message to indicate a demo has been launched. To keep the “optical disc” feel of the Playstation demo discs, I make extensive use of Movie Textures to showcase the currently selected item as well as to play a full screen movie (but this is done an a separate canvas).

Overall I am very satisfied with the feel of it all and even designed it so demo configurations, videos, descriptions, and titles can easily be swapped out for other games and/or specific game studio collections.

Download the Studio Besus Demo Collection here!

Rewired Firewing 64 – v2.1

While not frequent, I had received word that some controllers did not work in Firewing 64. To address this, I have completely overhauled the input system by integrating Rewired in to the project. This will support virtually every imaginable controller you can run on a PC as well as make for a much more streamlined interface for remapping the keys, adjusting sensitivity, and inverting axis.

Firewing_Input01

In addition, I also fixed a bug where the crystal count would not persist between sessions. This meant that after collecting a crystal and exiting the game, your count would return to 0 and the crystal previously collected still registered that it had been.

Though not as exciting as the updates made in version 2.0, at least now it is 100% more playable for those who had controller input issues (or wanted play to correctly persist between sessions)!

Download version 2.1.0 here or on the Downloads page.

Massive update to make Firewing 64 v2.0

Firewing64_v2_MountainTopShortly after the release of the original version of Firewing 64, it was met with generally positive feedback. A number of these people also offered suggestions on ways to improve the game in general, so I took those to heart (at least the ones that I agreed with) and got to work!

First and foremost, just because the game is inspired by the Nintendo 64 3D platformers doesn’t mean it has to be ugly. I used the Nintendo 64 style to be lazy (for lack of a better word). So I improved and updated all of the textures, while still retaining that distinct Nintendo 64 style.

Firewing64_v2_VillageLookoutNext was the geometry. There were parts that I didn’t like, and in general everything seemed to “sharp”. The Nintendo 64 could only do so many polygons so I didn’t want to give up the limited number being used here. Simple fix: apply smoothing groups to all of the geometry.

With the game looking much better, I turned my attention to the controls. Some people had mentioned that they didn’t like the button layouts and the inability to use the mouse to control the camera. That too has been fixed. I was able to reduce the button usage by doubling-up some of them. For example, there is no longer a dedicated button to ground pound. Now that is performed by quickly-tapping attack while in the air. In addition, the character now jumps higher based on how long the jump button is pressed (a staple in any 3D platformer really). In addition, footstep sounds were added as was a wing flapping sound while gliding.

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Firewing 64 updated to version 1.1

Just one day after release, Firewing 64 has been updated to version 1.1. After input from the community, I have implemented a number of changes which include:

  • A dash ability – hold down (what was previously the ground pound button) to nearly double your run speed! Granted you can’t attack while dashing, so be cautious!
  • Faster attacking – no longer bound by an attack every second!
  • Easier to jump on enemies – larger hit boxes and a reduced size on their attack boxes makes them much easier (and fun) to jump on!
  • Couple other minor tweaks (holes in the level geometry for example).

Firewing 64 is also now on Itch.IO!

Oh and I created a trailer for the game as well!

Download version 1.1 here!

Firewing 64 – Version 1.0

FirewingBoxArt_N64

If you are familiar with my original project (the one that taught me how use Unity and to program) Besus: Journey for Vitality, you should know I’m a huge fan of the 64-bit era of 3D Platforming games. That being said, I decided to do one in the style of a Nintendo 64 game, including low polygon counts, hard edges, and over-blurred textures! While it may just be single level (albeit it a large one), there is plenty to do and to collect! So give it a shot (download link below) and let me know if you find any bugs or have any suggestions as to how I could improve it!

Download Firewing 64 (version 1.0)!