Super Mario Bros. X Forums

[center]GRAPHIC REVAMP IN PROGRESS[/center]

Astral Dreamers is a platform game featuring large, exploritive worlds similar to Super Mario 64 and Banjo Kazooie!

Planned Release Date: TBD

GAMEPLAY:
The game takes inspirations from Kirby, Klonoa, and Freedom Planet in terms of combat, with level design inspired by Super Mario 64 and Sunshine, each stage split into 7 missions like the DS port of 64. There are a lot of alternate paths and hidden areas to explore. The stages aren't the usual platforming "go from A to B" however.

-As of now, there isn't really a plot.-

CHARACTERS:
Ankhe-
A jackal with the mark of Anubis. She wants to rid the world of nightmares so the living and the dead can rest in peace.

Indigo-
A timid street artist who was brought into this journey by a mysterious anubian jackal. Voiced by Mateus "Ryleth" Criken.
sprite not yet final

Alto-
A musician who's dream is to compose the world's greatest composition that will be unmatched by any other work out there, but the nightmares have impeded his work. Very patient and mostly calm. Voiced by Drake "Ducky" York.

Vanta-
A warlock of mysterious power, willing to fight the nightmares with the power of his Eternal Flames. Easily pissed off. Voiced by Ryan "Weegeesquare" Ellis.

There will be many other characters in the final, however they have not been sprited yet.

(Sprites will get shaded in the future, don't worry!)


Screenshots! I'll be gradually updating this topic as I make more progress on the game.

LOOKING FOR HELP!
I need a few additional writers to proofread the story (when I have one), a few more VAs, and a few beta testers. I may need more help in the future, but if anyone is willing to be part of the team right now, please PM me what you would like to do on the game team and you may be considered.

why are the characters furries

I saw the part about early development, so these must be just the ideas for now. I'd like to see everything shaded the same way. Compared to the tileset, the characters are cartoon-like, and the flame (or smoke?) is too realistic. Bring them just a little closer together, and it will look a lot better.

On the side, I can probably relate to Alto already.

this game is going to have carol isnt it

Me again. This actually looks more like Within A Deep Forest than I first thought. But it would probably have very different music.

Taking care of feedback.

AeroMatter wrote:why are the characters furries

I don't know, why is Mario a human?

mechamind wrote:I saw the part about early development, so these must be just the ideas for now. I'd like to see everything shaded the same way. Compared to the tileset, the characters are cartoon-like, and the flame (or smoke?) is too realistic. Bring them just a little closer together, and it will look a lot better.

On the side, I can probably relate to Alto already.

The graphics will definitely get closer before the final release. Right now, just getting all 6 main characters sprited is the big thing.

Nien wrote:this game is going to have carol isnt it

If GalaxyTrail gives me permission to add her as DLC, I will.

then I'll promptly add my fursona to the game and make it a semi-canon ship

mechamind wrote:Me again. This actually looks more like Within A Deep Forest than I first thought. But it would probably have very different music.

Never heard of it :/

Yeah, I actually got myself a composer/remixer to do some music for the game. The remixer part comes from the fact I'm also doing a few songs for the game... In Advanced Mario Sequencer.

Okay, update time!

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We have ourselves a new character!



Her name is Ankhe, a jackal with the mark of Anubis. I need a VA for her, so if anyone wants to audition, feel free!

But wait, there's MORE!

This alternate costume, Anubis' Love, will be obtainable by early supporters of the game. It'll first be obtainable with a save file patcher that will be made for the sole purpose of enabling this costume. Then, sometime in August, I'll be releasing a demo of the game that will also enable it if the first stage is beaten. Once the second demo rolls around, this costume will no longer be obtainable.

Anyways, that's all. I start school in a few days so hopefully I can get feedback from my fellow peers as well!

Oookay, so no one has any comments on Ankhe.

I know how I'll be distributing the alt costume now as well:

At NCFC, I'll be releasing a demo of the game, and the reward for completing it is the alt. costume. That's it

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New screenshot!

I listened to your guys' suggestions, I added some outlines to the tileset!
Also, mystery jar! <w<

Weegeesquare wrote:Oookay, so no one has any comments on Ankhe.

It's because everything you've shown so far looks terrible, and nobody has the heart to tell you. Characters are badly drawn, your screenshots look like 5 second MS Paint drawings... and that's really all you've shown. However, I'm not holding my breath for amazing gameplay. I'd be surprised if this will be even remotely playable.

Ace wrote:Characters are badly drawn, your screenshots look like 5 second MS Paint drawings

You clearly don't know about the countless Five Nights at Freddy fangames posted by Marionette long ago.

The drawings by Weegeesquare do at least have detail. There's still plenty of room for improvement, but I feel it's getting somewhere.

Now as for the gameplay, I figure it will take a while to do the code for something like this.

Astral Dreamers is a platform game featuring open-world exploration similar to Super Mario 64.

do u know what super mario 64 is

I love Mario 64 as an little kid back in the 1990's.

Welp, looks like Nien predicted the future. I think Ankhe is missing some clothes... and the contrast between the black and yellow makes my eyes hurt.

You're planning to release this in 2017? Looks like a bunch of Game Maker tutorials combined into one... thing. I highly doubt you will be able to finish this game in time based on your ambitious ideas.

Unless you're planning on making the game really short and half-assed, I'd suggest pushing the release date a few years later and much more practice in sprite work. Since you haven't shown us any gameplay, I'm guessing you are still working on the basic physics.

I'm the only one seeing the strong resemblance between this game's title and... Asriel Dreemurr?

Because I REALLY don't want to be the only one or I'll feel like one of "those" Undertale fans.

Anyways, keep up the hard work, I think it's more than obvious your game needs a lot of polish, and you probably won't be able to succeed alone considering the reach you are planning for your game, so good luck finding help.

I do think this little project has potential. What you've shown us so far does look promising, and i don't think the character sprites look that bad! They've got an unique style to them imo! But i do think you should improve on a few things, such as the shading on the characters and tilesets, and adding more detailed Backgrounds and BGO's, you know, something like this:

The 8-bit/16-bit Nintendo theme won't work with the current graphics. It's going to have to be a newer style.

mechamind wrote:The 8-bit/16-bit Nintendo theme won't work with the current graphics. It's going to have to be a newer style.

The current graphics are pretty bad

Snessy the duck wrote:I do think this little project has potential. What you've shown us so far does look promising, and i don't think the character sprites look that bad! They've got an unique style to them imo! But i do think you should improve on a few things, such as the shading on the characters and tilesets, and adding more detailed Backgrounds and BGO's, you know, something like this:

i agree with this completely, i think the project looks really good but could be way better if you made it look more like a mario game, or just make it about mario altogether.

Oooh! Lotsa' Spaghetti Thingies! Lemme go through these one by one.

Ace wrote:It's because everything you've shown so far looks terrible, and nobody has the heart to tell you.

Fun fact: I tell myself that every day.

Ace wrote:Characters are badly drawn, your screenshots look like 5 second MS Paint drawings... and that's really all you've shown.

No, 5 second MS paint looks like... this.

Ace wrote:However, I'm not holding my breath for amazing gameplay. I'd be surprised if this will be even remotely playable.

However, I'm not taking this post seriously because it's obvious you hate me though I've done nothing wrong, I've never even met you so what could I have done

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qig wrote:do u know what super mario 64 is

Do u know what exploritive worlds are, that's what M64 uses: big, explorative and fun worlds.

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YellowMe wrote:Welp, looks like Nien predicted the future.

Mind if I put a Shulk meme here?

YellowMe wrote:I think Ankhe is missing some clothes... and the contrast between the black and yellow makes my eyes hurt.

I'll work on finding a way to wash out the colors while still making it look fitting with the art style.

YellowMe wrote:You're planning to release this in 2017? Looks like a bunch of Game Maker tutorials combined into one... thing. I highly doubt you will be able to finish this game in time based on your ambitious ideas.

Oh, well, the coding is actually all done by myself. Kudos knowing I'm using Game Maker: Studio. Got it for Christmas quite a few years ago!

Perhaps 2017 is a little too enthusiastic. I guess I'll just release it when it's ready

YellowMe wrote:Unless you're planning on making the game really short and half-assed, I'd suggest pushing the release date a few years later and much more practice in sprite work. Since you haven't shown us any gameplay, I'm guessing you are still working on the basic physics.

The physics do need work, but it's definitely playable right now. I can't show gameplay because... I have a Windows XP laptop with an Intel Atom processor. I'm not lying about this, any recording software grinds the system to a snail's pace unless I make it so poor quality it's unwatchable.

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Garro wrote:I'm the only one seeing the strong resemblance between this game's title and... Asriel Dreemurr?

It's loosely based on the concept of Astral Projection, not Serial Murderers.

Garro wrote:Because I REALLY don't want to be the only one or I'll feel like one of "those" Undertale fans.

Just watch WhoisthisGit's video about why he hates the game; that's pretty much my entire opinion on it as well.

Garro wrote:Anyways, keep up the hard work, I think it's more than obvious your game needs a lot of polish, and you probably won't be able to succeed alone considering the reach you are planning for your game, so good luck finding help.

Thank you!

Yeah, I need to do some serious polish. I honestly wouldn't consider it in alpha phase yet. But I've got a team... not a big one, but a team nonetheless.

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Snessy the duck wrote:I do think this little project has potential. What you've shown us so far does look promising, and i don't think the character sprites look that bad! They've got an unique style to them imo!

Art style is based off how I actually draw IRL. Not sure if that's good or not.

Snessy the duck wrote:But i do think you should improve on a few things, such as the shading on the characters and tilesets, and adding more detailed Backgrounds and BGO's, you know, something like this: [Insert the Mayros]

Kiiiiiinda already know graphics need work. Thanks anyway!

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BTB wrote:i agree with this completely, i think the project looks really good but could be way better if you made it look more like a mario game, or just make it about mario altogether.

You... want me to downgrade my game, with original concepts, ideas, and everything else... to a FANGAME?!

Aside from being called an attention whore and I should kill myself by an artist with an ego bigger than Jupiter probably, that's probably one thing I never needed to hear. To hear my idea sucks and I should make fangames.

Not that I haven't made them already.

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But seriously, I want to make something original. Even though the game looks like absolute shit right now, I can assure everyone that the final product will be something amazing. I've begun to work on shading the graphics and everything, shown here, but only when a character's sprites are done being drawn is when I'll start on shading.

Like I said, perhaps 2017 is too ambitious, so I'll take a deadline off the game so I can flesh it out more. Lots of games have taken much longer than they should have to be made (coughcoughMightyNumber9coughcough), and though a few don't follow the rule...

A delayed game is eventually good, but a rushed game is forever bad.


I'm really glad you guys have given me criticism to think about. So... here's an idea I came up with earlier today.

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If you guys have played Triple Deluxe and Robobot, you know about the keychains and stickers. This gave me an idea...

throughout the stages, there are pins to collect. Not only will they be fun to look at, but your character could equip them in the HUB World (named REM's Rememberance, going back to the dreaming concept ) for some additional boosts or whatever in-game!

For example...

One pin may give you an energy shard bonus for defeating an enemy, or another may increase your current HP or AP.

But others may remove health pickups from the stages or weaken you, but in exchange you earn more money or stuff at the end of the stage for using them.

It's just an idea. Please give feedback!

Weegeesquare wrote:

BTB wrote:i agree with this completely, i think the project looks really good but could be way better if you made it look more like a mario game, or just make it about mario altogether.

You... want me to downgrade my game, with original concepts, ideas, and everything else... to a FANGAME?!

Aside from being called an attention whore and I should kill myself by an artist with an ego bigger than Jupiter probably, that's probably one thing I never needed to hear. To hear my idea sucks and I should make fangames.

i mean no disrepect, ill likely play and enjoy this no matter if you follow my suggestions, i just think adding more mario features or making it into a full mario game will do nothing but enhance it. and sometimes fangames do become canon mario nintendo games, just look at the wario series.

Weegeesquare wrote:No, 5 second MS paint looks like... this.

get ur head out of your ass, big boy, I'm talking about the tiles and background, which definitely could be made in 2 seconds (not that the characters look much better)
I mean, if you think this game is even remotely presentable in the state it's in now, then that's pretty worrying.

Weegeesquare wrote: However, I'm not taking this post seriously because it's obvious you hate me though I've done nothing wrong, I've never even met you so what could I have done

That's a beautiful logical fallacy dude, "you're just a hater so your opinion doesn't matter", just beautiful.
Like I said before, the reason I don't have high hopes is because you think this is actually presentable as it is now.