SkateCat (by SJ Games) NES/FAMICOM platformer

A place where you can keep others updated about your NES-related projects through screenshots, videos or information in general.

Moderator: Moderators

User avatar
dale_coop
Posts: 22
Joined: Sat Aug 04, 2018 1:44 pm

SkateCat (by SJ Games) NES/FAMICOM platformer

Post by dale_coop »

IMG_1406.JPG
A platform game made by SJ Games, my 10 year old son (Seiji). He made the game, designed the characters, the levels, the graphics, the animations,… Jordan Davis composed the soundtrack and I did the custom code.


STORY:

The city of Nekocity is no longer peaceful… Monsters from another dimension have been released and threaten to destroy the world.
Only one cat can save it: YOU!
Grab your skateboard and embark on this colorful journey of a thousand dangers.

-> Get the demo ROM here:
https://dale-coop.itch.io/skatecat-sj-games-nes


NES PHYSICAL EDITION:

Gray cart, with black sleeve, English/French game texts, English/Fench instruction manual, stickers:
aH1qwE.png
aH1qwE.png (104.58 KiB) Viewed 2738 times
Contact me if interested (a few copies left)


FAMICOM PHYSICAL EDITION:

Gray cart, Japanese/English/French game texts, Japanese/English instruction manual, stickers:
IMG_FDF.JPG
Contact me if interested (a few copies left)


CREDITS:

Created by SJ Games (story, gfx, chara design, level design)
NESmaker software (by Joe Granato / The New 8bit Heroes).
Custom code and debug by me (@dale_coop).
Music and sfx by my best buddy @Raftronaut.


FOLLOW THE PROJECT:

https://twitter.com/dale_coop
https://www.instagram.com/sj_games_seiji/


GAMEPLAY VIDEO:

https://youtu.be/scB6CeRmRdM
All I need: A damn fine cup of coffee!
User avatar
DRW
Posts: 2225
Joined: Sat Sep 07, 2013 2:59 pm

Re: SkateCat (by SJ Games) NES/FAMICOM platformer

Post by DRW »

Here's a suggestion:

When the game is scrolling, you should position the character in a way that it's horizontally centered on the screen.
In the moment, you have six blocks in front of the character and nine blocks behind it. Why do you position it in a way that you see less of what's in front of you and more of what's behind you?
My game "City Trouble":
Gameplay video: https://youtu.be/Eee0yurkIW4
Download (ROM, manual, artworks): http://www.denny-r-walter.de/city.html
User avatar
dink
Posts: 157
Joined: Sun Jan 12, 2020 8:42 pm

Re: SkateCat (by SJ Games) NES/FAMICOM platformer

Post by dink »

The game actually scrolls quite nicely, in all - a perfect game IMO!
User avatar
DRW
Posts: 2225
Joined: Sat Sep 07, 2013 2:59 pm

Re: SkateCat (by SJ Games) NES/FAMICOM platformer

Post by DRW »

I'm not talking about the scrolling itself, but about the character position during scrolling.
My game "City Trouble":
Gameplay video: https://youtu.be/Eee0yurkIW4
Download (ROM, manual, artworks): http://www.denny-r-walter.de/city.html
User avatar
dale_coop
Posts: 22
Joined: Sat Aug 04, 2018 1:44 pm

Re: SkateCat (by SJ Games) NES/FAMICOM platformer

Post by dale_coop »

We had a lot of tests about that (we made different versions with the player placed differently in the camera/scrolling). We finally ended with that placement.
All I need: A damn fine cup of coffee!
User avatar
DRW
Posts: 2225
Joined: Sat Sep 07, 2013 2:59 pm

Re: SkateCat (by SJ Games) NES/FAMICOM platformer

Post by DRW »

Well, it's your decision after all, but let me tell you this:

If you have a game that usually scrolls from left to right, it makes zero sense to have six visible blocks in front of you and nine blocks behind you. Why would you have more visible space of the stuff you already passed and less visible space of the things that are still in your way?

Can the game scroll in both directions? In this case, if you really must have a middle part where you can move around without the camera immediately scrolling, then I would suggest just a very small area, like in "Super Mario Bros. 3".
If the game scrolls only in one direction, it's even less justified.

I would suggest you should put the character in the middle when scrolling.
If the game scrolls only in one direction, then either in the middle or even more to the left than to the right.

Most good games do it this way:
"Super Mario Bros."
"Mega Man"
"Contra"
"Castlevania"

In my opinion, putting the character further to the right than to the left when the game scrolls left to right is a clear design flaw. There's just no reason to do this at all. What is the advantage? Why is it done? Why is this position the good position and further left would be worse?
My game "City Trouble":
Gameplay video: https://youtu.be/Eee0yurkIW4
Download (ROM, manual, artworks): http://www.denny-r-walter.de/city.html
Fiskbit
Posts: 890
Joined: Sat Nov 18, 2017 9:15 pm

Re: SkateCat (by SJ Games) NES/FAMICOM platformer

Post by Fiskbit »

Please try to keep suggestions friendly; design is all about trade-offs and it is often the case that one approach is not exclusively better than another.

There are lots of approaches with scrolling: you can have the character lead the camera, have the character locked in the center, or have the camera lead the character. SkateCat has the character lead the camera, which has the benefit that the player can move around a bit in the center of the screen with the camera stationary, which can be a nice effect, but comes at the cost of not having as much space to see what's coming when scrolling. This can make it harder to see upcoming enemies and obstacles, increasing the difficulty of the game in a way that may be frustrating, depending on the player and the design of the particular game. I don't think it's a problem here, because the character is still pretty close to the center of the screen and the scrolling speed isn't so fast that you don't have time to understand what's coming up and dodge.

There does seem to be a problem with the scrolling, though: when you stop holding right, the player slows down before stopping, and the screen doesn't scroll with the player during this slower movement. This puts the player closer to the right edge of the screen, and they have to go left a bit to reset it to the intended scrolling boundary. If you move and stop repeatedly, you eventually reach the very edge of the screen. This probably isn't what was intended. I suggest making the screen follow the player during this slower movement.


Regarding the other two scrolling behaviors I mentioned:
- Keeping the character locked in the center is probably the most common and seems to me like the easiest to get right, but it's not always desired behavior, especially when jumping. Some platformers, such as Super Mario World, try to limit vertical scrolling so that it only scrolls up when you land on a platform. As with having the player lead the camera, letting the player move without the screen scrolling can be a desirable effect.
- Having the camera lead the player gives you a much larger window to react to things scrolling in, which can make the game easier and provides more flexibility in the kinds of challenges you present the player. For a game that scrolls in only one direction, this is probably a really good solution, but if you scroll both ways, managing the camera when turning around becomes a really big problem. Some games will whip the camera around to very quickly have it lead in the other direction, which can be a very unpleasant effect. There are likely ways to make this better, but it probably won't feel as good to players as the other two approaches.
creaothceann
Posts: 610
Joined: Mon Jan 23, 2006 7:47 am
Location: Germany
Contact:

Re: SkateCat (by SJ Games) NES/FAMICOM platformer

Post by creaothceann »

My current setup:
Super Famicom ("2/1/3" SNS-CPU-GPM-02) → SCART → OSSC → StarTech USB3HDCAP → AmaRecTV 3.10
User avatar
dale_coop
Posts: 22
Joined: Sat Aug 04, 2018 1:44 pm

Re: SkateCat (by SJ Games) NES/FAMICOM platformer

Post by dale_coop »

Oh wow, thank you for all those great and useful feedback.
I will keep that in mind and might change that for the future versions of the game (or for the new games).
All I need: A damn fine cup of coffee!
tepples
Posts: 22705
Joined: Sun Sep 19, 2004 11:12 pm
Location: NE Indiana, USA (NTSC)
Contact:

Re: SkateCat (by SJ Games) NES/FAMICOM platformer

Post by tepples »

creaothceann linked to the article "Scroll Back" by Itay Keren. It explains, among other things, how Super Mario World provides a space in front of the player when moving mostly in one direction while letting the player "move around a bit in the center of the screen with the camera stationary".
there are two anchors allowing wide forward view in whatever direction the player chooses to go. However even as the player starts heading back (which happens constantly in SMW), the camera will keep the target point until Mario hits a predefined threshold, and only then will it lock to the other anchor. This is extremely helpful with SMW’s frequent left/right motion that does not warrant a direction change.
Inspired by this, I wrote a more detailed description of camera behavior in Super Mario World and Yoshi's Island.
Pokun
Posts: 2675
Joined: Tue May 28, 2013 5:49 am
Location: Hokkaido, Japan

Re: SkateCat (by SJ Games) NES/FAMICOM platformer

Post by Pokun »

Yeah SMW and Yoshi's Island are both truly masterpieces that does everything right with both 2-way and 8-way scrolling and this is probably one of the best examples of good scrolling in any 2D platform game. It's not necessary to copy them to make good scrolling however, I think it depends on the feeling you are after with the game.

That said, I agree with everything DRW said, a game benefits from a scroll focus in the direction it is moving in by giving more screen space in that direction. The way scrolling works in this game makes it feel like the cat is a bit near-sighted, and you are sometimes forced to stop because you are surprised by what appears in front of you, which is at least hurting the pace of the game. Like Fiskbit said it's not a big problem in this game since the cat is actually quite near the center, but I don't really agree that there are any benefits at all with the current scrolling method, unless there is some reason the player needs to see behind him more than in front of him (which is not the case in the demo), so I'm kinda curious to why this method was considered the best.

I suppose the game is using the pushed camera window like Jump Bug uses in the above linked gamedeveloper article, but less extreme. They point out that this type of scrolling leaves a narrow lookahead margin. Rastan Saga improves it by moving the window away from center but that means the problem is not solved when moving left or upwards.
The benefit according to the article is that it only needs to scroll when necessary, saving CPU time, but that wouldn't really apply to the NES which has dedicated hardware that takes care of the scrolling.
User avatar
dale_coop
Posts: 22
Joined: Sat Aug 04, 2018 1:44 pm

Re: SkateCat (by SJ Games) NES/FAMICOM platformer

Post by dale_coop »

The player was even more to right in the first versions.
We moved it closer to the center, I mean… I tried. But my son, SJ, was not ok with that.

But again, I understand and I agree with you.
More centered might have been better…. But would have make it too easy (there are not a lot of monsters in the game).

Finally, the game is already released physically, since February. Hundreds of copy manufactured and has been sold in the world. Only 50 copies left
(if anyone is interested in buying a copy let me know)
Last edited by dale_coop on Sat Jun 03, 2023 6:11 am, edited 1 time in total.
All I need: A damn fine cup of coffee!
User avatar
DRW
Posts: 2225
Joined: Sat Sep 07, 2013 2:59 pm

Re: SkateCat (by SJ Games) NES/FAMICOM platformer

Post by DRW »

dale_coop wrote: Sat Jun 03, 2023 1:58 am But mommy son, SJ, was not ok with that.
Does he also hate "Super Mario Bros.", "Mega Man", "Contra", "Castlevania", "Ninja Gaiden", "Kirby", "Zelda - LttP" and "Super Metroid"? What does he play on the NES and SNES? Only "Secret of Mana"? I'm genuinely curious.
My game "City Trouble":
Gameplay video: https://youtu.be/Eee0yurkIW4
Download (ROM, manual, artworks): http://www.denny-r-walter.de/city.html
User avatar
dale_coop
Posts: 22
Joined: Sat Aug 04, 2018 1:44 pm

Re: SkateCat (by SJ Games) NES/FAMICOM platformer

Post by dale_coop »

I dont say he doesn’t like the scrolling in the games. I just wsh for his game, he prefered it like that. He felt it was « better » (for his tastes) the flow with the different traps and monsters and the difficulty.

He plays the Super Mario bros games, Kirby and Contrat. His favorite game is super Mario World SNES.

He doesn’t really like Rpg. (…Yet?)
All I need: A damn fine cup of coffee!
User avatar
Individualised
Posts: 309
Joined: Mon Sep 05, 2022 6:46 am

Re: SkateCat (by SJ Games) NES/FAMICOM platformer

Post by Individualised »

DRW wrote: Sat Jun 03, 2023 5:19 am
dale_coop wrote: Sat Jun 03, 2023 1:58 am But mommy son, SJ, was not ok with that.
Does he also hate "Super Mario Bros.", "Mega Man", "Contra", "Castlevania", "Ninja Gaiden", "Kirby", "Zelda - LttP" and "Super Metroid"? What does he play on the NES and SNES? Only "Secret of Mana"? I'm genuinely curious.
I find your tone on this thread a bit offensive. Your first post on this thread was only criticism which already struck me as odd. It's not a good look for newcomers to the forum. I know it's not my place.
Post Reply