Micro Mages

[miau]

Thanks for all your feedback and sorry for the late response. We've been overwhelmed by the response the Kickstarter has been getting the last couple of days.

I absolutely love your vide on storage management! I especially found it interesting how you use shifted symetric designs for your maps. It feels like a pretty severe limitation "just" to save 50%, but I bet it had an interesting effect on how stages are perceived as well.
The first part about sprite design is really useful if I ever want to introduce a pixel artist to NES graphics, though.
The only "problem" is that I think you're very fast at glancing over what's so unique about an NROM cartridge, and why it's cool that this game is going for it.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZWQ0591PAxM

Shared the Kickstarter with a bunch of guys and I think it got you at least a few more backers. :P I think you'll have no trouble meeting the goal.

The funny thing about the mirroring limitation is that we felt it gave the levels a much stronger identity and we could even improve level design in many locations despite it, mainly because of redesigning/going over all levels a second and third time.

We cited Super Mario Bros. as an example for NROM, which still seems to be regarded as the holy grail of game development achievements by many. If that does not sell the coolness factor of NROM, then I don't know what does. :-)

Thanks for your support!

Seriously impressive!

What software did you use to make that tech video?

Nicolas, the artist, used After Effects. Took him many months and he completely wrecked his PC in the process. :-)

Makes me wonder if something like AviSynth/VapourSynth could be used to create videos like this programmatically, at a much faster pace and without losing your sanity. After you spent half of your life writing a code base for it, that is.

Is there a demo? Would love to see it in action.

Sorry, no demo. We think the game gets really fun once you familiarized yourself with the controls. From world 2 onward or so. We assume people who paid money are more likely to give the game a thorough play.

Also, we did not want to spoil the fun of getting a new game CIB, unboxing and playing it for the first time. Although that would be up to the individual person, of course.

[FrankenGraphics]

After Effects [...] and he completely wrecked his PC in the process

I know what this feels like! After Effects is awesome, but veeeery hungry once your project grows. My old pc didn't like the situation.

Congrats on going past 1k backers!

[Lazycow]

The design of the videos and the kickstarter page itself is very slick!
And I like the idea of mirroring and shifting background block rows while storing the levels. Thanks for sharing!

The FAQ claims that Rainworrior's Antoine's building the cartridges? Is he the only one who will build all the carts? Because currently it looks like the kickstarter can attract over 2000 supporters easily...

[rainwarrior]

The FAQ claims that Rainworrior's building the cartridges? Is he the only one who will build all the carts?

???

[toggle switch]

antoine who did twin dragons is making the carts.

not sure why you thought brad was on it.

[Lazycow]

The FAQ claims that Rainworrior's building the cartridges? Is he the only one who will build all the carts?

Oops, NOT Rainworrior, sorry.

[rainwarrior]

The 'o' in there makes me think there's some mirror-universe Rainwario out there building cartridges.

[Broke Studio]

The FAQ claims that Rainworrior's Antoine's building the cartridges? Is he the only one who will build all the carts? Because currently it looks like the kickstarter can attract over 2000 supporters easily...

Yep, it seems that I'll have a lot of fun work to do

[Nioreh]

This looks super! Backed!

[koitsu]

The 'o' in there makes me think there's some mirror-universe Rainwario out there building cartridges. ;)

You're hereby known as rainworrier. ;-)

[Banshaku]

@miau

Oh well, just wanted to see it in action out of curiosity. Will the digital version be available later in any other way? It's not that 8$ is a lot, more that I do not have any way to pay online these days. In Japan, we are a paper society even though people want to think otherwise. Never used a credit card, can buy online and ask to pay at the convenience store (I'm not joking here). There is some cashless thing that work only in Japan but rarely use them (edy, suica, sugoca etc).

I may be interested later once I find how to pay for it.

[miau]

The design of the videos and the kickstarter page itself is very slick!
The FAQ claims that Rainworrior's Antoine's building the cartridges? Is he the only one who will build all the carts? Because currently it looks like the kickstarter can attract over 2000 supporters easily...

Yes, we discussed with him at length how much he can (and wants to) handle. We also set what we think is a generous (for him and us) estimated date of delivery on the rewards. On the "2nd batch" of rewards that is now available, we set an even later date, just in case.

Will the digital version be available later in any other way?

Yes, it will be!

[Banshaku]

Ok, good to know! I don't think there will be a famicom version, isn't it?

[miau]

I'd say a Famicom version is not out of the question, but there probably won't be one anytime soon.

[Banshaku]

Except for the Japanese market, the demand may be low so for now it's not a priority. I'm just one of those "odd-case" that don't have a nes anymore (should have never sold it before moving ^^;;)