Witch n' Wiz - Out Now!

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Goose2k
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Witch n' Wiz - Out Now!

Post by Goose2k »

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Witch n' Wiz is out now!

A new puzzle-platformer for the NES & PC!

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3 WAYS TO PLAY

Free in Browser on PiePacker: 
https://beta.piepacker.com/game/witchnwiz

Download the ROM via itch.io: 
https://mhughson.itch.io/witch-n-wiz

Buy a Limited Edition NES Cart from Limited Run Games (On sale until December 12th, 2021): 
https://limitedrungames.com/collections/witch-n-wiiz

Genre:

Turn-Based Puzzle Platformer (e.g. Fire n' Ice, Catrap, etc)

Technical Details:

* Targets Mapper 1 (MMC1 - SKROM).
* 128KB PRG-ROM (16KB Bank Swapping) + 128KB CHR-ROM (4KB CHR Window).
* Written in C (CC65) using NESLib and NESDoug/cppchris' MMC1 Helper libraries.
* Famitone5 sound engine (also by nesdoug).

Making of video: watch now!

Status:

Released!

Features:

* 100+ Levels
* New puzzle mechanics every 5-10 levels
* Battery Save
* Interactive story telling
* Rewind ability, to undo previous moves without restarting the entire puzzle
* Art by Kenneth Fejer, Daniel Turner (Alp317) and Haller Zoltan (Zolionline)
* Music by Tui

Physical Cart:

Available RIGHT NOW (until 11:59PM ET, December 12th, 2021) on Limited Run games. This is the only chance to buy a physical copy for at least a year!

https://limitedrungames.com/collections/witch-n-wiiz

Screenshots:

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Compo Version:

Witch n' Wiz was submitted as part of the 2020/21 NESDev Competition, and came in 2nd place. That build of the game can still be downloaded and played on itch (included in purchase of full game):

https://mhughson.itch.io/witch-n-wiz

You can read all about the development of that version in the compo thread here:

https://www.videogamesage.com/forums/to ... n-out-now/

Social Media:

Twitter: https://twitter.com/matthughson
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/groups/2788404591447894
Discord: https://discord.gg/DenmA4ssPY

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Last edited by Goose2k on Fri Dec 24, 2021 6:10 pm, edited 10 times in total.
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Goose2k
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Re: Witch n' Wiz - Puzzle Platformer

Post by Goose2k »

Now that the 2020/21 nesdev compo is done, I figured it is time to start an official thread for my current project: Witch n' Wiz.

I'll try to post here when I make major progress, but generally I do much more frequent updates on Twitter and Discord (links in Top Post).
lidnariq
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Re: Witch n' Wiz - Puzzle Platformer

Post by lidnariq »

Goose2k wrote: Sun Mar 28, 2021 10:11 pm
  • Targets Mapper 1 (MMC1).
  • 128KB PRG-ROM (8KB Bank Swapping) + 128KB CHR-ROM (4KB CHR Window).
uh. MMC1's an interesting choice ... and doesn't get you 8KB PRG bank swapping.
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Re: Witch n' Wiz - Puzzle Platformer

Post by haseeb_heaven »

Nice puzzle platform game everything from graphics to sound is amazing.
But i had some glitch in FCEUX emulator, but later i switched to Mesen so it worked fine there.
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Re: Witch n' Wiz - Puzzle Platformer

Post by Goose2k »

haseeb_heaven wrote: Wed Mar 31, 2021 12:51 pm Nice puzzle platform game everything from graphics to sound is amazing.
But i had some glitch in FCEUX emulator, but later i switched to Mesen so it worked fine there.
It requires FCEUX 2.3+ (You were on 2.2). Thanks for going the extra mile to find a working emulator though!
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Re: Witch n' Wiz - Puzzle Platformer

Post by haseeb_heaven »

Goose2k wrote: Wed Mar 31, 2021 1:01 pm
haseeb_heaven wrote: Wed Mar 31, 2021 12:51 pm Nice puzzle platform game everything from graphics to sound is amazing.
But i had some glitch in FCEUX emulator, but later i switched to Mesen so it worked fine there.
It requires FCEUX 2.3+ (You were on 2.2). Thanks for going the extra mile to find a working emulator though!
Oh got it now will test on FCEUX 2.3 also.
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Re: Witch n' Wiz - Puzzle Platformer

Post by Goose2k »

The competition results are in and Witch n' Wiz has been awarded 2nd place!

Thanks to everyone who played, especially the Beta Testers who really help shave off some rough edges.

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Re: Witch n' Wiz - Puzzle Platformer

Post by Goose2k »

Life after NESDev Compo 2020/21

It’s be a little over a month since Witch n’ Wiz was submitted to the NESDev compo, and work hasn’t slowed down since!
The build submitted for the compo was just a small slice of what I hope to deliver in the final game, so now might be a good time to show how the game has changed since the end of the competition.

New Art

All the art in the NESDev build was done by Kenneth and Zoltan (Zolionline). Since then, I’ve started searching for additional artists to help balance the workload a bit.

The first new artist to join the team is Daniel (Alp). Here you can check out the work in progress visuals for the “cabin” area of the game. This appears in both a pristine condition version, and later in an “abandoned” version. This reason for this change is part of the setup for the story of the game, so I won’t spoil it for you.

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The cabin is actually an extension of an existing tileset from Haller: The Forest. The forest was completed in time for the compo, but there wasn’t space/time for it in that build. It will be part of the opening prologue of the game though.


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Kenneth has started working on additional tilesets for the game. The current plan is that each time a new mechanic is introduced to the player, a new area of the castle will unlock, and with it a matching tileset.

Here you can see the work in progress versions of the Sewers/Dungeon and the Clocktower. Comparing these to the original grey Castle theme from the NESDEV compo build, it is clear this will inject some much-needed variety into the game.

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New Gameplay

The NESDEV compo build has, 3 different puzzle mechanics introduced throughout the game:
  1. Basic “Sokoban”-like mechanics w/Enemies (the foundation of the game).
  2. Mirror Clone (control 2 characters at the same time).
  3. Witch + Wiz (control 2 characters, but 1 at a time).
For the final game, my goal is to increase this from 3 to 10 mechanics. A core philosophy is to never combine mechanics (so you will not, for instance, control a Mirror Clone and the Wizard in the same level).

Since the end of the compo, I have added 4 additional puzzle mechanics, some of which you saw a little preview of in the initial post of this thread:

Lock & Key
This introduces the concept of “carrying” a key to a locked door to open it and exit the room. The key can be thrown up one block and gets knocked out of your hands if you try to carry it through a tight tunnel.


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Gravity Flip
The player obtains a magic artifact that allows them to reverse gravity! When activated, all objects will float to the ceiling. While there the player can move around freely. Pressing A again will reverse gravity back to normal.


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Seamless Labyrinth
A bit of a mainstay of the NES era, when the player walks off the edge of the screen, they will be instantly teleported to the opposite side of the level.

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Room Rotation
In these rooms, the player can press A to flip the room around its center axis, allowing them to reach previously inaccessible areas. It also causes any unsecured objects to fall.

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That brings us up to 7 unique puzzle mechanics in the game, with 3 more to go. I am a little tapped for ideas, so we’ll see if I make it to 10 in the end.

What’s Next

All the new art needs to be chopped up and brought into game, and there is still a lot more art that needs to be created.

The new gameplay mechanics have been prototyped in game, but each will need 10 or so puzzles designed for them. I may wait a little while before I start designing levels though. If you are interested in designing levels, please send me a DM. I really don’t enjoy it!

A big piece that needs to be done is flushing out the story portions of the game. My goal is to avoid non-interactive cutscenes, and instead do all storytelling during gameplay. I’ve never really attempted something like this, and definitely never in a NES game, so it’s going to be a bit of a challenge. I have started to prototype some ways it might work, but it’s still a fairly unknown problem space at this point.

Thanks for reading this far! If you want to get more regular updates on the game, social media is the best place to do that:

Twitter: https://twitter.com/matthughson
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/groups/2788404591447894
Discord: https://discord.gg/DenmA4ssPY
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Re: Witch n' Wiz - Puzzle Platformer

Post by Controllerhead »

I admire your professionalism and attention to detail.

Excited to see this evolve!
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Re: Witch n' Wiz - Puzzle Platformer

Post by Goose2k »

Work has been slow the last month or so. I've been feeling super lethargic after the NESDev compo ended. It's a weird feeling to basically final a game, go through the rush and excitement of releasing it, and then jump back into the day-to-day grind of building the remaining 80% of the game. It feels really anti-climatic and it's been a tough hump to get over.

Regardless though, work has continued, and the last week or so I'm getting back into my "put the kids to bed and work till 10pm, no matter what" mentality, and it's helped a bunch.

Tilesets in Game

All the cool new tilesets I showed in the previous updates are no longer just mockups, and are now ingame, with their associated gameplay.

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In addition to these new tilesets, the original Castle tileset from the NESDev Compo build has also gotten a facelift as well!

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New Character Sprites

You may have noticed another big change in the gameplay above... brand new character sprites!

The original sprites were more or less a paint over of the Pico-8 sprites from the original version of the game, and didn't really pop in the way I wanted them to on the NES. So now we have these new, multi-colored Witch Sprites, as well as new sprites for the Wizard!

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(cont. below)
Attachments
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nes2_sewer_gameplay.gif
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lidnariq
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Re: Witch n' Wiz - Puzzle Platformer

Post by lidnariq »

Huh, the multi-actor puzzle is suddenly giving me flashbacks to Kwirk. (Kwirk is a much more conventional sliding tile puzzle, so the comparison is not particularly relevant. Just the "multiple actors moving things around" part)
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Re: Witch n' Wiz - Puzzle Platformer

Post by calima »

Bug in that "best" time on one of the last pics.

When the room rotates, there's no indication what happens, just a black screen. Obviously NES can't rotate the room, but have you considered a small flipping animation?

Say, a circle with one half one color and the other a different one. User presses "switch gravity" -> action freezes, circle appears in the center of the screen -> circle rotates to show what's about to happen -> black screen as now.
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Re: Witch n' Wiz - Puzzle Platformer

Post by Goose2k »

lidnariq wrote: Sat May 15, 2021 5:38 pm Huh, the multi-actor puzzle is suddenly giving me flashbacks to Kwirk. (Kwirk is a much more conventional sliding tile puzzle, so the comparison is not particularly relevant. Just the "multiple actors moving things around" part)
Hadn't seen that before but those puzzles look insane. I think there was a nesdev compo game with similar mechanics. I forget the name.
calima wrote: Sat May 15, 2021 11:53 pm Bug in that "best" time on one of the last pics.

When the room rotates, there's no indication what happens, just a black screen. Obviously NES can't rotate the room, but have you considered a small flipping animation?

Say, a circle with one half one color and the other a different one. User presses "switch gravity" -> action freezes, circle appears in the center of the screen -> circle rotates to show what's about to happen -> black screen as now.
Good eye! The bug is a result of adding and removing maps from the game during development. Nothing to worry about, but thanks for pointing it out!

For the room flip I like your idea. I'm toying with the idea of doing a "demo scene"-like screen squish effect, but it's a little beyond my skill tbh. Pino even gave me a code snippet, but I haven't had time to really dig into it.

I have to say, when you are _playing_ it's much less jarring since you pressed the button, if you know what I mean.
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Re: Witch n' Wiz - Puzzle Platformer

Post by Goose2k »

(continued from above)

Prologue

I've been plugging away at the opening of the game; a prologue to the main gameplay which tells a little back story. It explains why the boy, Wiz, is being held captive in the Castle, and why the girl, Witch, is trying to rescue him. It takes place 5 years before the main game, and is linear with no real puzzle elements. Here's a quick abridged look at it in it's current state.

Some of the art is placeholder at this point!

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New Music

Tui has been working on new songs to go with the new level tilesets. I can't figure out how to embed them on this forum, but you can give a listen here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PFvT4iP9pfM

Magazine Coverage

Cool Sh#t Magazine was kind enough to do a nice big preview of the game. It's a fun magazine, and something I look forward to reading every month.
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lidnariq
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Re: Witch n' Wiz - Puzzle Platformer

Post by lidnariq »

Goose2k wrote: Sun May 16, 2021 2:59 pm Hadn't seen that before but those puzzles look insane. I think there was a nesdev compo game with similar mechanics. I forget the name.
There've been a lot of sliding tile puzzles over the years. Sokoban is certainly one of the oldest.

You're thinking specifically of Blockage
Goose2k wrote: Sun May 16, 2021 3:43 pm Tui has been working on new songs to go with the new level tilesets. I can't figure out how to embed them on this forum, but you can give a listen here:
Embeds aren't allowed. (Personally, I like it that way).

I like the music visualization tool. Is it public?
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