BRAVE - Demo 1.2
A downloadable game
THIS PROJECT IS NO LONGER IN DEVELOPMENT! My harddrive gave up on me and there was no backup of the game so sadly it's gone. I only have the sprites and sfx so maybe i'll start over with the game one day but there is currently another project I am working on! Stay tuned!
DISCLAIMER: The game is in very early developement and this demo is mostly to get feedback on the game feel! It includes the first stage and the main mechanics! Any kind of feedback is highly appreciated! :)
Welcome to the demo of "BRAVE"! Brave is a pixel-art platformer with rpg elements. The main character is Willy. He is a blacksmith who lived with his wife Vicky in the small kingdom of Skorge. I don't want to spoil you, so let's just say his wife suddenly disappears and is in great danger. Willy has to take all his courage and fight his way through a world of monsters and dangers to save Vicky!
I hope you enjoy playing! :)
In case you want to keep being updated about the game:
Twitter: https://twitter.com/smaex_official
Discord: https://discord.gg/hEQtVW4
If you like the game and want to support it:
Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/Smaex
Changelog:
#1 Bug fixes and you can now also jump with "W" on keyboard.
#1.2 NEW DEMO RELEASE
- Added core feature mining, forging and melting
- Added Options menu to customize the controls
- Improved enemy AI
- New inventory and storage system
- Added health fountain
- Improved tileset for the caves
- lots of bug fixing (but not all of them.. :D)
#1.2.1
- Bug fixing
Download
Click download now to get access to the following files:
Comments
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👍🏾
are you still developing this?
Cool game
great game but how do you use the chest with Xbox controllers? it's just impossible for me to put items in the chest, I accidentally deleted something from my inventory, please make it easier than the latest version, please.
well, the game is great in all, with good art choices, cool powers to use, a lot of variety, support for Xbox controllers, all those things to make the game feel what games need to be, good and colorful and challenging (unless they're using a black, gray and white colors), but since this is 1.2.1 I wont blame the devs too much
9 / 10 stars
good luck with the next update devs!
Good game but:
If I don't have enough space, the error message just exits the game.
can you give a table of the keys? I still don't know how to move things into the chest
the dog enemy that dashes into you is hard to detect, please add a sound wave that goes in the direction it's dashing so I can be warned before getting hit, the white mark is not enough
nice game
If anybody can help me, how to connect controller to this game, i have dualsense and it doesn't work in this game?
This game very good if on android or ios
you do realize there are 6 moves including a d-pad for movement and good placement for the pause button (and jump button) and keybindings will be removed, but you can change the buttons here and there and so on.
so i don't thing there be IOS and android versions for the game but that's just my opinion
keep yours
niiiiiiiiiiice bro
make a macOs version pls man :˚
100% agree
Yep
When trying to smelt items the game engine says, " NOT ENOUGH SPACE."
me too
This is realy cool, tho, if u had the option to change the controls(keybindings) it would be a plus. Anyway this is a epik game!
cool game
I got my health down to 0 (or at least it looked like it on the UI) without getting hit after picking up an ite that gave me 8% more health. Hope it helps!
I got the glitch again, and I can describe it with more detail:
When I got the second +8% health powerup/item, my health started to go down by itself until only a few pixels of red could be seen on the health UI. After this, enemies couldn't kill me, no matter how many times i hit them.
Also you can't pick up the gold mineral of level 2 after mining it. It follows you, but you don't pick it up.
Hello! I got a crash right after opening a chest. Here's a copy-paste of the crash report:
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
FATAL ERROR in
action number 1
of Step Event0
for object obj_chest:
Pop :: Execution Error - Variable references invalid object (-4).<unknown variable>
at gml_Object_obj_chest_Step_0
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
stack frame is
gml_Object_obj_chest_Step_0 (line -1)
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Hope it isn't hard to fix!
Looking great so far! I love games like this, it's similar to Caveblazers.
A few bugs to point out:
Key rebinding does not work. When I pause the game with my
joypad and go to OPTIONS, I can alter music but not key rebinding.
Also, no keyboard control seems to work at all. Joypad only.
I really like using keyboard on games like this.
It works on WINE but it would rock if you could put a native Linux
build out. Gamemaker Studio should be able to export one.
Looking forward to watching this progress! Good work!
Thanks! 8)
The game looks great! Haven't been able to play it though as I only have access to a Mac, any chance of putting out a Mac build?
I really like the game great job! But when I played it once, the bg music started playing two times with a bit of delay which made it sound super weird. Another bug was that the enemies would just glitch walking to the left and to the right SUPER fast. but other than that, this game has true potential! Im the owner from Chill Game Devs Discord server btw (ur game killbot was the winner from the game jam)
game engine?
He uses GameMaker Studio
This game reminds me of Vagante or Caveblazers. I love this type of game but procedurally generated is always a deal breaker.
Well it looks really good, but will you export it to macOS too ?
Love the procedural stuff, that's really cool! The variety of monsters and how they each have their own style of attack and animation is really awesome! You can tell a lot of work went into this, down to the cutting grass and question mark when the goblin can't find you. Personally, I'm terrible at this game haha and it took a while to realize 'F' makes you go through the end door and opens chests. It's confusing because the first doorway you just walk through it. Also, the up arrow should totally jump like 'W' does. I think I got to the bottom like three times and had a MOB of monsters chasing me and died haha. Down below, smutigbanan mentioned something to aid in restoring health and I would have totally played for WAY longer had I not kept dying and having my progress reset. Great job overall! Hope you keep updating this!! :)
Nice work! This is a good, solid base for a roguelite platformer.
The theme is kinda generic at the moment. It needs a gameplay gimmick, a novel aesthetic, and an emotional core in order to really suck the player in. The sooner you add those, the better, because they're the kind of thing you want as your pillars of game development. Once you figure them out, they should inform all of your creative decisions.
Gameplay suggestions ranked in order from most to least important:
> My Xbox controller is a little old, and the thumbsticks tend to rattle a little bit when I let go of a direction. Make sure you have "dead zone" in the middle of the thumbstick. (I.E. the character won't switch direction unless absolute value of the input > 0.2 or so.)
>I'm pretty sure you are using "Coyote Time" for jumps, because I didn't feel like I was constantly falling off of ledges when I jumped, but the bottoms of walls need an equivalent of Coyote Time but for for wall-climbing. It was WAY too hard to catch the bottoms of some floating islands and start a climb.
>I'm unsure if the above is the reason why, but I had trouble climbing walls sometimes. It feels less responsive/intuitive than Megaman X. That's a benchmark you should seriously be aiming for. Less involuntary X movement when jumping off of a wall or more rapid change from the automatic movement to the player's input would fix the problem.
>At the bottom of the dungeon, the GUI sometimes covers up enemies at the bottom of the level. Just add a layer or two of solid dirt to the bottom at level generation to fix this.
> Give the player feedback when the player character takes a hit, even if it's just them turning white for a frame and playing a sound effect. (Needs to be different from the sound when the player hits an enemy because we're never not hearing that sound.)
>I dislike how the gold disappears behind slime, weeds, etc. You should render the gold on top, just like you would enemies, because the gold is a functional gameplay mechanic! GUI > Enemy projectiles > Enemies > Player > Collectibles > NPCs > Chests/Boxes/Pots > Interactive objects (lifts, moving platforms, buttons, etc.) > Dynamic decorations (blood spatter, debris, etc) > Collidable walls/floors > Static decorations (furniture, statues, etc.) > Background walls > Distant Parallax backgrounds
> Likewise, a sound effect when you pick up gold would make collecting gold feel more fun. Juice it or lose it!
> Whirlwind attack, while kinda fun to pull off, is no better than using your basic attack, because the enemies get knocked back, so you need to drain your entire magic bar just to kill one enemy who you could easily stab three times instead. (Maybe this could have a place in future versions if there's dozens of mobs swarming you in a room? But in the first dungeon, it's useless.)
Yes, these suggestions are "polish," but they're polish that affects the core gameplay. Remember, Miyamoto spent ages perfecting Mario's jump before doing anything else! You should, too.
Good luck! :)
Sorry, let me re-structure that as me telling you about the problems. Solutions in parenthesis. That way it's easier for you to ignore the suggestions and focus on the feedback.
The #1 cause of death is because I didn't realize how much damage I was taking, or when, or why.
(I think the industry-standard fix for this is standard for a reason. Visual and audio indicators on the player character, not on some life bar far away from where you're looking.)
The #2 cause of death/taking damage is because my character would change directions on its own when I left go of the left thumbstick. I'd move forward to the correct distance to attack, stop moving, and press the attack button, only for my character to face the wrong way on their own so the attack would miss and the enemy would hit me and I'd die.
(Again, there is an industry-standard solution for this. Proper thumbstick deadzones (Analogue inputs must be > ~0.2 or ~20% of max possible input in order to "count") would prevent or at least reduce this.)
Wall-climbing is just plain unresponsive in the following situations:
- When trying to wall-jump off the bottom of a floating island you can just barely reach
- When trying to go from a wall you're ascending onto the top of a platform that's just one tile away from the ceiling.
- Both at once is absolute hell.
Are you trying to be Spelunky or Dead Cells? Because right now the wall jumping feels sometimes like sometimes one, sometimes the other, depending on subtle differences in the player's timing, rather than the height of the jump being attempted. It feels bad.
(These are legal jumps, well within the range of the max jump height, but sometimes they work and sometimes they don't. If you can detect when the player is likely trying to do these jumps and somehow fudge the rules so the player ends up where they expect to, like some sort of wall jump version of Coyote Time, it will make the game as a whole feel fast, fluid and responsive, but it might be as easy as simply not pushing the player away from the wall when they jump.)
Collecting treasure was annoying. Collecting treasure should be fun! They're both hard to see because of all the slime and grass covering them up, and there's no feedback when you collect them, which would give a quick cheap jolt of "I did it right" dopamine.
(Sound effect & number or spinning coin animation disappearing into the sky upon collection. Draw the important collectible coins on top of the unimportant slime, blood, and grass special effects.)
At the bottom of the dungeon, the GUI sometimes covers up the action. Enemies, chests, and other important gameplay entities are obscured by the HUD, and unlike the rest of the level, the player can't make the action visible by dropping down lower.
(Just add a layer or two of solid dirt to the bottom at level generation to fix this.)
Man, thank you so much for the massive feedback! This is a very old version of the game and I already fixed most of the problems you mentioned but there are things I will definitely work on based on your feedback! (Especially wall jumping and layer drawing).
Thank you so much!
No problem! :D Glad I could help. But if that's the case, I'm afraid I'm going to have to add more more criticism...
The game I am critiquing on itch is out of date!
(Have you met my friend Builds? Nightly Builds? He's great at making sure all the feedback you get reflects the current state of the game. And as a nice side effect, he makes people know your game's not dead and is still being worked on so it doesn't fall off the hype train before it even leaves the station.)
non riesco ad installarlo! ho un Windows
can you release this for mac and linux? That would be a great way to have more people play your little game!
really cute little game with a lot of potential, cant wait for a full release
Fun game! I love the style and music. The keyboard controls aren't great, and sometimes the terrain generation can create unreachable areas. Other than that, I enjoyed it! Looking forward to more demos / a full release.
I'd love to test this if you can make a MacOS or Linux build! It runs in wine on MacOS, but so it slows down gradually due to wine exceptions. Love the style, and gameplay feels nice.
a really fun little game :)
I´ve played it for a couple hours and really enjoyed it. Although there are some problems. Sometimes when a small goblin notices you they vanish so you cant see them and when you make to the lowest level of a floor the hotbar gets in the way so you cant see your own character. Also the dive is kinda delayed after hitting something and the "H" power doesnt work on the keyboard.
Plus wish that there´s an actual healing item and not just things like the salad and the bubbly bottle
Still a really fun game and will def buy when the full release comes :)
great.
The attack still feels kind of flighty, maybe because you can walk past characters so easily so sidling up to them to hit them with the slash feels unsatisfying. I know Dead Cells has a system where walking through enemies is possible, but you go slower and the game automatically slightly nudges you to keep you on one side of the enemy if you haven't obviously expressed the intention to go past them. tl;dr consider making it easier to sidle up to characters to attack with melee. Sfx and feedback on attacks could be a little better too, maybe because attack animation is short for my taste it feels less satisfying than a true THWACK
i got to agree. the sword needs a satisfying thwack, and maybe have more windup. also, i feel like the jump needs to be a little more floaty, if not little bit higher. the jump feels like i am barely jumping at all because i dont get enough time in the air. also, because you dont have a downward or upward atack, it would be apreciated if you made the arc of the sword reach higher up and down
This is one cute little game. The pixel art graphics sure is nice and fits the game really well -- very awesome pixel art job. The music also fits the game really well; did you compose the musics yourself?
I do realize that the game recommends me to play with a controller but well... I don't have a controller... and attacking with G is kind of... non-intuitive. Also considering that the player can jump with W, can you make it so that the player can also jump with the up arrow? :/
Personally I find this game a little bit too hard; but probably is a proper difficulty if you intend it as such. I also want to know if getting killed totally resets everything and puts me right back at zero every time I die?
I Love the Pixel style
That look to be a really good game ! But... I can't play it because there no mac versions D:
If you can fix that with a mac version and a linux version i'm sure more people will be allowed to see your project and play it.
So i hope the mac versions will be here soon :D
I need a Mac version too
linux +1
I don't know if theres a ranged weapon, but if theres not it'd be cool if there was a bow
Hello, i have double jump to the left wall at the begining of demo, now my character is lost in the ground snif.
Hey I think your discord link has expired.
Oh thank you for that! Should be fixed now!
Hey, that game has potential!
I have a youtube channel where I review games made in gamemaker (plus gamemaker video tutorials) and your demo is a good example how to start it right.
Therefore I have two questions to you. Can I use your logo in my video thumbnail and are you interested in sendimg a review copy once that game is finished? If you don't want free cloud or you are not interested or even want to prohibit me using your logo in the thumbnail, please write me here.
Ach ja, gutes Game dass du da gemacht hast! Weiter so.
Video found here: https://youtu.be/uGXTNnLk25c
Wow thank you so much for your review! I know your channel and I actually watched some of your videos few weeks ago, that's so awesome :)
Sure you can use the logo and I would love to send you a copy of the game. Maybe it will take a while though :D
Thanks again!
(Hier einen Deutschen zu treffen ist auch mal eine nette Überraschung :) )
Krass dass du überhaupt meinen Kanal kennst, die Welt ist echt klein (mein yt Kanal auch). Wie hast du es geschafft bei itch.io auf die Startleiste zu kommen, plus deine Video wurde aktiv bei mir gesucht. Wenn du Lust auf ein Gespräch oder einen Austausch hast kannst du mal bei mir im Discord vorbeischauen. Discord: https://discord.gg/gvr98nb
Das was du als Demo gemacht hast ist schon recht fortgeschritten (Stil, loop, gameplay). Alles deine eigene Kreation oder hast du eine Engine benutzt?
Wenn du eine Vollversion mir schickst, werde ich auf jeden Fall eine weiteres Video machen. Eine Idee wann du es releasen willst?
Ich hatte ein wenig Probleme mit draw_sprite_part (hatte das vorher nie benutzt) und habe dann dein Video dazu gefunden, das hat mir dann auch tatsächlich geholfen :) Ja so kam ich dann auf deine Videos. Und wie ich es auf die Startseite geschafft habe ist eine gute Frage :D Die Demo war für mich eigentlich nur für Feedback zum Spiel-Feeling da, hauptsächlich in Sachen Player-Steuerung etc. Ich hätte nicht gedacht, dass das so eine Aufmerksamkeit bekommt.. Ich schaue auf jeden Fall mal auf deinem Discord vorbei, da können wir gerne mal Plaudern wenn es die Zeit zulässt :)
Alle Spielelemente sind selbst gecoded, da ist aber auch bis jetzt eigentlich nichts extrem komplexes dabei.. Ich bin momentan am Pathfinding der Gegner am arbeiten, da verzweifle ich aber langsam dran.. da fehlt mir einfach noch das Wissen um da einen Gegner zu programmieren, der nicht absolut dumm ist :D Naja irgendwie werde ich das auch noch herausfinden.
Und ja eine Vollversion wirst du auf jeden Fall bekommen, ein Release kann ich dir jedoch noch nicht sagen.. das wird wohl noch ein Weilchen dauern..
I really like the core loop of this and am interested to see at what crazy builds you can do over time. Thought the controls felt very solid and am super pumped for the future of this game.
Thank you for you review! Already commented on the video but I wanted to say thank you again! :)
when you spawn there is an invisible wall to the left where you can climb it and go over it. The response time is a bit slow but its ok.