Kage Ciudad de Neón
Rain falls over Neo-Kobe. A cargo ship enters the harbor carrying the clan's prisoners. Kage follows their trail from the docks to a hideout beneath the city.
Run, leap between vehicles, fight with sword and shurikens, and master ninjutsu in a 16-bit style ninja arcade game. Explore higher routes, rescue captives and learn enemy and boss patterns.
Features
- Nine stages: cargo deck, docks, highway convoy, neon city, forest, mansion, clan hall, five-floor elevator and underground hideout.
- Platforms at different heights, double jumps and crouch movement.
- Color-coded shuriken power levels, sword combat and ninjutsu specials.
- A seal-collecting bonus with climbable scaffolding, a shuriken gallery and a parry dojo with survival practice.
- Normal mode, one-hit Arcade mode, stage and boss practice, medals, secrets and local records.
- Campaign map, saves between stages and a journey results screen.
- FM-style music, rain, neon lighting, layered scenery and adjustable CRT effects.
- Spanish and English menus, keyboard and gamepad input, plus touch controls.
Controls
Arrow keys move; Down crouches. X jumps and allows a second jump near the apex. Z attacks; C activates ninjutsu. Enter confirms and pauses. Rebind controls or enable separate attacks in Options; Q uses the sword in that mode. In the scaffolding bonus, Up and Down climb ladders.
Click inside the game before starting. Use Enable sound if audio is silent. Progress, settings and records are stored in your browser; clearing its data removes them.
Development log
Comments
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I just tried the game. Came up to the third level but I still trouble getting on top of the first vehicle. Something seems to still be off at that point.
As for the rest, I think the animations need a lot of work. They look really strange, given how fast the running animation is I would've thought that he needs to go way faster, but he is really slowly slipping on the floor. It looks really off.
I also think you should give in the options menu some option to turn of the CRT screen effect. I always hated how they looked and they usually give you and option to turn it off.
Thanks for getting to level 3, that is far enough to see the real problems.
On the first vehicle: I have reworked the car surfaces so the jump is simpler than it was, but I do not want it free either, it should still ask something of you. The cue is the water. The droplets bouncing off the chassis mark the surface and where you can land, so read the roof line instead of the bumper. Tell me which level it was and whether you are on keyboard or touch and I will look at that specific collision.
You are right about the animation, the legs run at one speed while the body moves at another and that is what reads as sliding. It is on the list, but this is a minimal prototype first and I am giving the time to the systems before the polish.
The CRT already has a switch in the options menu, so you can turn it off today.
What I would like your eye on now is the balance: on desktop normal mode is too easy and arcade is the one that gets interesting. Attack patterns and proper collision detection are still missing and there are plenty of details left, but the skeleton is there. Which mode feels right to you, and where does the difficulty break?
I tried it again and I think I know what's happening. Something seems to be eating my double jump. Sometimes I have acces to it, and then other times it feels like I can't actually do the Double Jump. That's what messing everything up.
Yeah I found the CRT setting. I wouldn't have called it screen but rather effect but whatever, it works.
For now I always played on arcade with only one hit but it still feels to easy. I think part of the problem is that enemies just kind of wait for you to get closer instead of beeing pro-active in their attacks.
Funny you land on the jump, because that one is not new: I have been touching it since the first version, and by now I think it is a design problem more than a bug. The game wants to feel like early 16 bit, but the controls still owe a lot to 8 bit, and that timing is hard to pick up when you come from modern games, where the character does what you meant the moment you mean it. I have not decided whether to clean the input up or to keep part of the friction on purpose, and the day I decide is probably the day the vehicle jump stops being a problem.
The enemies are the same story and they are what I think about most. I am caught between two waters: someone who enjoyed 8 bit and also enjoys modern games, and the middle is a narrow line to walk. Your notes are genuinely useful for that, they point at where the line sits. I hope I land on a balance that at least makes someone have a good time with it.