Jess' Cool Forum

My main project is a SNES platformer game called Nova the Squirrel 2 (which is, unsurprisingly, a sequel to Nova the Squirrel 1). It's a mascot platformer game like Sonic is, and on an appropriate console for it! There's Kirby-style ability copying and the previous game had a big emphasis on puzzle platforming so that's likely to continue. I have a whole lot of ideas for even more complicated puzzle mechanic than before, and I want to expand on the stuff I already did.

Here's some screenshots of levels.

I'm hoping to make it a very story focused game, and there's going to be a hub world that a lot of the game's story takes place on, just as in Drawn to Life.

(gif, click to view)
Some of the levels are going to use mode 7 and star Maffi instead, and I'm aiming to make them feel like Jumping Flash! with big high jumps and a focus on movement in the air. Of course I can't really have platforms or anything due to technical limits so I have to make it all fit a flat plane... Maybe in a future project I can expand on this as its own game and make a really good Jumping Flash! spiritual successor.

Here's a GitHub link if you want to look at the code! It's open source and it's going to be free when it's done.

Now we are getting delightfully retro on here

I liked the first Nova the Squirrel game, always a big fan of Kirby inspired copy-abilities. Loving the soft color palette of this sequel. :>

Kirbizard wrote: ↑Wed Oct 18, 2023 7:10 pm

Loving the soft color palette of this sequel. :>

Yeah the NES color palette is really saturated, and it's nice to get to play with colors that aren't like that now that I can. I've been picking a lot of colors from https://lospec.com/palette-list/aap-splendor128 which is one of my favorite palettes!

Still blows my mind this is an actual SNES game, I don't see a lot of those going around.
Honestly I'm really interested in the Mode 7 sections, Maffi's design's really cute and it just looks really fun, surprised there wasn't really many mode 7 platformers back in the day.

Sharb wrote: ↑Thu Oct 19, 2023 8:17 am

Still blows my mind this is an actual SNES game, I don't see a lot of those going around.
Honestly I'm really interested in the Mode 7 sections, Maffi's design's really cute and it just looks really fun, surprised there wasn't really many mode 7 platformers back in the day.

I wish there were more SNES games being developed, but I also get that there's a lot of reasons people go for other platforms that don't require assembly (though people are working on changing that), have better and easier-to-find learning resources, etc.

I'm glad you like Maffi! When I think about platformers that take place on a flat plane like this, I know of Sonic 3D's special stages, some Jimmy Neutron game for GBA, and Monster Rancher Hop-a-bout and I'm not sure I've seen anything else. Maybe some sections of Pilotwings? But there's probably games out there I haven't heard of.

I did run into some performance problems that can probably be best summed up with "Camera that rotates and zooms, several sprites positioned within the world, no extra chips. Pick 2." and my game goes for the first and last, because the zooming seems that important to the experience. I do wish I could have sprites in the air that could be additional platforms (and maybe I could, if I were extremely clever with math) but maybe I can play with that if I ever do a GBA game like this.

You were poking around with games themed after Maffi and your other characters on the DMG, CGB, and GBA hardware already, right? Maybe there's room for a Nova 3 after this as well :3

I feel like it's a given that I'd eventually do a 3, but I'd have to develop 2 a lot more to figure out how I'd want to build on it. As-is any cool ideas I get (that the SNES can do) can just go into 2.