Hello, ghosts and morphing creatures from Newgrounds!

At the end of OCTOBER, I uploaded the third installment on the Curse of the Sock (COTS) games: Lair of the Missing Sock

Another small demo quest, as per usual I wanted to spill some of the process from idea to finished game, as a quick 'post-mortem' of sorts, if this seems interesting, here we go!

OCTOBER ARRIVES

I had been slacking on the Halloween games after missing both 2022 and 2023 -OH NO!-, so it seemed like a decent time to get back with a new one,

Gamedev-related time has been either low or more focused on other projects such as Bounce Castle -more updates soon!- but jam-like events like this one are usually a superb possibility to scratch the eventual small-game-project itch.

And of course, PIXELS!

By now I've been about a year learning and practicing pixel art with the wonders of Aseprite, which has really become a refreshing twist, so my main goal with this one was to finally make a functional pixel art game.

Previous COTS games had different genres (1st one a platformer, 2nd one a top down zelda-ish dungeon crawl), so I made a list of variants to try (RPG? -intriguing but time consuming- Racing? unusual, but fun to experiment), but after replaying the first COTS I thought of a few things that could be improved on it, so why not just revisit 2d platforming but a bit more cohesive overall?

"Buuut isn't it a bit repetitive to make another Castlevania-like platformer?"

And the answer is... perhaps (YES), but with the condition of both going for a pixel art game and the challenge of expanding on variety and try a more 'themed' level (in contrast to the previous ones which were more "miscellaneous horror"), seemed fun enough for a revisit to 2d platofrming in the Construct3 engine.

SO, by October 9, I had finally defined what to do and began porting Cherp to the realm of tiny squares:

I really like the variety of paths you can take when compressing a character towards a lower res, the first one was funny but quickly realized it was a bit too big for a main character and could end up making everything more complex overall, so went scaling it down over time.

Odd fact: on the first version I gave him a shield as it was a fun complement, buuut quickly realized it should have an use somehow; a 'block' command would be interesting, akin to some 'soulslike-metroidvania' games such as Salt and Sanctuary, but with the limited time I prioritized keeping it simpler here, so farewell shield for now, oh well :( .

GHOST PLASMA SHOT!

I still wanted to add some 'reach' of sorts with a projectile, either a weapon or spell, and went with Ghost of the First Sock as a more present character within the level (on the previous game it was just a bit of a miscellaneous-advice-companion of sorts). So instead of adding weapons to throw -which would have been the most Castlevania thing to do in this case- I went for a bullet which would charge while fighting, that way melee combat remains the primary option but you get a projectile for the trickier foes.

This felt more fresh, although as many 'new' ideas, I then realized it's not that rare of a mechanic, Hollow Knight and Death's Door have similar mechanics where you build up power through melee combat, but it can always be pushed to a more unique direction.

ENEMIES!

So this game borrows from classic enemy archetypes adapted to a garden-like level, the basic 'walk forward' ghoul, the shooting 'turret', a trickier enemy which shoots in arcs, and of course, the ANNOYING BIRD, aswell as a not-as-friendly-as-it-looks little worm.

Miscellaneous concepts:

Actual in-game sprites:

I was considering bringing back Globomia from the previous game as a secondary flyer, but the pattern was a bit bland and it wasn't working out so well, so it was left out, sorry, buddy!

LEVELS

Level design is a rather tricky one for jams, I usually tend to try variable scales and direction (more horizontal, more diagonal, etc), and once a playable level of boxes is functional, then I'll test where to add enemies and types platforms in a way that remains fresh, and keeping a theme of sorts in mind in this case, a large garden or courtyard of sorts. I usually start with (WARNING!) super rough sketches such as this one:

BOSS TIME

So for the courtyard level I liked the idea of a gardening/shoveling ghost. Boss design has been of my favourite parts to create a variable challenge, with a degree of randomness but -hopefully- enough feedback to make the player react accordingly to each of the attacks.

The boss in the first COTS had both a weird hitbox, and suffered from being easily exploitable overall, so this was a chance to improve it aswell with a pattern that covered the whole arena.

MUSIC / SOUND

Once again my composer pal Moralo Gonzalez was up to the task with a new level and boss theme, both intended to be very NES/GAMEBOY sounding and delivered just in time!

Sound was all done with the classic BFXR, I normally mix it with other sources /real sounds/ but here it made sense to keep it all limited.

STORY

This is one part I would have liked to elaborate more, I actually had a 'script' of sorts on how game-2 connects to game-3 with an illustrated cutscene, but one of the challenges I found of making a pixel art game in limited time is that Illustrations take a bit too much time for a game jam (just this one below took 1-2 hours and it isn't as polished either, oooff).

so I ended up dropping it for a -still somehow 'classic'- scrolling micro backstory.

LAUNCH!

And finally, on an eerie night of October 31, Lair of the Missing Sock went up, and actually, no major bugs! so that's a relief of sorts, phew!

I'm quite glad with the feedback on Newgrounds -as always!- style and tone has been well received, and seems to be a more fluent experience than the previous 2 games.

As things to improve, is not an especially innovative entry in terms of mechanics, and it got me thinking a lot about how to further expand it, both by experimenting further with the GHOST POWERS, aswell as improving player controls, both in accessibiliy -button mapping for pc- but also on smoothness, as a few responsiveness details come up from time to time.

WHAT'S NEXT?

Of the 3 'COTS' game demos, this is the one I'm more interested in polishing: having more 'thematic levels'; while rather standard, makes it much more interesting level-design wise, is something that I can keep improving on and elaborate with story elements, but for now, one must return to the world of 'regular schedule'. In the meantime, Bounce Castle, where I've been developing art with Robot Monkey Brain, continues through development, so expect updates on it soon!

And that's about it for now! thank you for reading up to this point, hopefully this was somehow interesting, feel free to comment of any sort -game, mechanics, design, coffee, lizards-. More sprouting creatures approach in the meantime and until then, may your socks remain comfy during these final weeks of the year.