Nightmare Squad! (very very early)

Mataata's picture
circus1.PNG

Made for TheCube for Christmas. Sorry I'm late!
This game isn't particularly Christmas-themed, but that just means you can play it year-round.
Game includes completely original music, sounds, sprites, and backgrounds. Font is Casual Encounter by Anna Antropy.

Long ago, an evil queen attempted to rule the world with a dark cloud. Although she has been long slain, fragments of her powerful magic remain, and have been invading the Dreamscape, a world where minds go when their bodies sleep. Four agents calling themselves the Nightmare Squad have come to put a stop to these abominations!
Game isn't particularly buggy, but I've only finished two levels so far, so it's a little short.
The goal of each level is to find all the keys needed to unlock the boss door, and then to defeat the boss monster. There are several shops in each level as well, and your friendly neighborhood Charles the Giant Carnivorous Plant will be happy to sell you items in exchange for Quartz pieces you find around the level! Various items include Bombs, which you can throw to destroy rocks and heavily damage enemies, Carafes, which will instantly refill your health before you die, and life-extending potions. Each character also has 5 Star Cards hidden around each level. These can be collected by shooting as well as touching them.

Controls:
A and D: Move left and right
W: Jump
Q: Throw bomb (if you have any)
Shift: Attack (you can hold it to constantly fire)
E: Go through doors, activate switches
Esc: Pause/Forfeit level (will prompt you)
(Warning: There are some debug keys that probably either instantly kill you or restart the game still bound, so try not to bang your keyboards much)

Character's attacks:
Sammy: Rapid fire, short range, easy to hit with wave attack that can go through walls.
Crockett: Long range, slower shooting snipe shot that does more damage than Sammy but can be harder to hit with.
Ulix: Small area-of-effect sphere that constantly damages any enemy caught in it.
Izzy: Long range tackle that sends you flying straight forward and does massive damage on a successful hit. Will collide with walls. Izzy can be VERY easy to die as, so be warned.

Attack types (Changes based on the kind of element card you collect)
Fire: Higher damage than normal attacks, as well as an added burst effect that harms nearby enemies as well.
Water: Lower damage, but goes through enemies and can push certain ones.
Electric: High damage and goes through enemies. Can also activate generators, toggling generator blocks (marked with a lightning bolt) on and off.
Ice: Buggy. Does higher damage than normal and will turn enemy into an ice cube if their health is low enough, allowing for a faster kill and a platform. Can get you temporarily stuck some times, though, so watch out!

Some enemy behavior can be buggy as well (especially Dojies, who will charge at you if they spot you).
The game will save and load high score data (tracks cards collected for each character, highest quartz at end of level, and levels unlocked), but I'm not entirely sure if it created a fresh file, so don't be surprised if any levels are already unlocked or there's high scores already there.
Use mouse in menus and in the store.

If there are any other questions, please ask! I'm still working on the game and plan on adding tons more levels and things.

Author: 
Mataata von Fawks
Made For: 
An event

Comments

TheCube's picture

omg this is so amazing

omg this is so amazing looking! i will play this when i get home this evening! :D :D

EDIT: that color palette is beautiful btw.

Mataata's picture

It's two-tone based on what

It's two-tone based on what attack type you have! I'm quite proud of how good it looks. VuV

TheCube's picture

Finally got around to playing this

It's awesome! I love the music, it's going to be stuck in my head for a while. Took me an entire bus ride to finish the first level - this game is Nintendo Hard. My favorite character is Crockett, since I tend to play very cautiously and the sniping really suits that. I couldn't play as Ulix to save my life. Izzy is really fun to play but I fell in three pits about as quick as humanly possible. Sammy's attack is really nice but I kept getting killed by the little charging fellows.

The art is awesome and really charming. I like how the palette changes with attack type as well as with your health level. The electric attack was probably my favorite just for sheer usefulness, although blowing stuff up with fire was excellent as well. Ice didn't work too great for me since you can freeze the shots of the man eating plants, and then you can't shoot them. I like the idea though, and I could see it being really cool.

The boss was killer - luckily I had bought 3 revive potions and 2 health extenders thanks to the secret quartz room. I basically just grabbed the electricity earlier, held shift and threw bombs until it died. I do wish there had been a way to know there was 3 keys instead of just getting to the boss room and finding out I couldn't open it. I had missed the very first key and lost all my lives trying to backtrack and get it.

I did get stuck in an electric wall once, in that one section in level one where you have to hit the generator and then runnnn to the right side and barely get in the door. I got almost all the way through it before it turned on, but then I got stuck near the right side. I had to quit the level. Also, the life-extending potion makes the palette gray when you're above your normal health.

Gonna hopefully play the 2nd level on the way home today.

Thank you for making such a cool game! :D

Mataata's picture

Hehe, wow, thanks! I'm sorry

Hehe, wow, thanks! I'm sorry if it's a little hard to play or understand. It's pretty much my first noteworthy project.
But thanks a lot for your kind review! I think I'll move the area to the left of the start to the long climbing one. Also, as a fair warning, level 2 has six keys and two key doors, not just one. Its boss fight is also a lot more interesting, I think.

pensive-mosquitoes