WIP Ancient Keys DX

[DustinVG]

Videos:
-Area A Preview-

Many centuries ago, a faction of toads commenced an exodus from the Mushroom Kingdom to form their own nation where they could be free. This nation was Sporalia, and for a while, it thrived. Yet, in the current day, Sporalia exists only as a curiosity in the deepest pages of history.

You play as Kraft T., who has ventured out into the distant deserts to find the Sporalian Grand Palace. Why has he done this? Who can say? Perhaps to solve the mystery of this country's past, or perhaps to find a valuable treasure that lies inside...

Hey there. Been a while since I've said anything here, huh? Well, I'm still making fangames, so I guess while you can take the man out of the Mario, you can't take the Mario out of the man.

What you see before you, as the giant logo might indicate, is Ancient Keys DX. This is a full remake (or reimagining, one could argue) of Toad and the Ancient Keys, a very short metroidvania game I made all the way back in 2016. This remake greatly expands the scope of the original game, turning it into a full scale adventure with multiple areas to explore, new enemies to fight and new moves to discover. Other additions include a fully original soundtrack created by Isaac/Vitiman and myself, and many fantastic sprites created by Neweegee and KrystalPhantasm.

I look forward to hearing any feedback and appreciate your attention.

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[Q-Nova]

Glad to see you here again, @DustinVG! It's been a long time!

What you've got here looks neat! I remember the original game being a short but kinda sweet time, so I can see myself playing this when it comes out. I especially like how the fourth screenshots looks, with the neat granite texture and mysterious portraits, both of which sell the feeling that this is a rich and high-class building. And you did it with such few tiles!

I'm not really a big fan of the stone bricks look as seen in the third screenshot and preview, though. I mean, it looks fine, I just find it a little bland, but that might be just me. My biggest problem is that the dark gray in the background sticks out too much and makes the image look cluttered. I would've either used a different color (like dark blue or dark purple), or make some parts of the background pure black. It probably doesn't look so bad when playing the game, though. I like the windows with the dark blue sky!

When I started that Super Competition you entered, I didn't think there would be not one, but two entries that would later get expanded into much bigger games! Kinda funny how it works out like that sometimes. I guess it just came in the right time and the right place. Now all we need is Beat: The Super Game...

Keep it up! I look forward to seeing another quality fangame release!

Quillax Ship - Where you can download all of my cool, keen mods and super-marvelous fangames!

[DustinVG]

I'm not really a big fan of the stone bricks look as seen in the third screenshot and preview, though. I mean, it looks fine, I just find it a little bland, but that might be just me. My biggest problem is that the dark gray in the background sticks out too much and makes the image look cluttered. I would've either used a different color (like dark blue or dark purple), or make some parts of the background pure black. It probably doesn't look so bad when playing the game, though.

Yeah, you're definitely right that it has a slight problem with color contrast. It's something I'll toy around with, but so far, no other color looks quite right to me. A darker gray would be lovely, but that's not something this NES palette affords me.

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[Mors]

looks great tbh, glad to see this still kicking!

3DS: 4313-6691-8820
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play my fangame pls

[Q-Nova]

Yeah, you're definitely right that it has a slight problem with color contrast. It's something I'll toy around with, but so far, no other color looks quite right to me. A darker gray would be lovely, but that's not something this NES palette affords me.

I decided to play around with the screenshot for a bit:



For the first image, I applied dithering to the background to make it look darker. It makes the bricks less pronounced, although it kinda looks a bit messy and I'm not sure if it will flicker when scrolling. For the second image, I took inspiration from a SMW castle background, where bricks are sporadically placed over a black void. It makes the background more varied, but from what I've experienced it seems tough to strike a balance between looking too cluttered and too sparse. You could even try mixing the two, maybe have some bricks be the original and others be darker (like in the SMW background I linked).

I don't know, I just wanted to share a few ideas that might help. When watching that preview video, the background as it is doesn't really look as bad, so maybe that will be the case when I get myself immersed in the game. I don't remember being bothered by the background in the original version of this game, although part of that could be younger age.

As a side note, what's that background in the fourth screenshot supposed to be? I always interpreted it as some sort of floral-pattern wallpaper, similar to what you'd see in Victorian-era homes, but I just wanted to be sure.

Quillax Ship - Where you can download all of my cool, keen mods and super-marvelous fangames!

[DustinVG]

I decided to play around with the screenshot for a bit:

(image embeds)

For the first image, I applied dithering to the background to make it look darker. It makes the bricks less pronounced, although it kinda looks a bit messy and I'm not sure if it will flicker when scrolling.

The dithering doesn't look too bad, but yeah, it might not hold up if you scrutinize it too hard. Worth considering, at least.

The game will include a few options for graphics scaling; if played in windowed or integer scale modes, flicker should be non-existent, but I can't speak for anyone who plays in aspect or stretch modes.

For the second image, I took inspiration from a SMW castle background, where bricks are sporadically placed over a black void. It makes the background more varied, but from what I've experienced it seems tough to strike a balance between looking too cluttered and too sparse. You could even try mixing the two, maybe have some bricks be the original and others be darker (like in the SMW background I linked).

I'm a bit hesitant to do something like this because, truthfully, I'm not great at creating patterns for things like this that don't look really weird. Maybe I could experiment with having the game generate one for me? ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

As a side note, what's that background in the fourth screenshot supposed to be? I always interpreted it as some sort of floral-pattern wallpaper, similar to what you'd see in Victorian-era homes, but I just wanted to be sure.

To be totally real with you, I'm not entirely sure what those tiles are supposed to physically represent, besides being an ornate sort of pattern that would imply pomp and wealth.

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[DustinVG]

A cannon event

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[Q-Nova]

Ha, that's very nice, Dustin! I immediately recognized it as a Kirby reference!

Quillax Ship - Where you can download all of my cool, keen mods and super-marvelous fangames!

[DustinVG]

A truly puzzling update

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[DustinVG]

My Webs Site

join my discord join it join it right now i'm not gonna ask again

[Q-Nova]

Looking nice, Dustin. I like how you give the players various options to tweak the CRT effects to their desire. I like playing on CRTs, but I always felt that the CRT imitation effects never come close (sometimes they seem too heavy), so seeing the options provided is nice. Granted, I might stick with having them off, but who knows?

That little clip of the switch and door is good, by the way! The background looks much better than before, and I always like having a good search for the switch (or key) in platformers.

Quillax Ship - Where you can download all of my cool, keen mods and super-marvelous fangames!

[DustinVG]

I'm a bit too lazy to convert these to gifs or anything right now, so here are a couple updates in the form of BlueSky links:

https://bsky.app/profile/dustinvg.com/po...wbguejrk2l

https://bsky.app/profile/dustinvg.com/po...mj7iqo2c2c

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