Optional background: (Contains spoilers for the Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind books by Hayao Miyazaki!)
After the "Seven Days of Fire," a global war that ended all forms of industrial civilization when it was at its climax, civilization was reformed somewhat into the kingdom of Eftal which retained many of the technological wonders from before the event. Close to 700 years after the Seven Days of Fire, disagreements over the right to the throne and attempts to destroy the spreading toxic jungle that had appeared just after the apocalypse resulted in the kingdom's near-complete destruction.
The insects which reside in the jungle were enraged by the constant attacks on it, and a surge of insects-- including the king insects of the jungle, the Ohmu-- overtook the capital city of Eftal and nearby lands, becoming seedbeds for the fungus of the jungle. Those that survived this tidal wave of forest and insect (called a Daikaisho) either became a tribe of mercenaries or entered the forest which they call their home, surviving off of a symbiotic relationship with the plants and insects that live there.
Based on Hayao Miyazaki's Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind.
This is great. The graphics do a really good job of giving a feeling to the setting, the map layout is excellent, and the sense of discovery is awesome.
My only real critique is that it isn't immediately obvious what needs to be done in a couple places, specifically the beginning. But, in classic Metroid style, the game restricts you to a small area until you figure it out, so I guess it's intentional. I do think the game would a bit more accessible if the oxygen system and rage meter were explained at the beginning.
I did notice one possible bug. In a couple instances, I glitched through solids while crawling. I haven't been able to reproduce it consistently, so I'm not sure what causes it. In the first case, I was near the lower left of the map. I got stuck in a solid, and the game pushed me down until I appeared to fall below the map. After about 30 seconds, the end game screen appeared. I guess my coordinates wrapped to the top of the screen and the exit point? In the second case, I was on the right side of the map near the flash grenade, got stuck in a solid, and was pushed to the right into the flash grenade area. But I hadn't yet opened up the blocks that give access to this area, so I was stuck. All of this did give it a very Metroid feel, but I assume it wasn't intentional. :)
My best time with a good ending is 14:10, but I'm sure it can be done faster. I haven't yet gotten a 100%.
Ok, I honestly love the game... except I have no idea how to progress once you get the staff and break through that first little vine wall thing...
Have you noticed that the rage meter increases when you kill things? Something useful happens when it's full.
Thanks for the feedback binaryeye!! I'm glad you enjoy the game! I'll hopefully be able to fix the crawling bug, I had never run into that before.
Love the art, and it's a great tribute to an all-time classic manga.
I hope you don't mind, but I have a couple of questions to make sure I'm not missing anything. Is 103% the max score? And are there exactly two possible endings?
Whoops! I must've made a mistake when adding the collectibles up! I'll have to fix the score calculation. Also yeah, there are exactly 2 endings.
@Maeve Oh, I figured it was giving a bonus for the particularly well-hidden item, and that there might be more I'd missed. Anyway, here's a speedrun I did of the good ending (with quite a bit of luck with enemy generation rng):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DI6BTiXYSyM
And now a bad ending run for good measure:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OEsYrGWyP0c
Hi there! This might just be my favorite PICO-8 game I've played so far. The music is so lovely and chill, and I was surprised at how much you managed to express visually while staying mostly constrained to the 8x8 tile size. Overall, it had such a lush atmosphere and I really enjoyed exploring the map!
I almost gave up at the beginning because I couldn't figure out what the Ohmu was doing. I actually ended up restarting and paid more attention to what the map looked like before I triggered it, and then I figured it out. After that, everything clicked. I got what I assume is the 'bad' ending in around half-an-hour. Next time I'm gong to go for the better ending and 100% completion.
Thanks for sharing this, and I look forward to seeing more work from you! Also, while it's lovely at its current size, I think it could totally scale into a larger game as well!
@grevs Thanks! I'm glad you like it! And actually, in a way, this game was a proof of concept of a game by the same name that I'd like to make. That being said, I've never attempted a full-scale game before so it'd be quite a big project for me.
i think it's good if there's clear instruction for game (what ohmu's do or how rage work and how to explore area) has all over strange vibe i loved it and there's some of items i can't eat
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