Ok, Here's What I've Been Working On

EDIT: The link in the text is now outdated. Here is a build with about 20 more hours of work in it.

So for the last couple months I've been hinting at a project that I've been working on in my spare time. I kept thinking "just one more feature, then I'll show it off"

Well, better late then never. Here is an alpha build of Horizonticality. It is a two-player game that is played with 360 controllers (you can mess with it using one controller of course).

This is never going to be a full retail product, it's merely a portfolio piece and learning exercise. My whiteboard is packed with things that need to be changed or added, but the core gameplay is here. It's reading week, which means my crunch-time before GDC.

Controls are as follows:

Left stick + left bumper: Hookshot

Left stick + right bumper: walk

Right stick + right trigger : shoot

A button: jump-dodge

X button = readies a sword that will block incoming bullets, or act on various objects if you are near them when you press the button.

I thought about writing out all the instructions, but it occurs to me that getting feedback about things that don't become clear after playing it for 5 minutes would be very useful. The more thoughts you give me, the better! I'm particularly concerned about the controls, because some people find them intuitive and others have trouble breaking our of Geometry Wars mode.

I hope you like it!

Nintendoeats

Attributions: Background music is Hazy Shade of Criminal by Public Enemy, character sprites are from Contra 3 for the SNES, sounds are mostly taken from freesound.org