Hi there folks!

Here's the first of the last series of updates and blog posts I'll write about Baldomero's Ballad before releasing the game (don't want to spoil the fun by showcasing the entire game secrets before I finish it).

Introduction

When it comes to making games, you can just go grab a simple concept and make it fun and loopy so as to engage the player to keep them, well, playing. Good examples of this approach are roguelites and roguelikes like Binding of Isaac, Enter the Gungeon, Hades, Dead Cells... But the biggest two detractors I find in this genre are repetitive layouts and gameplay focused on luck rather than skill. Mind you, I'm NOT saying these are fully negative points, they work for the genre well since it makes you have that good old "ok one more run".

You also have games that are more focused on making tight and precisely handcrafted levels for the player. You have your metroidvanias (or Exploraction games as I will start calling them from now on, "search action" is too boring sorry), your platformers and many many other genres. Guacamelee STCE, Prince of Persia The Lost Crown, Castlevania, you know the ones by now.

But no matter what type of genre you want to aim your game towards, one thing has to always come to mind if you want your game to stand out: a solid level design! And since today is the last post, I will talk and analyze every single level of the original Castlevania for the NES. Why, you ask? Well, people tend to praise the franchise a lot yet not a lot of folks out there actually talk in depth about one of its most important aspects: the level design. And hey, if people enjoy this enough I'll be glad.

Level 1-1

Level 1, Castlevania, Castlevania Crypt

What we have here is a very solid introduction to the game. A quiet, completely free of enemies area that allows you to get used to the controls. Simon is stiff as a stick, and you better understand how he moves around in the safest way possible. We also find some key elements that will continue throughout the entire game.

Hearts showcase that they don't provide health (we start with full HP, so there's no way the player will make that mistake) but ammo, but the player doesn't have anything that consumes it. And boy, that whip sure is short. If only there was OH HEY, LOOK. An upgrade to the whip! But this just changed the sprite, size feels almost the same. Oh well, the player continues breaking the next fire pot thingy and look again, another whip upgrade! Oh wow, now THIS is what I call useful! The player understands that there are power ups for their main weapon, and the immediate feedback of seeing the whip extend that much will make the player feel untouchable at a reasonable range now.

Now, I'd say that the last candle position is not placed in a very nice place to experiment with. Since it's the closest one to the door, a player might run into the risk of venturing forward to the right, triggering the switch that locks Simon into his walking animation in order to enter the castle. But regardless of that, it gives us the worst of the sub weapons: the knife. The knife was design for you to AVOID IT. It's rate of fire is slower than just using the whip, it deals the lowest amount of damage and it's just there for you to pay attention. Speaking of which...

Level 1, Castlevania, Castlevania Crypt

Foes?! already?! But I just entered the castle! And THIS is the moment in which Castlevania showcases its most important lesson:

Watch, learn, adapt, repeat

We have three ghouls coming towards the player, and the reason is going to tell them to use the whip. And wow, almost obliterated all three of them since they are walking so close to each other, that's great! The player can't stay still though, as they constantly spawn after a few seconds. But ah, here's one thing not a lot of people know about the enemies in the original Castlevania: not all of them do this!

Enemies in this game appear as long as the player resides within a spawning area. Once the player leaves said area, you can take a break and breath for a while. But Castlevania doesn't want you to stop for a long time, and that's what you have the timer constantly ticking on the HUD, telling you to hurry up. Will you ever run out of time on a stage? Highly doubtful considering the length of the levels, but it's another way to add pressure into the player. If we continue, we see our greatest enemy in the entire game: stairs! Now, stairs will be better introduced in future entries, but for now it works fine enough. We can take a higher or lower path, having ghouls on the floor and panthers on the upper story. Don't worry about the panthers though, you'll never see them again after this. And as we continue, we are forced to take the stairs to reach the door. Close to it and spawned from a candle, we have a Rosary, which works as a screen nuke. Useful for sure and present in almost all the Classicvania games, but not really something the player will beg for it as long as they have confidence in their skills.

As you've seen, we have tested the most important lesson multiple times already: the player has witnessed the stairs, learned about how to use the stairs, adapted to its usage and then repeated the action in the end to confirm that the player knows indeed how to operate the most infuriating thing to code on a game ever. FUN!

Level 1-2

Level 1, Castlevania, Castlevania Crypt

Well cover me in green paint and call me Shrek because this one has layers, just look at this beauty! We are now introducing the player to a lot of things, so I'll go slow with this one. Starting with the obvious: pitfalls.

Up until now our jumping skills have not been tested in a risky situation. Enemies send you backwards once you touch them, so you tend to attack first rather than try to jump them (remember, the ghouls appear in groups of 3, so you can't jump over them. The panther placement is not that well made since it blends with the background but, again, nobody cares about the panther for a reason). But here? Here we HAVE to jump if we want to keep moving. But ah, not so fast bold player! For you have in front of you the dreaded Fishman, a creature that jumps in front of you from the depths and shots fireballs if you don't end its life fast enough. But here's the key word: in front of you. Fishmen will never spawn close enough for you to get hit by them, and you can react with enough spare time here.

We are also presented here with a new subweapon: the stopwatch. This one acts more like an extra help for the player that might feel overwhelmed by the enemies, as it allows them to freeze them in place for a few seconds. Not the best since it doesn't really work against bosses with some exceptions, but helpful nonetheless.

Now, we have two hidden things in this stage, and the one I know was intentional for a fact it's actually taught worse than the one that was probably a happy accident. Let me show you:

In this ledge right here, there's no invisible boundary, so the player can jump over it and continue towards the door to the right. But the ledge's too far for the player to reach it, and too high as well. Addressing the intentional feature, you could say that the placement of the tiles here might strike (pun intended) odd for the player, but that really doesn't showcase that it can be destroyed. Again, future titles do this better by putting either a candle next to the wall or an enemy, but considering these are really valuable items to acquire (health is the most important thing in a Castlevania game after all) I won't really bash it that much. But now, to the happy accident.

If you stay on the left side of the platform above the hole in the wall, you will find out that the bat spawning boundary will make it so as the bat will spawn from the left side of the screen if Simon sprite is looking into that direction. And then, if you use the knockback of the bat into account and touch it while its flying where the candle over the staircase is located, the knockback will send you to the upper area of the ledge, making you skip the Fishmen area completely.

Speedrunning techniques are sometimes not taken into account while making a game (and let's be honest, I love this game to death but I doubt this was planned), but a good level design allows them to be pulled off even if it wasn't part of the main path. That's the beauty of making games after all: doing something only for people to find different approaches to it. Anyway, almost at the end of Level 1!

Level 1-3

Level 1, Castlevania, Castlevania Crypt

Final stretch towards the first boss of the game: the Giant Bat! Here we are introduced to one of the most useful subweapons: the axe. Its arch is best tested against the boss of the first level, as its air movement makes it hitting it with the whip quite cumbersome. Also the Gold Potion, which is so forgettable that I completely forgot about it.

The Giant Bat it's probably the easiest boss in the entire franchise, and one of the most iconic ones for sure. Sure, it doesn't have fancy moves or really dangerous moves other than fly towards the player and perhaps throw a fireball if you linger for a long, long time without dealing damage to it, but a nice boss nonetheless. Also quite the smart use of a fake door in order to make the player think it leads to another stage.

And with that, you slay the Giant Bat and obtain the Red Orb, which heals the player to full HP and exchanges your hearts and time left into the score counter.

And that was the very first level of Castlevania. Overall, a very solid introduction to the mechanics and gameplay for the player, and a good example of what happens when you spend time and effort into creating well crafted areas and enemies.

Tune in next time for Level 2!

Have a great week,

-Ray

Hey there folks!

The Baldomero train is going hard and fast once again. Here's just a tiny peek at the very first thing you'll see in the game:

As I said previously (I think I did at least), I'm going to keep things as old school as possible, and that comes with the sprites and tilesets too. Sure, I could take the path of every indie retro game ever nowadays and make an old school game with ultra highly detailed pixel art but I honestly couldn't care less about that. I'll take my palettes ugly as sin and my squares chunky and gamey thank you.

Small update this week, but an update nonetheless.

Stay cool and enjoy the weather before the Sun remembers it needs to return hard this summer,

-Ray

Hi,

I want to divert your eyes towards these 2 small icons for a second:

You played the OG Castlevania, you know what those are. If you haven't, that's just a power up featured in the original game, Dracula's Curse and Super Castlevania IV (and Chronicles but come on that's a remake of the first game don't be one of those people). This basically allows you to use an equipped subweapon in your prosession (it's been a long day let me make outdated jokes) more than once before you have to wait for it to stop being on-screen. Are we all now in the same boat? Yeah? Great! Now please stare at this set of events:

That's the sequence of events for the Fire Bomb subweapon. And it's because of this wonderful, WONDERFUL sequence of events that I'm going to remove the Double and Triple Shot from the game. Why, you might be wondering?

BECAUSE I SPENT 3 DAYS TRYING TO UNDERSTAND WHY IT'S NOT WORKING AS INTENDED THAT'S WHY.

You see, sometimes when people enjoy rummaging around game files they find stuff that makes them wonder "hmm, I wonder why this was not included in the final game?" and then they start making their own conspiracy theories about it. Well, not with this dev trust me. If I remove or discard something from any of the projects I'm working on, I want to be as clear as possible with the people that will be playing my games. I think it also helps folks understand that making certain features in a video game is not as "simple" as they believe. Again, see any of my posts regarding stairs.

Small update just to give you a heads up about how sometimes you think you have everything figured out only to say "hey, I wonder why I didn't try this before?" and then have to scrap everything in order to make things work. You can always learn from mistakes though, so try to keep it positive if you ever have to deal with something like this.

RIP Double and Triple Shot, I won't miss you that much (but the players will, I guess?)

-Ray

PS nevermind I fixed it yay :D

Hi there folks!

First things first, I really appreciate the feedback and support that PLOMO is getting out of nowhere recently. Feel free to share the game around whether you liked it or not, I always enjoy reading people's opinion about it.

In regards of Baldomero's Ballad, development is going slower than I thought and I have to say that there's nothing or nobody else to blame but myself for that. Seeking a job that pays decently and doesn't turn me into a blob of anguish is harder than I thought, but procrastination it's all on me and I'm definitely not going to allow it to take control. So yeah, sorry for taking so long to make the game, no excuses about it. I'm getting my stuff together.

In other news, the lovely and chill spring leaves my hometown to lead summer and its warmth inside. Now, I don't know if you are familiar with summer in Southern Spain, so let me write a short song about it:

I hate summer in here.

The heat gets quite unbearable around these parts, and that means PCs and hardware in general go into nuclear ballistic missile being fired mode. People too, but that's not as enjoyable to witness. Regardless of it, I will continue working on BsB, Terroke animations are finished and ready to be added and I just need to tweak some mechanics a bit more (because as you should know in the lovely work of game development, when you add 1 thing that works, 150 previously working things will break for no apparent reason at first until you find out the conflictive event).

Oh, and happy Pico Day! I'm REALLY mad that I can't go to this year's meetup but if everything goes swell I'll be able to start attending stuff in the US with more frequency next year. Make sure you enjoy the lovely time with amazing folks from Newgrounds and to spread the love always present in the website.

And that's pretty much it! I'm still working in the game, still looking for a job, and still bald. The cosmos maintains its natural order.

Have a great weekend and stay cool,

-Ray

PS here's the best thing you'll ever witness in your life and my sad pup Eevee. No reason for it, I just like sharing them around.

Soooooo some things have happened lately...

I don't know if you are familiar with a small mom and pop company called Microsoft. They've been around for a little while, really humble folks. So the lovely folks there from the Xbox branch have decided that, well, effing off some of the greatest studios out there wasn't enough to pay the coverage of the hole in the wall they made in the first place, so might as well get rid of some more.

I'm not going to candy coat it: this things blows harder than a plane's engine. This is the equivalent of breaking grandpa's vase and then blaming the cat for it only for your parents to euthanize it. Money is the main cause of all this shitshow after Xbox decided that sure, let's buy a crapton of studios and then get Activision for 69 billion dollars, WHAT COULD POSSIBLY GO WRONG ONCE YOU NEED TO SHOW THE INVESTORS YOU CAN GET THE MONEY BACK?!

We need to stop doing this thing. And I don't mean "we need to stop giving money to greedy corporations that only see walking dollar signs instead of human beings". Well, that too, but Jimbo not buying the next CoD won't change the big issue about all this. No, I'm talking about keep thinking multinational companies are good for creativity and innovation in any shape of form. Nothing, and I mean NOTHING can keep moving forward if the only thing driving the people with the money is "we need more money". If you only seek profits, taking risks is the WORST thing you can do. You make people believe you are taking risks by adding one or two crappy features that can be easily forgotten that didn't change the landscape, erase previous features to reintroduce them after people forget about them so they think it's new, and all that crap.

Profit is the death of creativity. And the proof. Is. Every. Fucking. Where. But lucky for everyone, creativity is not dead thanks to places that keep fighting for it.

Newgrounds is still a safe haven for creative people, and I really, really, REALLY hope it stays like that for more years to come. Indie developers, indie musicians, indie artists, they all have a chance to showcase what they love doing here. And we need more places like Newgrounds if we want to actually showcase what people truly want to work on, rather than on the things they do just because someone wanted to see a revenue line graph go up.

Look, I get it, things are tough and hard. World issues are complicated and it's not as simple as saying "let's be nicer from now on" and then everyone became BFFs. But just because something's hard doesn't mean that you can only stay still and see the train getting closer.

If you feel the spark of creativity burn within your soul, make something! Don't act just because it will give you money, do it because you feel like doing it. You'll make shitty things, you'll make good things, you'll make amazing things, but it will be things you are proud of doing. You don't have that spark within you? Support people that have it! Give them a donation, a shoutout, follow their progress, give them a thank you, anything you offer it's cherished more than you can believe!

Creativity gives wings and allows people to improve and to learn, and people that only want to seek money in life will end up their days staring at a bank account in an empty house surrounded by people that only wanted to be around them to prey on their carcass. Just because you need income to survive doesn't mean you need to focus your entire life to make more and more of it, and if you want to do that at least have the decency to not screw people in the process.

I'm going to keep making games. I'll make shitty games, I'll make good games, I'll make amazing games, but I'll keep making them. And I'll keep supporting people that believe in the games they are making, because that's what truly moves things forwards.

Make things and be awesome,

-Ray

Hey folks,

Not going to lie, I'm not having a good time with the new job. I'm still on the look for other stuff more akin to my skills, and it's kinda funny that everything tends to lead towards the same conclusion: I don't fit in this country. I've tried, I really tried, but Spain just drains me mentally. Is it an awful country to live in then? No, if you are looking for certain things. Is it the place I want to be? No, since I've seen that there are people out there who share the way I act and think like me. But trying different jobs is important to understand what you like and you don't like doing. Granted, when you don't have another option you fight for it, but that doesn't mean it's a good thing to do if you want to keep your sanity intact.

It's fine to not be good at everything. If anything, I've been trying that for quite a long time now, and while it's true that you manage to obtain quite a lot of skills, in the end you end up being a master of none. And if you ever played a class-based RPG, you know that playing as the Freelancer gets dull after a while. Guess that I'm in that part of my life now, which is both exciting and quite exhausting. Thankfully I have people that support me which is something I value more than anything in this world.

I love making games. I love writing. I love drawing using squares. And that's why I want to keep doing what I love, even if I have to go through things I don't love to achieve it.

Just one of those venting posts everyone does from time to time to keep the demons at bay. I'm still working on the game, only slower due to, well, shitty job.

Have a nice week and remember that y'all amazing at something even if you don't know what is it yet,

-Ray

Hi there folks!

I'm happy to present the first boss of the game: Terroke!

Terroke is inspired by the Tarasque, a French mythological creature. There are tons of legends regarding this lovely fellow, being this one from the West of Spain the one that made me have it as the first boss (pretty anti-Semitic ngl, but that's pretty much Spanish medieval folklore in a nutshell).

The tale talks about a greedy Jewish surgeon who went to attend a poor man after the huge offer of the patient's grandpa: 700 maravedi and 70 piglets. The surgeon got into the horse wagon paid by the patient's grandpa, and when they arrived at their destination the poor man was on his last legs. He also had a dream about how the surgeon got eaten by the Tarasque due to taking so long to arrive. The surgeon offered some remedies to ease the pain of the patient in the shape of some herbs he had in his briefcase. For a fee, of course. But when he got the money and the people saw they weren't working, the surgeon said he was suffering from "heart illness".

The surgeon asked for his promised payment despite the anger of the patient's family, and he returned to his house with the company of two servants.

When they were on his way back to the surgeon's residence, the Tarasque appeared and grabbed the greedy man from the neck, choking him with its tail. The servants saved themselves by holding a cross and summoning Saint Marta, making the beast flee.

When the servants returned to the house they served in, they returned to the place where the surgeon was last seen, only to find his corpse floating on the water next to the creature's den. The corpse was holding in his hand the bag of maravedi, which was returned to the family.

La Tarasca, Leyendas de Extremadura

Pretty cool short tale, could have been done without the whole "Jews are greedy" part but again, keep in mind Spain has always been like this with practically every single race and ideology. Tale's still worth reading though, give it a try if you want to practice your Spanish!

In terms of art, the Tarasque is represented for the most part as a creature with the face of a lion, a turtle-like shell over its body and the tail of a snake. I took some creative freedom drawing it because I still need to animate it and make it readable for the player, so I made it more of a "creepy hairy fellow" type of monster.

And that's pretty much it! Last post I'll make about the game will be the design of the first level. After that, I'll fully focus on working on the game and working to earn some money. Hope you enjoyed this journey so far and see you in the next and final post!

Have a great week and stay cool,

-Ray

Keep you waitin' huh?

I'm baaaaaaack from the States! Shortest week of my life, boy I can't wait to return this winter. My time there was great and awesome, and I can definitely confirm I was born to be in the US. The cultural blend of the population, the nice folks I met in the places I visited,... Call me Jack from Lost because I need to get back to the island.

So you might be thinking I'm not going to continue with the game, and you might think wrong if that's the case. My routine will now be as follows: working as a member gatherer for MSF in the mornings (lovely place, they are doing a great job and the salary's fine) and then work in the game in the afternoon. I'll try my best to have everything tied up and done by July so I can focus on the marketing campaign (a change of plans is making me think that going for a Kickstarter is quite pointless since the game only requires musicians at this point, and I'd rather pay them directly but we'll see as I'm also saving a lot for the trip back to NY).

Also a friend of mine is working on a gaming blog and talking about funny stuff regarding Baldomero's Ballad development among other things. Blog's in Spanish, it's called KameTOID3D. Give it a look, he loves games and talking about them.

And that's pretty much it. I'll keep the posts flowing again next week since right now I'm feeling kinda sick due to this wild weather.

Have a great week(end) and be kind!

-Ray

Hey hey hey folks!

Last post of this week before the trip, I'm tweaking everything with what I like calling "Worsening of Life" features (or WoL). I've added my favorite one so far: dropping like a sack of potatoes towards the ground if you don't jump before reaching the edge of a platform :D

Did I mention how lovely the stairs work now? I can stack them, make them longer, shorter,... It's simply amazing what can you get using LERPs. I know you teleport towards them and for the love of me I can't seem to find a way to make the Player move towards them before actually getting on them. But hey, I didn't have any clue about how to make the drop thingy before and now look at me! Still, I'd like to finish adding the final minor enemies so I can work on the bosses.

Oh and I'm making knockback a bit stronger than I already have it simply because I want to let players use NES Castlevania speedrun techniques. I don't really know who's going to want to play this willingly with the amount of outdated mechanics I'm adding aside from me but hey, I'm still proud of what I'm making.

Have a great week and see you when I'm back!

-Ray

Hey there folks!

Hope the week began nicely for y'all. As of me, BsB development is going swift and swell as hell, I managed to add the custom stairs event and everything works as intended (you kinda teleport towards the stairs and I really can't find a solution that doesn't destroy my mental sanity more than it has already been obliterated, so I'll leave it as such meanwhile).

Now, next week I won't post or do anything around here for one simple reason: I'll be in the US of A! I'm going to spend my time there with my best friend checking if I'd like to make a living in the States (because honestly Spain ain't offering much in terms of what I like doing right now). If you live around NY and you see one day a bald bearded guy just scream DON'T TRUST STAIRS and I'll be happy to say hi to you :D

And that's pretty much it! I'll keep working on the game for the rest of this week and see how much I can manage to put together before the trip.

Enjoy the week!

-Ray