Topic: Castletoria - a game in development!

I am happy to have the approval of @antdickens to create this thread specifically for the game I am developing!

BIG disclaimer here: This is NOT an advertisement in any way! The game is not for sale (yet) and it is not part of any kickstarter (or anything like that)!

There are NO copyright assets/aspects as well. Everything is drawn and coded by me.

So after the formalities I will focus on the game itself!

It is called Castletoria. I think of it as a love letter to my favorite franchise Castlevania.

It is a side scrolling, explorational focused game. You know the drill: huge castle, items to progress, backtracking, equipment, loot etc.

I develop it in Game Maker Studio 2. It started as a Game Maker 8.1 project. Then evolved in Game Maker Studio 1.4 and now finally I ported it to Studio 2.

The transition was so hard as I did not have ANY coding experience and things like working with arrays, creating a save system and making the fixed resolution scaling was dreadful! Still I managed it!

Currently I am focusing on drawing the assets and start the coding for the real playable demo! My last demo was a little disaster as I did not put many of the ideas I had in my head!

The game is playable (by me) it is not only a concept with drawings. I will get some videos later this week!

Here are screenshot of various places in the game from menus to in-game places!

From time to time I will update this post

Feel free to discuss or ask anything about Castletoria.

Fantastic to hear. I'm not exaggerating, you could be doing exactly what ConcernedApe did with Stardew Valley, another love letter that blew up massively. Put in the work and I say this now make the game YOU want to make. Can't wait to see more, keep it up.

Nicely done (more so for someone with no code experience). I will check the development updates and I am hoping we will be able to play the game at some point in the future.

Thank you guys!

Here are all concept designs I made for the game for now:

Click on each one and you will be redirected to the full version.

Looking forward to trying the demo.....

This looks great! Your concept designs are fantastic too, looking forward to seeing more updates on your project.

Thank you guys for the kind words

@CactusMan It sure does ... if you have 1000$ a year laying around

For the PS4 and Xbox One the license for a year is 800$.

The PC one is the basic one and it is permanent for 70$

Kickstarter is not available in my country (Bulgaria) so that is not an option. I will figure something out when the time comes Now I am pretty invested in figuring out Studio 2 and it is nothing like Studio 1.4 At least I ported Castletoria and it is playable now

@Zuljaras Finally, you deserve all the love you get for this game.

Hoping it gets ported to the switch/OLED eventually

Castletoria HD

(in the dark timeline, it will be published by Nicalis)

I am in the process of making quick design sketch/illustration of the enemies by area of the Castle.

Those are the enemies that will be introduced in the Castle entrance.

Currently I have planned a little more than 27 areas in the Castle and each one will introduce 4-5 new enemies that are unique to that area.

Also fixed some bugs I found in the code and the change I loved the most is the attack animation of the main character with normal size weapons. His old one was too weird

Some screenshots that I took this evening

The current new façade of the castle entrance:

The slaughtered Cyclops in the "Halls of Pain":

The ground level of the Castle Gardens:

The top level of the Castle Gardens. Structure of gardening towers:

Looking good, @Zuljaras... Can we play it yet? Lol

@BruceCM Thank you. But for the moment I am the only one "playing" the game! There are bugs around every corner!

Yeah, I'm sure, @Zuljaras .... Developing is a lot of work

@BruceCM Drawing the assets and the testing consume most of the development time.

I was worried that the coding will be the worst part but once you have done the base, the pillars of the gameplay the code just flows.

I'm sure it's all a lot of work, @Zuljaras .... Glad you seem happy with the progress & I do look forward to trying it whenever it's ready for that

@Zuljaras looks really cool. Do you have a demo or a video showcasing the game

@BruceCM @Player_One The Demo is next on my list. I might also make a video with some gameplay next week.

I am really disappointed in my intro story slides and probably I would have to redraw them with pixel art direction because right now they are hand drawn and they look pixelated in-game