Candy Quest

[cosmic nebula]

The spooky platformer game.

Gonna start updating here again, here's some of the current bits of junk I've been posting to tw*tter:

Level 1: (Pumpkin Path) Revision

Level 2: (Fungi Frolic) Revision

Of course the third video is too large, here's the tw*tter post
https://x.com/MaxBeforeTheOne/status/1789007453629091941

MaxBeforeTheOne ~ Candy Quest (@MaxBeforeTheOne) on X

The third level revision takes place within the Webbed Willow! The inside of this tree is filled with jump-preventing webs and strange bouncing skull creatures.
#gamedev #gamedevelopment #gaming #gameboy #pixelart #gbstudio #indiedev #indiegame #videogame #RETROGAMING #Nintendo

Twitter · May 10, 2024, 6:59 PM

Oh yeah Level 3 is called Webbed Willow

Level 4: Twilight Treetops

And finally for now, the new map of the Fall Forest

[clever scroll]

this is sick and looks more like a gba game than a gbc game

keep up the good work ❤️

[cosmic nebula]

Getting pretty close to having everything set for another demo release, currently working on adding a death animation rather than it just immediately fading to black.
I'd also like to figure out a way to better transition from falling in a pit (while still having health) to respawning back at the start of the room since that is also just a quick fade to black currently.

[distant sun]

You could just use a set position on the player. Maybe lock the camera at it's current position and move it relative to the player, then activate the lock to player "speed 1" or something?

[cosmic nebula]

Yeah, something showing the camera moving back to the start of the area is the main thing I'll be going for at least.

[cosmic nebula]

Here's the current idea for this. I was going to just set the player's position back to the respawn point, then move the camera there, but I've found zero methods for increasing the speed of the camera move to event. So I decided to try out this mario bros bubble idea I've had for a while now. The scene still also fully reloads when respawning, it's been like this for a while and I'm unsure if I'll remove it, the only thing notable from this is that both enemies and leaf piles (sources of health) respawn which I think is fine.

[cosmic nebula]

Here's a look at some updated menus and junk

[clever scroll]

It so pretty 🥹❤️

[cosmic nebula]

A bit from the new bonus level of the Fall Forest, Perilous Potions. This one definitely was the biggest overhaul and upgrade from Demo V2.
On top of a full on theme change which I find to be both more appealing and make more sense within the world of the game, this level is also the first one to introduce the idea of having powerups/transformations for the player. Both of which I'm quite happy with the result of.

[cosmic nebula]

Kinda decided on whim to redo the story intro. I was originally just going to cut it from Demo V3 (due to how long and bloated it was) and remake it further into the game, but without any intro of sort the game feels a bit too empty for my liking. I've already rewritten it, (its MUCH shorter, I'd compare it to Shovel Knight's intro) and now I'm just working on the scene art which hopefully won't take too long! After this there's not much left before the release of Demo V3, then the continuation onto the next world! (Finally)

[full plaza]

this is turning out super charming!

[cosmic nebula]

With the new intro complete, it's time to start working on stuff for the release! Here's what's gonna be the banner for the itch.io page.

[clever scroll]

This is so underrated ❤️❤️❤️

[mellow minnow]

This is all so cute I love it!

[vivid jewel]

Played the demo. Loved the style. This game looks cute as hell.

[cosmic nebula]

Soon 👀

[clever scroll]

give 🫴

[cosmic nebula]

Early this week!

[clever scroll]

give 🫴

[clever scroll]

best gb studio game have played, so give 🫴

(this is for comedy)

[cosmic nebula]

Boom. Bop. Bow. Trailer's out!
https://youtu.be/GUbwI-nJ070?si=FGxfV5Q7DlS-ZpOj

[clever scroll]

this is seriously so cool ❤️

like actually ❤️ really really cool ❤️

[cosmic nebula]

It begins!

[clever scroll]

i think u know what im gonna say

gimme 🫴

[cosmic nebula]

Demo V3 is out now! Feel free to let me know what you think here!
https://maxbeforetheone.itch.io/candy-quest-demo-v3

[cosmic nebula]

Candy Quest (Demo V3 out now!)

[clever scroll]

still the best gbc game i have ever seen ❤️

[final echo]

is that gordo from hit games, kirby's dream land and super mario land 2?

[cosmic nebula]

Anope, just inspired by!

[cosmic nebula]

Working on a new tile set for the first world 2 level, "Gloomy Garden". Pretty happy with the foreground, still mucking around with the background.

[clever scroll]

😤
🙏

G

I

M

M

E

😊 🫴

[final echo]

zelda statues!

[cosmic nebula]

Those are just temporary, just needed something quickly to get a feel for having statues around the garden.

[cosmic nebula]

CCDV3 has been updated:

• Reduced all damage dealt to player to be 1 heart. (Down from 2 hearts.) This should hopefully lessen the difficulty and make the game more accessible.
• Enabled dropping through platforms by jumping while holding down on a platform.
• Adjusted player death script in boss fight scene to attempt to fix a softlock.

[cosmic nebula]

More progress

[final echo]

I'd reccomend changing the palette of the water floor

[cosmic nebula]

3 New enemies, a leaf pile equivalent, and more BG detail

[ruby garnet]

🎃

[cosmic nebula]

Trying to figure out the look of level 2, going for general ghost house vibes

[cosmic nebula]

Another level theme for world 2 complete! Featuring new projectile shooting Lantern Spooks, and no-gravity zones, which are just big sleeping Spooks.

The Lantern Spooks are basically just a more versatile fire-spitting piranha plant. You can only hit them when they're actually visible and ready to shoot you.

[clever scroll]

why is dis not more popular this is awesome! ❤️

also how did u make it where u can go upwards even with the parralax at the bottom? :0

[cosmic nebula]

It's not parallax, it's a submap overlay

[clever scroll]

i have no idea what this is ;-; care to do a simple explanation for us none smart people xD

[cosmic nebula]

Using GBVM, I have script set up to take these background tiles here and draw them onto an overlay, (a text box) that never disappears.

[clever scroll]

oh wow! how easy is that to set ip may i ask? ☺️

[cosmic nebula]

I struggled a decent amount to get it working, but once it works, it works.

It's mainly just trying to understand GBVM though

[clever scroll]

with the changing stats do they just get changed on the tile or are they sprites? :0 like how does it work? :0

[cosmic nebula]

They are re-textured text characters that get rewritten on the overlay when needed

[clever scroll]

so are they drawn onto the overlay? :0

im not sure overlays work, so sorry if im asking alot 😅

[cosmic nebula]

It's fine, but yeah that's the simplest answer for it.

[clever scroll]

well ty! ❤️

[ruby garnet]

Game's looking good!

[cosmic nebula]

Here's the current vibe for a level planned to be filled with spooky toys

[tulip quail]

just discovered this. looks fantastic!

[cosmic nebula]

Been really struggling to pick a level mechanic I like for this one. I was originally going to keep transformations tied to bonus levels, but here we are, a toy transformation!

[cosmic nebula]

Level 2-4 is gonna be a party level with both dinner, (shown, still WIP) and dance/ball, (yet to be worked on) scenes.

[midnight bane]

Great background! I love your art style! Could you have a Jack-in-the-Box that scares the player? Some surprise toys? Evil teddy bear? haha

[cosmic nebula]

Those two just might appear in the roster of toys, an idea I also had was toys blending in with the background that pop out when you approach for a bit of a surprise!

[midnight bane]

That’s what I was thinking too! Hide the toys in the background to surprise the player. Could you code a way to randomly place the surprise toys for replayability?

[cosmic nebula]

Yeah, possibly. I would just think on init, I could have them randomly pick from a set of preset locations to spawn at. Not fully replacing the BG toys, but it'd be hard to tell whats real unless if you try to fully memorize everything.

[midnight bane]

You could have decoy toys that don’t surprise the player, which randomly appear too.

[cosmic nebula]

Here are the main elements of these dinner scenes. A Jelly enemy that targets the player's position, a Waiter Spook that chucks it's glass at you for attacking it, and giant jelly that you can swim(?) in! (Still a bit unsure how to fill out the background more though.)

Candy Quest

[cosmic nebula]

Coming back here to design enemies, I might have at least one more unique toy.

[vivid jewel]

Those look great. I specially like the baby, has a nice creepy vibe to it 🤣

[cosmic nebula]

These guys are easily some of my favorite enemies I've made so far. We got the Chattering Teeth for a standard marching/fodder enemy. The Jack in the Box serves as a simple but cool looking giant obstacle to avoid. The Baby does just chase the player, but it also just looks sick. And the Teddy is the surprise/camouflage enemy idea I've had for a long while. Gonna be saving the Nutcracker for a surprise near the end of the level though. 🫣

[cosmic nebula]

Coming back here to work on the ball/dance scenes I mentioned before I start designing layouts for the 4 main world 2 levels. I plan on having these segments made up of floating furniture for the player to stand on, plates of jelly to swim through, and hopefully a good amount of dancing Spooks all around the place.

[white pecan]

Can't wait to see that.

[midnight bane]

Swimming in the giant jelly is hilarious! haha The Waiter Spook is great too.

For the background, maybe have some spiders and spider webs, some funny artwork and paintings, and different wealthy looking ghost diners.

[midnight bane]

Looks amazing and so fun! The teddy bear and the floating baby puppet thing creeped me the hell out.

[cosmic nebula]

Nothing too new here since these dance scenes are in the same level as the dinner scenes, but we got the cute Dancing Spooks along with a new Butler Spook variant.

[cosmic nebula]

Insane update that will shake the world to it's core

[midnight bane]

The dancing ghosts are so cute!

For some reason, I can imagine rats or skeleton fish swimming in the jello.

[cosmic nebula]

Started playing Mario Maker for the Gloomy Garden level

All the fun toys I get to play with

[cosmic nebula]

These backgrounds take so damn long to put together

[white pecan]

It's worth it, they look amazing!

[cosmic nebula]

Shmoovin'

[white pecan]

I really love this. I did something similar, but not this good with Sofia

[midnight bane]

Your backgrounds are really fun and full of variety!

What program do you use to create backgrounds?

Aesprite’s ‘tiled mode’ looks interesting, but I haven’t tried it yet. A lot of people recommend Tiled for backgrounds, but it looks super complicated to use.

[cosmic nebula]

Thank you. I use Aesprite for both my sprites and backgrounds. I tried messing around with the tiled mode a while ago but I couldn't figure it out from lack of info. I used tiled for a project once years ago and it was alright. Aesprite on it's own is more than serviceable though.

[cosmic nebula]

Gloomy Garden is fully set up now. I also had to take time to basically copy and paste scenes/assets/scripts/variables/whatever from the first world and set them up to work for world 2. Next is actually filling the level up with enemies and goodies. Here's a crappy zoom out in GBS

[cosmic nebula]

Finally having a built in "On Load" script is definitely gonna make me switch back to auto saving from manual. (I'll admit having to manually go to the stand to save is pretty "ehhhh" anyways.)

Gloomy Garden is nearly complete, but it's been so disgustingly hot where I'm at that it's been difficult to make good progress.

[cosmic nebula]

Freaking finished it. And now that a bunch of prerequisites for world 2 levels were set up/figured out in the process, things should be smoother for the next levels.

[cosmic nebula]

The water in Gloomy Garden was fun to work with, kinda unsure how I feel about the no grav zone idea for the second level though, we'll see.

[cosmic nebula]

I think these should help out with steadying your velocity, Bumpers!

[cosmic nebula]

With how much these other new levels have, I feel like I have to give the "Haunted Halls" level a bit more. And thanks to the new color only mode I can! With how many extra sprites are available I want every level to have like, at least 2 new enemies. So here's this new guy I'm working on:

[cosmic nebula]

Wonderous

[cosmic nebula]

These no-gravity zones are proving difficult to work with when trying to design the level layout. I might have to rework it into something else/come up with a new idea for the level.

[cosmic nebula]

I think I can work with something like this 🤔

[white pecan]

Love how squishy the brain is.

[cosmic nebula]

Erm... Yeah... You're getting another crappy full-level zoom out to show that I'm making good progress again... 🤷‍♂️🤷‍♂️🤷‍♂️

[cosmic nebula]

Basically finished with this

[clever scroll]

this is mega epics :3

[cosmic nebula]

Don't care to upscale this, but I'm thinking the toy level is gonna have some targets to shoot that will open doors in the level. Kind of expanding upon my original idea to have a level in this world feature keys/locked doors, but that turned out bad. Plus this'll let the player make good use of the new moveset they'll have.

It won't just be one target either, and the doors will probably show a counter of how many targets remain.

[cosmic nebula]

Break the targets!

[clever scroll]

this project genuenly doesnt get enough attention this is so high quality wtf ❤️

looks like a official nintendo gbc game from like 2004 at the end of the systems life spand where people figure out how to make games look fantastic on the system ❤️

[cosmic nebula]

Wind is annoying to animate. Fan only boosts you up when you activate your hover.

I almost started designing the actual level layout, but I still felt like something else was missing and came up with the fan. I'm quite happy now since both the new moveset abilities the player has also have their own level mechanics they interact with. (Shooting the targets, hovering in the fans.)

[spice sphinx]

Just completed the demo

I can't describe how much I like this game

[cosmic nebula]

100%, nice! And thank you!

[spice sphinx]

hi! sorry if i disturb you, i just wanted to ask how you made the purple pumpkins solid actors

since i can't seem to find a way to add them into a project i'm working on

[cosmic nebula]

It's the plugin Platformer+ that allows for solid actors.

I think

[spice sphinx]

You sure?

[cosmic nebula]

It is

[spice sphinx]

Oh well

[cosmic nebula]

The main scenes/actual layout for the toy level are complete, but I'm gonna come back to fully finish it off later.
Next up for the ball/dance/party/idkwhattocallit level, I'm gonna be working in this idea of having dinner trays you have to open to reveal what's inside. Perhaps this could go as far as to have what is inside be random each time you play the level? 🫣 🤔

[cosmic nebula]

This really does feel like I'm playing Mario Maker now 😅

[cosmic nebula]

Progress on the Ball level is coming along well, just adding in the actors now. Here's a full zoom out of the current world 2 levels.

[cosmic nebula]

He's a bit of a big feller (WIP)

[cosmic nebula]

Big baby boy

[scenic portal]

...

...candy?

[cosmic nebula]

Huh?

[scenic portal]

he looks so edible

😋

[white pecan]

the bottom one looks like he wants a kiss

[cosmic nebula]

That was originally going to be for a spitting attack but now I'm reworking it into a "tongue jab?"

[pale oasis]

I love this, very Mario Land 2 vibes

[polar galleon]

I really love your art style! Excited to see more updates and levels!

[cosmic nebula]

Currently trying to work out how the map for this world is gonna work. The Fall Forest is on the left for comparison, middle is my single-scene mockup, and right is my multi-scene mockup.
I'm probably gonna go with the multi-scene version. Even though it's very different that the current Fall Forest map, it'll allow for much more detail with how much more varied the levels are in this world. (The main issue I know for sure that'd kill having it be a single scene are the palette limitations.)

[distant sun]

Won't a single "Boo!" overload your scanline with this Ghost on the same lines?

[final echo]

I'm pretty sure that would add up to 10, so it probably wouldn't, but to be sure, let's not demotivate the developer with boo-s.

[cosmic nebula]

If you mean the big explosion "Boo!", then yes it probably could, but I'm not overly worried about that yet.

I've already had to work around that problem a few times already

[distant sun]

I meant the simple attack.

It's 3 tiles wide.

That ghost is 6, character is 2.

or is it 2? I thought it was 3..

[cosmic nebula]

The player character is 2, the normal attack is also 2, and the big ghost is 6.

[distant sun]

So 10

So any attack or additional enemy or item or anything will cause blanking tiles - UNLESS! You make the ghost 60 fps flashing. That should work (I think)

[cosmic nebula]

You'd be correct, yes. But I'll cross that bridge when I get there.

[cosmic nebula]

Still very WIP, the first area of the world 2 map. I think I'm gonna try to get the whole map done before starting on the King Spook boss fight.

[cosmic nebula]

Coming together pretty well

[cosmic nebula]

Starting on the second area

[cosmic nebula]

I think what I'm gonna do to save on palettes is have the whole scene fade between the purple/brown and the blue/red sets when you go into the respective side.

[cosmic nebula]

Pretty much complete for now

[cosmic nebula]

Finished up the third area and started on the fourth. Gonna hold off on finishing it until at least the actual boss fight BG is complete.

[white pecan]

these are looking so good!

[cosmic nebula]

Not sure if I'll share it fully or keep it secret yet, but the King Spook fight is finished and I'm super happy with it. It's got a ton more going on than the Papa Pumpskip fight, not that that's a bad thing though.

[crisp sandal]

HOW DID YOU LEARN ALL OF THIS

I didn't know you could make combat this complex!!!

[cosmic nebula]

For all of my enemies/bosses/fighting/whatever, I've just figured it all out through messing around on my own. Also, I haven't even shown the fight yet!

[polar galleon]

Really curious to see what you've done with that boss fight! Either through playing the game or if you decide to reveal it ahah

[cosmic nebula]

Just starting to put the world map scenes together, I'll show that and the fight when I'm done.

[cosmic nebula]

Here's a first look at the new map put together!
This definitely isn't final, there's still plenty of room for me to add in extra details, probably by throwing a bunch of animated ghosts everywhere.
Also note that Larion's stand will be added in out front of the mansion, and that the pathway to the eventual bonus level currently leads nowhere since I've decided to hold off on creating more bonus stages until all of the main level content is complete.

[cosmic nebula]

Here's the King Spook fight!
#works-in-progress message

He cycles randomly through 6 different attacks, and as the fight goes on he begins to disappear and reappear faster and faster!

[winged thicket]

This game is looking sick! Tho I has a suggestion, maybe make the frills/boarder on the hud a little bit smaller or alternatively, a different color. At a glance it feels a bit difficult to read it.

[cosmic nebula]

I'm workin' on it, I'm workin' on it

[cosmic nebula]

Got some new enemies going:
Cadaver - Another simple walking enemy, but one that needs to be hit twice to defeat.
Grave Geist - More of an obstacle, it freezes up whenever the player approaches.
Crow - Hurls bouncing pumpkins at the player.

[cosmic nebula]

Created some on/off or "flip switch" blocks. They work fine, but I worry about having to use too many actors for them, (even with having a group of blocks being represented by a single actor), along with having offscreen/unloaded actors not updating correctly.

[polar galleon]

More amazing work! How do you make the collision for the switches? I thought the player character wasn't able to stand atop actors?

[cosmic nebula]

Thanks, I use the Platformer Plus plugin, which let's you set an actor collision type to be solid.

[white pecan]

I still need to try that plugin out

[full plaza]

^ it's a huge gamechanger!

[cosmic nebula]

Finished all of these last week but didn't show em off

Really happy with how the shrinking slime enemy came out, still might tweak it a bit though.

[white pecan]

thats such a cool idea with the slime.

[cosmic nebula]

Currently working on some harvest themed enemies/obstacles and some Over the Garden Wall inspired NPCs for level 3-3

[cosmic nebula]

Got the (first?) set of enemies for this level complete, I've just been trying to figure out what it's main gimmick is going to be and I've come up with something absolutely insane.

[cosmic nebula]

Still much to do with this, but it's a good start!

[wicked lagoon]

Amazing job, well done

[cosmic nebula]

Next world 3 level concept I'm starting on is gonna be an underwater coral-filled cemetery. Currently toying with the idea of having blobs of souls scattered around, with the actual enemy being hands that lunge at the player. Only wanting to share this early because the concept looks cool.

[cosmic nebula]

"Soul" enemies for an underwater graveyard

[clever scroll]

Happy Halloween Candy quest

Btw I'm curious, will this game have a physical version? :3

[cosmic nebula]

That's part of the plan!

[clever scroll]

Where will I be able to purchase/find the project!! Really looking forward to this masterpiece!!

[cosmic nebula]

For the final game, that is yet to be determined. Demos are currently going up in my itch.io, and I post updates primarily on my twitter. Any big news of a release I'll send here of course.

[spice sphinx]

Wait a sec, I get that this gif was made just to celebrate Halloween, but does it imply that the Pumpkids' heads were carved by the Pumpking?

Like a big lore drop

[cosmic nebula]

Nahhhh, it's non-cannon. I just wanted to do something featuring all of the pumpkin characters for Halloween.
It does however represent the current development progress of the game:

• The first world is complete, (lit purple pumpkin)
• The second world is complete except for the bonus level, (carved, but unlit green pumpkin)
• The third world is currently being worked on (starting to carve yellow pumpkin)
• The fourth world hasn't been touched yet (red pumpkin)

[spice sphinx]

Still a cool little auto-reference

[full plaza]

that mermaid ghost lady...! 😳👉👈

[cosmic nebula]

Let me break it down for you:

[shy sluice]

SO GROOVY!

[cosmic nebula]

Level design for 3-1 has been completed. Here's an extra goober I've made for 3-2. It seeks out and attacks the player when directly above them. (had to fix video)

[full plaza]

love this goober

[cosmic nebula]

3-2 is done, starting 3-3

[cosmic nebula]

Progressing 🫃

[cosmic nebula]

Coming back around to flesh out these guys for 3-4. Some of these pumpkin folk will appear as npcs in the other world 3 levels, but in 3-4 they'll be enemies as well.

[cosmic nebula]

Here's the current roster, still need to optimize the sprites and actually make the actors:

• A dude stuck in a haybale that rolls back and forth
• Buddy carrying apples, apple projectiles will fall out of the basket and bounce around
• Some dancing lasses that twirl around
• Ale drinkers who throw their empty mugs at the player
• Pitchfork patrollers who charge at the player when spotted.

[cosmic nebula]

Been getting a bit busy and lazy lately, but progress is still happening. 3-4 is in the final steps of being put together. There were definitely more complications with having to set things up with the basket/apples, but everything's falling into place now.

[cosmic nebula]

Oh yeah I also have a bluesky account now, I don't think I mentioned that here? I've just been reposting some older content there until I catch up to the more recent stuff, but if you care for that: https://bsky.app/profile/maxbeforetheone.bsky.social

MaxBeforeTheOne (@maxbeforetheone.bsky.social)

Working on a spooky Gameboy platformer game.
Play the latest Candy Quest Demo (V3): https://maxbeforetheone.itch.io/candy-quest-demo-v3

Bluesky

[full plaza]

Every time you share progress I'm more & more impressed! Do you have a target release window in mind?

[cosmic nebula]

Thank you! I'm hoping to be finished and have the game be available at least digitally by the first half of next year.

I'm currently taking a bit of a break from working on CQ, but I plan to get back into it with full force after new years.

[full plaza]

Nice! Physical edition in time for Halloween 2025 would be clutch 🎃 👀

[cosmic nebula]

Finally starting on the world 3 backgrounds (wip for ghostly graveyard)

[polar galleon]

Looking amazing as usual!

[cosmic nebula]

Currently way over the tile limit, but we're lookin' pretty slick

[clever scroll]

if u dont have too many sprites u can go a lil over the tile limit, u might be okay 😊 but looks fantastic! any idea what the pricing for the game will be? ❤️

[cosmic nebula]

I'm using both the color only mode AND a lot of the extra sprites from that, but I'll figure it out. No clue on pricing yet though.

[cosmic nebula]

I thought I was gonna have to optimize a ton after using the unique tile counter website, but I quickly threw it in with the auto coloring and I guess it's fine 🫣

This is definitely one of those backgrounds that's gonna have me taking a while to put all the details in for each scene though 😵‍💫

[cosmic nebula]

hehehe wow hehehe wow

[cosmic nebula]

Workin' on it

[clever scroll]

jesus, im so excited for this, this game looks phenominal

[cosmic nebula]

I think it's starting to grow on me now

[cosmic nebula]

On top of that, I've already started on 3-3's background, here's a lil peeksy

[clever scroll]

gimme dis game nowwwww

[neon hearth]

I’m actually beyond excited for this release, I adore how stylised it is

[polar galleon]

I make of Mothlematic's words my own! Can't wait to actually be able to play this on the Gameboy!

[cosmic nebula]

Thanks guys, I'm also super excited! I've also got an update for this background to show, much more near-final now

[clever scroll]

you cant convince me this isnt a gba game xD it looks so good~! ❤️

[cosmic nebula]

Getting close to wrapping up the world 3 content, (for now), just one more level background, then the boss and world map!

[polar galleon]

Hey, I've got a question! I've noticed there's some general lag whenever the character is charging, I also have a charging state for my character in my game.

I've experimented with various ways to try and diminish the lag during the charging state (increment variable, timers, etc...) but nothing really seems to work.

Do you think it's possible or do we just have to accept the lag?

[cosmic nebula]

I think I've gotten mine as smooth as I possibly could with an incrementing variable setup. I don't notice any lag when charging alone, most of the lag/slowdown in my game comes from having multiple moving actors on screen, which there isn't really a workaround for.

[cosmic nebula]

Harvest background (WIP)

[cosmic nebula]

I think we got another banger on our hands (Putting together the first scene of 3-4)

[cosmic nebula]

Done and dusted

[cosmic nebula]

This is definitely gonna be a pain though

[hybrid crag]

Bro looks cool as hell!! Love the colours

[cosmic nebula]

Here's what I've got so far. The first phase of the fight will have you throwing apples to break the skeleton's pumpkin mask. This is mainly done so the player is required to use the hands as platforms during the fight. After the mask breaks the player will ditch the basket and be able to attack normally again. (VERY EARLY wip)

[cosmic nebula]

Boss fight update: Intro animation, first phase attacks, and second phase transition (not shown) are complete! Just gotta piece together the attacks for the second phase now.

[loud pendant]

This is going to be sooo cool!

[cosmic nebula]

The skeleton boss fight is complete (I'll show the rest of it later). But now I'm gonna do some tidying up/QOL stuff before moving onto world 4. First off the list is unique boss health bar colors/icons.

[cosmic nebula]

Working on coming up with a new objective to replace having to break checkpoints to get the gummy ghost at the end of a level.

The current idea I've come up with is simply having a tiny flying door hidden somewhere in the level you have to find. Once found, the door will appear at the end of the stage and the player will be able to trick-or-treat at it to get the candy from an NPC. (Each stage would have it's own unique NPC for fun.)

I'm also likely going to replace the simple exit doors with something a bit more engaging as well to leave the stage.

[cosmic nebula]

And here's an early view of what that'd look like!

[cosmic nebula]

And here's a more complete look of the full interaction.
Keeping the dialogue basic and reusing the same NPC/candy for the time being until later on when I'll give each stage a unique NPC with their own candy and conversation to be had.
Also updated/updating the text HUD design as well.

[cosmic nebula]

Also, here's the idea for the new level end "goal".
At the end of each level there will be a giant spring that the player will need to bounce on to finish it.
The player will have to bounce on the spring 3 times consecutively, and on the fourth bounce they'll fly away out of the stage.
I might also make a system where you'll need to perform tricks while in the air to leave, and you'll get Mario and Luigi-style "Ok!, Good!, Great!, Excellent!" pop-ups.

[cosmic nebula]

Goal Spring basics complete, next up is the trick system

[cosmic nebula]

The basics are in, now to figure out how to make it a bit of a challenge perhaps.
Currently you can just perform one trick per bounce (Done by holding a direction and pressing B), but what I'm gonna try doing is having the spring fling you away at different angles, then you'll have to chain multiple tricks together to land back on the spring.

[white pecan]

that spin is just, chef's kiss

[cosmic nebula]

Still have a few more bits to work on, but it's coming out SO GOOD!!!

[clever scroll]

inject this shit directly into my viens this is so good!!!!

[cosmic nebula]

Here's the finished version with an updated stage clear screen!

[cosmic nebula]

Gotta update the other two worlds now 😵‍💫 🤩

[cosmic nebula]

And here's a look at YPK's, still setting up the level ends for both of them though.

[cosmic nebula]

I'm going back to the world 1 stages to make some greatly needed improvements! (Currently 1-1 and 1-2 are complete):

• Extra background details
• Updated platform designs for better visual clarity
• Level layouts updated (again, but greatly improved still) including adding the flying doors
• Added a couple animation variants for idle pumpskips
• Added in a couple new enemies in 1-2
• 1-2 all bouncy mushrooms are now only blue, and all work the same way where you can hold A to bounce higher

Additionally, I've also added a new form of attack that lets you bounce on enemies when your burst is charged and A is held (heavily shown here), this does also consume the burst though, so it's not a freebie attack!

[cosmic nebula]

Webbed Willow Updates:

• Overall less ground webbing (As opposed the literally the ENTIRE stage being covered with them before)
• New slingshots to launch yourself with (Pull back in a direction then release to launch, can be weaker/stronger depending on how long you hold it for)
• New grounded walking spider variant (Spiders only existed as wall enemies before)
• Replaced leaf piles in this stage with egg sacs
• Removed all brain skull enemies (may reuse in a different stage)
• Added new moss spike enemy

[cosmic nebula]

Working on a guy.

Its fun to play with, but I'm still trying to figure out how it'll be fully implemented in the stage

[clever scroll]

question! howd ya do the parralax going up and showing hills? would love to know 😊

[cosmic nebula]

Here's how the layers are set up.
Most of the big empty green space is covered by the parallax when you're lower in the scene, but as you move upward, it gets revealed more. But since its the same color as the BG hills and the closer fading hills, it looks like one big BG.

[clever scroll]

how did u move it down so it goes up and down with the camera? :0

[cosmic nebula]

It just does that on its own. The parallax is basically just an overlay that stays attached to the top of the screen.

[clever scroll]

ohhhh okay! 😊

didnt realise haha

[cosmic nebula]

Here's a finalized look at the updated Twilight Treetops stage:

• Overall stage layout has been updated
• Added friendly Propeller Acorn
• Repurposed the brain skull enemies from the Webbed Willow stage
• Added second bat variant that doesn't move

[cosmic nebula]

It begins

[rigid zealot]

why does the pumpkin guy change colors every world

oh wait are these different pumpkin guys each world?

[neon hearth]

My guess is so that it doesn't clash with the world palette, a bit more freedom in that front?

[cosmic nebula]

In each world you're playing as a different Pumpkid. The colors for each of them were chosen WAY early on during the initial idea planning of the game, based upon these pumpkin masks from Animal Crossing, and I just haven't felt the need to change them since.

Originally, Candy Quest was going to be an Animal Crossing themed game as well. Jack would have been the original "Pumpking", the Pumpkids were going to be 1-1 copies of these masks, and other characters from the series would have appeared as well.

[cosmic nebula]

Some new world 4 stuff I've been working on

Here's what we got

• Stupid rats: basic patrollers, but they run away when approached
• Flies: fly around aimlessly, but they can be utilized by the player in a way not yet shown here
• Skull slime things: basic projectile enemies, can stick to any surface
• Water streams: move the player at a set Y velocity, prevents bursting
  And there's still more to show for just this level that's already complete

[clever scroll]

hey just wanted to let you know Max, ur work is a giant inspiration for me ❤️ so thank u 😊 u do incredible work!

[full plaza]

Impressive as always! I like how some of the waterfall overlays the character sprite too

[cosmic nebula]

That means a lot to hear! 😊

Thanks guys!

[cosmic nebula]

Man, with this being the final world, and also since it's looking like a lack of space is gonna prevent me from making a bunch of bonus levels 😵‍💫 , I feel like I'm gonna start throwing as many wacky ideas as I can at the wall here.
4-2 is gonna be another moveset overhaul level (like 2-3's toy transformation) inspired by a different game of mine. It's only halfway set up, but it's already coming out SO GOOD 🥹 (I'll show more later of course)

[rigid zealot]

how big is this game 😮

[neon hearth]

Could have put it on two carts and do a password to move over different save data values so you could put all the bonus/hidden levels

I am beyond excited for this release

[rigid zealot]

Candy Quest the Lost Levels frfr

[cosmic nebula]

The current size (without taking any drastic measures to reduce it/optimize, YET) is ~2.65 mb. Which is surely enough for me to freely work on world 4 and the ending stuff, but any other large content is still up in the air.

[full plaza]

How do you check the true size of your game? (Since GB Studio splits out a 2mb rom, or a 4mb rom if it's any amount over 2mb)

[cosmic nebula]

Shows up at the bottom of the build log here for me, I'm using GBS 4.1.3. I know there are other, (possibly more accurate?), ways to check though.

[full plaza]

ah dang I'm still stuck on v3

[scenic portal]

iirc, there's a website that checks. built by one of the mods I'm pretty sure

https://gbstudiolab.neocities.org/resources/game-size-checker

found it!

[cosmic nebula]

Yeah, there we go. Seems to match the built-in one too, 2.65 mb

[cosmic nebula]

Here's the extra stuff for 4-1!

Featuring

• Shrinking: Lets you slip into single tile gaps, but you're unable to attack
• Trash Cans: simple enemies that hop around
• Flies can be ridden while shrunken!
• Poop that makes you slip

[clever scroll]

how many levels/worlds the full game gonna have? :0

[cosmic nebula]

Currently, there will be 4 main worlds, each of which having 4 main stages, and a boss fight stage.
Depending on how much space I have left near the end of development, each of the 4 main worlds may receive 1 more additional stage.
There will also be a playable "ending" segment after completing the 4 main worlds that will include at least 1 level/platforming segment, and a final boss fight.

[clever scroll]

thats incredible!!! ❤️

[cosmic nebula]

Thanks! I just gotta hope I can pull it off! 😵‍💫

[clever scroll]

i believe in u!! the project looks absolutely fantastic so far!!

[final echo]

is this going to be like a sewer stage? Is the background just a placeholder?

[cosmic nebula]

Yes, and yes 💩

[cosmic nebula]

I'll just say now that world 4 is going to take place within various settings of a haunted castle. And the current idea is that the main entrance is locked, so you'll be entering through the castle's sewer system.

[loud vine]

I have a soft spot for potty humor so I think the slipping on poop bit is magical

[cosmic nebula]

Losing my mind rn if anyone wants to witness

[cosmic nebula]

some 4-2 enemy designs

[cosmic nebula]

Here's, a full look at the vacuum moveset I've been working on!

Junk about it:

• Activated by holding B, can also be aimed up and down
• Anything that can be vacuumed up is shot out as a basic damaging projectile
• You move faster than walking when vacuuming left/right
• Vacuuming left/right automatically pulls you in that direction
• Vacuuming up reduces your gravity, and vacuuming down increases it
• Firing the shot downwards gives you a short boost upwards

Also both the enemies and level mechanics will play around the vacuum. Like some enemies may not be able to be vacuumed, and will require you to vacuum up something else to be able to shoot them, y'know?

[flat patrol]

You basically recreated Kirby

[cosmic nebula]

In the most basic way, yeah. But the whole idea was actually inspired by a different game of mine, Sucky Solutions, where a similar vacuum mechanic is used.

[cosmic nebula]

Grind rails?

[cosmic nebula]

Here are some enemies for 4-2

We got

• Wickkids: You can suck away their flame to stun them temporarily, but they have to be shot to be killed
• Vampiric Flappers: Swoop down at the player when approached
• Blue Ghouls: Float around randomly, but try to run away when the player is using the vacuum
• Red Ghouls: Float towards the player, and they speed up when they get closer

[clever scroll]

i need this game noooooooooow, its so cool!!!!!

[cosmic nebula]

A fight with the Possessed Armor miniboss.

Notes:

• They only take damage from "BOO!" shots, and cannot be vacuumed
• Randomly picks between a higher slash and lower slash, both of which are telegraphed in their animations
• Placement of the souls being sucked up here is just temporary to show off the fight

[rigid zealot]

this is really cool
also whats the song in the background, its straight bopping (lol)

[cosmic nebula]

k.k. disco (aircheck) from animal crossing

[cosmic nebula]

Some 4-3 stuff:

• Ink spills: Sets the player's deceleration to 0 so they slip around.
• Book platforms: Snap shut shortly after being stood on, damaging the player if caught.
• Inkys: Shoot blobs of ink at the player, the walking ones only shoot ink when approached and also try to run away from the player.
• Bookends: Lay idle until the player enters their sightlines, (being close enough to them and being on the same Y level as them), where they then charge straight ahead.

And there's still a couple more fun things I'll show later this week!

[scenic portal]

I could imagine that as the games/bosses music

[cosmic nebula]

The rest of the 4-3 stuff:

• Portal Books: Work as you'd expect, will (probably) only connect in pairs that are aligned to each other. I also plan on using them for a SMB2-style screen wrapping section.
• Evil paper things: Fly in straight paths, looping through portal books.
• Gravity crystal ball thing: Forces the player into a levitation state for a short period, all the player can do while in this state is move left and right.

[cosmic nebula]

4-4 is gonna have insane shmoovement

We got:

• Grind Rails: Force the player along the direction they face at quick speeds, the player can still freely act while grinding
• Para-Potions: When attacked, they boost the player high up in the air and give you a slight speed increase. The swirling jump animation is only for visual flair though. And they regenerate after a few seconds.
• Wall Jump Banners: Let the player both wall slide and jump off of them with no limitations, other than being unable to attack while sliding.

[cosmic nebula]

Some 4-4 enemies:

• Rail Skellys: Can move along grind rails (or against at a slower speed), once they reach the end of a rail they can either hop off fully or turn around to keep grinding.
• Gargoyles: Currently just fly in place and shoot fire balls periodically. Adding in moving versions would be simple, but I'm also toying with the idea of having them follow the player at a distance while still shooting.
• Ground/Wall Ghouls: Hide in their respective spots until the player touches them, making them pop out, gain speed, and deal damage.
• Rail Fire Things: Not really an enemy since they're unkillable, they just serve as an obstacle on grind rails that the player has to jump over.

[cosmic nebula]

Focused on doing a crap ton of script optimization this week. Which mainly consisted of just making many scripts into single custom scripts that get called across many different parts of the game.
Mainly including the following:

• Enemy death animations
• Enemy scripts
• Breakable objects (like the leaf piles)
• Many, MANY level mechanics/objects
• Collectables
• Level end flying door/goal springs
  Before doing this, the game was sitting at 2.73 MB, and here's where its at now. Quite a nice chunk of space was gained!

[cosmic nebula]

World 4's breakable/loot objects

Trying to spice things up a bit this time:

• Crates with rats that poke their heads out/pop out
• Candelabras that can have their flames vacuumed up/blown out
• Brains in jars that fall to the ground, and have a small chance to come alive after
• Gargoyle statues that crumble down

[cosmic nebula]

The Pumpkids are getting another low-key moveset addition, the Crouch Hop!

Performed by holding down to charge it, the hop itself is quite low, but it'll give you a significant burst of speed that can be maintained by constantly jumping!

Extra notes:

• While crouching, the player is unable to move, jump, or attack
• If the player is charging/holding a Boo Burst, they can still hold onto it while charging the Crouch Hop
• The Crouch Hop is not a mandatory move like the Boo Burst, it's just a fun extra addition for those who'd like to try to breeze through stages fast (me)

[cosmic nebula]

Working on giving each level their own unique "loot object." The ones with ! are either fully new or are just getting updates, already almost done with all of them!

(I'm basically just working on a ton of smaller/backlogged things until the switch 2 comes out and consumes a bunch of my time, afterwards then I'll continue on with world 4.)

[cosmic nebula]

Currently giving world 2 some updates, nothing as drastic as the recent world 1 updates though. Just some smaller things like a bit of visual polish, some slight layout changes, adding in the flying doors, etc.
I've also given the checkpoint candles new pedestal designs using the HUD palette, so some levels have an extra palette slot free now for me to mess with.

[cosmic nebula]

After a bit of a break, I've finished up work on 2-1 and 2-2, gonna revisit 2-3 and 2-4 later. Starting work on world 4's levels now!

[cosmic nebula]

Ended up unsatisfied with my first draft of 4-1, already working on a revision that includes this new way of shrinking. Rather than having to go to X location to shrink, then Y location to grow, the player can freely choose the size they want at any Shrinking Pipe.

[cosmic nebula]

Just a progress update, 4-1 is functionally complete, and I'm way more happy with the revision compared to the first draft.
4-2 is also in progress, I have the layout plan complete, but I'll probably be changing quite a few things once I actually start testing the gameplay since 4-2 uses the vacuum which has crazy movement that I'm not used to designing around.

[coral fiber]

That looks epic! Ghost Busters meets Luigi’s Mansion

[cosmic nebula]

Another simple update, 4-2 is basically complete now. Here's me messing around with the vacuum movement in a test scene. (I also don't think I've shown off the "hungry" polterplatform variant yet, you gotta "feed" them in order for them to grow into a solid platform for a short time.)

[cosmic nebula]

Alright, 4-2 is fully **functionally **complete now. But, before starting on 4-3, I'm toying with an idea for adding in a new "blind" ghoul variant that'd react based on "sounds" the player makes. (Fitting with the whole being quiet in a library thing.)

[cosmic nebula]

Blindfold Ghoul:

• Starts off idle, if the player makes too much noise, it'll give chase to where it last heard the player
• Can hear when the player jumps, attacks, bursts, and walks at max speed
• Works on a sort of 3-strike detection system, (shown each time a ? pops up), after the third strike is when it will attack
• The level of strikes can also be seen in the increase in animation speed while it idles
• After 5 seconds of idling without hearing noise, the number of strikes will decrease by 1

(Also 4-3 is in progress now)

[cosmic nebula]

Fun with portals + more slippery ink

[cosmic nebula]

4-3 is just about complete. A lot of extra work had to go into this one with the amount of unique mechanics I had to get working together, (the portal books, levitation crystal balls, and blind ghouls). I've also had to use the "fake having an extra actor by altering an actor while it's off screen" trick wayyy more than normal here, and in far more complex manners than usual. The final vertical scene uses only 18 real actors, but playing through it seems like there's a whopping 27! Grievances aside though, this one's easily my favorite stage of world 4 so far.

[green frost]

I love the personality all this has and just the insane amount of content and mechanics you have and continue to build!

[cosmic nebula]

Thank you, I'm really trying to squeeze in as much as possible here with basically every stage offering something new to experience!

[cosmic nebula]

4-4 is now in progress

[cosmic nebula]

Some gameplay

[cosmic nebula]

All main world 4 stages are now functionally complete, gonna take a crack at the backgrounds next.

[cosmic nebula]

Things are starting to come along

[clear summit]

keep it up man, ur a huge inspiration to me! one day hope to make games as good and amazing looking as urs! :))

[cosmic nebula]

A more finalized rendition using an actual scene layout

[coral fiber]

This looks so awesome!

[polar galleon]

Your art never ceases to amaze!

[clear summit]

hey @cosmic nebula im curious! wheree did u learn to do art like that? :))

[cosmic nebula]

For backgrounds specifically, just lots and lots of practice/reiteration. I only started doing background art as I started working on Candy Quest, if you look at some of my older messages in this discord you can see some of my rougher early work, but after doing it for so long things just come more naturally to me now. It also helps to look at other games' art to get an idea for what you want to make, I mainly look to older Gameboy Color games, but Shovel Knight specifically was also a huge inspiration for me when trying to figure things out. Probably not a great explanation, but that's about the gist of it 😅

[cosmic nebula]

figuring out all the water animations without things becoming a laggy mess has been tricky, but we're getting there

[cosmic nebula]

4-1 is complete, onto 4-2

[green frost]

Oh heck yah! Wow

[cosmic nebula]

4-1: Stinky Sewer

[coral fiber]

DUUUUUUDE!!!! This looks sooooo freaking good

[cosmic nebula]

Still early on, but I've reworked the colors a bit to better match the enemy palettes, liking the vibe so far

[coral fiber]

This is gonna be a crazy good game

[cosmic nebula]

Near-final rendition using an actual scene layout, very happy with the results 🙂‍↕️

[coral fiber]

So colorful and alive!

[polar galleon]

I love the way it looks! Probably my favorite level aesthetic so far!

[cosmic nebula]

Thank you! 😊

[cosmic nebula]

https://imgur.com/a/esJpKNV

[cosmic nebula]

hmmm 🤔

[flat patrol]

Oopsies

Someone spilt their inkpots

[clear summit]

This guy can't not cook, omg this looks fantastic

[cosmic nebula]

HMMM 🤔 (How to do this: #works-in-progress message)

[cosmic nebula]

Mhmmm 🙂‍↕️

[spice sphinx]

This game looks so good man

[cosmic nebula]

Looking pretty good, I only quickly threw in the first completed scene to see how the parallax works, I'll probably try out a few different textures for that. I also gotta see if I can animate the blown out candles, then I'll work on the remaining scenes.

[clear summit]

im curious! what do u plan to price the game at? :))

[cosmic nebula]

Can't say for sure yet, but likely $10 minimum for digital, and no idea for physical since I still haven't decided what path I'll be taking for that.

[clear summit]

i will happily be getting both :))

[cosmic nebula]

4-2: Poltervac Passage

[cosmic nebula]

Library's done (surprisingly quickly), now onto the rooftops

https://imgur.com/a/XPzGmdO

[cosmic nebula]

4-4 background is coming along well

[clear summit]

stunning

[untold sundial]

That is gorgeous

[spice sphinx]

Man, this is dot-matrix gold

[cosmic nebula]

Got about halfway through giving all the 4-4 scenes the new background before Silksong came out and took over my free time. (Still playing it and it's great btw.) Getting back into this now, I'm probably gonna give the whole stage a bit of a layout/enemy/hazard update since I'm not totally happy with things at the moment. Specific parts are already great, but others are definitely lacking.

Here's some gameplay of the new background, also toying around with spinblades as an obstacle

[summer spindle]

Man this looks fun!

[cosmic nebula]

4-3: Labyrinthine Library

[plain haven]

you should port this to my game console🤯🤯 /hj

[flat patrol]

I love coming in and seeing the progress

[tough harness]

Hey! This game is amazing!

[cosmic nebula]

Thanks!

Just about finished with 4-4, turns out it needed more of a reworking than I initially thought. (Unrelated tile animation accident)

Afterwards I'm probably gonna take a break from being creative and work on setting up the level ending segments for the world 4 stages (flying door/goal spring/level clear screen stuff)

[cosmic nebula]

I was stuck tweaking for a few hours last night due to 4-2's goal spring collision not working for a VERY OBVIOUS reason, but all the stage endings for world 4 are now up and running.

Next up: world 4 boss fight?

[cosmic nebula]

Designs are coming along well, and the overall idea I have in mind for the fight is sick, but whether or not I'll be able to make it work it is to be determined.

[cosmic nebula]

4-4: Twilight Towers

[cosmic nebula]

First phase with the Countess is coming along well, got 3 attacks made so far, looking to have about 5/6 unique attacks total.

The plan is after defeating her first phase, she'll transform into the giant bat, which will come with new attacks and a "change in scenery".

[final echo]

Her head better fly off when you deal the finishing blow

[full plaza]

This is the way. I'm honestly of the mindset that if a game is being sold for any price at all, it should be at least $10. You can't even get lunch for $10 anymore!

Also curious if you have a release window in mind 👀 updates are looking fantastic!

[cosmic nebula]

Still not certain yet since I'm awful at predicting how long things take to complete, but the game should hopefully be done early-ish next year.
And thank you!

[cosmic nebula]

Ended up getting 6 attacks made for the first phase, along with the boss intro being complete. Next I'll see if I can get the second phase working how I'd like.

[cosmic nebula]

It's happening 😎

[void walrus]

i clicked on that link on your profile and i think i just got doxed 50 times from that website-

[cosmic nebula]

Got the phase 1 -> 2 transition and the phase 2 intro set up. Just gotta make some attacks for phase 2 along with the death animation stuff. Phase 2 will be more of a quick final flurry of attacks with the countess taking fewer hits than the first phase to finish off. I'm really happy with how the fight is coming together so far!

Though, with how much flair this fight has going on, I'm really gonna have to pull out all the stops with the final boss of the game!

[wooden carbon]

Your game looks absolutely gorgeous. Fitting the spooky month right now

[wooden carbon]

It's also the first time I saw this kind of auto runner being done so flawlessly. Did you use a plugin? If I try something like this with GBstudio's normal tools, it becomes extremely choppy. Are you looping back at the end of a scene or how do you achieve this? It's just so smooth haha

[cosmic nebula]

The grind rail, background railing, and distant mountains are all animated with tile swapping, the support column/candle is just an actor that moves across the screen, and the camera isn't moving left/right at all! Here's what the full scene looks like.

The only plugin that helps with this is the tile swap plugin I use

[wooden carbon]

that's crazy! I didn't know tile swapping could be so efficient!

[wooden carbon]

I tried looking deeper into the topic of tile swapping. Is the plugin you mentioned this one?
https://github.com/Mico27/gbs-replaceTilesetTilesPlugin

[cosmic nebula]

This is the one I use
https://nokotin.itch.io/tile-swap-plugin-for-gb-studio

[wooden carbon]

thank you! I will check it out!

[cosmic nebula]

The Countess

There we go.
The first phase does still have 6 attacks along with some variants, they're just not all shown here. The second phase has 4 attacks along with variants, but most of them are just different types of dashes across the screen. Also during the second phase the Countess takes 3x damage after her health refills during the transition.

The plan going forward now is to create/finalize the world/level progression system before working on the final act of the game after the player completes world 4.

[cosmic nebula]

Figuring out what the world selection screen will look like has been a headache of mine for a long time. (Too many unique settings to fit into one giant "world world map" how I'd like.) But I think I've come up with a way to make it work... 🤔

[cosmic nebula]

So here's the idea, since I can't have all the world icons rendering at once due to sprite/palette limitations, they'll only be shown using background tiles in the style of the map until you hover over them, then they'll pop out all colored and animated and junk. (Also, I'm quite happy with how this map came out!)

[solar ruin]

Love that as a workaround and think it’s better than having full color on all of them

[full plaza]

^ yea makes it less visually busy & makes it look even more like a map!

[cosmic nebula]

Well, the whole hand-drawn map aesthetic is actually a part of the workaround too. The very original idea was to have a whole colorful world map, with both the detailed background and icons all on screen at once.
Obviously it would have been way too much, so I settled with the hand-drawn map style since it uses just a single palette and more simple visuals, along with the hiding/showing actors when needed idea.
(Here's an old mockup of that from some months ago.)

[cosmic nebula]

I only have the basics working for this at the moment, but I'm very happy with how it's come out so far.
The other main idea I have for this is to also show the collectable totals for each world in the overlay.

[cosmic nebula]

I've been working on the actual world maps recently. Both the Fall Forest and Mysterious Manor maps are getting updated, and the Sundown Cemetery and Count's Cathedral are finally getting maps made for them too.

[spice sphinx]

Man, you're like a GB Studio Midas

Everything you touch is 24k peak

[scenic steeple]

Really looking forward to this, Max! The aesthetics are amazing!

[cosmic nebula]

New map junk:

• The beginning here shows how stages get unlocked, and when a stage is cleared it gets marked with a little goal spring.
• Stage names are now shown when walking over a stage tile, and pressing A sends you right into the stage, no more fiddling around with a menu
• You can now run by holding B

All of the world maps have basic functionality, but I'm creating all of the new features in the Fall Forest first before adding them to the other worlds after. There's still a few things left to do, and I'm gonna wait until it's all done before showing the other world maps. 🫣

[cosmic nebula]

Happy Halloween!

[cosmic nebula]

Here's an early look at the new map for the Mysterious Manor

• Main thing that'll be missing from these early map previews are decorative actors I intend to add later to bring some more life into them
• Something I didn't show before, the goal springs get crowns when all collectibles in a stage have been found
• The map title popping up at the start is still a WIP, I like the idea, just not sure about the current implementation

Overall very happy with the new manor map, the old map was a whopping 4 scenes in size, where here I managed to crunch it down to 2 in a way that works well.

[cosmic nebula]

The Sundown Cemetery

All of the world maps are now up to the same level of functionality. I'm currently working on the world selection map functionality now, mainly with having the HUD show the world's stage progress (WIP of that below).
I'll probably also add a similar display for the individual stage HUDs as well, even though the stage tiles already have the collectable icons below them.

[cosmic nebula]

Also currently debating on whether or not the worlds should stick to a linear unlocking system, (beat W1 to unlock W2 and so on), or to just have them all be open from the start, and show a recommended order of difficulty for new players if they wanna follow it. 🤔

Kinda leaning towards the latter, it really doesn't make sense story-wise to have the worlds locked when technically each of the Pumpkids are off exploring at the same time on their own. Plus it'd probably help with replayability.

Welp, I think I just convinced myself haha

[solar ruin]

I think having them all available is better like sml2

Maybe leave 1 locked?

Whichever is the hardest or makes sense as the final one

[cosmic nebula]

Yeah just like sml2, the 4 main worlds would be open, but the 5th "world" in the middle would require beating all 4 to open.

Now I also dont have to bother with creating an unlocking system for the main worlds 😈

[solar ruin]

Bonus

[cosmic nebula]

A little something something like this

[cosmic nebula]

The Count's Cathedral

[cosmic nebula]

With all of the main world map stuff done, I've already started catching up on my backlog of smaller fixes/things to do. Currently I'm working through tidying up all of the remaining stage-related content, picking up where I last left off with 2-3 getting it's revision.

[cosmic nebula]

Got about halfway through the stage revision before struggling to come up with more concepts using what was already made. The only big changes up until that point were that I ditched the "shoot the targets" gimmick, updated the background tileset, and tweaked the player's moveset a bit.
Now, I've decided to update all the old toys and make a handful of new ones to help spice things up! I might be going a bit overboard doing this, but this stage REALLY needs it. It's been known as the "bad level I should update" in the back of my mind for quite a long time, so I'm finally going to give it the glow up it deserves.

[green frost]

Wow! I am loving all these sprites! It’s great to hear that you are getting to go back and touch up those older levels you were unhappy with.

[cosmic nebula]

Thank you! I've done rounds of stage updates before, but this one specifically is the only newer stage I've truly disliked gameplay-wise after making it. It's honestly one of my favorite stage themes though, so I'm happy to have another go at it.

[green frost]

That’s great to hear! Yeah I am really partial to toy themed levels in games as well. But especially these designs as some remind me a bit of The Great Mouse Detective, which was a childhood favorite. I am so excited to see the revisions and play the final game once you release it!

[hexed smelt]

This game looks gorgeous ! Congrats !

[cosmic nebula]

Tinker Toy Terrors (Revised)

[flat patrol]

Man im so excited for when this will be done!!

[cosmic nebula]

Still doing stage touch-ups. These guys here all got background and minor layout updates. I'm still working on the Sunken Soulyard at the moment, giving it a new mechanic where instead of just having enemies placed at a position they'll now be spat out of the soul blobs when approached first.
The other world 3 stages also have the flying doors properly hidden within them now too. Getting close to being done with these!

[cosmic nebula]

It's definitely been a minute since my last update, I don't have much visually to share, but progress has still been happening:

• Now only 2 of the 16 main stages have smaller layout changes left that I want to make, otherwise everything else regarding them is basically complete. (Some stages had sooo many bad issues that had to be fixed, but I got there!)
• The game now has auto saving.
• The bubble respawn after falling into a pit is much quicker/smoother than before.
• Many, many smaller things.
  All I have left to fix is just a few particularly problematic bugs regarding my new HUD system overwriting sprite tiles, then I can finally start working on some proper new content!

[cosmic nebula]

All of my backlogged fixes and features are now complete! I've already begun work on the "final act" content for Candy Quest. I'm not showing anything yet, just because it's too early. Though, I'm not sure how much of it I'll end up sharing since it would be nice to not spoil things. We'll have to see I guess.

[cosmic nebula]

The Candy Cosmos (early tileset look)

[polar galleon]

So colorful! Love it!

[royal smelt]

love it!, looks like the Sonic 1 (Master System) special stages

[cosmic nebula]

Here's a little final act teaser showing off my messy asset workspace.

[midnight bane]

That look so amazing! You look rather organized for someone who claims to be messy. haha It's so interesting to see your game creation process.

I remember you telling me that you use Aesprite to create your tilemaps.

Do you create your tilemaps with the tileset on the same layer? Do you use the slice option to export the tilemap?

[cosmic nebula]

Thank you! But, I make my backgrounds in the most least fancy way you could imagine:

• First, I plan out what the tileset will look like in a small testing environment
• Then I take a simple blocky background of the stage I'm working on...
• And meticulously copy and paste the tileset over the simple background until it's done (with help from fill tools and turning tiles into brushes and such)
• Finally, I decolorize the whole thing to go into GBS, and recolor it using GBS' palettes

Also no extra layers used, at least in this example

This is also a pretty streamlined example I cut up and put together, the workflow is again quite messy normally

[midnight bane]

Thank you so much for educating me about your tilemap process!

Your process is really smart. I never thought about blocking out a tilemap with simple shapes. I've seen tilemap pencil sketches, but your method seems more efficient and fun. Such a time saver!

Using fill tools and turning a tile into a brush is super smart too.

Now, I have more confidence to create my first tileset and tilemap. Than you Max!

Creativity is chaotic. Trying to bring order to my chaos is a challenge for me. haha

[polar galleon]

Your art is absolutely fantastic! Amazes me everytime

[cosmic nebula]

https://x.com/MaxBeforeTheOne/status/2029670502034522212?s=20

MaxBeforeTheOne ~ Candy Quest (@MaxBeforeTheOne)

Sorry for the lack of updates/showcases recently. I just got finished with moving earlier this week and I'm still busy settling in. Hoping to get back into the swing of things asap!

▶ Play video

X · Mar 5, 2026, 9:28 PM

[midnight bane]

I hope your move went well!

Such a funny and relatable animation! I'm sooo very clumsy too. haha

[cosmic nebula]

It was pretty miserable, but we got there

[cosmic nebula]

https://x.com/MaxBeforeTheOne/status/2039488727660290163?s=20

MaxBeforeTheOne ~ Candy Quest (@MaxBeforeTheOne)

No April Fools bit here, just a minor update that work is still being done! Life is still a bit hectic for me, but I've been steadily chipping away at the stage designs for World 5.
(Check out these cute candy baddies!)
#indiedev #gamedev #gameboy #pixelart #gbstudio #Nintendo

X · Apr 1, 2026, 11:42 PM

[full plaza]

I gotta say man, this is one of my most anticipated GBC releases! Every update looks fantastic 🎃 👀

[cosmic nebula]

Here's some VERY early gameplay of the Candy Cosmos

Also sorry for the lack of updates, I've basically just been working on getting these gameplay segments up and running for the last month. As you can see, there's a lot of different mechanics returning, and it's been quite the hassle juggling all of them, but they're just about finished now.

[cosmic nebula]

Working on a freaking boot

[polar galleon]

Super Mario 3's boot powerup makes a comeback! Looks awesome ahah

[terse cape]

I freaking love kuribo's shoe! Lessss goooooo

[cosmic nebula]

Calling it the Gummy Galosh

[flat patrol]

A gummy gumboot if you would

Man i cant wait for the release, this is gonna be so much fun