A love letter to classic Game Boy shmups and a certain franchise featuring animals flying space ships.
https://img.itch.zone/aW1hZ2UvMzg1Mjg0My8yMjk4NzQ0Ni5wbmc=/original/F5hp21.png
#Cosmo Command
hard berry
thorn elm
starfox so cool
hard berry
Going to start sharing my progress with my game. You can see the GB Compo version of it here:
https://claytheturtle.itch.io/cosmo-command-gb-compo-2025
And my first Dev Log, going over my inspirations for the project:
https://claytheturtle.itch.io/cosmo-command-gb-compo-2025/devlog/1061098/dev-log-1-what-came-before
hard berry
Do You Remember Love? I feel like every sci-fi adventure could use a Minmay-like space idol!
fiery totem
Your game suffers from the typical GBStudio issue, when enemies or actors load there's a micro stuttery pause, plus slowdown
hard berry
Your game suffers from the typical GBStudio issue, when enemies or actors load t...
Yeah, there's also a stutter when dialogue appears. I don't suppose you have any suggestions for the issue? 😅
fiery totem
Sorry, the only one I have is, if someone actually knows to code you can modify the engine and/or see the code and polish it there, but 99% of us don't know how to do so, also I read that would be more feassable to copy then rewrite the code on Assembly, but not sure if GBS allows you to export the source code with graphic assets and such.
hard berry
Yeah, pretty much my take too. The worst "stutter" is the running dialogue mid mission, so going to focus on improving that maybe. Coding in assembly is outside the scope of what I can do, so I'll manage with GBStudio's quirks
hard berry
NPC for an ice planet.
hard berry
A horse, of course.
hard berry
Oh deer.
hard berry
Since I keep adding more of these folks (I'm hoping to make one for each level of the game) I thought it might be fun to create one by committee! Just react to the questions below with what you think would be a fun character, and if we get enough responses, I'll make an NPC matching those criteria.
What species?
-# (I have intentionally left out a few that have already been used, but feel free to add them if you feel strongly about it!
What gender?
Free space! Add any reaction you want. Could be a vocation, a color, a personality trait, or anything that could serve as character inspiration.
And finally, spiciness level of outfit. 😂
hard berry
Hahaha!
thorn elm
any gender
hard berry
Can you axe your flame on the last one and use the other emoji? Just to keep the numbers straight.
hard berry
monkey girl? not mine btw
Ha, I added monkey to the reaction list.
hard berry
Pizza Rat is the hero we don't deserve.
dreamy ether
Delivering justice one slice at a time
hard berry
Still working on the promised NPC, but I thought y'all might enjoy seeing my first stab at a stage selection map:
thorn elm
socool
silver coral
beautiful as always
hard berry
beautiful as always
You're too sweet, but thank you.
serene elk
@hard berry might that be an artificial planet?
hard berry
It is! It's the factory level from the demo.
hard berry
Since I keep adding more of these folks (I'm hoping to make one for each level o...
Sorry it took a while! Work's been pretty busy. But here's the poll-winning NPC, a 🔥♂️ 🐭
I might revisit some of the other suggestions as well.
hard berry
Occasionally I work on the actual game instead of just character art. This is for an underground cave portion of the planned Forest Planet level (the one that will feature the Deer Seer shown off above.)
hard berry
I always liked the opening menu of Star Fox Adventures, how you got to see the crew doing tasks on the ship as you go through the various options, so I thought I'd give something similar a try.
hard berry
As seen in the above graphic, I recently decided to touch up the designs of the main crew since I learned a lot drawing all the NPCs. I think it's a nice improvement!
hard berry
More? I'll give you more!
empty shuttle
Is it real shot from GB Studio or mockup ? I'm curious to see how you manage colours palette to have this kind or polychromatic rendering
desert apex
Is it real shot from GB Studio or mockup ? I'm curious to see how you manage col...
from what I can tell (correct me if I'm wrong Clay!), it looks like the palettes all share the same respective shadow/white/blacks, which means in this case the last color in every 4-color palette is free to be any color. Very good technique to keep the portraits cohesive!
hard berry
Is it real shot from GB Studio or mockup ? I'm curious to see how you manage col...
@desert apex has it right. Sharing 3 of the 4 colors in each palette lets me get away with having swaths of color more intermingled than you would be able to if they had been composed of entirely unique shades.
The one exception is the eyes, which are sprites and thus don't have to fit into the background tile limitations at all.
There are places where I didn't fully hide the color overlaps, like the yellow on otter's cheek, but for the most part I carefully adjust the purple shade and white highlight areas to hide these transitions. (In fact, I could've colored the yellow pixels purple here and perhaps obscured this overlap altogether.)
empty shuttle
There are places where I didn't fully hide the color overlaps, like the yellow o...
@hard berry really clever. Is there a demo of the game available or is it just mockup for now ?
hard berry
<@229317482706501633> really clever. Is there a demo of the game available or is...
There's a GB compo version of the game available! It does not have the new portraits and NPCs shown here, but it's a pretty complete proof of concept.
empty shuttle
There's a GB compo version of the game available! It does not have the new portr...
great job ! Is there a npc To way "do a barrel roll ! "
hard berry
Haha! I wanted to include it in a tutorial/training mission but didn't get around to adding it to this version of the game. There's still a nod on the page though.
serene elk
More? I'll give you more!
Alright everyone, we can pack it up. The best GBS game is already being made.
hard berry
Alright everyone, we can pack it up. The best GBS game is already being made.
Pffff! Clearly you must be thinking of some otter, I mean, some other game. Thanks for the vote of confidence though.
The other start menu scenes I've done.
desert apex
I love these! 
hard berry
Thank you!
flint remnant
Your art is great and I can't wait to play this eventually
serene elk
I always liked the opening menu of Star Fox Adventures, how you got to see the c...
Ohh like this one? Would each character be a different submenu then?
Really like the subtle face animations on Glasses-chan, the eyes and mouth.
hard berry
Your art is great and I can't wait to play this eventually
Thank you! It won't have most of the new graphics you've seen in this forum, but you can play the GB Compo version of the game here: https://claytheturtle.itch.io/cosmo-command-gb-compo-2025
hard berry
Ohh like this one? Would each character be a different submenu then?
Really like...
Yeah, that's the idea. Whether I can pull it off is another matter, but I appreciate the drawing practice regardless. And thanks so much! I think I may have gone overboard with her. She has more unique frames than either of the other two.
flint remnant
Thank you! It won't have most of the new graphics you've seen in this forum, but...
Really enjoyed it even tho im actual dogwater at it lmao. Youre genuienely so talented with the tileswapping stuff in the cutscenes
hard berry
Really enjoyed it even tho im actual dogwater at it lmao. Youre genuienely so ta...
Thank you so much! I feel like I can still improve with animation, but I'm learning new things all the time.
(As for the game itself, the demo has a built in cheat to refill your shields by pressing start, if that helps!)
hard berry
serene elk
epic
silver coral
The other start menu scenes I've done.
Wow it looks so good with the animation
hard berry
Wow it looks so good with the animation
You live! How have you been? How's Obake Kiss?
And thank you.
silver coral
You live! How have you been? How's Obake Kiss?
I'm okay, as for obake kiss I haven't really worked on it in a while 
I'd like to get back to it...
hard berry
I've been posting the NPCs to social media, and realized I've never shared this one here:
serene elk
🎄🎁✨
serene elk
Thanks!
hard berry
I'm with @flint remnant, this is amazing! Something for future Christmas gifts to live up to!
flint remnant
Here's my non christmas fanart
hard berry
Whaaa! If I had a nickel for every time I got fan art, I'd have two nickels, but it's amazing it's happened twice in one week. She looks great! Such sass!
serene elk
Now someone draw Paloma and complete the trio
hard berry
I wouldn't be able to survive the trifecta!
zinc stratus
I gave it a go! Way outside my comfort zone, but fun to give it a shot 🙂
native mesa
What species?
-# (I have intentionally left out a few that have already been us...
It'd be neat if a Galactic Blasters character (which is my own shmup series) made a cameo as a secret boss fight (similarly to how Touhou characters appeared in the Seihou Project), but this message is months old so I don't know if it's still open.
Problem is that all the Galactic Blasters characters I've made are humans (or humanoids)... But I'd probably nominate either Ethelinda (from GaBl D2) or Driskoll (from GaBl Photo) as they're a Martian and Youkai/Maitikkusu respectively.
But the latter's already been put into a GB Studio game so...
native mesa
If them not being furry is an issue (besides them being from someone else's game, in this case mine), then I guess you could turn them into one or something.
hard berry
I gave it a go! Way outside my comfort zone, but fun to give it a shot 🙂
Ahh! The trifecta is complete. Thank you, I think you convey Paloma's awkwardness really well!
I'm just really flattered people are drawing my silly characters. You're too kind, all of you.
hard berry
It'd be neat if a Galactic Blasters character (which is my own shmup series) mad...
I'm not looking for guest characters for the time being, this was just a for-fun character design challenge.
But if that ever changes, I'll let you know! Have a link to your game?
native mesa
Yes, I've got links to most of the Galactic Blasters games on my itch.io page (which should be easy to find from links in the forum).
The only ones I don't have on my itch.io are the first two games, Galactic Blaster and Galactic Blasters+, because those were made within LittleBigPlanet 2.
I should also note that anything that isn't GaBl BR is relatively unpolished compared to that game, since I got better at making the games over time...
hard berry
hard berry
After much consideration, I have decided space shooter wasn't the right genre for Cosmo Command. I will be changing the name to Doki Doki Cosmo Love Story to better fit its new direction: Visual Novel Date Sim!
serene elk
🙇♂️
hard berry
A silly "draw your character in a certain outfit" thing I did over on bluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/cosmocommand.bsky.social/post/3mjvettfass2z
tough trout
Nice art man!
hard berry
Nice art man!
Thank you!
I ordered some custom carts from GBMake so I could test out the rumble feature. Got some custom boxes and labels too based on files I provided. I think the results are pretty sharp!
pine glen
Did we already have a Reddit sub so we can follow the dating... errr the main version? Asking for a friend 
hard berry
Did we already have a Reddit sub so we can follow the dating... errr the main ve...
Haha! No reddit yet, but I do have a twitter/bluesky if that helps.
https://twitter.com/cosmo_command
https://bsky.app/profile/cosmocommand.bsky.social
X
Bluesky