STORK - High-Flying Adventure

[Charbomber]

Recently I've been on a Cave Story kick. I got bored, so I wanted to make a game using similar design philosophies to Cave Story...

A while ago, I made a bad game called STORK, which was a pretty generic shoot-em'-up where half the levels were autoscroll side-view and half the levels were top-down exploration sections. I thought it had some fun ideas though, so now I'm trying to reboot it for this.



I think I already have some story outline planned and a chunk of mechanics.
I'm not sure where this will go but if I ever make more I'll post updates to this thread.
Some of the art needs a lot of work still... I've never been a great artist.
After I lost my Discord Account, this is the only place I can think to post about games I'm making so I figured I'd give it a shot.



I hope I can share this game with you sometime, but maybe not... I'm very fleeting with my projects. I shouldn't be so doubtful already though. See you later with an update on it.

[Charbomber]

Update - 3/10/2025

I spent the time Melonland Forums were down adding Collision, Bumping, and the Scripting System.





I think HP, UI, and Dialogue will be next (the script shown only mostly works now, I haven't coded dialogue or face graphics yet but I have drawn some face graphics!)... although I'm not sure if I want to make an update for every little thing because the constant bumping of this thread would be annoying. I'll only update if I think I've made a substantial amount of progress from now on, I think.

[TheFrugalGamer]

Very cool! I like the graphics and the color scheme you've chosen. Are you building it in GameMaker? I'm not familiar with GM myself, but that's what came up when I searched for "Instance Creation Code" online.

[nobo]

Nice. I followed your thread so I'll be watching your progress. Maybe I should do one of these type of threads for my next project. 

[Charbomber]

Very cool! I like the graphics and the color scheme you've chosen. Are you building it in GameMaker? I'm not familiar with GM myself, but that's what came up when I searched for "Instance Creation Code" online.

Yeah, I'm using Gamemaker. Typically I like to try following a mostly accurate NES style but this time around I decided to go against it, but the result is that my game is looking very NES-ey without actually following the style. Thank you on the colors btw lol it's my first time actually choosing colors myself since, y'know, I usually follow the NES color palette. I wanted the colors of the first area to remind people of cookies...

[Charbomber]

Update - 3/13/2025

Today I finally finished making the combat as well as the leveling system. There's only one enemy so far but I'm going to add more for the first area.
Also, I added a lot of graphics.



I also finished dialogue a couple days ago. Have a looksie.

[Charbomber]

Update - 3/18/2025

I don't want to show screenshots this time because... I'm almost completely done with the first level

When I'm done, I want to consider sending out a mini-demo for people to try in order to see if the game concept is any good so far and also to see if I've done anything wrong. Because of that, I also want what it looks like in its current state to be a surprise.

Basically, next update will probably be a link to a mini-demo which you will be free to play and comment on. Feedback is appreciated but not required. Even the smallest feedback is helpful whether it seems inconsequential or not, anything from "This sprite looks weird" to "I hate this game because I hate birds"...


As for the actual updates:

I've added a few enemies to the first area. Also, I've finally finished everything about the first 'quest' (dialogue, sequence, graphics...), with the only exception of the first bossfight and some names here and there in the story I haven't decided on yet.

The bossfight is actually the last thing I have to do before the first level is completely finished, so I expect the mini-demo to come out very soon. Thank you for reading and following.

[Charbomber]

Update 3/21/2025

It's finally here! I'm pretty sure everything is working according to plan. PLEASE tell me if there are bugs, but also tell me your thoughts!

Here is the first mini-demo: (Download)



In lieu of a manual since I haven't made one yet, here are some basics:

IMPORTANT!
If you are sensitive to flashing lights or are easily disoriented, it is heavily encouraged you enable "Reduced Effects" from the main menu! This will outright remove all flashing lights, and tone down things like the scrolling background! Thank you!


The only buttons required in the demo so far are the arrow keys, Z, X, and A (although S, Q, and W are mapped for further uses...)

Arrow Keys allow you to move, X to shoot (once you have a weapon), hold Z to lock your aiming reticle at its current position (once you have a weapon), and use A to throttle your engines to lower your speed. TIP: you can use throttling to avoid smashing into walls, and also to do small 'drifts' to round tighter corners than you would be able to normally.

Z is also used as the interaction key. You can interact with anything that an arrow shows above when you get near it. You also use this for advancing dialogue and picking an option in menus. Use the Arrow Keys to select menu options of course.


If you ever need to recover your HP back to full, jet yourself into a Workshop. It's run by a friendly face, and they'll repair you completely for free. Also, if you need to save, interact with the floating disks.

In this game there is an Experience and Leveling system. Defeated enemies will leave behind Experience Stars which you can collect. When you've collected enough, your maximum HP will rise. However, another way to get Experience is via secrets.
There are various secrets across the map. If you explore certain nooks or fly in certain patterns at certain areas, you are liable to find Secrets which will usually spawn Experience (although I am considering making them do more in later areas).

Finally, there are many things left unfinished. The current title screen is a placeholder, and the intro isn't implemented yet. Dying is pretty strange right now too, but those are all things I am looking to change, so don't worry if those are weird right now.