Hitotsu - Last of the Dragon Keepers by Ryusui

[raw]
made by Ryusui for LD28 (JAM)
You are the last of the Dragon Keepers.

You have been trusted with HITOTSU, the last of the dragons, in a desperate bid to thwart the evil Astaroth Empire and their legion of soulbound golems.

You were a novice when the Empire destroyed the Dragon Keepers' ancestral home, so your dragon powers are not as strong as they could have been; a single blow from the enemy will fell you. However, you still possess the power to summon forth powerful bolts of dragon magic by pressing the Z key.

HITOTSU has the potential to become a powerful ally. He may be summoned from his egg at any time by pressing the X key. He will defend you from enemy attacks and attack your foes with his dragon breath. He will also gain Soul Power for each enemy you defeat with your dragon magic; the more Soul Power he has, the mightier he will be when summoned.

Be warned that the Astaroth Empire has many powerful weapons at its disposal, and only with HITOTSU at his full strength will you be able to defeat them!

Defeated foes will also sometimes drop useful spells:

FIREPOWER - Doubles your attack strength
RAPID FIRE - Increases your attack speed
SHIELD - Renders you invulnerable

Good luck, Dragon Keeper, and may HITOTSU guide you to victory!


Hitotsu - Last of the Dragon Keepers was made in 72 hours for the Ludum Dare #28 Game Jam using Game Maker: Studio. The theme of "You Only Get One" inspired me to create a scrolling shooter with a twist: a powerup you can only use once (your dragon), but which becomes more powerful the longer you wait to use it. (To a lesser extent, there's the temporary powerups you can pick up - they're mutually exclusive, so you can only have one active at a time!)

UPDATE: Hitotsu is now available as a standalone app from the above link instead of an installer!

Ratings

Coolness 45% 1141
Overall(Jam) 3.54 95
Audio(Jam) 2.77 298
Fun(Jam) 3.54 67
Graphics(Jam) 3.38 222
Humor(Jam) 2.50 226
Innovation(Jam) 2.75 308
Mood(Jam) 3.23 166
Theme(Jam) 2.88 225

Feedback

aayars
17. Dec 2013 · 01:38 UTC
Using a Mac, so I wasn't able to try the game. Sorry...
dremelofdeath
17. Dec 2013 · 03:52 UTC
I really really like this game, but I might be a bit biased since I love bullet hell. :D This was a ton of fun, if not a little hard. Awesome!
WojWorks
17. Dec 2013 · 03:59 UTC
A fun vertical shooter with an nice fantasy setting and well-made, colorful graphics. Very nice...if a bit difficult. :P
atomic_swerve
17. Dec 2013 · 04:06 UTC
Very amazing. I enjoy the mechanic of "holding" your bomb, unlike similar SHUMPs where you have a stock of them. I think it would be more fun to have a faster stream of weak bullets, instead of staggered one-shotters, but all in all the difficulty level is good and it has great replayability.
mize_VS_mildmojo
17. Dec 2013 · 05:00 UTC
Great game! Really hard, but great!
kirbytails7
17. Dec 2013 · 06:57 UTC
Nice use of the theme on this one!
Ghost Pixels
17. Dec 2013 · 07:02 UTC
Excellent! Love the art for the different enemy types. Definitely wish I could shoot faster. It requires skill to play.
goerp
17. Dec 2013 · 11:11 UTC
That was very good.
I rarely play schmups so it was very hard for me, but I liked it a lot.
Lots of bullits, lots of effects, lots of power ups. It played well.
Nice story.

I'm not sure how impressive your dragon can become, I didn't come very far, maybe someone can post a youtube video for a noob like me?

Just one thing: I didn't like having to install the game (and I think I'm not the only one). If you could make a stand alone version that would be great.
With gamemaker you could also create a version for the mac, no?
anvoz
17. Dec 2013 · 12:33 UTC
Very challenging but also very innovative and entertaining. Don't know if I can kill the flying steel armor or not.
DanielSnd
17. Dec 2013 · 12:46 UTC
Really solid game, great graphics, well made.
foumart
17. Dec 2013 · 13:33 UTC
First time seen a fantasy driven game in the form of flying shooter. Well Done!
🎤 Ryusui
17. Dec 2013 · 20:42 UTC
Thanks for the feedback, everyone!

Yes, I deliberately made the game on the difficult side - I wanted to make it hard to resist bringing out the dragon prematurely (which, as the intro scroll hints, means you won't be able to beat the end boss).

I'll admit I made this in GameMaker largely because I recently got the Standard Edition for free during their promotion (and upgraded to Professional for $25), though I'm not sure I particularly care for it: Stencyl has a much better interface and a much nicer level editor (GameMaker's level editor, for the record, is garbage). That said, it's probably easier to do really complicated things in GameMaker than it is Stencyl due to how easy it is to actually write code.

One thing that really annoys me is that I can't create a nice, friendly Web-based app without a $99 add-on purchase, which Stencyl can do out-of-the-box. Maybe I could port this game to Stencyl myself sometime, or even straight to Haxe?
Jupiter_Hadley
18. Dec 2013 · 02:59 UTC
Great shooter game. Nice job! I included this game in my Ludum Dare Compilation series, if you'd like to check it out :) http://youtu.be/6i2NO94dPrk
🎤 Ryusui
18. Dec 2013 · 03:13 UTC
High five! I'll have to watch that in full later.
KunoNoOni
18. Dec 2013 · 04:17 UTC
Pretty amazing game. Good Job!
Bruno Massa
19. Dec 2013 · 07:50 UTC
the best 2.8 mb you will get here at LD28!

played several times.
supremefist
19. Dec 2013 · 10:15 UTC
Difficult and nice! Got past the first boss only :)
lasagnegames
19. Dec 2013 · 10:19 UTC
nice art for some enemies, seems a little detached from the theme
Benjamin
23. Dec 2013 · 04:02 UTC
Wow fantastic overall for this one. The game is very complete addictive, and this dragon bar mechanic is gold. You catch my attention for 20-30 minutes on this.
tchem
24. Dec 2013 · 17:33 UTC
very fun !!! i like so much of graphics and gameplay!!
jprogman
30. Dec 2013 · 04:08 UTC
Nice Shoot'em up that isn't space related! This really reminds me like King's Knight for the NES. In fact, this is hard like a NES game, heh.
Myyyvothrr
06. Jan 2014 · 12:18 UTC
Really cool game (and difficult) ;)