Contra : Locked 'N' Loaded

[Bloodbane]

 As I said before, I suspend Rainbow mod and work on other mod. It is Contra mod, one of my favorite games. I named this mod Contra : Locked 'N' Loaded .
 It took lots of trial n error to get the basic mechanics right. As most of you know, Contra is shooter mod not beat'm up mod which means the game mechanics differ alot. Currently, I have managed to get 8 direction shooting working right, and it's doable while walking, falling down and riding vehicle. The fixed shooting mode is implemented and is activated and deactivated with a key. Weapons are also implemented and player can hold 2 weapons at a time.

 Thanks to God for helping me working on this mod!

 I am mainly using sprites from Contra 3: Alien Wars and Contra Hardcorps + couple edits. I could use sprites from other games if I see them fit to graphic style. Gunforce and Super Metroid sprites are decent for this mod.
 There are Bill from Contra 3, Probotector from Super Probotectors, Bill Rizer from Contra 4, Fang and Sheena from Contra Hardcorps as players. I'll bring other heroes after I got their sprites. There are missing abilities but I don't think I should be hindered so I decided to leave them and start adding heroes.

 Available weapons:
 - Machine Gun(M) (Uprising style)
 - Rocket (R) (It is C in Contra 3 and 4 but I change it to R)
 - Spread shot (S) (Similar to Fang's A weapon but uses different sprite)
 - Power Shot (P) (Similar to Fang's B weapon but can be shot in 8 direction)
 - Flamethrower (F) (Contra 3 style though)
 - Laser shot (L) (Contra 4 style, 1st form)
 - Grenade Launcher (G) (Similar to Sheena's B weapon)
 - Homing Missiles (H)
 - Vulcan Gun (V) (It's shooting style is similar to Browny's A weapon)
 - Triple Rockets (T)
 - Arrow Tracer (A) (Technically, it's similar to Uprising's L weapon except of different sprite)
 - Ultrasonic Shot (U) (Wide shot which can bounce off ground and walls)

 These are abilities which can't be implemented yet:
- Climbing walls: I think this is doable but only limited to 'walls' not platforms, unfortunately. Even if the latter is possible, I'd need check platform function to prevent hero from attempting to climb slim platforms (slim in y axis that is).
- Shimmy on ceiling: It is doable but I have serious issue with ceiling check. AFAIK there's no way to tell which platforms are ceilings and which are just ledges. If I had check platform function, I could solve this issue.
- Shimmy on railing: I think it's doable too but my biggest problem lies in railing definition i.e how to set railings in level and how to detect them.

 First shots:

Walk-shooting



Bunker from Contra 3



 In case you forgot, the original faces left while this one faces right.

Rapid shoot while jumping



Battle against tough grunt



Shooting Up



 FYI, there's no freespecial used to make these moves at all. Meaning, you are spared from pressing button sequence to do these .


Shots from vertical level




 Vertical level is a level in which player progresses through level be either going up or down instead of left or right. The level shown here is up direction.


Shots from motorbike levels






 I've done with 1st stage and working on 2nd stages. Yes, 'stages' cause I have branch in 1st stage. I have uploaded 2 demos, here's thread for the 1st one:

http://lavalit.com:8080/index.php/topic,3873.0.html

 and here's for the 2nd demo:

http://lavalit.com:8080/index.php/topic,4332.0.html

[yotatouch]

That's a great Project man, I also love Contra.
The Snes version was so great and i spent a lot and lot of time on it.
Anyway, your screens looks pretty good and hope to see soon a vid demo.

If you need some graphical edits, chars/enemies anims, you can PM me, i'll try to help you.

[scara]

Great Project! Those screenshot seem to be very interesting  play . I look forward to a day to be able to  play
I come across new Contra and am glad.

[Darkmanx_429]

Where's the link to your demo?

[BurnKing]

looks great blood cant wait

[MasterExploder]

Impressive work, Bloodbane! It sounds like you've nailed down the classic Contra gameplay, which is no easy feat. I'd love to play a demo and try out some of these features firsthand. Keep it up!

[Septor]

Wow!
Nice work
really looking forward to play it!

[Legend76]

Wow this came from left field! I will keep an eye out for this one BB!

[BadChad]

This looks awesome! I cant count how many times Ive beatin Contra 3!

[ryomaneo]

This looks epic excellent design you got so far so cant wait to try out this one because contra is one of my most fav games ever.    Ps keep up the great effort your putting into this.

[elliott20]

I applaud you for zeroing in on the run n' gun mechanics first. I honestly cannot imagine a game of this type that doesn't have a good run n' gun system.

[DJGameFreakTheIguana]

Nice W.I.P. BloodB. 
I haven't been ripping sprites much lately, but when I get back to it, I'll start with Contra Hard Corps and Probotector, I'll try to get the Backgrounds to.

[Bloodbane]

 Thanks for the support guys!

 Getting basic mechanics right is tough work but combining that with animation is even tougher work. FYI that rapid shoot while jumping which allows shooting in 8 direction shown above only uses 1 animation which is the JUMP itself. The shooting comes from script. OTOH the walk shooting actions requires more animations cause each direction has its own and it's doubled cause there's walk aiming version in which Bill only points gun in a direction without shooting. Good thing is, I could simply flip Bill to get some actions like shooting left.
 That's not the case for motor ride level though cause shooting left and shooting right uses different animations.

If you need some graphical edits, chars/enemies anims, you can PM me, i'll try to help you.

 Well, can you remake some enemies from Contra series for NES? I have some bosses I would like to have in this mod.

[yotatouch]

If you need some graphical edits, chars/enemies anims, you can PM me, i'll try to help you.

Well, can you remake some enemies from Contra series for NES? I have some bosses I would like to have in this mod.

Yep, let me know which ones you need, and how much frames/anims etc, and we'll see together what we can do.

[Fightn Words]

I think I personally find this mod more interesting than the Rainbow mod, not that there wasn't anything of interest. This one seems like it's more of a challenge for your modding skill & not to mention that this specific sub-genre of game hasn't been fully explored all that much- except by a few, like Bonusjz & Kbandresson.