Final Columbus

Yal · May 4, 2011

To put it short, Final Columbus is just like Cave Story. Same control mappings, even. Give it a try. You'll like it.

The game is complete, but I'm still adding new stuff to it (such as the TRUE ending). Expect a few bugs I'm trying to iron out.

Anyway, it's around 10 hours of (bloody awesome) gameplay or more. So give it a shot right away!
The topic below is just copy-n-paste from the GMC topic which is about the game, only so you know.

==========================================
Final Columbus v1.2.5
==========================================
Final Columbus was my comp06 entry, although it has evolved a lot since then. It´s a Cave Story-length 'flatform' shooter, based more on shooting than platforming, and more on exploration and collecting than on beating levels. "Levels" in this game is what you gain after killing enough enemies, and you can select what stat (HP, Attack, Defence,...) to upgrade, actively! Tanking or sweeping? Survive or dominate? Up to you.

On top of that, the game features a complex plot - ten to fifteen hours of gameplay - with carefully designed characters. Just a few minutes in, you start to notice that everyone has some unique traits, and as you overhear discussions and pick up lost items, everyone's backstory slowly comes together.

NAL himself rated this game #2 in his personal top-50 list of the entries in Yoyogames' competition06.

Players of the Comp version will notice heavy graphical improvement in sprites and tilesets in 1.2.5.
==========================================

==========================================
Part of an exploration team, you are sent to a ruin City to search for old, forgotten science materials that might be of use for the post-apocalyptic community that lives in tomorrow's US. Being the youngest member of the group, you're treated with disrespect from the scarred soldiers that make up most of the rest of the group, but find support in the "official nick-namer" Cain, the underestimated nerd Sarah, and the coffee-addicted medic Al, whom you know from before.

As a young soldier, your duty is to protect the scientists while they survey the sites of the City, as well as to locate and extract Lore from the areas and dungeons that are too dangerous for unarmed people to enter. You will find overgrown greenhouses, runaway thermal plants, ancient Egyptian-ish sandtombs, caves filled with poisonous mushrooms and/or lava, and flooded slums with the skeletons of your Ancestors still intact. You will fight living robotic fans, angry birds, defective turrets, rats on caffeine, and mutated three-eyed electric turtles in your underpaid quest for knowledge. You will need to select each stat upgrade with care to get the upper hand against all the trials that try to make your life, and the lives of your friends, end early...

When strange events take place in the Water Tower, the group is scattered and you suddenly have to think more about surviving than your original orders... but without forgetting your original reason to join: to find out the truth behind the death of your father.

==========================================

==========================================
The game offers varied gameplay in three levels of difficulty (Casual, Intended, Hardcore), having you alternate between exploration of the abandoned city, shooting your way trough tight corridors in best Metal Slug style, protecting scientists from enemies coming trough walls, ceiling and background, driving and mastering several kinds of veichles... including battle mechas with and without gatling gun turrets, a helicopter, and a subway train.

NAL himself rated this game #2 in a top-50 list of the entries to Yoyogames' competition06, in particular because of the gameplay.

==========================================
Game Size: Around 5 Mb.
Game Version: 1.2.5
Game Maker Version: 8.0 (Pro)
Screen Size: 480 x 272 (Windowed, selectable, does not change resolution, F4 for fullscreen)
Genre: Platform shooter / Exploration / RPG
Players: 1
==========================================

PAGE ON YYG
Final Columbus is a Featured game at YYG, in other words a Staff Pick. It is filled with roughly 12 hours of varied gameplay and has 6 different endings.

BOX.NET MIRROR
This mirror isn't updated as often as the YYG version, mostly because of my memory

. You can use that if you prefer hosting sites over gametube.

==========================================

==========================================
Even More Screenshots (some of them are outdated):
S-ATG Laser in action. Poor rats.
Title screen
Hovercopter scene - with the improved 1.2.0 tileset!
Big-sprite chitchat scene
She talks a lot, right?
Fishes in the sky
Cutscene with a mystical man...
Grass Dungeon - battle generic monsters
Monster Nests in action
Pause menu
Safepoint and two of your friends
Lava snake!
Talking about the Dive Suits
Magnetical Hovercopter escort mission
These are homing birds...
Swimming boss
At the Subway
==========================================

The current version is v1.2.5, and version 1.2.6, that will feature a number of hidden bonus dungeons, additional cutscenes, and other stuff, is under development...

For a full list of updates since v1.0.0, read the fc_updates file that comes with the game. Please notify me as elaborate as possible if you find any error, glitch, exploit or similar issue - it will increase the chance of it getting fixed rapidly.

==========================================

WoodenRat · May 4, 2011

I'm trying it out.

Tomorrow.

Yal · May 5, 2011

And now it is tomorrow (relative to yesterday, which was when you posted).

*Stands behind shoulder of WoodenRat*

Have you tried it out yet? Have you tried it out yet? Have you tried it out yet? Have you tried it out yet? Have you tried it out yet? Have you tried it out yet? Have you tried it out yet? Have you tried it out yet? Have you tried it out yet? Have you tried it out yet? Have you tried it out yet? Have you tried it out yet?

Ahem. I could as well post some more screenies:

WoodenRat · May 5, 2011

I was visiting my friend at the hospital so I hadn't had the time

Yal · May 9, 2011

Oh.

...

...do you have more time now?

I've recently updated the game twice; one being a big graphical update:

I'm going to edit the first post right away.

WoodenRat · May 9, 2011

Man how come no one plays it.

Omega · May 9, 2011

Ive played it i got stuck on the part after you get out of the cave that comes after the part where you need to enter and go through the fifth building.And this game is great keep updating it because i dont know about you guys but this is one of the few freeware games that caught my attention.

P.S:could you tell me what to do after i get out of the cave i mentioned earlier.

P.S.S:Can i use my old save on the new version of the game you made with the graphical updates.

GIRakaCHEEZER · May 10, 2011

I really do hate general midis, so I don't know how far I'm going to get in this.

But yeah, the floppy disk rotation animation looks REALLY weird. The walking animations is funny looking too.

Yal · May 10, 2011

P.S:could you tell me what to do after i get out of the cave i mentioned earlier.

P.S.S:Can i use my old save on the new version of the game you made with the graphical updates.

You should make sure you've got the

Garden Gnome

Lore from the

Grass Dungeon

, the

Window Glass

Lore from the

tunnel all the way from the left of the Main Street

, and that Mario's commented about "How deep is this place?" in the

Thermal Plumbing

.

You can use old saves unless I say otherwise. So yes - this time.

I really do hate general midis, so I don't know how far I'm going to get in this.

But yeah, the floppy disk rotation animation looks REALLY weird. The walking animations is funny looking too.

The soundtrack is over 40 songs so filesize was a top priority.

What do you think about the gameplay?

GIRakaCHEEZER · May 10, 2011

So far it plays pretty good. There was one area where the big birds that spawn little birds allowed me to basically grind the enemies forever without getting hurt, since you can shoot through the wall and all the little birds gather there (and the 2 big birds spawn them forever, as far as I can tell).

The shop keeper seems to be quite obviously inspired by the Resident Evil 4 one.

There are other solutions for smaller audio files like .ogg, or if you're ambitious, implementing the pxtone.dll. The midi music glitches out on my computer, making some corrupted sounding noises for a couple of seconds. Happens every minute or so.

trickybilly · May 10, 2011

Downloaded, playing, looks awesome so far :muscledoc:

cultr1 · May 11, 2011

His gun is kind of small

Lace · May 11, 2011

(your gun is kinda small)

Noxid · May 11, 2011

GIRakaCHEEZER said:
or if you're ambitious, implementing the pxtone.dll.

I am posting to say you should do this.

Yal · May 11, 2011

I am posting to say you should do this.

The big problem is that PixTone can't import MIDI files nor XM files nor MOD files. Getting my music PixToned would require me to resequence it by hand, note by note. And that's a hell of a ton of work.

If you want to, I could try making small WAV or MP3 files of the original sountrack files (composed in MilkyTracker using simple squarewave samples plus drums from Mega Man 5) and make a Final Columbus: chiptune version. I'm having a guy over at the GMC remaking the soundtrack in FamiTracker, but he haven't given me a status report in over a month. So perhaps I should do it myself.

Anyway, I'll try to do it as soon as possible. School eats too much time right now but I'll perhaps be able to get it up in less than 14 days. Hang on!

EDIT:
Oh, and I can't use DLLs for another reason: I have millions of sound_loop() calls that I'd have to replace by hand.

Noxid · May 11, 2011

Well.. um... next time, then?

Yal · May 11, 2011

Next update will use chiptunes, yes. Until next time!

I'll of course upload that as a separate version for those who can stand a filesize increase of (estimated) 300K*40 = 12000K = 12Meg (well, relatively little compared to some games) and have the MIDI version as the normal one (Iji had a high-quality soundtrack as a separate download too).

And yes, I've intentionally drawn guns that are roughly the size of characters. I mean, in original Cave Story the Polar Star looks like a teapot. I wanted the guns in my game to have more personality, and that's why I drew them so big. Most of this inspiration came from Cave Story Wii's gun sprites, in fact. I remember finding them awesome, with all those details.

And as for grinding... Meh. If you don't have the skills to survive without grinding, keep on rolling.

And on the subject of the shopkeeper: Nice, you totally got the ~~shameless total rip-off~~ reference.

GIRakaCHEEZER · May 11, 2011

I'm just pointing out that spot since I don't think there should be an area where you can abuse the enemy spawn like that.

I got to the rat boss and he died ridiculously fast (in like 5 seconds). This is probably because I've been putting ALL of my upgrades into attack. I am playing on normal though.

EDIT:

That scene in the main artery didn't feel like a complete ripoff of Cave Story at all. Same for all the firewhirrs

Yal · May 12, 2011

EDIT: Man, isn't ANY of the spoiler tags around here possible to use properly in text? How the hell am I supposed to be witty around here?

That scene in the main artery didn't feel like a complete ripoff of Cave Story at all. Same for all the firewhirrs.

Hey, they're rusty. They're actually named Rusty