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http://www.smspower.org/Homebrew/BaraBurū-SMS

Kagesan wrote

Seemingly out of the blue, vile sea creatures start attacking peaceful coastal
towns, as a strange tower-like structure rises from the icy depths of the ocean.
Guide master ninjas Bara and Burū through thirty levels of the mysterious tower
and vanquish the evil that dwells within!

Controller 1 starts 1-player game, controller 2 starts 2-player game.

How to play:

1. Slash enemies to stun them.
2. Push stunned enemies into walls.
3. Collect bonus.

Shinobi Kidd meets Bubble Bobble! :) A great concept - beautifully executed! I smacked some shells and ate some sushi this morning, and it won't be the last time. Sometimes, the pink/red enemies will crawl into a tight space, where I seemingly can't reach them (the wall is too thick). Then I have to wait for the water to come and fill the cave, and thus transport them up to the platform where I am standing, so I can slash them?

hang-on wrote

Sometimes, the pink/red enemies will crawl into a tight space, where I seemingly can't reach them (the wall is too thick). Then I have to wait for the water to come and fill the cave, and thus transport them up to the platform where I am standing, so I can slash them?

Oh, I think level 5 is the first one to introduce something like that. It's true, you can't attack through walls, but you can attack from within walls.

Look for ways to position yourself on a platform below, so that you can jump straight up into the wall and slash the enemies from there. All levels are solvable without having to resort to the time limit running out (which is still a legit strategy to get enemies out of tight spaces you do not dare to enter).

bbhelp.png (2.1 KB)

How to hit enemies in tight spaces

Level 17 so far :)

I love how it is done, super polished. Definitively very Bubble Bubble.

Somehow I feel like the gameplay isn't as fun and deep as I wish it would be considering how slick and nice the whole package is. The mechanic of hitting a shell with another shell is cool but doesn't feel used or necessary? Perhaps the enemy patterns or something about the gameplay could be improved? I realize this is a vague statement, I would have to think about it more! I am only saying this because I think this game could become a 10/10 with the right improvements. You've got a nice engine, 2P mode, superb visuals, audio. etc.

Thanks, you two.

Bock wrote

The mechanic of hitting a shell with another shell is cool but doesn't feel used or necessary?

It's strictly optional. It's not necessary if you just want to progress, but you need to put it to good use if you want to get a good score. The more enemies you hit in a row, the better the bonus items they leave behind. Some levels are easy when played for survival, but become very tricky if you play them for score. In the long run, playing for score improves your chances of survival, too, as you get an extra life at 20,000 pts and then every 10,000 pts after that.

Great graphics, music and gameplay. I like the difficulty curve, starts off pretty forgiving but by mid way point more enemy combinations and less forgiving stage layouts push you.

Playing on hardware so no save state cheating. Still trying to beat boss. He is going down!

Great Work Kagesan!

One of the funiest entries this year!

I just had a few minutes (total!) yesterday evening to quickly test all the entries on my SMS II, but I wanted to tell you I really got impressed by yours. I especially love the way you scroll the background between the levels, it looks amazing! :) I'll surely test the game throughly in the next weeks, but I can already say it looks great.
Just tell me you didn't started doing it just a few month ago, please ;)

sverx wrote

Just tell me you didn't started doing it just a few month ago, please ;)

LOL, define "a few". :)
My oldest files date back to June 2015, so the game's been in the making for approximately 10 months.

Kagesan wrote

..you can't attack through walls, but you can attack from within walls.

Ahh! That actually helped me more than I would like to admit :)

I respect your choice in button lay-out: You are keeping it true to the Sega/Alex Kidd legacy (http://www.smspower.org/forums/15346-AlexKiddCreatorInterview2002MiracleWorldConceptNotesSketch) ....but unfortunately (spoken in the Yoda voice): "Now I must unlearn what I have learned". I fully accept this as part of the challenge.

Hey - on real hardware (CRT bedside setup, Maxim :) the left column is almost hidden. During the levels, the left wall is almost outside of the screen.

hang-on wrote

I respect your choice in button lay-out

I did it this way especially for you. ;)

hang-on wrote

Hey - on real hardware (CRT bedside setup, Maxim :) the left column is almost hidden. During the levels, the left wall is almost outside of the screen.

I think that's normal. At least it looks similar on my own CRT.

Great game, good gameplay, nice music, cool looking graphics. It's like a hardcore close quarters version of Bubble Bubble! ;)

Kagesan wrote

sverx wrote

Just tell me you didn't started doing it just a few month ago, please ;)

LOL, define "a few". :)
My oldest files date back to June 2015, so the game's been in the making for approximately 10 months.

10 months isn't so much, I mean, considering that you're doing coding and graphics and music everything by yourself...

hang-on wrote

I respect your choice in button lay-out

I respect it too! :) ... but what about some way to start the game with switched buttons? Something like DOWN+(2) instead of (1) to start the game... I know I'm picky, but I really can't find nothing to blame in your game (and btw I also feel that everyone else in this competition will have its vote lowered because of the high level of your entry... which kind of makes you really a nuisance, you know :p ;) )

Make the title screen say "press jump to start" and use the button press to switch :)

Kagesan strikes again!

Another superb Master System homebrew by the system master homebrewer.

The only thing I miss is a demo mode. It's kinda strange how the music stops at the title screen and nothing happens.

Amazing level of polish. This could've easily been a best selling game back in the day. I like pretty much everything about it. From the graphics, over to the scrolling effect and smooth gameplay to the overall package. Huge respect to you.

Just out of curiosity: How is everyone's progress? Has anyone (other than psidum) met the boss yet, or even seen the ending sequence? I'm quite proud of how those turned out, so I'm eager to hear what you think.

Some minor details about the game that may not be totally obvious:

- The water that starts to rise when the time limit expires is not deadly as long as the player keeps his/her head above the water. You're allowed to touch it with the lower part of the player sprite.
- The extras appear semi-randomly. The higher the level, the more likely they are to appear. There's also a simplistic rank system in place that makes better extras appear if you don't play well.

I played this for a bit got to level 11, is fun to play and i have to agree with everyone else, is very well done. If someone would have said this game came out in japan only i would have believed.

This is so great!! :D I added the rom to fbalpha's game list, which is due out sometime this weekend (@ http://www.fbalpha.com )

So I was stalking my game on Google, and it seems that somehow it has reached the Master System's homeland. It's probably stupid, but I can't help but feel a bit proud, although I'm a little surprised that they refer to the game by its romajified original name.

My japanese is a bit rusty (I wonder if anyone really believe this) so I was wondering if that title has some meaning in that language...

oh, and I guess you're right at feeling proud! :)

I'd feel proud too Kagesan :)
So yeah, I was actually wondering about the name as well. I could see that Burū is blue in katakana but I'm not sure about "Bara". I'd guess it's a name?

thelowestdefinition wrote

I'd guess it's a name?

It means rose.

Figuratively, "blue rose" symbolizes "accomplishing the impossible" or "fighting all odds".

I see, I see. Did you use the Kanji for Bara on the Japanese SMS? I remember you checked which hardware it was running on.

thelowestdefinition wrote

Did you use the Kanji for Bara on the Japanese SMS?

No, it's all written in katakana, as is usually the case with names of plants and animals, and blue is an english word anyway.

I did not know that. Cool, thanks for clearing that up!
Playing devils advocate here, it could mean "rose blue" and then you'd wonder what kind of blue is that? :D

But anyways I'm not really surprised the Japanese guys running that website wrote it in romaji. A friend of mine lived in Japan for many years and even though he spoke very decent Japanese, some always replied in English. Nicely summarized by this video: .be

Sorry for derailing your thread though.

I finally got the chance to play this game, and I'm very impressed. It's somewhere between Bubble Bobble and Snow Bros, two games which I really love. I didn't vote, but it would be an easy 9 for me.

Thanks to the invaluable help from vingazole, kusfo and Tom, a box inlay, a cartridge label, and a multi-language manual are now available for download on the game's homebrew page (scroll down to the bottom of the page). Enjoy.

Awesome stuff, glad to see the finalised manual and everything else. I'm always happy to contribute to such a fantastic project, and I'm looking forward to whatever you'll be cooking next year :)

It has been a pleasure to contribute to this! :-D

So cool! Thanks for going the extra mile... after the extra mile :)

I've been having lot of fun with this game, thank you for the great work.

Here a 2 players gameplay video of almost the full game on real hardware:

Improvement possible:
-the score who display when you take a bonus should display in the same color than the character who take it (like in Bubble Bobble), like that no more confusion.
-when more than one bonus is on the same position and you take them, the score display only 100 points.
-on 2 players mode, the first extra life should be at 10 000points 'cause it's not possible to have 20 000points when you're fighting with your friend for bonus.

Revo wrote

I've been having lot of fun with this game, thank you for the great work.

I'm glad you enjoy it.

Revo wrote

Here a 2 players gameplay video of almost the full game on real hardware:

Nice. I've never actually seen a 2-player game before. You two play really well. Do you need help on the boss? I might be able to share a hint or two.

Revo wrote

Improvement possible:
-the score who display when you take a bonus should display in the same color than the character who take it (like in Bubble Bobble), like that no more confusion.
-when more than one bonus is on the same position and you take them, the score display only 100 points.
-on 2 players mode, the first extra life should be at 10 000points 'cause it's not possible to have 20 000points when you're fighting with your friend for bonus.

Good suggestions.
- The first one is technically impossible, though, as the VRAM is completely filled, so there's no way to squeeze in variations of tiles. (Note that I even had to use some unused space in the sprite table for the tiles in the intro.)
- The second one comes from implementing the little pop-up score displays by using background tiles. Whatever value is triggered last is displayed, as there can only be one value displayed in the same spot at a time. The scores do register correctly in the actual score display, though.
- That's intentional, actually. I assumed that since the two players have 6 lives combined, they wouldn't need any extra lives.

Kagesan wrote

Do you need help on the boss? I might be able to share a hint or two.

I already finished the game few times ;)

Thanks Kagesan for this master piece.
Today i have played the game for first time, i have a cartridge for it and i show it in this video:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oyZbHgeXGHA

I‘m happy you enjoy it. That’s a very nice video and I had great fun watching it, even though I understand very little spanish. Great work on the physical edition!

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