Announcing our upcoming title, Stranded! CLASSIC RETRO PLATFORMER Stranded is a retro platformer/runner, set in Mars. You play as an astronaut, sole survivor of the first manned mission to the planet, which has crashlanded on the surface. A STRUGGLE AGAINST TIME There are no enemies in Mars, but for the lack of oxygen. You need to keep moving, trying to find out the few precious O2 bottles that got scattered around the surface when your ship collapsed before landing. Time is against you, and every step you take can be a step closer to salvation or a gruesome death by asphyxiation. SOME UPGRADES FOR MORE FUN After a few more tutorial-oriented levels... things get more complicated! Oxygen is scarce, and the planet is not your friend. So you can upgrade your suit to improve your chances, by expanding your O2 tanks or increasing your power to be more resistant and jump higher. Yes, there are no convenience stores on Mars. But it just so happens that the wreckage also scattered spaceship parts across the surface! And the astronaut is also a mechanical genious who can build anything given enough parts. WHO WE ARE We are new here so, just as an intro, we are... Another one of those indie companies that keep proliferating lately! Created by gamers, and for gamers. We (all two of us) build what we want to play - and we hope some people out there will agree with our taste as well! And here are some screenshots! We are close to completion here, just polishing some minor details, and will be ready to release. Let us know what you think, we hope you like it! Visit us at www.tamagames.com, and follow us on twitter!
I got really intrigued by the "Stranded" logo at the top of the page, but was a little let down by the look of the main character. He seems a little to cartoony in my opinion. But, I do love platformers so I'm looking forward to this nonetheless. The game is also a bit reminiscent of Air Supply because of the O2 mechanic (I love Air Supply )
I guess it is a bit cartoony But I feel it goes well with the retro style (and we love pixel art!). I did not know Air Supply, I just checked it out. The free running is actually something I was hoping on adding to Stranded, as an extra mode, which would suit the desperate chase for O2 quite well. But we had to pick one of those two - lack of money, as per usual - and decided to go with the self-contained levels instead.
This sounds pretty cool, is movement done with buttons on the interface? How do we move the character?
He moves automatically. There are many horizontal layers, each with the pre-set direction. We wanted to emulate acceleration, martian gravity and the cumbersomeness of the spacesuit so the character moves sluggish at first until you gain some momentum. It becomes quite critical not to stumble on anything because the O2 is constantly running out. With the touchpanel you control the crouch and slide actions, as well as jumping and using the "jetpack". The jetpack is using O2 as propellant so you have to be quite careful with it!
Looks like some great work so far. Excited to see this developed further. Space action-exploration is tough!
Looks good, love the graphics. Was excited but then realised its a runner not a platformer though. Love to see this art style as a true platformer though
Funny you should mention.. I am actually a bit torn between both, and have been considering the platformer approach as well! I am concerned about a significant number in balancing, since the game does rely on speed momentum now, but I do like the platformer approach as well. If things do go well, I would intend to do both actually : )