Development of 'The Whipper' began on December 30th 2018. The end goal, quantity-wise, is to have about 15 stages and the first 3 to be part of the free demo. Now that those 3 stages are done, I've decided to release a playable demo on Steam so I can get feedback as early as possible.
The end goal quality-wise? To create a great action game inspired by 'Super Castlevania 4'.
Stage 1
This stage is all about the whip and getting used to attacking - no platforming challenges yet. You can decapitate enemies and cut their legs off or throw their own weapons at them. Have fun.
Stage 2
This one is the opposite - no attacking, just platforming. You've got spikes on the ground and branches trying to smash you. You cannot attack to boss either, you have to trick it into damaging itself.
Stage 3
This stage finally combines attacking with platforming challenges. It is also longer than the previous levels as they don't have health recovery.
Why is it black and white? I was inspired by an episode from Samurai Jack called 'Jack vs. the Ninja'. You can hide in the light and enemies won't know where you are, but step in the dark and they will.
Tutorial Stage
Before you can play the stages, you need to pass a short tutorial - usually takes a minute.
It teaches you a lot about the controls of the game:
- 8-directional whipping
- sprinting
- shooting projectiles from the whip
- throwing objects with the whip
- using the whip as a shield
Complicated stuff - not really, but still needs a tutorial to grasp.
The tutorial stage also has some beautiful interactive trees - try hitting them, see what happens.
Going Forward
The rest of the game is still in development. As I keep developing more stages, I will write more articles on Steam, upload more devlogs on YouTube, post on Twitter & Instagram, etc. However, the rest of the levels won't be playable until the game is released.
The goal release date is October 31st 2021, as that would be exactly 30 years since the release of 'Super Castlevania 4', which is the main inspiration behind 'The Whipper'.
Looking forward to feedback from the community! Below you can wishlist the game and play the demo.
