Shantae Ret-2-Go!: A Shantae dancing fan game project

I thought it would be better to start a new topic about the possible first step toward making the Shantae Fan Game. This topic will serve as our discussion area for planning and designing this game. I'm going to recap on some previous notes, but now I'm using pictures. Most of the picture are of stick figure Shantae, but the serious art will come once we get to that point.


Alright, lets kicks thing off with the first srceen, the Main Menu. To the left are links to other screens: START GAME sends you to the Select Screen, HOW TO PLAY will start the tutorial gameplay, and EXIT ends the game. The Credit Info is on the Screen itself, and to the right is an image of Shantae in a pose, or quite possibly dancing.


Clicking START GAME sends them here. The Select Screen acts as both a level select and an option select. I feel it would be redundant to have a separate option screen. Here you can select the song choice by clicking the two select arrows, change difficulty settings, and switch Random Mode or Spectate Mode ON or OFF. I haven't figured out a good position for putting the RET-2-GO! button (links to Gameplay Screen) or the CONTROL SETTINGS button on the HUB just yet. That's up for discussion.

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This is what the Gameplay Screen could look like. There are many possibilities. Shantae could be dancing on the left or right side of the screen while the player plays on the opposite side. Or the playing field could be transparent, and Shantae could dance behind it so both elements could share the whole screen. It's up for discussion. Now on to how the gameplay will work.


I know this looks plain and lacks style, but these are how the game components will look for now. The reason is so we can really focus on the gameplay and how it functions. Mistakes are a lot easier to correct this way too. At the top right of the image is how I expect the pieces to work together. Lets look at them individuality. The Dance Floor is the huge grey circle with 5 dots on it at key positions (Center, Left, Right, Up, Down). The spotlight is a transparent white circle with a grey outline that matches the dance floor. This spotlight will have a set movement around the dance floor (moving from one of 5 positions to the next) and must obey the commands of the Step Icons (more on that later). The Dot is what the player controls, and the objective of the whole game is to keep the dot within the spotlight. Depending on how close that dot is to the center of the spotlight when the center of the spotlight reaches the next position, will effect the score, multiplier, and groove meter. The Score Board counts the score, and when a number is met, a rank star from the Rank Bar will go from grey to red. The Multiplier Bonus is located at the top left of the dance floor an shows what the multiplier currently is (1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 8, 10). This score is multiplied by this number. The Groove Meter is a collective 32 Groove Points. When a groove point is earned by scoring a perfect, a point will go from grey to red. Groove Mode is activated by left clicking the screen and once it is activated the player doubles his multiplier and gains other various functions. Current Step show the player what step is currently being done and how the spotlight is moving. The Step Bar shows the player the next 7 step in the sequence, and the Beat Counter shows how many beats the step will take to preform. Moving on.


Here's the visual on how the steps will look and how long they will take to preform. They are also color coded.


To simply explain the above image. The next step will always start where the previous step ended.


This image explains how the steps controls the games flow. Notice the steps design and how the center of the spotlight moves and the timing involved. This means that the spotlight will always continuously move from one point to the next.

Now let's look at Shantae's Dance Moves. Remember, the dance moves are commanded by the steps, not the movement of the player.







Cute right? Well, just to show you that this game isn't about dancing stick figures, I'll post this picture of how the animation pieces will work together to create a single image.


SIGH... As you can see, not only will it work, but it gives me a quick and easy way to correct the art if I make a mistake. That, and I suck at spelling. How did I misspell "pieces"?

Um... That's all I got for now, so please, lets talk about how this can go about being created and feel free to comment on the images. Let me know if this was helpful or not.

This looks awesome so far.

Though some steps seem to be very complicated.
The Sways I don't get just yet.

But otherwise it is pretty clear and seems to be easy to do.
I like what I am seeing so far.

YES. A dancing game would totally fit Shantae.

After all, the dancing minigame in the first game was enjoyable enough - heck, why not make a game about it?

Paragon-Yoshi wrote:This looks awesome so far.

Though some steps seem to be very complicated.
The Sways I don't get just yet.

But otherwise it is pretty clear and seems to be easy to do.
I like what I am seeing so far.

Thanks. I agree with the sways being too complicated. I'm going to simplify it to just one step (the half circle sway is the perfect choice) instead of four types, so it will be less confusing. The quarter, crescent, and full version of Sway will be cut and the sway will get an icon that's easier to understand. All the designs in this game are temps so far, so the will look better when it's time to update the art quality. I want to have a working, playable version before getting down to the serious design choices just in case something needs to change (like this Sway dance step issue for example). I guess that means I also cut out the 3 possible dance animations for those Sways too. This decision just made making this game a little easier.

I want this game to be simple to understand and control, but deep and challenging too. I can't wait to see how this project is going to turn out.

ShantaeVocaloid wrote:YES. A dancing game would totally fit Shantae.

After all, the dancing minigame in the first game was enjoyable enough - heck, why not make a game about it?

My thoughts exactly. I'd like to have some music choices for this game too. Like anything that would be cool to dance too. I already mentioned Virt's "Burning Town Forever Remix", but I wouldn't mind something like LMFAO's "Party Rock Anthem" or Mc Hammer's "2 Legit 2 Quit". I'm all ears for song choices at this point, because I wanna have at least 5 songs in this game when it's completed (at least 2 songs for the test run).

I like what I see : )
Out of curiosity, Do you have a specific programming language or utility in mind for putting this together?
I think I remember you saying that syncing everything to the music would be the toughest part

MikeHarvey wrote:

ShantaeVocaloid wrote:YES. A dancing game would totally fit Shantae.

After all, the dancing minigame in the first game was enjoyable enough - heck, why not make a game about it?

My thoughts exactly. I'd like to have some music choices for this game too. Like anything that would be cool to dance too. I already mentioned Virt's "Burning Town Forever Remix", but I wouldn't mind something like LMFAO's "Party Rock Anthem" or Mc Hammer's "2 Legit 2 Quit". I'm all ears for song choices at this point, because I wanna have at least 5 songs in this game when it's completed (at least 2 songs for the test run).

Hm. I'm actually thinking of including "Baal Bhaagna" in the songlist - y'know, the "She's Got Moves" remix? Not to mention a good chunk of Shantae songs like "Water Town" and "Zombie Caravan" from the original, and "Adventure" and "Sand in my Potion" from Risky's Revenge.

I'm also considering songs from other related WF games, like the Mighty series - for example, I think the "Mighty Milky Way" title theme has a good chance to be in, as well as a few songs from "Mighty Switch Force". "Mighty Flip Champs!", however, I might need help on...

Question: Why don't we also feature VG Tracks from other video games, outside of WayForward?

Or even better: Make it so that you can add your own songs.
Or would that be too hard?


Also, are there different backgrounds for the different songs that represent them?

Out of curiosity, Do you have a specific programming language or utility in mind for putting this together?
I think I remember you saying that syncing everything to the music would be the toughest part

Well... Sadly, I'm not much of a programmer just yet. But if .Luke is on board, then the program will be Game Maker (not sure which version). He mentioned being skilled enough to make a Sonic game engine using the program, and this fan game will be far easier to program than a Sonic game. It will be tough to sync everything up when songs have different BPM (beats per minute).

Hm. I'm actually thinking of including "Baal Bhaagna" in the songlist - y'know, the "She's Got Moves" remix? Not to mention a good chunk of Shantae songs like "Water Town" and "Zombie Caravan" from the original, and "Adventure" and "Sand in my Potion" from Risky's Revenge.
I'm also considering songs from other related WF games, like the Mighty series - for example, I think the "Mighty Milky Way" title theme has a good chance to be in, as well as a few songs from "Mighty Switch Force". "Mighty Flip Champs!", however, I might need help on...

Those songs would fit in just fine. I really want some Mighty Switch Force song in this game too. I love that soundtrack. But any song that would be fun to dance to will work. Oh, and Baal Bhaagna is a must. I noticed that you put together a song list, I'll have to hear it after work tho.

Question: Why don't we also feature VG Tracks from other video games, outside of WayForward?
Or even better: Make it so that you can add your own songs.
Or would that be too hard?
Also, are there different backgrounds for the different songs that represent them?

I really want to and as many different song choices as possible, so adding other VG tracks (or pop songs or 80's song or house/dance songs for example) is highly preferred. Being able to create your own dance track would be cool too, I guess a dance track editor could be made. The steps will help simplify the process because only some types lead into others. Also, I think being able to customize the art pieces is a great, but that's something that'll be worked out once we get to the serious art design phase.

Oh wow, that's incredible. I definitely like the idea.

Took a while, but I think I have a mostly-concrete songlist to propose for "Shantae R2G". There are 35 songs in all, 19 being from the Shantae games, 15 being from the Mighty series, and one original Shantae-inspired song.
Tell me what you think - what songs should I keep, and what songs should I...not...keep?

I gave them a listen. I think from that list of proposed songs I'd really like to have the following in this game.
Shantae: Risky's Revenge - Burning Town Forever
Shantae: Risky's Revenge - Baal Bhaagna
Shantae - Bandit Town Redux
Mighty Milky Way - My Lucky Star
Mighty Switch Force - Caught Red-Handed
Mighty Switch Force - Love You Love You Love
Mighty Switch Force - Whoa I'm in Space Cuba

Other songs I'd like to see from other video games are...

Space Channel 5 - Spaceport Introducing Ulala


Space Channel 5 Part 2 - Save Space Michael!


PaRappa the Rapper - Funny Love


PaRappa the Rapper 2 - Come A Long Way


Gitaroo Man - Flyin' To Your Heart


Other random songs I'd like to see would probably be...

Haddaway - What is Love


MC Hammer - 2 Legit 2 Quit


Quad City DJ's - Space Jam


LMFAO - Party Rock Anthem


Das Racist - Who's That Brown


Yelle - Safari Disco Club


Junior Boys - Second Chance


These are just a few examples of songs I'd like to have in the game. If you know a song you think would be good to add, then post them.

I'm wasting sleep over these videos. XD

Here a modified songlist proposition for Shantae R2G. I've scrapped and replaced quite a few songs from the original songlist, as well as added some from MikeHarvey's songlist.

As with the last video, let me know what you think! Do some songs fit perfectly? Are some songs too unorthodox for the game?

An interesting lot, Vocaloid.
Anything from Jake Kaufman, let alone Shantae, definitely deserves a free pass.
At the same time, some of the other songs seem like good fits, too.


Here's a few off the top of my head that I think may fit the bill as well:

* Harder, Better, Faster, Stronger (Daft Punk)

* PharoahMan.exe's Stage (Megaman Network Transmission)


* Sora To Ume Ato (Bust-A-Groove)


* Ska Cha Cha (Sonic Rush)


* Arabesque - Pullum's Theme (Street Fighter EX + alpha)

I think some Daft Punk in there would be great. Maybe some other EDM like deadmau5 too.
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Just listened to all other songs choices. This has got me really excited!

First off, I agree with ShantaeVocaloid's song proposal almost 100%, and I feel that Shantae'esque should be both the main theme and the tutorial song for this game for many reasons. It's an original song, it's made by a fan, and this game is all about showing what the fan base (small as we may be) can do for Shantae. Plus,that song is very inspired by Shantae, so it's a nice fit. However, not all songs that would work with Shantae would work for this game's dancing gameplay. Take Sky Sands from Kirby's Air Ride for example. It would work for Shantae, but I'm not sure if it would be the best song choice for dancing to. I think we should focus a bit more on songs that would be fun to dance to, rather than songs that would fit Shantae. SO in short... All songs, but Sky Sands, I'd like to have, and I'd like to make Shantae'esque the theme song of this game.

One more thing... ShantaeVocaloid, not sure if you're the one that made this song but if you did, would you be willing to add more of a "groove" or dance element to Shantae'esque?

Nai255, you also made great song choices. Harder, Better, Faster, Stronger, Sora To Ume Ato, and Arabesque would work nicely. PharoahMan.EXE is a perfect choice (I forgot how awesome MM:NT OST was). Not so sure about Ska Cha Cha tho, but just about anything Hideki Naganuma makes would be fun to play. Check out the OST for Jet Set Radio, JSR Future, Ollie King, and other songs in the Sonic Rush series for better song choices. I'm looking forward to what you pick.

BlutaufKlaue, Derezzed is a fun choice, and I'd love to play that. If you have more ideas for songs then let us hear them.

Now on to some updates for this game's design. The "sway" step have been simplified to just being one type of step and will be a lot less confusing. Also, I'm working on a design template for making dance tracks. There will be 1 dance track for every difficulty option per song choice (aka... 4 dance tracks for every playable song) plus an editable dance track that the player can use to make there own dance routines. So far, we know that every step will take 1 to 8 beats to preform, that only some steps can be followed after other steps, and the BPM is the maximum amount of beats played in a minute. The design must be made with all this in mind. Thanks to Paragon-Yoshi for pointing out the sway step issue and the idea of adding custom tracks. If you got any ideas on how to handle this issue, or if there anything about this game's design you want to discuss, or if there's something you'd like to add, then let us know.

MikeHarvey wrote:One more thing... ShantaeVocaloid, not sure if you're the one that made this song but if you did, would you be willing to add more of a "groove" or dance element to Shantae'esque?

Sadly, I wish I made Shantae'esque, but that honor belongs to Mat Kirkegaard, or "PeachToadstool", from HarmonyOfArts. You're going to have to ask him (her?) about it.

Finally, I finished a video with the sun still out! X3

As with the last two videos, tell me what you think! What songs could be added, removed, or replaced?

Geez, three of these in a row...

I'm posting a bit late in the topic, but I'm glad you got some temp graphics to go by already. ^^ I saved all of this to my hard drive and reviewing the concept so I know how to design the initial mockup UI and Game scene. (I can actually start on programming the game's menus and interface at least. Pretty graphics to make it look nice can come later.) I'm guessing that last sketch is also in line with the hybrid art style you have in mind for Shantae? If so, it's cute and looks easy to replicate; I like the eyes especially. :3

Also, if I read that right, I'm not entirely sure about the HUD taking up so much of the game screen, it appears ironically cluttered and daunting for something that's supposed to be simple. (Unless you're just thinking of dedicating that much of the HUD to the screen beside Shantae?) We may be able to overlay some of the HUD elements onto the stage underneath Shantae, as if three-dimensional, while she dances, that way there's less going on in the foreground so the player can focus, if the right size balance can be struck. (Otherwise Shantae would cover up useful information, or worse feel dwarfed by it.)

Either way, it's quite inspiring pouring over all your ideas for this, I'm liking this concept a lot and want to make it come to life. By the way, I'm using Game Maker 5.3a for this, which is the fastest version of the program without requiring a hardware-accelerated card. (Perfect for Virtual machine users and older desktop computers, significantly increasing accessibility.) Although if we need more hardware acceleration for special effects and large, animated background tiles, I can easily bump it up to Game Maker 7 too. I'll do everything I can to make it perform without cutting any corners on the dance logic. I'm hoping this game, with its simpler game logic compared to a Sonic game, could run under the latest version of WINE on Linux too, so that would be a huge plus for the 'Nix fans too.


Also, how comfortable would you feel with most of the game's resources being completely external? (Like say putting Shantae's main torso part sprites in Working Directory*/Resources/Shantae/Body/) If I store most of the graphics internally inside the self-executable, it will bump up its file size like crazy, (It could be difference from the program itself being 2MB to 57MB.) and suffer from longer loading delays because it has to be decompressed from the binary. If I store everything external, the game can launch instantly as soon as it's clicked, and only what is needed will be loaded into memory at a time. External graphics also wouldn't be compressed, meaning faster loading times and making it easier for us swap out old files with newer ones.

I would use a library for storing resources in PAK3 files, (Essentially a renamed ZIP file used by Quake III.) but that involves copying the game's entire contents to a temp folder every time the game is loaded and then copying it all to RAM, which is very slow, redundant, and completely inconsiderate of the hard disk's lifetime. ZIP libraries for Game Maker are pretty much the same thing, sadly, and either way it complicates resource management on the binary's end from non-distracting to instant hair-ripping frustration.

tl;dr, I need to know if you would feel comfortable with your hard work being open like a book for the sake of speed. I mean, this would automatically be a problem if we were making a commercial game, but I think we can be more relaxed since this is a fan game, so long as the disclaimer splash screen intro is left internal and impossible to edit/remove externally, no bloody pirates can get away with selling it and passing it off as their own creation either way.

Okay, so I've had a few ideas:

Unlockables:
Costumes
So that we aren't staring at the same Shantae all the time, there could be unlockable costumes based on other characters from the franchise, as well as from other games.
Playable characters
So, maybe we could have unlockable characters instead of costumes. I think someone might have mentioned it here already, but we could have Risky Boots, Patricia Wagon and the other WF girls. This would, however, require a lot more work.
Accessories
So, maybe instead of fixed costumes, you could customise Shantae's outfit using different gear you'd unlocked, for example you could swap her pants for a skirt without altering the entire outfit. I think this would add a whole new element to the game- consider it a 'dressup' minigame feature.

How things could be unlocked is a different matter, I haven't really thought about it, so please give feedback.

.Luke said: Also, if I read that right, I'm not entirely sure about the HUD taking up so much of the game screen, it appears ironically cluttered and daunting for something that's supposed to be simple. (Unless you're just thinking of dedicating that much of the HUD to the screen beside Shantae?) We may be able to overlay some of the HUD elements onto the stage underneath Shantae, as if three-dimensional, while she dances, that way there's less going on in the foreground so the player can focus, if the right size balance can be struck. (Otherwise Shantae would cover up useful information, or worse feel dwarfed by it.)

Hmm... At first, I wasn't sure which direction to go with the HUB, but now I know that Shantae's dance location and the play area must work as one instead of putting them on different sides of the screen. I'm thinking of revising the look of the Dance floor and the surrounding HUB to create balance between them. A more detailed image will be needed to fix this issue. Thankfully, I have a day off from work tomorrow so I'll use that time to update all the design revisions. I'll draw out multiple layouts of the screens an then we all can decide which screen would work best.

Also, how comfortable would you feel with most of the game's resources being completely external? (Like say putting Shantae's main torso part sprites in Working Directory*/Resources/Shantae/Body/) If I store most of the graphics internally inside the self-executable, it will bump up its file size like crazy, (It could be difference from the program itself being 2MB to 57MB.) and suffer from longer loading delays because it has to be decompressed from the binary.

I need to know if you would feel comfortable with your hard work being open like a book for the sake of speed. I mean, this would automatically be a problem if we were making a commercial game, but I think we can be more relaxed since this is a fan game, so long as the disclaimer splash screen intro is left internal and impossible to edit/remove externally, no bloody pirates can get away with selling it and passing it off as their own creation either way.

Do what you have to do to keep this an easy and quick process. I have no issues with our work being open, mainly because this is non profit and Shantae is owned by Matt Bozon, but also because I think it's a great way to show off the quality of the work outside of the game itself. As for piracy, the only meaningful thing they would be able to take away from this game is the concept (like Guitar Hero to Rock Band for example). But even so, I knew of the risk. Besides, the design elements will be so Shantae inspired that they would have to recreate all the art work completely. But now I gotta ask...

Should we let WayForward know about this fan game project? There's a good chance they may already know about it, but should we tell them ourselves? Eh, maybe later...

BlutaufKlaue said: Okay, so I've had a few ideas:

Unlockables:
Costumes
So that we aren't staring at the same Shantae all the time, there could be unlockable costumes based on other characters from the franchise, as well as from other games.
Playable characters
So, maybe we could have unlockable characters instead of costumes. I think someone might have mentioned it here already, but we could have Risky Boots, Patricia Wagon and the other WF girls. This would, however, require a lot more work.
Accessories
So, maybe instead of fixed costumes, you could customise Shantae's outfit using different gear you'd unlocked, for example you could swap her pants for a skirt without altering the entire outfit. I think this would add a whole new element to the game- consider it a 'dressup' minigame feature.

How things could be unlocked is a different matter, I haven't really thought about it, so please give feedback.

Unlockable content is a great idea. The possibility of more characters and changeable backgrounds and other art pieces like that would be nice to have. I'm not sure about having costumes, but making different color variants would work (like a Shantae that wears blue instead of red). As for how things are unlocked, I'm thinking the best way to go about it would be to add a shop. After all, Shantae dances for gems, so I think having a shop full of customization options would fit right in. Plus, it would give player a bit of replay value if they're into shopping for extras.

I'll work on the revisions and try my best to have them up some time tomorrow. It shouldn't take me long. Things to revise:
Improved Select Screen
Improved Gameplay Screen with better HUB positioning
Change/ Remove Sway Icon(s)
Add Shop Screen
Add Song Editor Screen

Busy, busy...

Seriously, I would SCRAP the idea of having multiple characters ASAP.
Shantae should be the only dancer. There is no need to have more.

Especially Risky shouldn't be. It'd just look wrong.


I am fine with the costumes tho.

I'm on board for multiple characters. I admit it'd be hilariously adorable to see Rottytops dancing.

Here it is... Shantae Ret-2-Go! design update. Let's get started.



First off, this is the new icon for Sway. There was 4 types (quarter, half, crescent and full), but it was very confusing and now their is only one type (half).



This is an idea for how the main menu could look. I'm still not sure if Shantae should be dancing or to leave it as a still image. Moving on.



This is how the select screen could look.

The select screen has changed the most. The original idea was to have the options available on this screen, but now that there's a chance we'll be adding more customization options, a shop, and a track editor, I felt that the previous sketch of this page would not get the job done. So here's what's up.

To the left of the screen are the songs and to the right are all the options. Spectate Mode is gone, in favor of a Playlist. Now tracks could be played back to back in what ever order, difficulty and randomness you want (this also includes custom tracks). The box at the top right of the screen (the one that says Playlist) changes when you click the links in the box under it. The links are Playlist, Character Select, Customize (****!!! I spelled that wrong!?! I was tired...), Shop, Load Custom Track (if available for the selected song) and Controls & Data. The "Play Song(s)" link will take you to the gameplay area and "Dance Track Editor" will take you to the editor screen. But let's take a look at the mini screen changes first.



Here an idea of how the mini screen on the select screen could look.

For Character Select, you can choose which dancer you like to see. We're sticking with just Shantae for now, as I have no clue as to how much time it'll take to complete her, but I do want to make other characters and having the plan to add them in later is key (after the game has been made). BTW, we could always add Pixel Shantae as an instant extra character to go with the games release (just a thought).

Shop is where you spend your hard earned gems for goodies. I think it would be mean to sell the extra characters, but there's lots of custom art pieces that would be fun to make for sell. BTW, you get 1 gem for every 1000 points multiplied by the level of difficulty (1 gem x1/2 in easy, 1 gem x1 in normal, 1 gem x2 in hard, 1 gem x4 in expert) earned during the final score count of a song. You can't earn gems when you play custom dance tracks. In my mind, the average player could earn over 500,000 points easliy so that's why the cost is set so high, but we'll see.

Customize (yes I know... sigh...) is how you select and change the look of your gameplay screen. There are 5 custom options so far: Dance Parlor, Dance Floor, Spotlight, Cursor, and SFX. I'll worry about those art pieces later down the road.

Controls & Data is self explanatory. Moving on.



So here's what I'm thinking for the gameplay area. The dance floor is open and the spotlight is transparent. The rest of the HUB off to the left and right sides of the screen well be part of the stage design itself, as represented by the bright red area (I'm thinking it could be a curtain or an arch or something, it'll be customizable whatever it is). That orange circle at the bottom of the screen is also a customizable object (the dance floor). That image of Shantae is where the selected character will dance, center stage.



This is an idea of how the editor screen could look.

This is a very new concept. The dance editor will allow the player to add there own songs and create custom tracks. The way this game works is that for every beat there is a step that moves the spotlight around. The colorful buttons are a series of steps that can be selected and added to the dance track depending on the previous step used. Every time a step is placed it takes up 1 or 2 beats and each song will have maximum number of beats that can be used (this amount is calculated by the length of the song and BPM). To the side is a circle with a small circle within it, this represents the spotlight's movement on the dance for. The songs information and image can be added in at the bottom of the screen. When the player is done they will simply click "finish track" to finalize the process.

That's all... Let me know what you think.

I still say have Shantae as the only character.
Since it isn't even sure whether or not the others can dance.
(And no, Risky's brief butt-shaking before the Ice Temple doesn't count)

IMO it'd just look stupid to see Risky dance.
And I figure it has the same effect on some other characters.

Once again, there is no need for a character selection.
Shantae only is a safe bet.
Since she is the only one in the series who can surely dance (besides the genies) and we don't make other characters look unnecessarily stupid.


I am still wondering why nobody seems to have been giving this second thought. :/