Katakijin, or: Clothed Ninjas!

By: Lorne Whiting

On: February 8th, 2008

Katakijin is a work-in-progress ninja game by forum member Ultim8p00, citing Nikujin, Ninja Gaiden, and Knytt as inspirations. It’s pretty badass.

Its fighting system allows for lots of variety in combat styles, and it’s definitely worth checking out the demo.

Also, here’s a youtube video of the first level (the entire demo) being completed rather effortlessly by the author of the game:

Delicious! There are two controls you can’t set in the options however: Space for Shurikens and
Ctrl for MAGIC SUPER DOOPER.

Direct Download: http://64digits.com/users/ultim8p00/Katakijin_escfix_.zip

Posted in Freeware, Platformers, Previews, Windows | Tags: Ultim8p00

Lorne Whiting

Oops. How’d I manage to fuck up posting this so much?
All fixed!
Nikica

Better so, anyway nice game but can’t downalod says bandwith exceeded !!!
Zeno

Yep, download’s dead.

:(
Lorne Whiting

Added a temporary Rapidshare link to the bottom of the post!
Spenat

Unbelievably good for game maker :D

But i wonder how he does all those cool moves in the youtube vid…
http://www.distractionware.com Terry

This does look interesting, but it’s unplayably slow for me.
B

Who knows, maybe it is really good – I can’t get off the key config page. Escape closes the game (classic GM), and all the other keys I press get assigned. Ace!

Any tips?
Lim-Dul

Yeah – I don’t seem to be able to map the block key properly. What is the default one? I’m using joy-to-key anyway so it doesn’t matter to me even if it’s PgUp. :-D
muku

Yeah, couldn’t figure out the keymapping thing either, and can’t really play with standard layout because of qwertz. Default blocking key is Shift, btw.
negative zero

nice, very nice. finally a platformer with a real emphasis on action and combat.
mots

what’s up with this engine, game’s fun but the engine’s a piece of dog turd..

esc just quits to desktop.. wtf’s this shit
Lim-Dul

Welcome to the world of Game Maker, mots. =)
basara

Its made out of pure win
ultim8p00

To all those who can’t Map because of the ESC key, here’s an esc fix.

http://64digits.com/users/ultim8p00/Katakijin_escfix_.zip
boder

I’m glad I’m not the only one who can’t believe the time people put into these games but neglect the simple things. The FES and the ZIRL.
http://0xdeadc0de.org Eclipse

i think i tried an old version months ago… (or was another game?)
nice stuff, too bad that the gm engine sucks so big dicks, my laptop runs hl2 at max details nicely and this little game slow down and crashes very much instead o_______o
Toom

I’ve not played the demo (my PC’s poorly so I’m kickin’ it Mac style for now), but a couple of things spring immediately to mind after watching the video.

– The combat looks like it’s just tons and tons of delicious giggles, not so much “inspired” by the Ninja Gaiden revival than directly ported with a dimension shaved off. Which is great! The combat in Ninja Gaiden is great! Hooray!
– Non-linear levels are for yes. I’m going to compare this thing to Nikujin a lot I think, and linear levels with their set do-it-this-way-or-fail courses are about the only thing about Nikujin that doesn’t feel like Being A For Reals Ninja. I loved Tenchu’s open levels that allowed for multiple approaches; it’s not shown off much in this video, but it does look like there are multiple routes through the stage.
– I hate that running animation, hate it like I hate the Devil.

Actually the graphics are kind of a sticking point, loathe as I am to say it. I’m normally not one to care overmuch about graphical polish, but I do value consistency and style. Citing two of their influences, Nikujin and Knytt’s visuals aren’t technically jaw-dropping, but they work, the animation’s great, and they’re stylistically congruent; this is kind of all over the place, with rather crudely-drawn figures and backgrounds clashing with all that ghosting and those nice glow effects. And god dammit will you just look at that running animation. I don’t wish to nitpick, but when your avatar is chugging around like he’s escaped from Power Walker Gaiden, it’s got the potential to really take you out of the game. A convincing atmosphere is pretty important in a game like this. The backgrounds don’t help much either; Nikujin (I’m sorry to keep coming back to this, but it’s my personal standard for 2D ninja games now) makes an effort to describe the forms of the castle you’re storming, but keeps it very simple (background detail is sparse and there’s no foreground stuff that you can’t interact with on some level). Once, like Katakijin, you start introducing stuff like fences and recognisable houses and foreground shrubbery etc. etc., you’re setting yourself another level of visual immersion to live up to. Knytt gets away with this by having the graphics complement the rather serene, quiet, lonely gameplay atmosphere; I’m not sure it works so well with a fast-paced action-combat arterial spray carnival like this.

I think the solution to this would be to get a really top-class pixel artist in to tart everything up a bit, make the overall presentation match the high standard set by the gameplay (and aforementioned combat special effects). This looks like it could be an enormous amount of fun, but a graphical overhaul – and sorting out the nasty engine gremlins everyone else has brought up – could make it into something truly remarkable.

(Please bear in mind that this ridiculously long spiel is based entirely off a seven-minute video and I’ve not actually played it yet, hence the endless graphics wittering.)
Lim-Dul

I second the opinion about the running animation (as much as the game rules).

It looks a bit like Monty Python’s Ministry of Silly Walks. :-D
basara

I happen to love the walking animation :0 It may be funny but its original and goes well with the game.

Also, ultim8poo has some amazing skills, I have been trying to imitate his amazing stunts but they are too complicated for me :0
Lim-Dul

I don’t know much about the combo system but I’ve read his comment on another “trailer” or sth. like that and he said that the sword skill must be at a certain level to execute more advanced moves. Maybe that is the case in this video as well.
ultim8p00

@ Toom

Hey man, great rant. Though you didn’t play the game, that provided me with a lot of insight as to what to improve on in this game.

As for the graphics, they were intentional. I dunno, everytime I look at it, it just seems to fit. I’m a decent pixel artist too (Search for The Undertaking), but what I wanted to do with this game was go for a simplistic style.
MrBig

Stick with the simplistic style! Too many devs are trying to break the sound barrier again and again in the graphics department when no matter how good a game looks if it plays like shit nobody will care how good it looks in the long run.

Another fine example of simplicity meets style is The Dishwasher. I appreciate games like Katakijin and The Dishwasher because of the gameplay. People forget what made games like Super Mario World so much fun (I could name a few dozen others but will not). Yes the graphics were pretty cool for the time that they were released, but it’s the gameplay that keeps us coming back and playing those awesome games even to this day.

Here’s a good example of a misquote, “Beauty fades, fun is forever”

So just keep up what you’re doing, appreciate any constructive criticism you get but forget about the negative posts that provide nothing useful… they don’t help and those people usually have nothing good to say anyway.

Sorry this post hasn’t really been tech related, or helpful in that area, but I’m kinda tired of reading people complaining about the dumbest things.

I’m just looking forward to seeing more and more of this game as it expands and grows. Keep up the great work ultim8p00!
deadassassin

so… many… bugs

I’ve lost count of how many times i’ve fallen through floors or walked through walls, or simply been fighting someone when I’ve been miraculously cloned, but that isn’t a good thing ’cause once you go throught to the next screen everything goes reaaaaaly joggy, and you end up on a screen 5 screens ahead, or sometimes even backwards.

when I’m able to play it without it bugging up, it is great though. keep up the good work, fix the bugs, and it should be awesome.
AmnEn

This is one awesome piece of Demo. :O
muku

Thanks for the Escape fix, I’ve played it for a while now and really like it. I didn’t get any drastic slowdowns or bugs on my system so far, so that’s nice. Anyway, I don’t know how much optimization is even possible within the confines of Game Maker…

I still have to figure out how you do all that sword sorcery on display in the video, so I have to practice more, I guess ;) I’m stuck in that pit with hordes of enemies at the moment, can’t get past those.

For all those who are wondering about the combos: pressing F1 gives some hints.
Smithy

The graphics look similar to knytt.. Therefore, this is a rip off (just like underside is a rip off of cave story because the graphics are similar.)

KNYTT RIP OFF!

RIP OFF

RIP OFF

RIP OFF!

Heh.

Okay, I’m done being an ass now.

Looks fun!
Toom

>>Hey man, great rant. Though you didnâ€™t play the game, that provided me with a lot of insight as to what to improve on in this game.

As for the graphics, they were intentional. I dunno, everytime I look at it, it just seems to fit. Iâ€™m a decent pixel artist too (Search for The Undertaking), but what I wanted to do with this game was go for a simplistic style.

Did I come off as ranty? Sorry about that. I’m afraid I’ve not been able to find anything on The Undertaking (my Google skills have fallen victim to my bullfucking hangover apparently), but I’m happy to take your word for it.

Simple is fine, of course, but I really think this could benefit from a little bit of a buff-up. For example, I’d lose the black keylines around background elements and the health bar icon and replace them with coloured outlines, which’ll help bring the ninja characters forward and make the whole thing look less flat. Limiting the use of internal black lines in character sprites might be an idea too (although keeping black keylines is recommended); it could help lessen the jarring between the sprites and the glow/ghosting combat effects and make the characters look a little less segmented. I’d really do something about that running cycle, though. It’s animated well enough, but it’s not a very ninja-y run, is it? Look at how the player character moves in the 8-bit Ninja Gaiden games, or, yes, Nikujin. There’s a tremendous sense of energy and precision to it that’s mostly generated by the use of light, rapid footsteps, and that sense of momentum is kind of lacking from Katakijin’s knees-up-high, swing-the-elbows jogging.

I’ll endeavour to have a crack at this demo as soon as possible, but I hope you can get something useful out of these comments! It ain’t my aim to bash anyone, I want to help.
ultim8p00

Rants are not only about bashing. Something that has critiques in it can also qualify as a rant.
Anyways, I know what you mean by the running animation not looking like a Ninja’s. I did have the whole speedy-legs thing (complete with dust and stuff) and that worked well enough, but it wasn’t what I wanted. Look at Ninja Gaiden. Ryu is one badass ninja you do not want on your bad side, but he’s not so flashy the way he runs. Compare him to the Ninja from Nightshade and you can see the difference. Ryu just runs. No fancy tricks. He doesn’t need to run super fast. He WILL kill you and he knows it.

That’s kind of the same thing I wanted to do with Katakijin. I didn’t want the main char to look flashy when not in combat. You know, a sort of “still water runs deep” kind of thing.

As for The Undertaking, it’s under an earlier name – Qui’ifon.
MultiPigeon

Since I can’t seem to find your e-mail I’ll just post it here.

I have found a bug. By dashing and throwing shurikens in rapid sucession you can move a lot faster and when do it against a wall, you slowly climb the wall while going through it.

I managed to push the first boss through the wall and he dissapeared while the walls blocking my passage remained. Fooling around a bit while being trapped, I found this wall passing technique.
curezen

kick ass! altough it would be nice if it were a bit easier to find certain moves.
i once did this holy mega shit move that like took away half the bosses life then in an attempt to do it again i ended up jumping into the bosses sword. :( a move list would be nice.!

also a live system would be nice… really really nice. i could get to the level before the first boss then die. and then i have to do it all over again!.
curezen

keep in mind that those are all suggestions. im not the game maker here
Anon

Really fun game but a few things:

– The way the down+hardslash (midair) works seems to allow you to teleport through various objects. In the room where you fight a ton of enemies I managed to teleport out of the barrier meaning I was “stuck”.

– When I mapped block to “S” whenever I held “S” he would block for a second, then return to idle, block, idle, etc. It doesn’t do that when I hold shift, so it might be a bug.

– The “Flying Swallow” attack is overpowered. Once I learned how to do it, nothing touched me. Even the boss was cake. The irony is that the move was just as overpowered in the original Ninja Gaiden (until it was toned down in the Hurricane Packs, then Black and Sigma.)
ultim8p00

@ Anon

” The â€œFlying Swallowâ€ attack is overpowered. Once I learned how to do it, nothing touched me. Even the boss was cake. The irony is that the move was just as overpowered in the original Ninja Gaiden (until it was toned down in the Hurricane Packs, then Black and Sigma.)”

I know! I just realized that too.
Anon

Ah… I played it a few more times. It’s really an awesome game, I can’t put it down but I came across a few more things.

– In the “room” with no enemies just the top of a square where you can fall down to another room below on either side, if you go back to the previous screen but use that down+hardslash (midair) attack you’ll fall for awhile before landing where you would fall normally if you went down on either side of the square. (That’s very confusing so I’ll try to clarify with images soon.)

– A pop up box mentioning an error came on screen when I went down in the aforementioned “square” room. Again, I used down+hardslash (midair). I didn’t screencap the box (though I probably should, sorry.) but once I ignored it I went back to the game just fine.

– You can’t map actions to previously mapped keys. (Another words you can’t map “Jump” to “Shift” it’ll remain as block.)

– On that same note, I found that I could only map an action once. Meaning if I accidently mapped Jump to “1” I couldn’t change it to “A” by hitting “A” while highlighting “Jump”

I’ll post more as I find them.
curezen

oh and that room before the boss where all the enemies appear.(i call it the cluster f**k room.) i don’t know how other people solved it but the minute i get in there the only way i make it through is to spam the “flying swallow technique” as its called.

also are we supposed to go past the boss room becuase i keep falling it the floor :?
ultim8p00

@ Cruezen; It ends with the boss. I have dumbed down the FS technique considerably. Most enemies now block it. Some even punish it. No worries, you won’t be able to spam it in the full game.