Aces Wild – Demo

By: Xander

On: May 13th, 2009

AcesWild

Aces Wild is a side-scrolling beat’em up in the style of Katakijin or Dishwasher: Dead Samurai. Currently not much beyond a demonstration of the gameplay engine, your goal in the recently released demo is simple. Kill everything, run to the next area and then kill everything there. Rinse, Lather, Repeat. The draw here is two-fold; For starters the game is a visual treat, from the way the characters move and fight to the way the terrain tilts as you jump, giving an incredibly natural sense of depth. The other side is that rather than following the sublimely delicious Scary Girl with a dodgy collision detection system, the fighting system is incredibly satisfying and fluid.

The combat functions somewhat similar to the Smash Bros series (I’m pretty sure I don’t need to link that one), where directional controls will unleash different attacks depending on which combination you use and either dodges or dashes are available depending on just how quickly you have to get the hell out of the way of an oncoming attack. The elegant twist here is in the application of the Right Trigger (I should mention I’m using a 360 controller for this. Keyboard controls will be different of course and are covered in the readme!). Normally, or at least normal for this game, when you unleash an attack on an enemy you will launch them in a set direction until they collide with a wall/floor/ceiling in which case they’ll rebound for another gratuitous beating.

However if you hold down the trigger whilst attacking it adds a kind of backspin to the attack, which means when they collide with an obstacle they will cling to it for a moment, meaning they only slightly rebound enough so they hover in roughly the position they hit. This suddenly opens a whole variety of attack options, where usually the Down+Punch would smash the enemy into the ground and send them flying upwards as a launcher, instead the R-Trigger can be applied so the enemy dramatically smashes into the ground and hovers for a moment allowing you to instantly continue a combo, either charging and unleashing an up+punch launcher or another form of combination (Diagonal attacks being my favourite finishers for sure).

It is still a little off at times given that there are a number of infinite combos the enemy can’t break out of, the voice acting whilst welcome can be somewhat grating as is and when there’s a large group of ninja to fight it is almost impossible to break through their defense/constant onslaught. As it is really just an early peek at the game these are understandable and acknowledged by the games creator in the Feedback thread, so if there are any queries or criticisms be sure to make them there so that hopefully any major issues can be addressed. As it stands I think what’s there is pretty great, and I’m thoroughly looking forward to any future builds of the title for if nothing else it illuminated just how short sighted I was being in the past. Punching people in the face isn’t fun.

Uppercutting someone into the ceiling ten times in four seconds is.

  • JoeHonkie

    I love this demo so hard.

  • Ezuku

    Fun but…

    Ahhhhhhhh most irritating protagonist voice ever!!!

    “yeah yeah yeah yeah”… he sounds like a stupid boyband. That’s clearly made as a disincentive to spam the same move over and over.

    Aside from that, love the art style, although the gameplay could use a little work, the combat feels a bit rigid.

  • Xander

    Rumour has it that’s the reasoning behind Jam’s voice in Guilty Gear as well. That or psychological warfare on their opponents…

  • Ezuku

    Seriously, with a voice that irritating, is it suprising that there’s a hoard of angry ninjas after him?

    I mean, honestly, what kind of person goes “yeah” when they kick :|

    Can you imagine a boxer saying “yeah” whenever he punches in a match?

  • Madgarden

    Yeah.

  • Dan MacDonald

    SAKFU!

  • http://b-mcc.com// BMcC

    I would not advise rinsing *before* lathering, unless you plan to repeat forrreevverrr.

    Otherwise excellent post, sir! :)

    It’s good to see the Feedback forum getting some love.

  • http://b-mcc.com// BMcC

    Also this game looks good!

  • Armyofnone

    Very awesome game (minus the sound effects). I liked the fighting, very much reminded me of Super Smash Brother’s Melee. Had some wicked combo’s going where I used pretty much every move in my repertoire as I smashed the boss in the red-building into various walls. Looking forward to this getting developed more!

  • Teknogames/Beau Blyth

    Wow. That was annoying.

    Yeah! WOOOO! YEA! Wooo! huh! wooo! huh! huh! wooooooo!

    YEAAAAAHHH!

  • avoidobject

    Is the protagonist being a very “vocal” kind of guy part of the story or the character’s personality at all?

    I was going to suggest that maybe he doesn’t really need to talk. But if the creator isn’t really going for the silent protagonist kind of character, but more of a cocky in your face guy, then nevermind.

    I would still recommend that maybe he should say something other than YEAH WHOO! all the time. Maybe more typical “HA” “hiya” kind of battle cry sounds. Or not say anything at all, except for saying some witty one liners when he really needs to.

  • http://www.paul-jeffries.com Paul Jeffries

    Should be a nice game, provided there’s a little more to it than just beating up ninjas.

    2 small crits: The foreground can obscure what is going in. It’d be nice if, say, when you went behind a tree, the tree went transparent or something. And, when you’re ‘charging up’ a punch, the blue sparks look like they’re being sucked into his anus. Which is hilarious.

  • Kicks(Tyler Doak)

    Hey, guys! Thanks for the feedback and the opportunity to be featured on this great site.
    I’m super sorry you guys hate my voice so much. Ironically, Jam is my main character in Guilty Gear and I think all her screams are wonderful! But, if everyone’s gonna hate it, I’ll have to rethink the direction there.
    From these posts and others I’ve seen different people get into different aspects of the game. One design goal is to have a game that remains deep if you’re fighing 1 guy or 20 guys and everywhere in between. Another is to provide the means for creativity while keeping the combat balanced, deep, and fresh. I think I’m starting to deliver on these points. Keep the crits coming and we can make this game great! Thanks!

  • undertech

    Maybe you can just make a menu setting to turn the voices off :D

    I’m sure there are at least a few that like the (over)enthusiasm!

    That, and maybe make it so the voices kick in only when you deliver the killing blow, for example.

  • noname

    Also I find it strange how the posts are suddenly a lot more constructive for a game that is from someone unknown rather than someone we’re all probably tired of hearing about already.

  • Xander

    Again I’m always a huge advocate of option. Having a voice toggle on/off would be a nice idea. At the same time I’m not really against the overly enthusiastic yells and- BANDIT.. REVOLVER!! GREED SEVER!!

    *ahem*, it’s just that in the current form I think they don’t add enough to the character to not be kind of annoying. I think if you wanted to keep working on that though then eventually it could be quite good. Indie games with voice acting are such a rarity, especially as an action game like this, that I think if it was done well it’d be really impressive.

  • Ezuku

    Personally, I’d prefer more fighting more guys who take fewer hits, or guys who take fewer hits but block most of the time. Spamming the same combo on a single guy isn’t as much fun as dispatching 1 guy each combo.

  • Carlz0r

    Wow… I liked this engine a lot. Very fun!

  • Malasdair

    It totally won’t run! I’m totally using vista! It makes me totally sad.

  • v1510n

    After playing this and running that xna msi, I can no longer run any game maker games. Anyone else have this issue?

  • Kicks(Tyler Doak)

    If you guys have any issues. Like the two recently posted. Reply with the complaint in the forum here, another forum, or email me at [email protected] and I’ll see what we can do.
    My MSN is kicks424@hotmail
    my AIM is Tykwondo42
    You can reach me there as well.
    @Malasdair…
    Do you have the .net 2.0 framework? If you don’t download that from microsoft. There should have been a link in the readme or something. Install that and then the xna dependency.
    @v1510n…
    Sorry homey, I’ve never heard of that issue. I play game maker games from the forums all the time and no issue.