SAGE 2023 games I SAGEnjoyed Part 4

INTRODUCING A TRIPLE TRIAD OF HOMEBREW BY NAMES OF Dotty, Gunburst, and guest starring Sonic Adventure DS Demo 2

DOTTY

Title screen for Dotty Game, featuring a little moth creature flashing a peace sign Dotty stands in front of a large computer screen, allowing the player to enable rapid fire mode and "death mode"

Dotty is a cute Mega-Man inspired game, starring a rosy maple moth named Dotty. Mean mushroom creatures are on the attack in this one level demo, and it's up to wall-jumping, hover-jumping, pea-shooting Dotty to stop them.

Dotty fires a pellet at a green mushroom enemy. Dotty can wall kick like in Mega Man X.

It's a short demo, but it's a highly competent game made in GB Studio. In addition to just jumping and shooting, Dotty can hover when you hold the jump button, and Dotty can also wall kick like in Mega Man X.

Dotty enters a boss arena, wherein a giant green mushroom boss jumps from the background into the foreground. Dotty hugs the wall to avoid a long fireball attack

It has a cute little character and a great presentation. Although the demo features one level, there's a few little surprises you can find too.

Dotty hangs out in a lounge with a bar and jukebox. Two other characters dance up and down.

SONIC ADVENTURE DS DEMO 2

Sonic stands on a beach with condos on the right and the ocean on the left Sonic runs through a stone loop-de-loop.

Here's a quick one. A homebrew remake of the first segment of Sonic Adventure's first level, Emerald Coast, on the DS. There's a PC OpenGL port, but I wanted to see how it ran on MelonDS.

Sonic runs through a tunnel. Sonic stands before a tall cliffside with platforms to jump on and a broken stone bridge high above

It runs at a very stable framerate, even when you use the included moon jump to see the level from angles you normally wouldn't see. Cool!

Sonic hovers in the air, overlooking the first chunk of the level from afar.

GUNBURST

The title screen for GUNBURST

Here's a cool game that I wanted to love, but ultimately found too frustrating. Seemingly taking cues from Alien Soldier and Gunstar Heroes, Gunburst is to be a run-n-gun game with cool boss fights and an interesting gimmick.

The catgirl character of Gunburst shooting at a geometric face

You can NOT harm the bosses directly with your gun; however, shooting them builds up a BURST meter, that you spend when it's full to do a damaging, rapid-hit dash.

The catgirl character of Gunburst using a BURST attack on the geometric face.

The lone encounter of the demo is against a huge boss, animated with individual moving segments, much like the games it's inspired by. It's very cool and impressively animated, however...

The catgirl character encounters a giant robot boss. BATTLE START is written on the screen. The boss fires large energy balls at the character. The boss bounds around the screen in a ball.

...despite the cool presentation, I simply found the game to be too hard. Your character walks around very slowly while the boss's projectiles and physical attacks come out faster than you can really run from them. Dodging them while shooting and building up the burst meter was simply too much for me. The closest I came to victory was getting the boss down to maybe one more hit with the BURST attack, but you have to build the BURST meter to full before you can use it again. The game simply demands a level of precision that even Alien Soldier didn't.

The catgirl character panics as the boss dive bombs from the top of the screen.

It's really cool, but unless the finished product demands less nailbiting perfection, I think I'll have to admire it from afar.

Nadia Rain Chassis

@softchassis

Purpose-built for wrong