seen vinny's playthru of this. gotta say looks nice, quick question though. noticed that there seemed to be a status indicator in one of the menus, what kinda woes can we expect (besides simon getting drunk)?
Really looking forward to this game! Are you going to add a sword as a striking weapon for the hero in the game? If not, any chance you can add one as a custom MOD if I pay you? (Sorry if you get questions like this a lot). No problem either way; regardless, I think this is going to be a masterpiece!
Yes, I saw your other message, and your posts to me on Twitter as well, but I'll answer again- The 2023 build isn't a "demo" or available for wide release- it's a full slice of the game. A new demo will come in the future. The 2021 demo may have a few bugs here and there, but it's certainly not lacking in content for a demo. It has a full region of the game, 2 bosses, and a bunch of extras.
I probably would expect the same amount of content in a new demo as the previous one.
Hey, I have been playing Prison City on the Switch. Very nice. Will Transylvania Adventure of Simon Quest be on Switch or other platforms when you finish?
Well I've finished the demo, got to say, it looks really promising and I am glad to see more people like me still like the classic gameplay format, tho this is mostly a metroidvania, what I like the most is the graphics and the silly humor the game has. Unfortunately the demo is too short and, it's quite weird, because I saw footage by AlphaBetaGamer and he confronted a Dracula-like boss, this is not present in this demo because whenever I go either east or west it tells me the demo is finished, so I guess that has been removed, hopefully I will get a more complete demo soon and I HOPE.
I saw that you want to get Yuzo Koshiro in, that'd benefit the game because the music as is now it just... exists, it's not offensive or bad, but it's kinda boring so I was jamming with some Castlevania II and III tunes and honestly that improves gameplay experience, good music elevates a good game into a great game, different tunes for different areas would help too.
Otherwise it looks very promising and I am looking forward for what you have to offer. Cheers!
With his action-packed puzzle game Dumpy & Bumpy, Michigan-based indie developer Programancer already caught my eye two years ago. Since then, I've been eagerly awaiting the completion of his fangame The Transylvania Adventure of Simon Quest, a parody of the old Castlevania games of the NES era. But it's going to take a while to complete. This is also due to the fact that the developer is working on commercial projects on the side. His latest work is called Prison City and takes you to a dystopian past.
You shouldn't think about the premise of the game: In 1995, the run-down city of Detroit was evacuated and turned into a mega-prison. Two years later, this prison is infiltrated by terrorists and only the muscle-bound ex-cop Hal Bruzer is able to cope with this mission. In retrospect, one sometimes wonders if the action movies of the 80s really had such terrible premises. You only have to look at B-movies of that decade like Trancers or Hell Comes To Frogtown to realize that things were often much, much more absurd. So these movies that were never produced for television or even the cinema, but for the video store. The video games of the time, such as Shatterhand or Power Blade, then transferred these B-movies to the NES. The developer of Prison City has skillfully captured this, I'll call it, "video store aesthetic".
With the Chakram against criminals and robots
In terms of gameplay, the developer has mainly taken a cue from the two games mentioned above, Shatterhand and Power Blade. Which is a nice change after all the Mega Man and Castlevania clones of the last few years from other devs. Even though the former games were rather B-grade on the NES back then. The ability to hold on to wire mesh fences and shimmy along them was taken over from Shatterhand. These hang more often in the level background and serve to either reach higher platforms or to master an obstacle course.
The combat system was essentially taken from the two Power Blade games. While in those games the hero defeats his opponents with a boomerang, in Prison City the hero has electrically charged chakrams at his disposal. Chakrams are throwing weapons that originated in India. Three pieces of a power-up are hidden in each level. If you find all the parts, the weapon is strengthened and enlarged once. However, this only lasts until you are hit three times by enemies and have to settle for the normal-sized chakrams again.
Otherwise, the balance between action and jump & run is well-balanced: In each of the eight freely selectable levels, there are sections where fighting enemies is the main focus, and those where there are various obstacle courses to overcome. The level design doesn't look bad to me, but it still looks like it came from the drawing board. The levels never seem to have grown organically to me; instead, while playing, I kept getting the feeling that the developer had thought at various points, "Oh, I haven't included the obligatory platforming passages yet. They're coming now."
Maybe it's just because I've played far too many titles of this type, but here I notice the formulaic nature very strongly. That's not a huge criticism, because the level design of the tasks is challenging, but always fairly designed. I've seen much worse in the indie realm. I just miss the surprises a bit. I could often guess in advance which game element was coming next.
The goal of a level is now to find the door to the boss fight and, on the way there, an informant who hands you the corresponding key card. Also hidden in each level is a permanent upgrade for life energy.
Difficulty level and option variety
On the normal difficulty, I would describe Prison City as very challenging and definitely for genre veterans. As mentioned before, the jumping sections are quite crisp, but in addition, the fights against the enemies themselves are also challenging. It's not like they're done with one or two hits. Very often it is necessary to learn the movement patterns and to think of an appropriate strategy. In addition, there are various traps and obstacles.
If you don't care about trophies, you have the option to build your own difficulty level in addition to the three preset difficulty levels. And what options are offered here is amazing! The options aren't content with being able to set how many lives or how much health energy you want to start with. The options go deep into the game mechanics: Should you lose a life when you fall into the abyss and restart at the last checkpoint - or do you just want to have a point deducted from your health and continue at the same point? Should the chakram also be able to hold items like grenades or life energy? And how long do you want the shield to last after you collect the appropriate power-ups? Even the dropping rate of the enemies can be adjusted.
At first glance, the options seem a bit overloaded. In fact, however, everyone can compose their own difficulty level according to their preferences. For example, if you're not so good at jump & runs, you can take a lot of frustration out of the game with the two options "Forgiving level hazards" and "Respawning from pits", while the "Aggressive enemies" option keeps the fights challenging. The same applies the other way around, of course.
I find this option variety explicitly exemplary, because I often have the problem with modern indie games that the normal difficulty level is too hard for me, but the easy one is already much too easy. With such options, the developer gives me the opportunity to decide for myself how I want to play the game and where I want to focus. I would like to see such in-depth options offered by other developers in the future. It doesn't take anything away from anyone who wants the normal gameplay experience - but it adds a lot of value for those who have big problems with certain game elements.
Conclusion
Normally I would say at this point that the 17€ for Prison City would be justified for genre veterans who want to play a game à la Shatterhand or Power Blade again - a more than top target group. The developer captures the feeling of the NES action games excellently, the difficulty level is nice and hard - just like we nostalgics love it. For everyone else, I wouldn't have given a recommendation at this point, because there are better and easier Jump & Runs for the money. Actually, it was just a game I had in mind for the next "what to you play right now" gallery.
But then I discovered the variety of options and was thrilled. Nowadays it's nothing special that game developers make the number of lives or health points adjustable, for example - even if that still happens far too rarely. That a developer offers options that deeply intervene in the game mechanics, I have not seen in this form yet. As mentioned before, this allows everyone to create their own game experience, where essential rules of Prison City's game design can be changed. That much trust in players to decide for themselves which aspects of the game they prefer is something I would like to see from many more developers. Even if that means relinquishing control to the players.
Not a whole lot- it’s on hold at the moment while I get Prison City out (as I did with Dumpy & Bumpy when that was in development), but will be back at it once that’s done~
This is a really great start. It's already better than Simon's Quest in many ways despite some beta roughness. I think I've been everywhere in the demo (Bela and Legosi are inaccessible and there's an empty hidden corridor in the waterway) although there are several screenshots of places I haven't seen. Hopefully this project will get finished.
I say, graphics are beautiful the same I can say about gameplay and references, even music have this unique style, this is not castlevania level or shovel knight but this gothic and baroque style is something that fit game. Music is not the best but is very far too be crappy if you want help, I can help
Hi dude! Just wanted to say that i love these kind of retro games. Demo was pretty fun too. I`m definitely gonna buy this if the final soundtrack kicks more ass! I wish you best you luck, this looks awesome
The buttons are listed in the splash in the beginning, and is listed as an NES controller- meaning as it stands right now, the game has only the standard buttons from the NES controller (A/B/Start/Select/Up/Down/Left/Right). The prompt saying "B" button is as it would be on an NES controller. Button mapping/etc is something that will be added further down the road, and as such prompts will only show the NES equivalent of the buttons (as shown in the intro splash).
I subscribed just for your project, it's AWESOME! I'm a very, very, VERY fan of Castlevania 2 Simon's Quest, in fact I'm making a graphic mod, do you have a personal email to send the mod? I would like you to take a look at it, maybe it will influence your project a bit ;P
I’m sure this is something I’m going to hear a lot, and it’s something I’ve addressed a few times on Twitter over the past 12 or so months, but the resolution is about 16 pixels off of 16:9, and that’s gonna stay that way- it was a mistake made early on, but development is way too far to change it. It’s a fix that requires remaking/adjusting every room in the game and is way more involved than just doing some creative fixing/scaling toward the end of development.
It probably never would have happened at all had the laptop I develop on not had a weird aspect ratio, so it took a really long time for it to actually click that it was off by a bit haha It's definitely something I'll look into more when I'm closer to being finished though
I have only played it for a few hours (I have explored Bram's mansion a little), and as a huge fan of the genre and the original NES Castlevania series, I can say that this is nothing less than a love letter and tribute to those timeless classics and a masterpiece in its own right.
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seen vinny's playthru of this. gotta say looks nice, quick question though. noticed that there seemed to be a status indicator in one of the menus, what kinda woes can we expect (besides simon getting drunk)?
edit deleted a line i prob shouldnt a put there.
Status is mostly for flavor text when you're drunk, or dreaming, or *spoiler stuff*
Really looking forward to this game! Are you going to add a sword as a striking weapon for the hero in the game? If not, any chance you can add one as a custom MOD if I pay you? (Sorry if you get questions like this a lot). No problem either way; regardless, I think this is going to be a masterpiece!
Thanks!
Also mayhap re:striking weapon- I've already stacked the inventory pretty heavily, but maybe! haha
Link for the 2023 demo? currently the only demo is the 2021 which is lacking content/bugged.
Yes, I saw your other message, and your posts to me on Twitter as well, but I'll answer again- The 2023 build isn't a "demo" or available for wide release- it's a full slice of the game. A new demo will come in the future. The 2021 demo may have a few bugs here and there, but it's certainly not lacking in content for a demo. It has a full region of the game, 2 bosses, and a bunch of extras.
I probably would expect the same amount of content in a new demo as the previous one.
So more like a vertical slice than a public demo?
Hey, I have been playing Prison City on the Switch. Very nice. Will Transylvania Adventure of Simon Quest be on Switch or other platforms when you finish?
That's the plan~~
Well I've finished the demo, got to say, it looks really promising and I am glad to see more people like me still like the classic gameplay format, tho this is mostly a metroidvania, what I like the most is the graphics and the silly humor the game has. Unfortunately the demo is too short and, it's quite weird, because I saw footage by AlphaBetaGamer and he confronted a Dracula-like boss, this is not present in this demo because whenever I go either east or west it tells me the demo is finished, so I guess that has been removed, hopefully I will get a more complete demo soon and I HOPE.
I saw that you want to get Yuzo Koshiro in, that'd benefit the game because the music as is now it just... exists, it's not offensive or bad, but it's kinda boring so I was jamming with some Castlevania II and III tunes and honestly that improves gameplay experience, good music elevates a good game into a great game, different tunes for different areas would help too.
Otherwise it looks very promising and I am looking forward for what you have to offer. Cheers!
Hi!
A little review I wrote in german about Prison City:
https://www.gamersglobal.de/user-artikel/prison-city
Here's a DeepL translation - hope you like it:
With his action-packed puzzle game Dumpy & Bumpy, Michigan-based indie developer Programancer already caught my eye two years ago. Since then, I've been eagerly awaiting the completion of his fangame The Transylvania Adventure of Simon Quest, a parody of the old Castlevania games of the NES era. But it's going to take a while to complete. This is also due to the fact that the developer is working on commercial projects on the side. His latest work is called Prison City and takes you to a dystopian past.
You shouldn't think about the premise of the game: In 1995, the run-down city of Detroit was evacuated and turned into a mega-prison. Two years later, this prison is infiltrated by terrorists and only the muscle-bound ex-cop Hal Bruzer is able to cope with this mission. In retrospect, one sometimes wonders if the action movies of the 80s really had such terrible premises. You only have to look at B-movies of that decade like Trancers or Hell Comes To Frogtown to realize that things were often much, much more absurd. So these movies that were never produced for television or even the cinema, but for the video store. The video games of the time, such as Shatterhand or Power Blade, then transferred these B-movies to the NES. The developer of Prison City has skillfully captured this, I'll call it, "video store aesthetic".
With the Chakram against criminals and robots
In terms of gameplay, the developer has mainly taken a cue from the two games mentioned above, Shatterhand and Power Blade. Which is a nice change after all the Mega Man and Castlevania clones of the last few years from other devs. Even though the former games were rather B-grade on the NES back then. The ability to hold on to wire mesh fences and shimmy along them was taken over from Shatterhand. These hang more often in the level background and serve to either reach higher platforms or to master an obstacle course.
The combat system was essentially taken from the two Power Blade games. While in those games the hero defeats his opponents with a boomerang, in Prison City the hero has electrically charged chakrams at his disposal. Chakrams are throwing weapons that originated in India. Three pieces of a power-up are hidden in each level. If you find all the parts, the weapon is strengthened and enlarged once. However, this only lasts until you are hit three times by enemies and have to settle for the normal-sized chakrams again.
Otherwise, the balance between action and jump & run is well-balanced: In each of the eight freely selectable levels, there are sections where fighting enemies is the main focus, and those where there are various obstacle courses to overcome. The level design doesn't look bad to me, but it still looks like it came from the drawing board. The levels never seem to have grown organically to me; instead, while playing, I kept getting the feeling that the developer had thought at various points, "Oh, I haven't included the obligatory platforming passages yet. They're coming now."
Maybe it's just because I've played far too many titles of this type, but here I notice the formulaic nature very strongly. That's not a huge criticism, because the level design of the tasks is challenging, but always fairly designed. I've seen much worse in the indie realm. I just miss the surprises a bit. I could often guess in advance which game element was coming next.
The goal of a level is now to find the door to the boss fight and, on the way there, an informant who hands you the corresponding key card. Also hidden in each level is a permanent upgrade for life energy.
Difficulty level and option variety
On the normal difficulty, I would describe Prison City as very challenging and definitely for genre veterans. As mentioned before, the jumping sections are quite crisp, but in addition, the fights against the enemies themselves are also challenging. It's not like they're done with one or two hits. Very often it is necessary to learn the movement patterns and to think of an appropriate strategy. In addition, there are various traps and obstacles.
If you don't care about trophies, you have the option to build your own difficulty level in addition to the three preset difficulty levels. And what options are offered here is amazing! The options aren't content with being able to set how many lives or how much health energy you want to start with. The options go deep into the game mechanics: Should you lose a life when you fall into the abyss and restart at the last checkpoint - or do you just want to have a point deducted from your health and continue at the same point? Should the chakram also be able to hold items like grenades or life energy? And how long do you want the shield to last after you collect the appropriate power-ups? Even the dropping rate of the enemies can be adjusted.
At first glance, the options seem a bit overloaded. In fact, however, everyone can compose their own difficulty level according to their preferences. For example, if you're not so good at jump & runs, you can take a lot of frustration out of the game with the two options "Forgiving level hazards" and "Respawning from pits", while the "Aggressive enemies" option keeps the fights challenging. The same applies the other way around, of course.
I find this option variety explicitly exemplary, because I often have the problem with modern indie games that the normal difficulty level is too hard for me, but the easy one is already much too easy. With such options, the developer gives me the opportunity to decide for myself how I want to play the game and where I want to focus. I would like to see such in-depth options offered by other developers in the future. It doesn't take anything away from anyone who wants the normal gameplay experience - but it adds a lot of value for those who have big problems with certain game elements.
Conclusion
Normally I would say at this point that the 17€ for Prison City would be justified for genre veterans who want to play a game à la Shatterhand or Power Blade again - a more than top target group. The developer captures the feeling of the NES action games excellently, the difficulty level is nice and hard - just like we nostalgics love it. For everyone else, I wouldn't have given a recommendation at this point, because there are better and easier Jump & Runs for the money. Actually, it was just a game I had in mind for the next "what to you play right now" gallery.
But then I discovered the variety of options and was thrilled. Nowadays it's nothing special that game developers make the number of lives or health points adjustable, for example - even if that still happens far too rarely. That a developer offers options that deeply intervene in the game mechanics, I have not seen in this form yet. As mentioned before, this allows everyone to create their own game experience, where essential rules of Prison City's game design can be changed. That much trust in players to decide for themselves which aspects of the game they prefer is something I would like to see from many more developers. Even if that means relinquishing control to the players.
Definitely a gem you should check out, especially if you love the original NES series. Despite the game still in Demo, it's pretty fun!
Looking forward to the full game!
Thanks~~
Dude I like this game.
Any new updates on this awesome game project?
Not a whole lot- it’s on hold at the moment while I get Prison City out (as I did with Dumpy & Bumpy when that was in development), but will be back at it once that’s done~
Cool, look forward to seeing this as a completed game!
This is a really great start. It's already better than Simon's Quest in many ways despite some beta roughness. I think I've been everywhere in the demo (Bela and Legosi are inaccessible and there's an empty hidden corridor in the waterway) although there are several screenshots of places I haven't seen. Hopefully this project will get finished.
I say, graphics are beautiful the same I can say about gameplay and references, even music have this unique style, this is not castlevania level or shovel knight but this gothic and baroque style is something that fit game. Music is not the best but is very far too be crappy
if you want help, I can help
The rom will be available to be played on original famicom/NES using everdrive?
No, there is no way this would ever run on an NES. It’s not designed for that and it breaks very many limitations for the system
Any chance for a mac release ??
More than likely when the game is finished and ready for release
This game is a freaking masterpiece!
when is the game done, I will pay for it. It looks awesome
Thanks!
Hi dude! Just wanted to say that i love these kind of retro games. Demo was pretty fun too. I`m definitely gonna buy this if the final soundtrack kicks more ass! I wish you best you luck, this looks awesome
Thank you!
Any chances for a linux build in the future?
Here’s hoping! Planning on doing PC/Mac/Linux on release if I can.
The demo is really good so far! Extremely gorgeous and amazing love-letter to classic NES adventure games
Just some suggestions:
- Let me change sub-weapons on the fly with the L and R button + a dedicated sub-weapon button (make it optional if you wish)
- I'm being prompted with pressing the B button to advance in a conversation, but in reality it's the X button that works, is that a glitch?
- In the fishing mini-game, give some better cues on when the line is going to break and a fast reel button for when you want to quit
- Controller rumble
I hope this becomes a full game!
The buttons are listed in the splash in the beginning, and is listed as an NES controller- meaning as it stands right now, the game has only the standard buttons from the NES controller (A/B/Start/Select/Up/Down/Left/Right). The prompt saying "B" button is as it would be on an NES controller. Button mapping/etc is something that will be added further down the road, and as such prompts will only show the NES equivalent of the buttons (as shown in the intro splash).
I subscribed just for your project, it's AWESOME! I'm a very, very, VERY fan of Castlevania 2 Simon's Quest, in fact I'm making a graphic mod, do you have a personal email to send the mod? I would like you to take a look at it, maybe it will influence your project a bit ;P
The aspect ration in full screen seems to be slightly off. The top was cut in half on my screen.
I’m sure this is something I’m going to hear a lot, and it’s something I’ve addressed a few times on Twitter over the past 12 or so months, but the resolution is about 16 pixels off of 16:9, and that’s gonna stay that way- it was a mistake made early on, but development is way too far to change it. It’s a fix that requires remaking/adjusting every room in the game and is way more involved than just doing some creative fixing/scaling toward the end of development.
Thats fair. I have a 16:10 screen so i think that made it worse. Game development can be confusing at times. I had a great time btw.
It probably never would have happened at all had the laptop I develop on not had a weird aspect ratio, so it took a really long time for it to actually click that it was off by a bit haha It's definitely something I'll look into more when I'm closer to being finished though
But I'm glad you enjoyed it!
I have only played it for a few hours (I have explored Bram's mansion a little), and as a huge fan of the genre and the original NES Castlevania series, I can say that this is nothing less than a love letter and tribute to those timeless classics and a masterpiece in its own right.