Sweet Hell
Sweet Hell is a retro-platformer boss rush game inspired by the MSX Home Computer. The challenging game was created for the Boss Rush Jam 2024 (theme: Exchange).
The nightmare is blatantly inspired by some of my favorite games: Maze of Galious, La-Mulana 1 (the original version emulates the MSX graphical style) and La Mulana 2 (play these blind if you are even remotely interested in challenging time-consuming puzzle games), and Banana Nababa.
Story
Your brother has usurped your throne, assembling a formidable defense of legendary monsters. Eight bosses await in this game, which is as challenging as hell itself.
Controls
You can play the game using either gamepad, joystick or with a keyboard. For those who cherish the feel of retro gaming, there are options to use "up" for jumping and to switch between attack/jump commands, allowing you to play the game using an old joystick like the TAC-2 (as shown here).
Keyboard Controls: Arrows - Move Z - Jump X - Attack P - Pause H - Toggle scanlines I - Enable Iron Man mode (available at the first screen only) K - Swap jump/attack functions J - Use "up" for jump
As you sustain damage, your damage multiplier increases, doubling when you turn yellow, and tripling when you're down to your last health point.
Credits
The soundtrack of Sweet Hell features tracks from OpenGameArt.org by the talented Wolfgang_:
8-bit Theme - Intensity under CC-BY 3.0
8-bit Theme - On The Offensive, 8-Bit Cave Loop, 8-Bit Battle Loop under CC0
The sound effects were also sourced from OpenGameArt from two distinct 8-bit sound packs:
NES 8-bit sound effects by shiru8bit, NES sounds by Baŝto under CC0
The 8x8 pixel font was created by danthedev on OpenGameArt:
8x8 1bit roguelike tiles / bitmap font under CC0
Development and MSX Emulation
Sweet Hell was programmed from scratch in vanilla JavaScript, using the traditional entity system that I'm fond of.
To emulate a real MSX game according to the technical constraints of the MSX home computer, the game adheres to several limitations:
- A maximum of four single-color 16x16 or 8x8 sprites per vertical scanline.
- A limit of 32 sprites in total.
- A 32x24 tilemap comprised of 8x8 pixel tiles, with only two colors allowed per vertical tile slice (plus the background color).
- A fixed 16-color palette.
These constraints were rigorously followed and a custom sprite renderer was developed to manage the limitations, including automatic sprite cutoff when exceeding four per scanline and sprite color splitting for simplified color replacement and sprite counting.
The flickering effect seen in many vintage consoles and computers is an often-used workaround for the hardware sprite limit through a method called sprite multiplexing. Just like those old computers, the sprite renderer in this game needs to use multiplexing to draw additional sprites, leading to intentional flickering as sprites are selectively rendered frame by frame.
The levels were created using the Tiled map editor. It is extremely useful to be able to put a lot of special properties on tiles to be read in-game.
Final words
Your feedback, bug reports, or discussions on emulation are highly welcome!
Development log
- Bug fix.32 days ago
Comments
Log in with itch.io to leave a comment.
Does not work for me just a black screen
It may be an unsupported browser, though it should work in most of them.
linux support when?
This is a real gem. I really appreciate the process notes in the description and comments section!
Great, difficult game! I love the retro ascetics! Superb work!
Si te gustan los plataformas, con estilo retro y con un sinfín de bosses a derrotar, sin duda, este SWEET HELL es para ti y en este GAMEPLAY te enseñamos por qué. Tu hermano ha usurpado tu trono, reuniendo una formidable defensa de monstruos legendarios. Ocho jefes te esperan en este juego, que es tan desafiante como el mismísimo infierno.
the game doesn't launch with the itch.io app
Hi, which engine did you use?
I wrote my own 2D rendering classes in JavasSript ES6.
MAN this is very well put together! It holds all the limitations of the MSX and is superrrr inspiring! Congrats on the honorary mention! You nailed the style and the boss count!
This is one of the best modern retro games I've played. You should REALLY make a downloadable version of it. I would gladly pay for it.
The name is quite appropriate so far. It's frustrating but in a fun way! Any plans to make a downloadable version?
Really enjoyed this one ! Never played MSX game, but maybe I should check some of them out, if they are anywhere near this fun.
PS : I hope some madman will attempt the IRON MAN run.
This game is absolute fire! From the first boss you know how the tone is going to be, unfair, devious, creatures are between you and the throne and there is only one way to the top.
Is incredible how much can be said with just sprites and gameplay! I felt that struggle and the final scene makes it all worth it.
The battles mechanically are impressive I haven't had this much fun with a game in such a long time, it took me back to the classics, tight controls, excellent music and sound effects it all worked together to sell the experience.
If there was more of this I would eat it up in an instant! It makes me imagine and that in itself is enough for me to give it high marks!
i found one that kicksass for my android 7.0 it's called PocketGameDeveloper Comes With Everything Even The Ability To Make Your Own In Game music And Easily Create Your Own Touchscreen Layout No Coding Required Everythings In The UI Of the App Itself Thats For My Android Tho Now I Will See If I Can Get Godot Or something Similar In my Iphone 12 today;)
This game is frustrating as hell, but when you finally get to sit on the throne the amount of satisfaction you feel is amazing.
Hey, sweet. How do you even start coding a game like this in JS? I'm just a beginner.
Congrats on the finished game.
Hello!
I would recommend you first start with learning how to do Object-Oriented Programming in JavaScript. If you listen to other JS developers online, you will hear a lot about how Functional Programming is so much better than OOP. Those people usually do not make games and their opinion on OOP can be ignored. OOP is the best fit for games since most things in the world can naturally be represented as objects.
So you learn how do OOP using classes in ES6. Now you can represent things in your game as objects such as a Player, Enemy etc.. You can use inheritance if you need multiple objects to use the same foundation. For example, in my games every object inherits from an Entity class, which contains an update/draw/destroy function.
Use the ES6 module system since it's the modern way to handle multiple imports in JS today. I like to name my modules after their class names like this:
player.class.js: export default class Player { } game.js: import Player from './player.class.js'; const player = new Player();This is my own personal opinion and many people do not agree with me, but I think it's okay to use fake encapsulation in JS as long as it is only done for code organization and you understand it doesn't actual protect the variables.
export default class Player { constructor() { this._x = 0; // _ implies private, so don't access this member outside the class this._y = 0; } }Then you decide on what type of rendering engine you want.
Here is a really simple example how to draw an image on a 2D canvas:
<html><body><canvas></canvas><image src="./test" /> <script> const image = document.querySelector('image'); const canvas = document.querySelector("canvas"); const context = canvas.getContext("2d"); canvas.width = 500; canvas.height = 500; context.drawImage(image, 50, 50); </script></body></html>I prefer to load images using the Javascript fetch command rather than embedding them in the document.
You can create a "main loop" for your game using requestAnimationFrame:
let lastTime = 0; const update = time => { const elapsedSeconds = Math.min(maxTimestep, (time - lastTime) / 1000); lastTime = time; // Update and draw your entire game here update(); draw(); requestAnimationFrame(update); }And that's pretty much it. The 2D canvas can be used to make both games like this with bitmap graphics or vector-based games using primitive line/shape drawing.
WOW Donitz! I am so grateful for this roadmap. I've just learned the basics of JS, ergo, I know about OOP and all up until adding things into the DOM.
But this is the exact pointer I was looking for. Thank you so much, again.
Where are the downloads? Can you make a free msx release?
I can't add any additional uploads before the jam rating period is over, but after that I can upload the source.
can you code a full game run it and install it all by javascript on android or ios? like if you use an ide or js anywhere type app or next.js i have an iphone 12 and an Android 7.0 my iphone is on the latest 17.4 developer beta 2 OS and My Android Is Running Nougat 7.0 any help is much appreciated
You sorta can. You can use WebView to embed a web browser in an app, or something like Cordova/PhoneGap/Tauri. The iOS web browser has been nerfed on purpose so that it can't really compete with apps, at least in the past. I don't know what the current state is.
Though it isn't quite optimal. If you want to make a game for Android/iOS/PC/Linux it's easier to get started with Godot (or Unity).
i found one that kicksass for my android 7.0 it's called PocketGameDeveloper Comes With Everything Even The Ability To Make Your Own In Game music And Easily Create Your Own Touchscreen Layout No Coding Required Everythings In The UI Of the App Itself Thats For My Android Tho Now I Will See If I Can Get Godot Or something Similar In my Iphone 12 today;)
i found one that kicksass for my android 7.0 it's called PocketGameDeveloper Comes With Everything Even The Ability To Make Your Own In Game music And Easily Create Your Own Touchscreen Layout No Coding Required Everythings In The UI Of the App Itself Thats For My Android Tho Now I Will See If I Can Get Godot Or something Similar In my Iphone 12 today;)
i found one that kicksass for my android 7.0 it's called PocketGameDeveloper Comes With Everything Even The Ability To Make Your Own In Game music And Easily Create Your Own Touchscreen Layout No Coding Required Everythings In The UI Of the App Itself Thats For My Android Tho Now I Will See If I Can Get Godot Or something Similar In my Iphone 12 today;)
i found one that kicksass for my android 7.0 it's called PocketGameDeveloper Comes With Everything Even The Ability To Make Your Own In Game music And Easily Create Your Own Touchscreen Layout No Coding Required Everythings In The UI Of the App Itself Thats For My Android Tho Now I Will See If I Can Get Godot Or something Similar In my Iphone 12 today;)
i found one that kicksass for my android 7.0 it's called PocketGameDeveloper Comes With Everything Even The Ability To Make Your Own In Game music And Easily Create Your Own Touchscreen Layout No Coding Required Everythings In The UI Of the App Itself Thats For My Android Tho Now I Will See If I Can Get Godot Or something Similar In my Iphone 12 today;)
Tough as nails is right, and victory is all the sweeter for it.
Very nice, tight gameplay, nice challenges. Getting annoyed by the slime boss currently, the rest was quite ok'ish so far.
Edit: Ok made it through all of them. For me, the slime was most tricky :)
Yeah the slime is the most ridiculous of the bosses, and my personal favorite. I hope memorizing its attack pattern was fun!
At first a bit frustrating, but it was fun to find out the pattern indeed, made it a lot easier :-)
Super kick butt game! Tight controls and great old school challenge. A little hard for my older reflexes but still very well made! Great job!
Why is this marked as Adult?
Because for some reason the adult tag found its way into the tag list. I think it was meant to be action.