• Add Review
  • Subscribe
  • Nominate
  • Submit Media
  • RSS

The Hero We Need

Luke Daimont: Absolute Mayhem is an action-platformer game with the angle of an over the top B movie. It plays up the badass secret agent ham in spectacular fashion and manages to be pretty fun to play as well.

Let’s Talk About Assets!

Since this game was made for the Trials of MZ event, all its resources are either from or edits of RTP assets. I’m unfamiliar with MZ’s default stock, but it seems far out if there are gun-toting cigar-smoking gorillas in the monster folder. I can’t say how much was edited, but the game makes do with what it has and comes together well enough.

I think some parts are better served by the RTP graphics than others, like the early forest stages feeling too cheery compared to the man-made locales that suit the tone better. Also, some visuals are noticeably janky, like how characters jump around in slow diagonal lines rather than arcs, the animation for which is of no help. It has an overall feel of just getting by (which it kinda is), so the presentation isn’t too amazing. Still, I think it makes up for this in raw entertainment value.

Let’s Talk About Story!

It’s as hammy as you can hope for. The evil Dr. Psyko is experimenting on animals to create super soldiers, and it's up to Luke Daimont to stop him as the world’s only hope. You can guess exactly how it will go; there’s no real narrative depth, so you’re really just along for the ride. Daimont fits his stereotype to a T, right down to telling his child admirer to stay in school. Likewise, Dr. Psyko is your average evil genius whose own mistakes are his ultimate undoing.

The deepest the story gets is to say that the government wants Psyko’s research for their own nefarious ends, which subverts the tropes slightly by having no truly “good” side apart from the protagonists on the ground. The only other relevant character is a female scientist who defected from Psyko to have the research destroyed. She probably would’ve gotten with Luke if she wasn’t already married, so that’s another trope subverted in a minimal way. Apart from her and her family, there’s The Clown. I will leave his nature as Psyko’s henchman to your imagination.

Let’s Talk About Gameplay!

Mechanically, this game has a lot going on. It’s no secret RPG Maker is not designed for this style of gameplay, but they do what they can to make it work. The game is divided into sidescrolling stages where you must get Daimont to the finish line. Along the way, there are enemies to shoot or do combat with and platforming puzzles to be navigated.

The platforming is the jankiest feature, as noted earlier. Daimont will jump in the cardinal direction he’s facing, allowing him to clear horizontal gaps and jump up to higher ledges. The non-vertical jumps travel on straight diagonal lines, so they aren’t too convincing visually. They are also very slow, but this may be deliberate. It’s possible to shoot at any time while platforming, so a jump will place your bullet on a higher row than ground level. This makes it possible to shoot airborne enemies without being directly beneath them, and it might have been too hard to time if the jumps moved any faster.

Shooting enemies in the stage is as simple as firing at the same row or column they occupy. The bullets travel far enough to hit things offscreen, but they don’t have infinite range. Everything goes down in one hit, both in and out of formal combat. You get into a battle if you collide with an enemy. Battles are very straightforward as you only have two attack options. One is a single-target shot that is guaranteed to hit and the other is a series of four shots with 50% accuracy. Generally, I found it best to stick with the latter since the chances of wiping out the enemy party are highest when you might hit multiples, even if the accuracy is poor. The single shot is only helpful if there’s one target left, though you still have good odds of hitting them with the other.

You don’t gain experience from fighting, nor are there level-ups. Instead you get a score, which uses the same mechanics that money usually does in RM. You can use your score to buy healing items back at the science lab, but you may not want to do that if you’re going for a record. There’s no in-game reason to; it’s just arcade-y like that. Where it differs is that dying is not truly the end. If Daimont goes down, he stops for a moment only to get back up with a witty quip about how that failed to kill him. Ultimately, it costs you time, which also affects your score as each level has a timer to reach the goal by. You’ll score more points by getting there quickly, but I don’t know if it’s more profitable to fight things instead. Enemies usually attack ahead of you, so you can’t expect to get through encounters unscathed.

Let’s Wrap This Up…

While this game is very silly, I admire its commitment to the tropes of its genre. It was nice to see some action hero schlock that isn’t trying to be anything but that. It might have been a more polished production under other circumstances, but for the timeframe and restrictions it was made under, it works. Still, as far as quality goes, I would give it a…

3/5


Look ma, no hands!

Posts

Pages: 1
Hi, thanks for the review, it was a great read! I'm a bit disappointed that this won't be among the High Rated games anymore, since the average review score isn't 4 stars anymore. Was hoping for 3.5 stars to keep the average. But your score is fair, it's the best this thing deserves anyway :D If anything, 2 stars would probably be the objective score for this mess of a game I cobbled together in a week :D

The gorillas are part of the RTP, everything in the game is RTP with minimal edits, the only thing I really added was put the gun on Daimont's character sprite (which was taken from Sideview Weapons sprites). In fact, the MZ RTP was the reason I chose to make this game. It seemed made for either a "lighthearted JRPG" or "cheesy action movie" and I chose the latter option for originality :D

The elevator level was supposed to be a Space Invaders style minigame with the enemies coming from above, but I ran out of time, so I just had a gag 'cutscene' where all the enemies run away instead of facing Daimont. As for the motorbike level, I think that I made it a bit too dense, so my bad.



Regarding the jumping visuals, yeah, I agree that it doesn't look good. It was supposed to be a temporary solution, but it was necessary, since with the way jumping works in RPG Maker there would be no collision with the enemies while jumping otherwise.

I did TRY to update the game after the event and add jumping with proper arcs while maintaining actual collision detection. However, I didn't manage to actually do that in a good way. For one, the actual arcs were either too low no matter the value I added to the parameters or the collision detection didn't work on them as it should, so I just moved on from that and left the old jumping system.



This was the first game I made and finished and it certainly wasn't easy to make. I had to event my own hit-detection system from scratch, because the default RPG Maker one didn't work for a game like this at all. I also focused heavily on polishing the gameplay and level design to make sure that this actually feels good to play and not like a chore. For example, the bullets aren't actually tied to a grid. They literally appear from the pixel where you currently are, which makes it a lot easier to hit enemies in the air. This was to compensate for the grid movement.

As for Full-Auto vs Snipe, Full-Auto always kept missing during my playtesting when it was inconvenient for it to do so. It's heavily dependent on RNG, I actually buffed the Hit Chance from 40% to 50% to make it more useable. Snipe is more reliable. Snipe also deals nearly twice the damage of one Full-Auto hit and has a higher chance to crit, so it's a reliable way to down the two bosses.



As for how the score works, you get 100 score for shooting enemies on the map. If you get in combat, you get 25 score for each enemy in the group you defeat and most of the groups have 3 enemies, with a few groups with 4 enemies. Therefore, shooting enemies on the map is ideal and getting into regular combat is something you want to avoid if you want to maximize the score.

The crates on the map you can open each give 100 score and restore 10 HP. In fact, the score system is explained on a signpost in the Forest level (you walked past that one in your playthrough).

You also get 1 point of score for each second left on the timer and then 2 points for every point of HP you still have (so 200 with max HP). In fact, the 'final fight' with Dr. Psyko where he just deals one damage and goes down in one hit is meant to both be 'realistic' and also give you an opportunity to use a medkit and maximize your score. Still, I actually got a game over against Dr. Psyko once while playtesting the game. :D

Each "death" also reduces your score by 500. You are also actually immune to damage and collision with the enemies while the text box is still on the screen, so you can choose to dismiss it once you are safe.



Anyway, the one thing I'm really proud of and disappointed that it isn't really that visible in the final game are the 'game over quips'. You get a random one each time and I had a lot of fun writing them. But because the game is so short and easy you don't really get to see them. Maybe one or two.

Here's all of them, I had them all written in a document.


Game Over Revival Quips:


1) Daimont: "Not gonna go down 'till a day before retirement!"


2) Daimont: "Die hard, live harder!"


3) Daimont: "Death came knockin'. Turns out, she just wanted an autograph."


4) Daimont: "Nice marksmanship! Now, let me show you how it's really done!"


5) Daimont: "I'm back! Did ya miss me?"


6) Daimont: "Hey look, turns out my necklace deflected the bullet!"


7) Daimont: "They say you only live once. Well, I never was good with math."


8) Daimont: "You know, hell's got some real nice highways!"


9) Daimont: "Can't go to heaven, I'm allergic to feathers!"


10) Daimont: "This jacket's bulletproof, baby!"


11) Daimont: "I'm here to avenge my twin brother! He's also named Luke."


12) Daimont: "Heh, that last one actually hurt! That's a first!"


13) Daimont: "Stay in school, eat your veggies, listen to your parents... wouldn't be here if I did that, now would i?"


14) Daimont: "Once I'm done with this assignment, I'm gonna need a looong vacation!"


15) Daimont: "Nothin' I can't just walk off! Now, let's get to it!"


16) Daimont: "Playin' possum got boring real fast. Now, back to huntin'!"


17) Daimont: "Wait a minute, that's not in the script!"


18) Daimont: "Gonna take much more than that to keep me down!"


19) Daimont: "No one lives forever! Well, except me, of course!"


20) Daimont: "So, turns out, if you die, you just end up in Australia."


21) Daimont: "You know, cloning myself turned out to be a great idea! Dr. Psyko might be on to somethin' here!"


22) Daimont: "This jacket's dry-clean only, dirtbag!"


23) Daimont: "Good guys go to heaven, guys like me go wherever the hell they want!"


24) Daimont: "Damn, my back's gonna hurt in the morning!"


25) Daimont: "Saw a light at the end of the tunnel... naturally, I went the other way."


26) Daimont: "I travelled back in time to set things right!"


27) Daimont: "Heaven was boring, so I came back where the action is!"


28) Daimont: "Down the stairway straight back to earth!"


29) Daimont: "Stairway to heaven, highway to hell... who's supposed to keep track of that! No wonder I got lost and wound up back here!"


30) Daimont: "Sorry, just needed a quick nap. Now, back to action!"


31) Daimont: "Yeah, I didn't die, I'm just narcoleptic."


32) Daimont: "Damn, seems I'm already in hell!"


33) Daimont: "Took the wrong highway and wound up back here. Oh well!"


34) Daimont: "Couldn't stand it in heaven, white robes are not my style!"


35) Daimont: "Oh yeah, I didn't die, just my stunt double."


36) Daimont: "Yeah, I said I do my own stunts. Didn't say I was actually good at it."


37) Daimont: "Sorry, I'm too cool to die!"


38) Daimont: "'Insert coin to continue'? Do I look like I'm made of money? Half the paycheck goes to alimony, the other half on child support!"


39) Daimont: "Didn't say 'CUT', so it doesn't count!"


40) Daimont: "Damn, I'm runnin' outta stun doubles!"


41) Daimont: "You know, figures, shootin' bad guys all day is already heaven for me!"


42) Daimont: "Hell's all cleared out, now, to finish the job here!"


43) Daimont: "Dammit, if I screw up too many takes, I'll be stuck doing spaghetti westerns for the rest of my life!"


44) Daimont: "Zzzz... wait, we're shootin' already? Damn, sorry, my bad!"


45) Daimont: "You weren't supposed to ACTUALLY hit me! Damn, I hate working with amateurs!"


46) Daimont: "Alright, hell's clear, no need to thank me!"


47) Daimont: "Heaven was boring, all they play there is adult contemporary!"


48) Daimont: "I swear, if I hear that angelic choir ONE MORE TIME, I'm gonna stick their harps where the sun don't shine!"


49) Daimont: "ANOTHER dead stunt double? The union's gunnin' for me enough as-is!"


50) Daimont: "Took the wrong turn somewhere at the River Styx!"


51) Daimont: "They don't pay me enough for this! In fact, I just work for 'exposure'."


52) Daimont: "'Famous people live on forever'? Well, turns out, it was literal!"


53) Daimont: "Gotta call my agent soon! I swear, I can do better than star in this piece of garbage!"


54) *Translucent Demon Lord sprite appears*

Demon Lord: "NEXT TIME, DAIMONT, NEXT TIME!"

*Demon Lord sprite disappears with a Fire animation*

System: HELL LEVEL COMPLETE!


55) *Translucent sprite of God of Light appears*

God of Light: "My child, they deserve no mercy! Kill them, kill them all in my name!"

*Sprite of God of Light disappears with a Light animation*

Daimont: "Hell yeah! God's way more awesome than I thought!"
halibabica
RMN's Official Reviewmonger
16873
Nah, I reserve the 2-star range for games with serious issues that detract from their enjoyment. This one is functional enough not to land there.

Those are some fantastic quips.
author=halibabica
Nah, I reserve the 2-star range for games with serious issues that detract from their enjoyment. This one is functional enough not to land there.

Those are some fantastic quips.


Yeah, it works surprisingly well for the first game I ever made :D

I was aware that this was gonna be rough to make in RPG Maker, so I did what I could to ensure that it's not frustrating to play. Had to event my own collision system from scratch, since the default one was terrible, which took a while.

Thanks for playing the game and glad you enjoyed it!
Pages: 1