Box Party [Demo v1.5]

[catoidi]

You're invited to the biggest party of the year!



But the food has gone bad, and they're threatening to crash the party, forever!
It's up to you to stop them before it's too late!



Box Party is a standalone title made in GZDOOM.
DOOM II is not required to play.

Features:

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there will be at least 6 total characters in the full version.

3 levels in the demo, 6 levels in the full game.

currently there's ~8 enemies in the demo, and 3 bosses too.

there's around 20+ hats available in the demo, with over 60 total hats in the full game.

the last 2 are not in the demo.

Screenshots:

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I've already added a lot of images to this post so the rest of the screenshots are in this imgur album.

Videos:

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small clip of the end of level 2.

small little how-to guide on unlocking a specific hat.

Click this link to go check out the rest of my box party videos.

Demo Download:
Steam: https://store.steampowered.com/app/1727350/Box_Party/
Itch.io: https://catoidi.itch.io/box-party
Github: https://github.com/catoidi/box-party-demo
the full version of the game will release when it's ready.


final word

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Box Party has been a passion project of mine since ~May 2020, and I am very happy with how it's progressed in that time.
This game would not exist were it not for DOOM II's amazing modding community.
I hope you guys will enjoy playing Box Party as much as I enjoy making it.

[Captain J]

Very cute and aesthetic style. And the gameplay looks nicely smooth too. Looking forward to it!

[catoidi]

Very cute and aesthetic style. And the gameplay looks nicely smooth too. Looking forward to it!

Thank you!

The original post has been updated with some new screenshots.

[Serathis]

Reminds me of the Mr Smileyheads Safari remakes. Nice.

[catoidi]

Oh, something I failed to mention in the first post: There are no regular health items placed in any of the levels.
The only way to restore your lost health is by defeating enemies.

Upon death, all enemies will drop health items proportional to the amount of health you have left.
So basically, enemies will drop 1 item per 1/4 of your health that's gone.
This means that they'll drop only 1 at 99% or below, 4 items under 25%, and none when you're at max health.
(quick edit: that's also the reason why your health and ammo bar at the bottom right are split into fourths.)

Enemy drops are also affected by other factors, including but not limited to:

• Which enemy you defeated (Each enemy has their own unique health drop).
• Whether or not the enemy was defeated using a melee weapon.
• Which character you are currently playing as.
• How many times you've stunned the enemy via melee attacks.

In the image below, the melon has dropped 4 items on the ground, due to me being at 12% health. Each health drop from the melon gives me 3%, so I will get 12% of my health back.

Reminds me of the Mr Smileyheads Safari remakes. Nice.

you know, i remember seeing that mod before, but i've never actually played it myself.

[AvzinElkein]

So melee attacks mean more/better health drops?

[catoidi]

So melee attacks mean more/better health drops?

yes, that is correct. in the image in my above message, had i defeated the enemy using a melee attack, the enemy would've dropped double the items.

[AvzinElkein]

So the game heavily encourages you to use melee attacks, since they don't cost ammo and make baddies give more health.

[catoidi]

So the game heavily encourages you to use melee attacks, since they don't cost ammo and make baddies give more health.

I'll explain in more detail later how all the weapons work, but basically it just depends on your current enemy encounter and your current ammo. Some enemies are more resistant or weaker to melee attacks than others, and usually it's more quick to just use your other weapons (or the melee's secondary attack) to deal with them. Plus, you put yourself at greater risk of taking more health damage than you'll gain back if you try to kill every enemy with just melees. The reward for using melees is offset by the risk of putting yourself in more danger to accomplish it.

[catoidi]

Sorry for the 3 months of radio silence! Not much had happened in terms of new stuff for Box Party during the months of April and May due to a certain DLC that released on march 31st, but there's been some good progress *this* month. First off, thanks to the release of GZDOOM 4.6, Box Party now supports sprite shadows, which is pretty neat.

But more importantly, I've gotten more work on level 2 done (like maybe 35% of the level's done), and the boss for level 3 is almost done! (Sorry, not gonna show the boss here, that'd be a spoiler )
I think I'm getting a better *feel* for how to handle the workflow for stuff like making new enemies or working on the levels, so I'm hoping I'll be able to add stuff to the game at a faster pace now. Plus, I've recently had some people help with playtesting, so getting their feedback is helping with that as well.

There are a few things that are definitely giving me a headache trying to wrap my head around, like zscript HUDs for example, but im trying not to let that eat up too much of my time.

im lookin to get a 3 level demo of Box Party out before the end of the year. not making any promises, though.

have a new screenshot:

[Captain J]

Loving the art style. It looks decent and cute! Really can't wait to play this.

[catoidi]

Loving the art style. It looks decent and cute! Really can't wait to play this.

thank you! hopefully the wait isn't too terribly long.

i've been working on a beachside area on level 2, and im liking how it's looking so far, so i thought i'd share a little sneak peak of it.
(still need to make some beach-related decorations for it, though)

[catoidi]

here's a bonus screenshot of the now-more-complete beachside area

[catoidi]

thanks to the *very* useful ZForms, I have been able to create a custom UI for the hat menu!



the UI will probably change a bit when more hats are added to the game.

[catoidi]

update on the hats system: most of the hats will now be locked by default, and will require you do a certain thing to unlock them, like beat a level under a certain amount of time, or find a specific secret thing in the game.

here's what it looks like now: