Blue And Red: Fight The Robots - Arcade Edition

[KaijuWasp]

Hi all, I've spent the past few months converting my Amiga release Blue And Red: Fight The Robots - Arcade Edition to Neo Geo.

It's a two-player arcade action single screen platformer, taking inspiration from many of the arcade classics of the 1980s and early 1990s.

I'm currently doing some final testing to iron out the kinks, aiming to release it in the next few weeks (unless I run into any show-stopping bugs).

No crowdfunding bullshit, no physical release because I don't think anyone would want to pay for it anyway haha, just a full game release for free to download.

AES, MVS, and Neo Geo CD versions will all be available.

Here's a Work-In-Progress of the first two worlds in the game in one player mode (showcasing the AMPED versions of the bosses):

There's a few visual glitches I am hoping to iron out in the final release.

The music was done by Virgill and the majority of the robot and tile graphics were done by Critikill, both of whom I was incredibly fortunate enough to work with on this little project.

The already-released Amiga version can be found here: https://kaijuwasp.itch.io/blue-and-red-fight-the-robots-arcade-edition

 

[KaijuWasp]

Neo Geo builds have been made, it took me longer than anticipated due to firefighting various bugs and adding some polish, but if all goes well I'll be releasing this tomorrow

 

[NeoCverA]

Neo Geo builds have been made, it took me longer than anticipated due to firefighting various bugs and adding some polish, but if all goes well I'll be releasing this tomorrow

Any distinguishing factors from your Amiga vs neogeo?

 

[KaijuWasp]

Any distinguishing factors from your Amiga vs neogeo?

Nope, and that was the intent given they were developed in parallel. The Neo Geo version is not a port of the Amiga version even though the Amiga version was released first, they (alongside the Mega Drive version) have been in development for almost the same amount of time using the same engine and codebase. It was a small-scale but full-game project to see if I could develop a cross-platform game for Amiga, Neo Geo, and Mega Drive whilst learning a game engine (Scorpion Engine). In that respect it's been a success.

I can say that the Mega Drive version won't have the same music as the Amiga and Neo Geo versions, but that's not what you were asking, heh.

I've had to delay the release an extra day due to a bug I've fixed on all platforms this afternoon.

 

[NeoSeeD]

Reminds me of Bomb Jack. Was that one of the influences for it?

 

[KaijuWasp]

Reminds me of Bomb Jack. Was that one of the influences for it?

Bomb Jack wasn't a reference (I think I've only played it once, last year at a local arcade), the main influences were Rod-Land, Parasol Stars, and Rainbow Islands, with some minor inspiration from Rez in how the AMPED system works (the better you play the harder the boss is, but the higher the rewards). I've also seen comparisons to Snow Bros but I'd never played that before I made this game.

 

[Takumaji]

Rod-Land, Parasol Stars, Rainbow Islands? I'm in.

 

[NeoCverA]

The warp animation is cool upon level completion but it’s wasted in your transition. The wipe up level transition kills the vibe of warping. Seems like I could have just jumped down to the next level.

 

[KaijuWasp]

The Neo Geo versions (AES, MVS, CD) of Blue And Red - Fight The Robots have launched!

https://kaijuwasp.itch.io/blue-and-red-fight-the-robots-arcade-edition

 

[NeoCverA]

The Neo Geo versions (AES, MVS, CD) of Blue And Red - Fight The Robots have launched!

https://kaijuwasp.itch.io/blue-and-red-fight-the-robots-arcade-edition

Thanks for sharing - I noticed you have AES and MVS separate - are they not both included within the rom?

 

[Johnny16Bit]

Cool, will try it ASAP, thanks!

 

[NeoCverA]

MVS .neo produces this screen with no message

 

[NeoCverA]

MVS .neo produces this screen with no message

Neogeo CD CHD produces this screen with the text.

 

[KaijuWasp]

MVS .neo produces this screen with no message

Yes just press any button to proceed. It's a quirk of using Scorpion Engine.

Edit: Running MVS .neo on mine is displaying the message, oh well.

 

[NeoCverA]

Yes just press any button to proceed. It's a quirk of using Scorpion Engine.

Edit: Running MVS .neo on mine is displaying the message, oh well.

Thought maybe Unibios had something to do with it so just tried with original bios / same deal. Oh well.

So how about the music in MVS/aes vs CD / is the the cd version just running at a higher bitrate or is there an upgrade?

 

[KaijuWasp]

Thought maybe Unibios had something to do with it so just tried with original bios / same deal. Oh well.

So how about the music in MVS/aes vs CD / is the the cd version just running at a higher bitrate or is there an upgrade?

Same music, the AES/MVS/CD versions of the game are equal in terms of features

 

[Takumaji]

Nice game, plays well, gonna put some more time into it. Playing the CD version.

Difficulty curve could be a little steeper. The music is nice but I would prefer some end-of-level tune or event to make things more interesting, can get a bit tedious if it keeps on playing all the way.

 

[KaijuWasp]

Nice game, plays well, gonna put some more time into it. Playing the CD version.

Difficulty curve could be a little steeper. The music is nice but I would prefer some end-of-level tune or event to make things more interesting, can get a bit tedious if it keeps on playing all the way.

There is a change of music when you get to the boss of each area, I actually got inspiration for the constantly playing song from Parasol Stars

In terms of difficulty curve, if you're playing just to get through each round it does seem a little easy to start off with doesn't it? If you're playing for the good (or best) ending there's an additional challenge from the start of the game which may not be obvious at first. I'm pretty sure I hint at it in the manual, and it is outright stated if you complete Round 32 (Area 4-8) without fulfilling certain criteria.

 

[Johnny16Bit]

Hey there,

Congrats on the release!
I tried the game on my AES via NeoSD but no music is playing. SFX are there, though.

 

[KaijuWasp]

Hey there,

Congrats on the release!
I tried the game on my AES via NeoSD but no music is playing. SFX are there, though.

Cheers for the feedback, I'm currently investigating it as a few people have noted the same, at the moment I believe this to be an issue with Scorpion Engine itself rather than the game. I'm in contact with the person behind the engine so hopefully he'll be able to issue a fix.

 

[theMot]

Bro! Slap this thing on a cartridge, make a really fancy insert, put it in a snap lock case and profit!!

 

[KaijuWasp]

Bro! Slap this thing on a cartridge, make a really fancy insert, put it in a snap lock case and profit!!

With the current state of AliExpress I wouldn't be surprised if it somehow managed to find its way onto a bootleg cartridge

 

[KaijuWasp]

Hey there,

Congrats on the release!
I tried the game on my AES via NeoSD but no music is playing. SFX are there, though.

Sorry for the double reply, but I thought I would provide an update on this. As noted previously it is apparently likely that it is an issue with the sound driver that Scorpion Engine uses. As such when the current sound driver used in Scorpion Engine (Mezz Estate) is sunset and replaced with the new one (Nullsound) I'll create a new build of Blue And Red and get it updated, but I don't know when that update to the engine will be.

 

[NeoSeeD]

I briefly played the CD version yesterday and it's a solid playing game.

 

[KaijuWasp]

I've uploaded a new bug-fix version of Blue And Red - Fight The Robots! This should fix the music issues people were running into on AES and MVS.


https://kaijuwasp.itch.io/blue-and-red-fight-the-robots-arcade-edition


It ended up taking me ages as I also ended up backporting a bunch of bugfixes from the Mega Drive version, but it's done now and ready for download.