No More Rainbows: Halloween Treats and Campaign Completion

I had a pretty great week in No More Rainbows. After throwing my hands down at maximum velocity for several hours, I'm here to proudly say with my sore rotator cuff muscles that I have completed the game! You heard me right! Campaign completion has been achieved.

DIE EGG KING!

To be honest though, I wasn't even sure at first if I was going to be able to even *get* to the final levels of the game because just reaching the levels inside the world is a bit of a challenge. As it turns out, you've gotta get the downward push force just right with only one hand and a lot of reaching forward to land and balance on top of some of these random pipes and things.

Anyway, world four is a land of conveyer belts and scalding hot pipes with a side of freaking laser beams, and the best level to illustrate this madness is the very last one of the game. It's truly a crazy level where chunks of all three previous worlds are thrown down in front of you as you dodge laser beam eyes from the all too happy Egg King. 

I've yet to be able to single star this thing in any capacity, but hey, I did beat it at least! The level works in three sections and is kind of like a double length level compared to all the rest. After the end of each section, you punch a rainbow-spewing humpty dumpty and smack the king right in the kisser. At the end of three punches, you've won the game.

It's truly an epic ending to a great game. A movie plays after you defeat the boss and then the credits roll. Game over. The next time you return to your central area, the egg boss is sitting in the hands of your center Beast statue and you get to punch his dead head over and over again. GET OUT ALL THAT RAGE, KIDS!

Victory tastes so sweet . . . and also smells of eggs.

Much to my surprise, the same day I beat the final boss, No More Rainbows also gave us a free Halloween surprise in the form of a maze game called Bisou's Backroom, which you could either play by yourself or with others in a competitive mode.

Spooky maze lies within!

I played a bit of the new maze and got thoroughly lost and died when Bisou caught up to me and punched me back to the beginning of the maze. I'm just happy to see some free content to celebrate a holiday! That's pretty great! More please!

I'm not sure if I'll go on to 100 percent this game, but I may try to at least earn another skin and maybe unlock a couple cosmetics. For now I'm just happy I sent that Egg Boss packing.

Happy Dueling! 

No More Rainbows: Ice is Nice!

 I've now played all four worlds in No More Rainbows, and I have to say that World 3 is by far my favorite of them all . . . um . . . for the most part. The Boss level can take a flying leap -- literally it's all flying leaps, and I've died so many times and worn myself out to the point of exhaustion. Outside of that though? This place is a VR platforming paradise.

At the icy summit of a candy covered world

It's a candy world that came straight out of grandma's freezer and into your VR headset. It's ice cream cones, chocolate waterfalls, licorice logs, and gummy bear candies, but at the same time it's also giant skeletons, monster rage, and giant popcorn kernel explosions. 

Best of all, this is the world that you can find the classic downhill ice sliding levels where you can dig your claws in to slow you down or leap on the ice to propel you to new heights and speed. 

This isn't flying, it's falling with style!

Remember the joy you had way back when playing the ice slide world in Super Mario 64? This takes you back and gives you a whole new sense of immersion. It's unbelievably fun.

Right now my biggest struggle with the world is trying to find the hidden 120th eggy guy so I can unlock the secret level and play it to earn those sweet sweet unicorns. I feel like I've looked everywhere. UGH! where is this hidden egg?! Don't make me search it on Google!

Now that all the fun of world 3 is out of the way, can we take a moment to talk about this boss level? I have so much hate for it. I don't know if I'll ever find a way to 3 star this thing. You have to have the reflexes of a golden lion to win this thing.

One new Golden Lion skin, check.

 

Perhaps someday my friends. For now, I'm on to World 4, the final world of the campaign and it's all about balancing on pipes, leaping off conveyor belts, and avoiding a rising tide of rainbow goop that will certainly kill any beast. Given the horror of the boss level on World 3, I'm actually terrified to see what the boss level is like in World 4.

Win or lose, I'll be sure to talk about it here. No more rainbows is not only my new favorite platformer, but also one heck of an arm workout.

Happy Dueling!

No More Rainbows: Not Mushroom for complaint!

I'm continuing to have a great time playing No More Rainbows! Although I'm technically on World 4, I went back to World 2 over the weekend and furthered my progress on smashing all the unicorns and eggy guys.

The theme of World 2 seems to be more of a forest jungle covered in giant mushrooms and logs. Although, there does seem to be a DJ party going on in the midst of all that, but that's just what eggy boys do. They party no matter where they are and MUST BE SMASHED TO STOP!

The track they're getting down to sounds a little like You Spin Me Round by Dead or Alive

Just like any good platformer game, each world introduces a few new mechanics for you to play with. World 2's new mechanics seem to be:

1- Ladder jumps -- This is where you use both of your controllers to jump up a crevice in a wall between two platforms.

2- Log climbs -- This is where you use both of your controllers to grab a single platform and scale up in like climbing a log. 

A ladder jump leading to a log climb!

3- Zip-lines -- You've used your claws to climb, but now you get to dig them into a ball and ride it like a zip line as you swing through the air.

Wee! Zip lines!

World 2 also introduces a few new obstacles. 

1- Sliding Walls -- Giant slabs slide open and close where you need to time your jumps correctly to continue.

2- Rocket Launchers -- Occasionally you'll run into a rocket launcher where you'll need to avoid the incoming projectile. (Don't worry, they move slowly)

3- Love Bombs -- The boss of World 2 likes to slam down love bombs out of the sky that explode into a cloud of killer hearts.

It's like a 2-ton punch of Valentine's Day

The zip lines are absolutely my favorite part of World 2. It makes me want to look up what other VR games have zip lines in them. It's a really fun mechanic that just hits differently in VR. (Of course, zip-lines have nothing on one of the mechanics in World 3, but I'll get to that in the next post.)

In the shop you can find a nice skin to match your adventures in World 2, as long as you have the unicorn guts to buy it. So far I've unlocked both World 2 and World 3's skins and I love them both. 

I'm adorable!

Since my last post I've been able to 3 star many more levels. Basically, you need to run each level at least twice. Once slowly to collect all the egg men and unicorns and once again to beat it in 45 seconds -- but on your follow-on runs, there's no need to collect eggs and unicorns all over again, you just race to the finish line.

It's been a lot of fun! Onward to worlds 3 and 4!

Happy Dueling!

No More Rainbows: Evolution of the VR Platformer

If you've read my VR posts from the past, you'd know that I'm a big fan of Astrobot and Lucky's Tale. Both are fantastic platformers. I couldn't really get into Moss as much (need to give it another go), but in my mind those three games were/are the gold standard for VR Platforming games in the past.

Now we live in the apocalyptic VR world of "post-gorilla tag." I've actually never played Gorilla Tag, but I know all about it. I've watched several YouTube videos. I've watched my son play. I've watched my friend's son play. It's a horrifyingly ugly looking free-to-play game that had epic multiplayer action where the controls and design of the game trumped everything and won the heart of millions and most likely taking its place in the top 10 VR games of all time just from a popularity standpoint. 

I should probably play it a couple times. It's a free download after all.

You just can't deny a VR multiplayer game that draws in these kinds of numbers.

It uses a very simple and genius mechanic. You use your arms to jump and move. That's it. I mean, yeah, there's like six multiplayer games of various types, but really, at the core of the game, bouncing and moving around with your arms is the game, and it's super fun. Because you're using your arms to move, there's less motion sickness. It's genius.

Jump, jump, jump, SMASH A UNICORN!

As I understand it, No More Rainbows used to be called Dingleberries and had been in development for a couple of years. (Pretty fun to look at the game in greybox.) I think I heard it was a VR Arcade Brick and Mortar Store exclusive for a while, but I'm having trouble finding a source to back that up (file this one under stuff-you-hear-in-a-game-dev-Team's-chat).

In the end what we have is a really fun evolution of the platformer where you play as THE BEAST and your objective is to destroy the rotund, little egg dudes that are just having a cute, happy time. There are four worlds for you to explore in the campaign mode with a total of 28 levels across them. So far I've only played up to world 2 after a really fun Boss Battle at the end of world 1.

NO MORE RAINBOWS, EGG BOI!

A really good innovation here is that the beast has claws, so not only do you hurl yourself from platform to platform, but you can also grab your claw onto an edge and climb up, you can snatch a berry and chuck it at things (including a basketball hoop), and (of course) slash things to your delight.

Watch out for pokeys and kill that rainbow!

To add to the replay-ability, each level has a speed run leaderboard, and this is just further proof that I'm not very good. There is a 3 star objective to each level, and I don't think I've gotten many stars . . . uh . . . it'll come with time! There's also a few casual and competitive tag games ala gorilla tag.

Lots of game modes to keep your busy

The game itself is a really big shoulder work out as you continually slam your arms downward to get big jumps out of your beast. I was doing a mini-game race around world one this morning and, although I beat it, I think I might need to put my shoulder on ice now. Ouch.

It's interesting to see that this is a paid game with a cash shop inside of it. You don't see that in VR games typically. I don't mind it at all, and I imagine if I was big into the 3v3 scene, I might even purchase an outfit to peacock a bit with my team mates and competitors.

I'd need the bow body of course . . .

I'll be playing this one to the end and talking more about it. 

Of important note: Just a mere two weeks ago, another platformer game that would fall in this new genre launched called Outta Hand. Apparently it was all the rage at the last Gamescom. I'm liking this experience enough so far that I'm pretty sure I'll give that game a shot as well.

Happy Dueling!

100 Percent Completion in Walking Dead Onslaught

I don't often get the full suite of achievements in any game, really. I mean, I did 100 percent all the achievements in Battle Bows, but that's my job, yo. When last I talked about the game I had finished the story mode and was sitting on about half of the achievements.

That final achievement is a great head nod to the best line in the TV series.

If I were to do it all over again, I think I'd probably do it in exactly the same way. Basically I played through the entire Story mode twice: once on Survivor mode and once on Veteran mode. If you want to 100 percent the game, you'll have to beat the entire story on Veteran mode anyway, so it absolutely would save time (if you're looking to do that) to just play through the story on Veteran mode, but I liked the story enough I wanted to play through it twice and getting all the materials from the story a second time doesn't hurt. 

Culling the herd in Part 7 of the story

Scavenger missions are essential for completing all the requisitions, which makes sense. Requisitions are only found in scavenger missions and you'll need to complete them all in order to finish your achievements. You'll need all those sweet epic and legendary resources, like fiberglass and batteries, that you find in the later scavenger missions if you want to fully upgrade all your weapons.

Ahh the motherlode!

Really, that's the crowning achievement in Walking Dead Onslaught. Fully upgrading all 24 weapons is the hardest thing to do in the game. That Assault Rifle is the worst of the bunch. It took a couple scavenger runs just to upgrade that thing alone.

A fully upgraded Armory, and no more missions to use them on

Believe it or not though, that wasn't my final achievement I earned. The last achievement to fall was the one for killing a walker with every weapon in the game. I thought I had done it with all of them, but the achievement wasn't kicking off, so I did the only thing I could do and headed into Chapter 7 where the game gives you every weapon in the game . . . and go through all the weapons one by one.

That meant I needed to run up to a zombie, kill it with a random weapon, run back to the house with all the weapons, swap to another random weapon, run back out to a zombie, kill it with a new random weapon, and wash rinse and repeat until that magical achievement bell rang. Guess what it was that I hadn't used yet?  A crowbar of all things. 

A table full of weapons, and I'm opting for a Crowbar?

So once I smacked a zombie upside the head with a Crowbar I got that final double achievement spam. One for the Tainted Meat Achievement that I was actively working on and the final platinum, earn all achievements, reward. Done and done.

It's funny how my opinions changed over the course of the game from always wanting to use ranged weapons to always wanting to use melee weapons, but truly the Katana and the simple Hammer are the best weapons in the game. I ran entire missions without firing a single shot by the end. It was just: run up to a zombie, smash a zombie's head off with a hammer, and done.

Have hammer, will travel!

I had so much fun with this game! I'm pretty impressed with Survios as a company in general. They've got a quality suite of games and, out of their entire catalog, I think I own four or five of their games. They've all been really solid.

Happy Dueling!

Ten Hours in -- Walking Dead Onslaught

I have arrived, folks! I got my 10 hours of play in Walking Dead Onslaught just like I predicted I would, and I feel pretty great about that. Even better, this game got me to start watching the Walking Dead series, of which I'm now solidly into Season 3. And now I really know who the heck Daryl Dixon is. Now I'm pretty happy to get scavenging missions from Michonne and also know how cool it is that I can wield her Katana. Now when I select Rick Grimes as my player avatar, I know who that is and not just "the male option." I get it.

Now if I just had two chained up, jawless and limbless zombies walking behind me

So there you go, can a game from a network series get you to watch the series? Yes. I'm that guy. Ok, so let's talk a bit more about this VR game, and why I think it's pretty great. 

First off, the weapon armory is pretty remarkable. They give you 18 weapons and a bucket full of makeshift stuff to slay zombies with.

Choose yer poison!

Each of these weapons has 4 upgrade options that make them all play a bit differently. At first you're thinking, really . . . a meat cleaver vs. a machete? how different can they really be? At first you'd be absolutely correct in that thinking. Insert blade into zombie skull, done. In reality the cleaver is more of a vampiric, health leeching weapon and the machete is more of a armor piercing and stun weapon. You just have to upgrade them to be that way.

A necromancer's favorite weapon

Personally, I think the best melee weapon in the game is your basic hammer. It literally knocks the heads right off of zombies without much effort, and each time you do it (and once you've upgraded the hammer) it also finds wood resources off of zombies when you kill them.

The easiest way to find ALL the weapons in the game is to simply get to chapter 7 and make sure you search all the upstairs areas. In one there is a weapons cache that has every weapon possible in the game. Once you equip a weapon and complete a mission (whether that's story or otherwise) you'll unlock that weapon in your weapons rack. Having 18+ weapons in a game like this almost seems excessive, but I'll take it. Messing around with various weapons is part of the fun.

There's also achievements (which I'm still hunting for) for using all the weapons and for upgrading all the weapons. 

Second, the embodied actions of the game were seamless and interesting. Pushing doors open felt great. Grabbing handles and pulling sliding doors open made sense. Slotting, pulling, and tugging . . . it was all there and at a couple points I even thought to myself, wow . . . this seems like a lot of work for a puzzle that's only used once in the game, but it made the game so much more fun that it was there.

A pull cord to start a generator! Awesome!

Third, it was really good game sense to have Daryl's story missions unlock based on the number of survivors you had discovered and brought into your town. You never actually eat food in the game, but you find a ton of it . . . and that's ok because food is actually what draws survivors to your camp. Not only do you need survivors to unlock missions, but you also need them to operate your town's buildings. It's just nice to see interesting game design choices like that. I was happy with it.

Alexandria has her fully upgraded windmill. Life is good!

It does feel like they left a lot of space for a DLC, and because of that, it feels like the game is missing a few things. Namely, you need a boss fight with the leader of the Gold 99 faction you're learning about in Daryl's missions. While the final chapter of the game does have some epic zombie herd killing action, you're left at a cliffhanger in the game, and that feels disappointing. A DLC would have answered that call.

The Gold 99's calling card . . . I want to fight their leader!

It also would have been nice to have one more synergistic game loop that involved all the buildings you have constructed in town. Special missions unlocked by the buildings would be a perfect addition to a DLC. Unfortunately since the game was released in 2020 and it's now 2023 . . . I don't think it's going to happen.

I still have 15 achievements left to earn. Most of those are to play through the story mode on Veteran as well as the two weapon achievements I listed earlier. A couple of them are very confusing and will require a bit more research to see how to complete them. I'm shooting to get them all though! 

I'm glad a random post in Blaugust got me to play this game and give it a shot. After earning my achievements, I'll probably hit the Saints and Sinners games next. (Come to find out, I already had them in my game library and didn't realize it)

Happy Dueling!

Game Portfolio -- Battle Bows

Battle Bows

• Release Date: July 2023
  
• Current Availability: Oculus and Steam (Playstation in work)
  
• Release Credit Category: Design Credit
  
• Company: WIMO Games
  
• Business Model: Paid Game
  
• Category: VR 
  
• Genre: Wave Shooter Defense

Personal Development Notes

• Fun Fact: WIMO gifted all employees a fun plushy based on the Speedster character in Battle Bows. They handed us these really cool gifts as a part of a company-wide fun day at a nerf gun arena. Good times all around!

• Job Highlights: I transitioned out of working on outsourced mobile games to strictly working on VR games in March 2022, and then full production hit in late 2022. Things went much faster with an entire dedicated team and some funding behind it. 
  
  Besides working on Pitch Deck Creation and presenting the pitch to both internal and external audiences, I was also responsible for GDD creation, level design, enemy design, game balance, and more including daily playtesting and feedback.
  
  I had a lot of fun being this game's internal cheerleader at our company All Hands Meetings where I was able to update the WIMO team on monthly status during development. 
  
  For more on Battle Bows level design, see here: Level Design
  
  
• Best Memory: I had the honor to be part of the initial team that led the charge to experiment with WIMO's first VR game, and yeah, I absolutely look back to those days with fondness. There's nothing quite like shooting a white polygon noodle out of a controller like it's an arrow. 
  
  
• Other Comments: The game turned out great and has been polished and optimized with a lot of care. The game also considers those that may get sick in VR with some built in accessibility features -- you won't have to move around much, further minimizing VR sickness. With its accessibility, multiplayer, and fun style, we're hoping it makes a great party game that the whole family can enjoy. Our first major update to the game is coming soon!

Sample Gameplay

As a part of the launch I was asked to make a developer video showing players some tips and tricks on how to do well in the game.