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Metal Cats: Saviors of Earth

killercore007

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Ms. Fortune Big Band
Probably yet another idea that'll never see daylight but just in case.

This game is basically Metal Slug style but with several differences.

Features:

Squads: In this game, you have a squad that battles with you in each level, each with their own abilities. The squad mates are:

Scowley: A mix of Calico and Siamese, This is often a cat of few words. Her face is often grumpy and sometimes acts it, though she mostly controlled about it. Scowley also sometimes gives rather good wisdom about random things. A rather big cat, she can take a hit or 2.

Keys: A purebred orange Tabby, this cat loves music and likes it loud. With his portable electric keyboard, he makes his music in almost every tone and note known to man. Keys can be a bit oblivious to his surroundings, but he is a rather upbeat cat and can act as morale when needed.

Chef: A rather fat short-hair black cat, this cat can cook with the best of them. Uses cheeseburgers and many different kinds of food to feed the other cats and even attack enemies. His weight does make him a bit slow moving however. Is also protective of his "secret" recipes.


Multiple hit points: It was done in Metal Slug Advance, but also in this game, each squad mate(and you) can take more than one hit before you are incapacitated. In addition, suffering your last hit doesn't make you lose a life immediately. Instead, the squad mate Chef can revive you or any other cat, as long as he's not interrupted by an attack, though it takes time to do so. Base hits is 3 for each except Scowley, who's base hits is 6. Chef cannot revive himself though so keep that in mind.

Skills: You and your squad mates can learn skills in this game. In story mode, skills are learned and upgraded with coins that are dropped by enemies and chests. There is no reskilling in story mode however so make wise choices based on level of gameplay ability and play style.

Coins: Coins gained in story mode are used for skills. Any coins in any mode that gives them will also add to a separate bank, which is used for unlocking stuff outside of the other gameplay modes, like concept art, alternate outfits, or even new modes to play in for example.

Level Replay Mode: You can replay levels as many times as you want without having to replay the entire story over once they're completed once. However, you don't automatically progress to the next level after it's completion.



Story
A team of five genetic scientists try to do an experiment to make animals more intelligent through mutagens. After many failures, they think they finally cracked the code to a stable process that won't kill the subject. The scientists then got a single cat each, which were from animal shelters where they would've been otherwise euthanized. The cats survive the process but something unexpected happens. The mutagens have a violent reaction and not only do the cats gain more intelligence, but their bodies mutate in a more human-like form and give the cats the ability to speak.

One year later, the mutated cats have fully adjusted to their new forms, though the U.S. government keeps them from going into public as a precaution. Trained for covert missions, the cats act as a seperate entity of the CIA. The U.S. Army marshal, simply known as the General then suddenly contacts them.

He tells them that the Free Will gang, a group of anti-government thugs, whom had swiped the extra mutagens while the team was getting the test cats, hoping to profit off of them, that their hideout was finally found. He then tells them that this is the cat's chance to show if all their training paid off.

Level 1 of the game is basically going after the gang in their hideout. After beating the level 1 boss, the leader of the gang, you find out that during the heist the gang did of the vials one year ago, one of them had broke, and seemly drained into a runoff channel going into a nearby forest. Knowing of the damage the mutagen likely caused to the ecosystem there, you head to that forest to find that a good portion of the wildlife had mutated into monsters.

Level 2 is escaping the forest alive while battling the mutated wildlife. Near the end, you find an alien pod, with what seems to be scouts setting up transmitters. Alerted to your presence, they get into the pod and attempt to vaporize you as the second boss. After beating it, the team of cats proceed to head back to the main lab, but when they get there, they find the lab is on fire and destroyed.

Scrambling to find their masters, they see Geral slowly approach them from behind, who's been shot in the chest. He tells them of aliens ambushing the place, killing everyone. He then falls to the ground, saying he won't last much longer. Heartbroken at this, the cats start panicking. Geral then says, in his final words, "Show your strength, avenge the lab, save us...all....". The cats mourned and gave him a proper burial. Afterwards, heeding his last words, they knew what they had to do. They went off to fight off the coming alien invasion, for their masters, and for Earth.


More to add but it's late so...
 
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So do you have any actual game design work done on this or is it just Metal Slug with cats?
Added more info.

Also, actual design work as in art and coding or...
 
As in anything except story information. You've added some gameplay stuff now, which is good, but I would advise against updating the opening thread like that. It's really annoying to have to go searching through the post to find what you added.
 
As in anything except story information. You've added some gameplay stuff now, which is good, but I would advise against updating the opening thread like that. It's really annoying to have to go searching through the post to find what you added.
Whoops, I meant to put the new info in my last too post too, sorry. Or do you want me to add a "Newly Added" section to the first post when I say I add new stuff in another post?

But yeah, the game idea was conceived like, 2 days ago so... Just letting you know that tidbit.
 
I'd much rather you post the new info separately.
That way people who want to follow this project see the latest post and go "Huh, that's nice" instead of having to sift through the original post.
That said, you should still update the original post because no one wants to sift through pages to get tidbits of information.
Plus, you should really organize it and make it more aesthetically pleasing.
 
I'd much rather you post the new info separately.
That way people who want to follow this project see the latest post and go "Huh, that's nice" instead of having to sift through the original post.
That said, you should still update the original post because no one wants to sift through pages to get tidbits of information.
Plus, you should really organize it and make it more aesthetically pleasing.

Ok, noted.
 
Skills and levels: You and your squad mates can learn skills and level up in this game. Skills are learned and upgraded with coins that are dropped by enemies. EXP is earned by dealing damage(in the case of Chef, he gets EXP from healing and reviving too).

Level Replay: You can replay levels as many times as you want. This is mainly so you can get more coins and EXP if needed.

Not everyone might agree with this, but I feel that this kind of padding really does nothing but dilute the arcade style format that made games like Contra and Metal Slug masterpieces.

The joy of such games is running a gauntlet of 100% perfectly paced gameplay with absolutely no repitition or filler whatsoever, and the threat of a game over (forcing you to restart from the beginning) adding tension and thrill to the experience. You can add some rpg elements to it (Radiant Silvergun made it work, and in a weird way so did Gradius and Darius), but if you're making or even allowing players to grind, than your kind of hurting the experience IMO.

Double Dragon Neon tried to do that and it really did nothing but hurt the game IMO, making you feel patheticly weak for no good reason at random points (which in turn, made some fights more boring because of how long and thereby repetitive they became), and forcing you to replay content that you already finished with.

A game like Metal Slug or Contra or any shmup doesn't need extra padding to make it more seem replayable, it is replayable by virtue of its challenge, depth, pace, etc. If anything I'd say quarantine it in a separate game mode (ie how Freedom Planet has story mode vs classic mode) so it doesn't drag down the experience.

*edit*

Another alternative, if you want a more rpg/adventure game feel, would be to use Super Mario Bros 3 or The Guardian Legend as a model. I've always found it odd how excellent those games are but that barely anybody has ever attempted to replicate their successes.
 
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is it just Metal Slug with cats?
Not just Cats, Cellsai (Still unsure what to call you, sorry), but Humanoid Cats.
as in, like, Ms. Fortune or Robo-Fortune type of cat.

On Topic now.
Geral and the lab seems to play a role that is similar with Dr. Avian and Lab 8.
He apparently dies in all sets of the universe and the Lab got destroyed, whether or not something major DID happen.
He just dies and the Lab went to the ground, and that's it.
Second of all, Alien Pod? Scouts selling transmitters? I think it's just a coincidence that I thought of this as the "Corpus" from Warframe but can't seem to get that idea off my head.
 
Cellsai (Still unsure what to call you, sorry),
Wha?

All the best with this project, but I don't really see the idea behind posting a game design doc for a game you came up with a couple of days ago :/
 
Made some changes:

Changed:

*Level replay is now a separate mode where you just simply replay levels for fun and extra coins.

*Skills are now coins only and do not save after resetting or getting game over in story mode. You also can not reskill during a story mode play through.

Added:

*Coins gained in any mode that gives them are also stored in a bank outside the other modes, which can be spent on unlocking stuff, like concept art, alternate outfits, or even new modes to play in for example.

*Added Chef bio:
A rather fat short-hair black cat, this cat can cook with the best of them. Uses cheeseburgers and many different kinds of food to feed the other cats and even attack enemies. His weight does make him a bit slow moving however. Is also protective of his "secret" recipes.


@Cellsai, the idea was that if I ever get around to actually doing this, I would want it somewhere to find later, but this is to mainly get idea feedback as to go in the proper direction if, as said, I ever get around to this.


EDIT: Thinking up the skill tree for each cat, will post when I get at least 1 done.
 
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