Flynn: Son of Crimson | Fast paced 2D action platformer
Created by Studio Thunderhorse
Using the ancient gift of Crimson, take on the role of Flynn to halt the Scourge on the land. A beautifully crafted pixel adventure.
Latest Updates from Our Project:
Flynn Pre-Alpha Demo!
over 6 years ago
– Sat, Oct 14, 2017 at 10:39:25 PM
Currently sitting at 112% funded, we're about halfway to the first stretch goal, PS4/Xbox ports! We can doooooo it!
We have put together a short demo for you guys, to really get a feel for the game and what it has to offer. Think of it as more of a taster (We’ll be posting future demos with more content later in development for closed beta backers).
Here’s a gameplay vid of the demo content if you’d rather just watch it and/or can’t play the demo for any reason (otherwise ignore it if you don’t like spoilers!):
Thanks KarmaJolt!
Disclaimer:
Many things are subject to change at this stage and we are still tweaking many mechanics, behaviours and other bits and pieces. The demo may also contain bugs and could potentially run a tad slower on older machines, don’t fret though as it isn’t fully optimised as of yet. Regardless, we hope you enjoy it!!
Flynn is 100% funded! Stretch goals!
over 6 years ago
– Wed, Oct 11, 2017 at 04:48:16 PM
100% funded!
Flynn has reached his funding goal! Thank you so much to everyone for supporting us! We are really excited to get back in to the meat of development, but for now we still have 12 days left in the campaign, so let's go for some stretch goals!
PS4/Xbox Ports As it suggests, we'll be able to port Flynn to Xbox One and PS4! Funds will go to the necessary development tools and time needed.
Challenge Mode We'll have some extra resources to put towards a unique challenge mode! Put your Flynn skills to the test in the arena with survival and boss rush trials!
Animated Intro We'll be able to work with our pals over at Studio Yotta to create an animated intro for Flynn: Son of Crimson! It'll be pretty and juicy and whoa!
Rozia Story DLC An alternate character in a DLC story played alongside Flynn's journey! We already have this story planned out, these funds would help it become a reality! All backers receiving the game will get the DLC at no charge.
What about the Switch?
We've received a lot of requests for the Switch, we hear you! We'd love to launch on as many platforms as possible, but there is a problem. Flynn is being created in Gamemaker Studio 2, which is a great engine, but it currently does not support porting to the Switch. If we were to go for it now, Flynn would have to be recreated in an entirely new engine, which as you can imagine is a lot of work. Just know that Yoyo games is working hard on trying to make a Switch port possible! We can set up a later stretch goal for a Switch port, but until then we'll have to hope for the port to become available during Flynn's development! We'll keep everyone updated as Yoyo games and Nintendo work it out.
Flynn fan art contest!
over 6 years ago
– Wed, Oct 11, 2017 at 12:38:51 AM
Want to doodle Flynn and win some things? Join us in Flynn's first fan art competition! We've got some great rewards for winners, including a couple shirts and posters, and the game of course! Winners will be chosen on creativity and technique, so everyone has a chance! Tweet your art to us at @ThunderhorseCO!
Inclusion in the art book
As well as these rewards, additional select winners will be included in our official printed and digital art books! With credit and permission of course, we'd love to push your work out there.
Press coverage
We've had some lovely words said about Flynn lately, here are some words and articles!
Check out Relic Hunters Legend! A touching tale of friendship, time-travel, & loot! From the creators of Chroma Squad, Dungeonland and Relic Hunters Zero. We're backers ourselves and think it looks lovely!
As always, thank you to everyone for the support! We're currently sitting at 96% funded, so close! Tell your friends and family and pets so we can make this real!
The Scourge!
over 6 years ago
– Sun, Oct 08, 2017 at 10:49:03 PM
83% funded! It's happening! With 15 days remaining, we can doooo it!
The Scourge, a twisted realm of hatred spawned by Lord Zealock's greed. Previously a land of Gods kept in harmony by Sorrell and Zealock, a balance of opposite energies. Sorrell's sudden involvement with humanity and their innocence and kind nature cracks the balance, leading to a threat of bloodshed from Zealock to eliminate Rosantica. Decades of war have turned this once pristine dimension upside down, as the seal now begins to crack and leak into Rosantica once again.
How does it affect gameplay?
Possessing the ability to travel between worlds, Flynn journeys to and from by opening up portals with the power of Crimson. Making changes in The Scourge affects the real world, breaking open pathways, activating switches, moving chunks of land to create an altered Rosantica.
We're designing the Scourge to have a constant feel of nervousness, filled with eyes always watching Flynn. Traveling through, you'll encounter high risk stealth mechanics, hives of constantly spawning crawlers, and many more spooky enemies!
Stealth!
You won't want to stand still here...
Enemies and Transformations
You won't only encounter the Scourge in... well, the Scourge. Dark energy has begun to leak out and transform the beasts of Rosantica, mutating them in to more difficult and aggressive versions of themselves to attempt to halt Flynn's progression.
Spooky!
Paypal Backing
We've been asked recently about the possibility of backing via Paypal. For those asking, we will have it as an option via late backing after the campaign has concluded!
Our Enemy Design Process
over 6 years ago
– Fri, Oct 06, 2017 at 11:59:47 PM
We're over 75% funded, thank you again to everyone for such great support! Almost theeeere!
Here at Flynn (Virtual) HQ we like to design every aspect of the game with a lot of careful planning, so we thought we’d give you an insight into another one of those aspects, being the enemy design process. (If you didn’t catch the last design process, we covered Stage Progression here.)
Stage 1:
So first up is an idea. Our brain sponges go through a short process of having a few rough ideas which then go down as bullet points and/or a small description:
Stage 2:
Once we are happy with an idea, then comes the concept stage. By sending a few short details to our concept artist Jaya (@Nikingply), such as the environment it belongs in, and its involvement in the lore along with the above notes, he can sketch out his mind visions on his fancy arty doodad, like this:
Spooky Scourge Scout
Stage 3:
Approximately 27 minutes after we’ve finished gawping at the tasty wonders before us in concept form, it is time to get Phil (@rephildesign) on with the spriting in pixel form (Note: Phil works on character and enemy design too, sometimes we skip the previous stage and Phil gets straight on with rough pixel designs). Here are said pixels:
Glowy Orb Acquired!
Stage 4:
Now that we have the Scourge Scout all pixel ready, we go knock on Hunter’s (@_bigjerk) door and ask if she’s ready to animate! The animation process is split into two parts: roughs, then polished later after thorough testing. We generally sit on the rough animations for around a month or so to get a real feel for them in engine, then give the go ahead to polish afterwards. Here’s that Scout animated:
It’s aliiiiive.
Stage 5: Into the game it goes! Case (@Case_Portman) then takes the animations and applies them to the already coded rectangle (DM him if you want to see a rectangle) enemy he made with the AI’s and behaviours talked about before. Once it is all glued, taped and stitched together, we get the final enemy in all it’s menacing glory:
Angry ‘cos it dropped it’s night light!
Variety and giving baddies life: To offer the player a more memorable and enjoyable experience, we have (and plan to) given the enemies that show up more often (stage regulars such as Mistral Peak’s Clublins) varying idle animations, not only does this give the enemies themselves 1000% more character but also provides the environments with much more life, so hurray for that!
Very varying idles for variation variety.
Clear, Crisp and Obvious Tells ..Oh My!
Enemies are a huge part of the game which tie in nicely with how you use your attacks to combat them (We cover this in our previous update). We take a lot of care in projecting an understanding to the player on how to tackle certain enemies, whether that be to go all in or take a slower, more strategic approach. How enemies act right before attacking is important too, by giving them a small ‘tell’ to telegraph an attack or by surrounding them with a visual aura enforces danger to the player’s senses and tells them to get out of the way before it’s too late.
Mistral Knight showing off his flashy swordplay!
We can’t stress enough how important it is to give a crystal clear visual cue to enemy attacks and anything that deals damage to the player, you don’t want to be hurt by something, then getting hurt again whilst your brain tries working out where the first lot of damage came from, only to die after rinse-and-repeating this a few times, then uninstalling the game, then.. Well you get the picture!
Another gravestone mock!
Our friend Chris Serani (@directorflik) was nice enough to lend us his face so we could sketch it in to a gravestone! We have some other ideas for how this graveyard will work that we're very excited about, spooky skeletons may be involved. ;)
