Tamabuki ZERO - The Egg Weapon
SYNOPSIS
You're not alone braving the remains of the old and decrepit Underworld. If you care for your Tamabuki its powers will aid in your survival against the monsters that lurk there. Be brave...!
GAMEPLAY
This is a third-person shooter combined with caring for a virtual pet. You must look after the Homonculus in your Tamabuki. Feed them so that they may have the energy needed to unleash powerful shots from your Tamabuki (to protect yourself, of course).
Average Gameplay Time: ~5 minutes
CONTROLS
- WASD - Move/Select
- LEFT SHIFT - Run
- TAB - Check Tamabuki (When standing still & not aiming)
- RMB - Aim Tamabuki
- LMB - Shoot Tamabuki (When Aiming)
- Q - Swap Shoulders (When Aiming)
- E - Inspect/Confirm
- ESC - Pause/Options Menu
[Feed your pet in order to keep them generating energy that you can use as ammunition. If your pet is crying out and starving you will not recover energy!]
Download
Development log
- Tamabuki - Major Development in the Works92 days ago
Comments
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I think this is a really cool concept and i love the vibes i get from this! The environment really made me curious about the game world, i loved interacting with the Tamabuki, and i really appreciated how much the environmental sound added to the spookiness. The visual style and specially the lighting are what really sell the vibe to me, love that. Also really liked the hinted storytelling through objects in the environment that you can interact with.
The only thing I'd say i didn't like about this first iteration is the fact that strafing with A and D moved the camera angle as well, so i had to keep adjusting my mouse position to compensate for that.
I love seeing in other comments that you intend to keep developing this, i think it is really cool and I'll keep an eye on it for sure! I think this will also benefit greatly from custom music in the future too.
Thank you for the kind words!
Strafing is not intended to work that way lol. I noticed it, too, but the upload is locked until after the game jam.
And yeah, music is the one thing I can't do on my own. I'll likely commission pieces in the future (also spending some time lately messing around with Garage Band on iPad; don't know if that will go anywhere).
This is a BRILLIANT idea, I'd love to see this expanded! Maybe easier enemies at first, I love the idea of building a relationship with your pet, maybe the pet is part of the source code of the enemies, maybe that's why you can kill them with it. I love the environment, maybe your first encounter is a cramped tight space with the big robot as a tutorial, maybe both of you trying to climb out of wreckage and you kill it in the process... not sure why I felt like coming up with story ideas for you, but I was inspired. Love this game, can't wait to see it expand!
Thank you!
This will definitely be expanded on in the future as continuing it will be my first foray into larger projects. As for the story and lore behind the game, here is a snippet from my game design document that goes into a bit more detail:
"In the far future, mankind has won a fruitful life off the technological advancements that paired the digital age with alchemy. The Tamabuki, once a weapon of war, is now a common trinket that holds the digital manifestation of a fully matured homunculus within it. Its abilities grant one the ability to live a life beyond leisure.
However, Tamabuki do not grow themselves. All who possess one now had to at one point delve into the Depths and gorge their digital homunculi on the essence of the monsters beneath Paradise City.
The Player, as part of the ancient ritual of becoming an adult, is now yet another who shall explore the Depths. With Tamabuki in hand, their future will be decided here."
There is quite a mysterious narrative I want to craft here (I've still left a lot unsaid) so I'm glad to see you thinking about where things might or could go!
Wow the visuals really hit hard with this one. Both retro and modern at the same time? Very interesting.
So I had a few little issues with the gameplay, nothing serious but just minor annoyances. Trying to feed the pet while fighting the monster was a hassle, the gun ammo ran out super quick but I guess that's part of the challenge of keeping it fed and using it? Also what are we feeding it? Is there something from the "real" world or is it just virtual food in the "gun game"?
Also why does the gun aiming get locked when trying to aim up? The monster was on the stairs at one point but I could only shoot it in the legs cos the view was locked.
Other than that it was a really fun but short experience. The world looks great as does the character. I mentioned I love the mixture of retro looking textures/graphics with the modern shaders/lighting. The gun Tambuki? Looks fantastic and is probably the highlight of the game. Running around the environment was cool and I liked the little descriptive interaction points that allude to something going on.
The atmospheric sound and SFX were good I liked the retro laser sound of the gun, very fitting with the Tambuki low res pixel art style.
Obviously a very short experience but I enjoyed it and it left me looking for more. I hope to see where this goes as it's an interesting concept.
Thank you!
I'm glad you enjoyed the visuals. I probably leaned far too much into those since the gameplay ended up lacking a bit.
And your criticism is right on. The pet care isn't balanced very well yet and the gun play isn't quite as snappy or free as it should be. I intend to expand on the pet care within the Tamabuki quite a lot in the future so it's nice to hear that you enjoyed the concept!
I love the visuals, it’s got that original Resident Evil vibe. Controls feel snappy and reactive. Well done!
The “gun” I lacked a bit of feedback of how strong the shot is. E.g. you could add some screen shake and sound effects for the strong shots to really sell the impact.
For some reason “fullscreen” does not stretch the visuals but has a huge black border. I believe this
Now all it needs is more content, keep at it!
Thank you for the comment about the fullscreen. This is because I had set the dimensions manually myself without realizing it would impact the ability for fullscreen to adapt to your aspect ratio. This was a simple fix now and it should launch in fullscreen when you run the game (and stretch to your screen's aspect ratio!).
This is a game I'll likely continue to pursue in the future so you can bet the gun will have more impact in the future!
Thank you for playing and commenting!
This turned out cool! I love the atmosphere you got with your environment. Hope to see more in the future
Thank you. I'm glad you enjoyed the atmosphere. That is what I am most proud of here...!
The Tamabuki / virtual pet gun thing didn't get as many features as I wanted it to, but that will be remedied in the future (after the game jam is over and I continue to pursue this project)!!