The Trial of Kharzoid
A downloadable game
About the game
The Trial of Kharzoid is an arkanoidvania for the NES. It combines classic brick-breaking games like Arkanoid with Castlevania's classic elements like exploration, defeating huge bosses and eating chicken you find in walls! The goal is to navigate through the deadly levels and go back to Kharzoid's tower to defeat this son of a witch. You will learn more about the lore by talking to NPCs.
I also took inspiration from other less-known games like Pinball Quest which combined pinball with RPG elements and Kirby’s Block Ball for the Game Boy, where I got the idea of using more than one paddle.
The game is 85% finished. All major areas are done, but needs testing and refining. There are some power-ups to add, some side-quest to finish and the ending story’s graphics to make. Then the testing and bug-fixing phase will begin, the fun part!
To RUN the DEMO:
This is an NES game, you need an emulator to run it. The game was tested with Mesen. So download it and load the demo nes file. (Any NES emulator would do, but I haven't tested the others).
About the DEMO:
- To break a certain type of brick you need a power up that isn't available in the demo.
- You cannot get rid of the pesky crow, it's a side quest for the full game!
- Make sure you talk to all the villagers in the haunted town.
- Use the magnet! It is your best ally :)
- The purple power-ups are actually 'power-down', avoid them!
- The pink power-up will restore 1 health point, get it!
- When you finish a level, the navigation appears automatically. Choose an exit and press A to confirm. You can bring the navigation anytime by pressing Start.
Download
Install instructions
This is an NES game, you need an emulator to run it. The game was tested with Mesen. So download it and load the demo nes file. (Any NES emulator would do, but I haven't tested the others).
Development log
- Small demo update17 days ago
- Demo is out!Oct 27, 2023
Comments
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I just played the DEMO on my NES console with an Everdrive and can confirme it works perfectly! At least I couldn't see any issues or slowdown.
This is an amazing idea for an NES game and I'm all for it! Congrats and can't wait to get the final version!!
Great, nice to hear!
This game looks and plays great really awesome job on this. Arkanoid + Castlevania is a win for me.
Nice to hear :) Thanks!
How do you get past the first level? I get the gate to open, but the skull never bounces through as it hits some invisible blocks at the gate. Am I missing something?
When you finish a level for the first time, the navigation system automatically appears, letting you choose from the different exits available. You can cancel this navigation by pressing B, this is probably what happened. Just press START to bring back the navigation.
At some point early in the development you could make the navigation appear by hitting an opened exit, but this was annoying when you wanted to replay a level, so I removed this feature. In the full game there will be some 'maze' levels that you must hit the exit to get to the next level, but for the normal levels in the demo you have to press START.
Sorry for the confusion!
Thank you and apologies for my confusion!
Ok, but how do I choose a navigation exit? The only button that seemed to work was B to cancel.I figured it out, just press Start to select the direction to move and arrow keys to change the room.
Maybe a message on the first dialog would be helpful for new players. :)
The first dialog was a box with an arrow pointing up, so I pressed UP on the controller but nothing happened. I didn't realize you could press Start for anything besides pausing the game.
Btw, I really like this game. :)
Making good and intuitive game mechanics is an art I have yet to master! Your comment is really helpful. I did put a small explanation in the haunted village, a ghost is telling the player to press START to choose a path, but it should probably be at the beginning. Thanks a lot :)
Such a nice idea for an NES game.
Thanks! I hope it will live up to the expectations!
Great idea! Well done!
Thanks :)
"Arkanoidvania"? Come on now. Can't your game stand on its own without buzzword soup? Is it a "Soulslike rOgUeLiKe MetroidArkanoidBlasterMastervania"? How about calling it an ADVENTURE GAME?
You're probably right! I generally don't like buzzword either, but I like 'arkanoidvania, I think it describes the game accurately. After all, my game IS a mix between arkanoid and castlevania :)
Besides, it's an ORIGINAL genre! I know because I checked.
Had a quick play on my 'totally legit not chinese bootleg' handheld, ran flawlessly. A little more difficult than expected - I think on some screens the spikes blend in with the regular collision a bit, but the game is 100% my kind of thing :)
I was wondering how exactly you were handling screen to screen navigation, and what you have is great (once I realised d-pad inputs could adjust the direction to go in).
Though I did end up trying to evade a HP refill after thinking it was another power-down coming straight for me :P
It is hard indeed! I might tune it down a bit... but as you progress you get to add extra health up to 8, so it gets slightly easier.
I worked hard on the navigation system so I am really encouraged by your comment.
It's always a challenge to tell the player about the gameplay elements without words! Like that health power up, I gave it a different color but I will think about adding a clue... like at first, the skeletons were dropping balls of energy that were looking alike the health power-up... maybe bring back that.
So thanks a lot! I'm glad you enjoyed it :)
Favourable powerups could have more angel style wings, with the bat wings relegated to the power-downs?
Also, I think the first time I was in the village area with the 3 front doors, the skull was very nearly instantly hitting spikes. Wasn't as bad when I returned from the area above, but that first time round I was expecting to start with choosing a launch direction from the paddle, so taking damage there would have felt a touch unfair.
Played a bit more (love the spider area) and found a boss, let's see how terribly I do against him :P
Also, at first I thought the magnet would be a consumable that I'd have to re-earn but I guess not. For some more tricky parts I did find the best strategy was fairly constantly tapping B to avoid spikes. Seemed like a bit of a cheese, is this intentionally an optimal playstyle?
Yeah there are a lot of fine tuning left to do!
When you use some items, it resets the mana meter. You cannot re-use an item while the meter is refilling. This will avoid tapping B repeatedly, but it seems the refilling speed is too quick! I'll have to balance it out!