Sock Monkey Ninja - a game by Kazrog

[Kazrog]

So, this is sort of a "side project" of mine. I often find that it helps while I work on a big project (such as Thermionik, my upcoming amp modeler) that to avoid tunnel vision or burnout, I have to also have a "hobby" or "fun" project to work on simultaneously. Usually, it's songwriting and production, but I thought I'd do something a bit different this time (and something I've always wanted to build since I was a kid) - a video game.

Live in the App Store now (free), I present Sock Monkey Ninja:



This game is inspired by Amiga games from my childhood in particular, and runs on iPhone 4 and above or iPad 2 and above at around 60 FPS. The music and sound FX are original, influenced by classic Amiga game scores as well as Berlin school electronic music.

Anyway, I thought you guys might have fun with this. If there's enough demand, I'll be happy to port this to Android devices. Cheers!

UPDATE: Gameplay video posted:

 

[egan.]

hard game is hard.

 

[guy in latvia]

Thanks, just downloaded. Gonna check it out!

 

[Kazrog]

hard game is hard.

Oh yeah, definitely, it's supposed to be. If you've ever played classic Amiga games by Psygnosis (which this game is an homage to), they are even less forgiving, to an extent. This game is kind of a hybrid of that approach meets modern "infinite runner" mobile games. If you're not versed well with either style, I can definitely see how the difficulty level would be a bit of a shock.

PS - I've personally scored up to 450 points, and I have a feeling there are psychopaths out there who will reach 1000 points or higher... :zombie:

 

[LeSedna]

Could only do 80 during my first sessions ! Took me a while to realize you can double jump, I thought some jumps were impossible

 

[Kazrog]

Could only do 80 during my first sessions ! Took me a while to realize you can double jump, I thought some jumps were impossible

I may need to make that more obvious. I don't know how many people bother looking at the help screen, perhaps I should have it pop up on first launch prior to gameplay.

 

[Melodeath]

Hey Shane, was it my AIM screen name that subconsciously inspired you? Haha

 

[Kazrog]

Hey Shane, was it my AIM screen name that subconsciously inspired you? Haha

Oh man, it's been a while since I fired up an AIM client. I forgot about that, it's quite possible though actually.

 

[rapucore]

No Android sadly. Looks great though!

 

[LeSedna]

OMG my previous hiscore was 120, and I would normally do 30/50 average. And first try today I did this

Found out the best strategy is to stay on top and play safe. i had to do the whole run hidden behind the advertisements !

Also, I will not be able to sleep again until you tell us what is this spaceship at the back

I like the music by the way

 

[Kazrog]

OMG my previous hiscore was 120, and I would normally do 30/50 average. And first try today I did this

Found out the best strategy is to stay on top and play safe. i had to do the whole run hidden behind the advertisements !

Also, I will not be able to sleep again until you tell us what is this spaceship at the back

I like the music by the way

Congrats, the highest I was ever able to score during beta test was 450. That's impressive that you did this with ads running in the top position!

The airship is a blimp, zeppelin, etc. It's a reference to the Amiga game Shadow of the Beast; in fact, lots of things about Sock Monkey Ninja are little homages to that game specifically (it made a huge impression on me as a kid.)

Thanks for the kind words about the music! I've posted it to SoundCloud:

 

[LBTM]

i'd really like to see a port for android!

 

[rapucore]

i'd really like to see a port for android!

+1 :Smokin:

 

[Kazrog]

i'd really like to see a port for android!

Thanks! I'll be getting an Android tablet at some point to test on. One issue with Android is all of the different hardware variations out there. For this game to be playable, it really has to run at or near 60 FPS, which took quite a bit of optimization work for iPhone 4 and iPad 2. So, I look forward to bringing this game to Android, but I may have to amass a sizable pool of beta testers with different devices to more accurately gauge average performance.

 

[akarawd]

Shadow of the beast on my Amiga2000...I had forgotten all that... good times though
Great work Shane!

 

[LeSedna]

just for info, might be the adds but sometimes I get quite a lag, let's say it drops to 10 fps and it stays like this until I loose or maybe after some time, can't be sure. I'm on iphone 5 (the first one, not s or c)

 

[Kazrog]

just for info, might be the adds but sometimes I get quite a lag, let's say it drops to 10 fps and it stays like this until I loose or maybe after some time, can't be sure. I'm on iphone 5 (the first one, not s or c)

That's almost certainly a network lag issue due to iAds. I've not seen a lag quite that bad on an iPhone 5 here in the US, but on iPhone 4 it can be pretty bad. I'm afraid that iAds gets task priority over anything else, so there's nothing I can really do about it (besides release some kind of choppy tripe that runs "near" 30 FPS like most of the App Store.)

So, this will either motivate users to purchase, or just piss them off. Maybe both? LOL

 

[Kazrog]

Shadow of the beast on my Amiga2000...I had forgotten all that... good times though
Great work Shane!

Thanks! I love my A2000. It still runs perfectly...

 

[Kazrog]

Hey guys, just wanted to let you know that I picked up an Android tablet today (Samsung Galaxy Tab 3) and I'm quite impressed with the unit - it's a thousand times better than expected and quite a hacker/geek friendly OS I might add. Lots of games are performing great on it, so I'm very optimistic now about the platform.

I'll be bringing Sock Monkey Ninja to Android as soon as possible.

Also, on a more music-related note, Recabinet 4 / Thermionik for iOS will be in the works once the Mac/PC version is out, and I may also experiment with bringing it to Android as well.

 

[kaomao]

which engine did you use?
Using at the moment unity which I love!!
worked a lot on unreal (UDK) for some years, but I never liked it that much, way too complicated.
UE4 (which is for all under subscription) seems better than UDK.