A Valley Without Donkey Kong

[misterT0AST]

just something curious I found out.
When I defeated a boss  in A Valley Without Wind the music "Interior Quiet" started playing.
I thought I heard that somewhere before, but i couldn't remember exactly where. So I started making comparisons until I found out what it was! 

I sped it up a lot so you can hear the resemblance:

A Valley Without Wind Soundtrack: Interior Quiet
http://soundcloud.com/mistert0ast/avwwiq

Donkey Kong Country Soundtrack: Aquatic Ambiance
http://soundcloud.com/mistert0ast/dkcaa

There are many little things, little choices in the whole game design that remind me of good old Donkey Kong, are they a coincidence or are they deliberate?
For example the whole 2d sprites of 3d models idea, the little somersault the character does when he jumps, the landscapes have something in common:

I'm not going anywhere with this, I just wanted to share this thought and some memories.

[zebramatt]

Well, DKC was a great game, for sure!

[x4000]

I don't think that Pablo's music was at all inspired by DKC, as I don't think he's played that game or heard its music -- but, other choices in the game have definitely been influenced by all my favorite games of this sort, which includes DKC and DKC2 in a major way.  Also Zelda II, Castlevania 1-3 (II most of all), the original Metroid and the GBA metroids, and a couple of the GBA Castlevanias.  Among many, many others.  Demon Stalkers on the ancient PC, for instance.

[zebramatt]

I still remember how much the original Donkey Kong Country visuals totally blew me away the first time I played it!

[x4000]

I still remember how much the original Donkey Kong Country visuals totally blew me away the first time I played it!

Oh God, yes.  And the first time I hit the stage where the sky gradually darkened and it started snowing?  The music alone was enough there, but the level and visuals themselves combined to make something really special.

And I still get a special feeling booting up DKC2, too -- not the horrible GBA remake where they messed up the title screen and title music, but the original.  It was filled with some pretty memorable moments, too.

[zoutzakje]

haha, I knew it. The game already made me think of Castlevania a bit. Good to see you're a fan too
and it's been to long since I played DK games. All I remember about it is how I used to play DKC all the time with my best friend about 10 years ago or something. We even got so good at it, that we turned the gameboy colour upside down and completed the game like that
everytime one of us died or completed a lvl, it was the other one's turn to play. And boy, we sure died a lot when we tried it upside down. good memories

[x4000]

The thing I always wanted, back in those older DKC games, was the ability for me and a friend to play simultaneously.  That's something that DKC Returns, on the Wii, delivers in spades.  My wife and I have played through just about all of that except a few of the special areas after you beat the game (floating fruit in the sky was not very compelling, though that's a spoiler I guess).  Anyhow, at first DKC Returns took me some getting used to because they changed the feel of how the roll attack works, which was a little disappointing.  But I got used to it, and the game still sits right up there next to the original two for me.

[zebramatt]

The thing I always wanted, back in those older DKC games, was the ability for me and a friend to play simultaneously.  That's something that DKC Returns, on the Wii, delivers in spades.  My wife and I have played through just about all of that except a few of the special areas after you beat the game (floating fruit in the sky was not very compelling, though that's a spoiler I guess).  Anyhow, at first DKC Returns took me some getting used to because they changed the feel of how the roll attack works, which was a little disappointing.  But I got used to it, and the game still sits right up there next to the original two for me.

Agreed! It's pretty brutally hard too, which I love in a game!

[x4000]

I found it difficult with both my wife and I playing, because coordinating that way could be a real challenge.  But in general the difficulty I felt was moderate-upper as far as I wanted.  Better than most games, but it seems I almost never get the ones with the challenge level I'd really like.

What I used to do was use a Game Genie on Mario 2 to enable the "all monsters go twice as fast" cheat, and then play without getting any mushrooms for extra hearts.  THAT was a good challenge, back in the day, but then I progressed past that.  I have yet to come remotely close to dying on a lava escape mission on Hero difficulty, incidentally, and that's with RtL but not anything like greater teleport.

There are a lot of gamers waaaaay better at platformers than me, but I wish that more games did cater to my skill level and up.

[The Mimic]

I really noticed the Castlevania influence - a particular favorite of mine. Made me grin immensely to hear the one battle background song that, at least to me, sounded reminiscent of Bloody Tears! I adore InteriorQuiet though, it doesn't get used enough. Was sad to see it wasn't on the soundtrack, because it's my favorite song from the game. Maybe a Volume II will be released sometime? 

I always found Cave Story to have the perfect progression of difficulty. The game's presentation makes up for the easiness at the beginning if you happen to be really good, and if you're not you'll typically get better as the pacing is perfect. At least, before that jump into the secret bit at the end...

[tigersfan]

There are a lot of gamers waaaaay better at platformers than me, but I wish that more games did cater to my skill level and up.

There's always "I wanna be the guy!" :-D

[Terraziel]

There are a lot of gamers waaaaay better at platformers than me, but I wish that more games did cater to my skill level and up.

The issue with that, and i'm definitely in the camp of wishing games were harder, is that you risk making your game ever more niche, rather to use the discussion over fall damage, I was in the minority in wanting fall damage to be able to flat out kill you, were this a full on platformer then that discussion would have essentially been about picking the size of your market, you either cater to the few and annoy the many, or cater to the many and the few play it anyway. Not that one is particularly happy about or advocating that line of thought.

[keith.lamothe]

To a large extent it is possible to cater to a wide audience but still supply the various hardcore niches (there is more than one!  they only partially overlap) with stuff that gives them what they want.  But yes, there are certain market concerns with "here's a game where the lava chases you everywhere you go and you die if you fall 20 feet.  Oh by the way, permadeath" that inevitably put at least the focus of dev time at odds with some niche desires.  It's an interesting problem, but I think we're on the right path for handling it in this game

[x4000]

There are a lot of gamers waaaaay better at platformers than me, but I wish that more games did cater to my skill level and up.

There's always "I wanna be the guy!" :-D

I enjoyed that pretty well, but it gets most of its difficulty by surprising you with unforseeable events.  I like that a lot less.

There are a lot of gamers waaaaay better at platformers than me, but I wish that more games did cater to my skill level and up.

The issue with that, and i'm definitely in the camp of wishing games were harder, is that you risk making your game ever more niche, rather to use the discussion over fall damage, I was in the minority in wanting fall damage to be able to flat out kill you, were this a full on platformer then that discussion would have essentially been about picking the size of your market, you either cater to the few and annoy the many, or cater to the many and the few play it anyway. Not that one is particularly happy about or advocating that line of thought.

I think that's an argument for difficulty settings in platformers, though.  If DKC or similar could have harder difficulty modes, or even just "master quests" like most of the Zeldas do these days, that would be cool with me.  The difficulty on a general platformer isn't so low I find it un-fun.  I just find I never get a game over, and have some ridiculous number of extra lives at the end of every session, unless I'm playing co-op (where the coordination aspect makes things infinitely harder).  But the games themselves still interest me, and I still buy them.

[Terraziel]

I seem to recall Bionic Commando: Rearmed as particularly good example of difficulty levels in platformers, but personally I think it's also a demonstration of the hassle involved for developers. They essentially had to change every jump in the game to cater for lower difficulties.