SomnaBuster Demo Playthrough: Part 1/2 (Covers All of World 1)
2The Sega Genesis (Mega Drive) was my first portal into video games...
And lemme tell ya, this indie game's dev PD_GCT is out on a mission to create a new platformer with a feeling that I would ONLY able to feel on the Genesis.
Most Genesis-inspired indie platformers like to take after Sonic, and that includes this one, but surprisingly...
...I think this game is first and foremost more of a Ristar-like. I HAD to look into it.
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SomnaBuster stars a cute witch named Macy... or... at least someone based on her.
Initially, she starts out as a rather miserable girl with a miserable life. Boring classes, mean customers at her job, and even bullies against her bike, and subsequently her phone.
The poor girl didn't had any friends...
But one fateful night, she was drawn towards a glowing orb that lead her into the nearby woods. She found a deep hole here, surrounded by crystals and a waterfall...
And then... the orb knocked her into the hole!
And thus, Macy was spirited away to the enchanted land of Esperanto that the opening scroll foretold. Her appearance then changed, as she landed and woke up in said world where burdened souls go and manifest their troubled feelings into physical form...
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When controlling Witch Macy, she can jump and double jump. She can also attack with her broom, or in the air turn it into a Spinjump a la Sonic.
However, there are two additional and very important moves beyond this.
- If you attack while Spinjumping, you'll do a Broomshred. This bounces "Macy" off any nearby surface, and doing this actually offers faster movement than her normal walk.
- She can also use the BroomBurst, which lets her launch off at one of 8 directions. It can be used as a triple jump, or when combined with Broomshreding, a very flighty or bouncy Spin Dash.
"Macy" can also walk on ceilings, and the Broomshred can even be used to climb walls (recall playing Ristar diagonally headbutting upwards a wall).
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S1-1 Lumine Forest, the tutorial level that teaches you how to control "Macy".
Before S1-2 Glowing Grotto, "Macy" meets a silly jester girl named Arla, who welcome her into the world of Esperanto. "Macy" seemed to forgotten her own name, so Arla decided to settle on calling her "Dolores", or "Dolly" for short.
"Dolly" wanted to go home, and she immediately ventured off to the Jericho tower where the legendary spirit named Maritus lives to grant her her wish as soon as Arla brought it up to her.
Arla got angry and tried to make her feel bad about wanting to leave Esperanto so soon, but to no avail!
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At the end of Glowing Grotto, the native forest spirit were in a panic. Their Noble Elder Tree's sap was being stolen by nasty spiders!
This sets up S1-3: Eternal Tree, where "Macy"/"Dolores" enters said tree to fight off the spiders and save the tree's life.
There are two secret doors you can find here. One at that I take at 16:04, and another I didn't take near 17:05; that hole in the wall to the right. There's a forest spirit there that will tell you about the other one for next time if you hadn't used it already!
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S1-4 is the first boss stage, against Georg the Gumptious, the leader of the spiders robbing the Nobel Elder Tree of his sap. Our witch could stand to see such bullies take advantage of the tree. So they fought!
Georg's attacks involve a barrage of bombs, a flurry of punches (ORA ORA ORA!), or even toss a whole ball of his own minions at you.
But aside from the punches, nothing can really touch you as long as you use your Spin Jump.
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Georg was promptly squashed by the young witch's efforts. Unfortunately, they still got away with the stolen sap.
"Macy" was worried that the Nobel Elder Tree was now going to die, but then the tree spoke to her, ensuring that her efforts were not in vain, and that he was destined to pass away after having already lived for eons.
As the Nobel Elder Tree withered away, he spawned many seeds for his forest spirit children to feed upon, and then suddenly... the witch saw a harmonic vision of them all... and then it vanished...
Whatever this truly meant wasn't clear to her right now. The witch then set off to her quest towards Jericho Tower...
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World 1 wasn't the only World contained in this demo. It also offers the first levels of both World 2 & 3. I decided to put those into a different video.
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This game's release is...
VERY CLOSE!
Less than a week from this video's publishing! October 24th, 2024!
And I DO have a plan for it! It's not often I encounter games that are inspired by Ristar. That game is almost 30 years old at this point!
If you want to support its developer PD_GCT immediately before then, wishlist it on Steam!:
Steam Link:
https://store.steampowered.com/app/25...