Neko Ghost, Jump!
1.0 Release Coming Soon
First of all, before we get into this, I want to wish you all very happy and fun holidays!
Next, let's keep it short and sweet. We are roughly 98% complete. We have been feature complete for a little while now, but before we can release we have a few remaining items to finish up, including but not limited to localization, balancing, and minor bug fixes.
I am very excited to release the game, it's definitely been a bit longer journey to get here than first anticipated, but better than never finishing!
They'll be another announcement in the near future with a more firm date, so look for that happening sometime very early in 2023.
Jump into our Discord if you ever want to chat! https://discord.gg/NekoGhostJump, otherwise questions on the Steam Forums (but note, that I don't get notifications when new threads get started sadly).
Anyway, see you all in 2023!
-Victor Burgos
Burgos Games
Update 6
In this update, we bring some new content, one of the last major features, lots of bugs squashed, and balances/tweaks to gameplay and level design.
NEW
- Achievements (and lots of them!) are finally in
- Boss Rewards (check out your Home's wardrobe after defeating a boss!)
- Finish Game final cinematic added
- Final levels of the Pirate Ship world
- New shop items added
IMPROVED
- Now able to equip wardrobe sets at the shop (set items are designed with a star icon)
- Can now see how many of and what type of enemies & coins before starting a new level
- Art improvements in various worlds
- Level designs in various worlds tweaked to be slightly less difficult
- On a save game removal using the Steam account name, you will no longer have to wait to create a new one
- Ghostform transition back to Catform (physical body) is much faster, especially if really close
- Various bosses had their fights tweaked to be fairer
- Various enemies tweaked to be fairer (sometimes just making them easier to kill)
FIXED
- Lots of bugs
NEXT
- Localization to as many languages as possible
- Final tweaks to all cinematics
- Final UI/UX pass
- Final gameplay pass
As you can see, there are a lot of "Final" things in the next update. It will most likely be our 1.0 release, until the updates get broken down. Thanks so much for your continued support of the game.
If you wish to chat about any feedback or file bug reports, please jump on our Discord: https://discord.gg/NekoGhostJump
Update 5
In this update, we bring in additional content (including new wardrobe items and levels), bugs squashed, and other improvements.
New
- Astronaut
- Ninja
- Eskimo
- April Fools (late!)
- The Pirate Ship biome is unlocked with the first 3 levels (including the first mini-boss)
- Updated various wardrobe item colors and fidelity
Improved
- Clarity between play area and background
- Player movement, especially while jump boosting is smoother/tighter
- Background art in various biomes updated and/or added
- Various enemies have new VFX
- Reduced game package size by ~40%
- No longer need to purchase light/dark versions of wardrobe items, toggleable now
- Nekoman moves in the Village similar to Level Selects
- Razer Chroma RGB animations modified
Bugs Fixed
- Various crashes, especially relating to Linux users
- The stock Market giving out too much money
- Some level selects do not allow players to move to the next level
- Ghostform attack animations not playing after switching from Catform
- While rolling, Flameybat rolled with Nekoman
- Flameybats confused about Ghostform and did not attack Catform body
- Flameyhounds did not attack Ghostform
- Various menus had scaling issues
- Groundslam maxed out damage/size on edges of platforms
- Not able to pause while returning to body from Ghostform
- Iceblocks and moveable jump pads not pushable sometimes
- Camera sometimes would not stop shaking after landing on falling rocks
- Quicksand would sometimes not cause Nekoman to sink
- Groundpound did not damage snakes in 2D
What's next
- Achievements
- Boss Rewards (other than coins)
- Final Cinematic
- Last few levels in Pirate Ship
- Spooylands Biome (5 more levels)
- Localizations
- Clearer user interface
Thank you all for your support so far. We are getting closer to the final release once the above items are checked off. An update or two before 1.0 is likely though.
Don't forget to check us out on Discord: https://discord.gg/NekoGhostJump
FAQ #1
Frequently Asked Questions
Hi everyone! It’s been a few weeks after our release in Early Access, and now that the dust has settled we’ve got some time to sit down and answer a few basic questions about Neko Ghost, Jump! and how its Early Access stage will be. Buckle up!
General questions
Q. What is Neko Ghost, Jump! about?
A. Neko Ghost, Jump! is a challenging action platformer with 2D & 3D camera perspective puzzles that is perfect for both casual and hardcore gamers such as completionists and speedrunners. Explore Nekoworld as you chase the fearsome Space Dog Pirates, who crashed your wedding and kidnapped your fiancée and friends.
Q. Okay, but how does it work?
A. Each biome you visit consists of five independent levels where Nekoman will have to attempt to reach the pirate ship's anchor as fast as possible. Along the way, you will need to solve puzzles that will require the player to change the perspective from 2D to 3D view and vice-versa. You'll discover new details of the scenery that were hidden until then.
Q. Who’s behind the game?
A. Victor Burgos, Founder of Burgos Games, came up with the original concept and prototype of Neko Ghost, Jump! The Neko Ghost, Jump! team consists of nine people from all over the world that have been working remotely ever since the project started.
Q. Where did the project come from?
A. The production of Neko Ghost, Jump! started in June 2019, right after Victor and part of his current team submitted the game for the UE4 Spring Game Jam in May 2019. A year later, Victor launched a Kickstarter campaign in late June where the project achieved 133% of its funding goal thanks to more than 400 backers.
About the Early Access phase
Q. Will you launch the full version of the game in 2022?
A. Yes, the goal is to launch this very summer! The final date and price are still yet to be determined.
Q. What can I expect from the Early Access phase?
A. A constant evolution! While we’re wrapping up the game, fixing bugs and testing new ideas that come to our minds, we also try out many suggestions that we receive from our community. There are currently seven biomes that are available, resulting in 35 challenging levels to master where fearsome enemies and very dangerous bosses await! New biomes, enemies, bosses and levels will continue to appear as well as improving game feel.
Q. How many hours of gameplay can I enjoy in this Early Access version?
A. With the current content, which includes mini games at the village, there are more than six hours of gameplay for you to enjoy. Of course, that’s not counting your impulsive need to climb the leaderboards.
Q. Is there any relevant feature that you still need to add to the game?
A. Along with the final story biome (Pirate Ship), we’re also working on two Kickstarter-unlocked biomes: Spookylands and “Wackylands” (name still undecided). Achievements still need to get done, localization in as many languages as possible and many more things.
Other relevant questions
Q. Does Neko Ghost, Jump! feature accessibility options?
A. We’re committed to creating an adventure accessible to all types of players, so the game already has several options to make the game more accessible for physically and neurologically diverse players. Most of the game’s color scheme is available to adjust. You can also reduce the game speed, highlight projectiles, enable protection to avoid falling from the edge of a platform, and so much more via the Assist Menu.
Q. Is there full controller support?
A. Yes.
Q. Will the game work on Steam Deck?
A. Yes! Here you can see a preview of its performance on Valve's console.
Customization and mods
Q. How can I customize my character?
A. You can choose between different facial expressions, fur types and accessories like caps or weapons. All these customization options are purely cosmetic, they don’t change Nekoman’s stats nor give them new powers. We’ll keep adding new options in the following months, and even after the full release — we enjoy celebrating events such as April’s Fools Day, St. Patrick’s Day or Halloween!
Q. Will there be a level editor?
A. It’s not in our roadmap at this time.
Features For Speedrunners
Q. Are there features aimed at speedrunners?
A. In addition to the stopwatch that you’ll find in the upper left corner of the screen, a detailed list of your time records (platform agnostic) and other achievements will be displayed after reaching the finish line.
Q. Can you compete against other players?
A. Not directly, but you can compare your score with that of other players on the leaderboard unless you have saved your game in the offline slot.
Update 4 Hotfix 2
Update 4.1 - Hotfix
If you find any bugs, hit us up on Steam Forums or on Discord: https://discord.gg/NekoGhostJump
Thanks!
-Victor
Update 4 - Game Feel & Juice
We’ve been hard at work since our last update (Update 3), and today we are happy to announce the first major update of Neko Ghost, Jump!. This update addresses feedback and ideas brought in from the community since our Early Access launch. It also brings in new content, new user interfaces in some areas, as well as fixes some bugs and technical issues.
These are some of the new features you’ll find in this update:
Ironcat, a new game mode
They say cats have 9 lives. Well, in the Ironcat mode, that’s all you get to complete the game – 9 lives, and if you run out of them, it’s game over for you. Not for the faint of heart, this game mode was a Kickstarter stretch goal and it definitely needs some fine-tuning, but if you’re up for a challenge, how far can you make it?
Revamped user interface (WIP)
We are in the middle of designing a cleaner, easier-to-understand user interface throughout the game, with the Save Slot/New Game and Play Style menus getting first dibs.
New movement and combat mechanics
Even before Early Access, we weren't too happy with how combat felt in the game. Then we had a bunch of great community members also voicing their opinions and this is what we came up with that wouldn't break the whole game and set us back months of development!
We’ve implemented two new attacks: a Ground Pound that allows you to strike from the air (also useful for platforming), and a 360º attack that damages all enemies in range. Both are triggered by the "Heavy Attack"
We’ve also added a new Rolling movement (along with several tweaks to how movement works to make it feel even less floaty). Now you can also change the values of Max Speed, Air Control, Max Dash Velocity, and Max Bunny Hop Velocity on the Assist menu.
Finally, you can now get Bird or Monkey Poop out of the screen (that is, clean your view) much faster than before if you keep moving – be it jumping, rolling, or attacking enemies.
Juice
You will start to notice some liberal (but not too terrible) use of screen shake and more VFX to give more impact to certain things.
Animations
There are now idle animations for Nekoman. He’ll loop the same one until you cancel idle (by basically doing anything other than just standing there), and he’ll do his next one. Some are biome specific.
Mechanic Visual Clarity
Ghostform now has a smooth transition. Before it was an instant thing, and that caused a lot of issues for players who had no clue why Ghostform would be instakilled (it doesn’t get instakilled with all attacks, and that’s something else we’ll have to address in the future somehow). The speed it returns back is constant currently and we’ll make adjustments to how fast it goes back based on player feedback (I’ve already tripled it since its inception).
New wardrobe set
Beat your enemies with style and a big smile! If you have some coins, remember to visit the village’s fashion shop to see what’s new. Choose your next outfit among a long list of cool cosmetics, such as fur styles, accessories, and weapon skins, that will make Nekoman look like a real hero. Also, there’s a cute Cupid costume that will make you fall in love!
There are a bunch of quality-of-life additions and bug fixes as well but I don't want to bore you with all that. Just get in there and have some fun!
What do you think about these new features? Join the discussion in the comments or in our Discord! https://discord.gg/NekoGhostJump If you have any questions, or suggestions for future updates, don’t hesitate to drop by the Steam forums or the Discord servers – your feedback is invaluable to us! Also, please consider leaving your review to help other Steam users if you already enjoyed the game. That helps a lot too! Thank you very much for your support, and talk to you soon.
– Victor
CL2048
Update 3 - Meows Tweaked
Quality of Life
- Separated out cat sounds from things they were mixed with, resulting in still hearing other sounds even when cat sounds are disabled (from sound settings)
- Tweaked cat sounds to have more variance, lowered the overall volume by default
- Localization "ticker system" (work in progress) to allow for any length in localization wrapped up in text spot
- Added a warning that current localization is machine language and proper localization is coming soon.
- As a Casual Playstyle, turned off "Edge Stop" by default (it was causing confusion and most players seemed to turn it off eventually when they figured out they could anyway. Still good for those who don't mind slowing down the pace, but there's some improvement coming for it anyway, such as an animation cancellation.)
Bug Fixes
- You can no longer start the Jungle Boss by leaving the body in the platform before the start of the 3rd stage
Polish
- Cropped wardrobe items with curves rather than the square edges they had
- Desert Boss nuke drop animation improved
Known Issues
- Crash if you use outdated graphics cards (or just use below min-spec hardware)
- Ice Blocks may sometimes get stuck (usually if you try anything funky really fast)
- Frogs behave like normal and like water (but our water kills them, so not good for them or you if you want a paw)
CL1492
Update 2 - Content & Bug Fixes
This is our second update, with Update 1 just being a small bug fix patch to correct a boss fight exploit.
Update 2
3 New Wardrobe Sets Make Their Appearance, this one is a country theme:
Puerto Rico
Russia
Australia
Bug Fixes
- Fixed an issue if the player died in quicksand, the player no longer returns to the start before the camera outro occurs.
- Fixed an issue where sometimes the level information tab did not show up.
- Fixed the farm leaderboard not showing up.
- Fixed an issue where you could become wedged in between a pulled block and level art if you backed up into it, becoming stuck.
- Fixed an issue where kitty stonk symbol windows were not showing up.
- Fixed an issue where keyboard input rebinding for movement did not stick.
Quality of Life
- You can now press pause in level select, village, and world biome.
- For the controller wardrobe, the Hands tab shows more rows by default.
Known Issues
- When turning off cat sounds in Sounds FX, footsteps, landing, and bump sounds are also muted.
- Ice Blocks may sometimes get stuck
- A jungle Boss exploit
- Frogs can jump into the water, dying (darn that toxic water...), but the player does not receive credit
Near Future Plans
- Rework tutorial
- Give more character control options to players to fine-tune their experience (everyone has their "likes" for platformers, trying to satisfy everyone is never going to happen.)
- Professional localization fixes
- Combat improvements
- Enemy reworks (first up are the Ghost Dogs)
Feedback or Ideas?
Please post them in our Steam Forums or better yet, head over to our Discord channel with over 400 community members! https://discord.gg/NekoGhostJump
Reviews
Are always greatly appreciated after you've played for a little while.
Thanks
Thank you so very much for supporting the game, if there's anything I can do for you, just reach out! The best way again would be Discord, but any social media or forums work. Have a great rest of your weekend!
-Victor
EA Patch 1
Additions
- Added a "boss shadow" to Biome 1 (aka Grassylands). Will appear as normal as defeat.
Bugs
- Fixed an exploit where you could damage the Grassylands' boss by hitting the vine wall from the ground.
- Fixed text in Grassylands' boss intro for 21:9 monitors.
- Fixed an issue where current settings remain active through the level if you don't hit apply
- Fixed boss wall particles