Today we take a quick look at a video from the first encounter — Beach Bum Biff — of the second world of Captain Quack — Sun Nova Beach.
As you may guess from the title, this world takes place on the southern coastline, or beach, of the world which Quack inhabits. You’ll meet some crazy characters in this area, the first of which is Beach Bum Biff.
He and his horde of crabs roam the beach all day and night, relaxing to the sweet sounds of his ukulele. This video is nothing more than a tease of some simple animations, the lovely view of the beach and one of the many different background music choices for the area.
I have another quick look and update on some Quack stuffs for you. Today I’ll briefly discuss how boss encounters work for Quack, and give you a glimpse of the first boss of the game.
Weed Whackin’ Walt
So this here guy is Weed Whackin’ Walt. He’s the first boss of the game, and the groundskeeper of the Parklands (the first area of the game). He may be old, but he’s well seasoned and has many tools in the ole shed (ZING).
Bosses work a little differently than a typical encounter does in Quack:
They begin in attack mode, skipping the cloud mode part of the fight entirely. Right from the word “Go!” you’re in for an intense fight.
They consist of multiple phases. The fight evolves as you progress in the encounter.
Beating a boss unlocks a new ability or attack type. Once you’ve unlocked it, you can use it retroactively in the game.
And that’s about it. But enough jib-jab, go ahead and check out the video below to see a bit of the fight in action!
In future updates, we’ll take a look at some new areas and enemies, and also go into detail on various mechanics of the game.
Not a huge update today, but hopefully an informative one. We’ll talk a little about what the heck you do gameplay wise in Quack, and then we’ll take another look at some footage! Let’s get quackin’.
SO! FIRST OFF. What is going on in this game? Well, it comes in two parts:
The first portion of the gameplay takes place during what is called “cloud mode“.
During this mode, Quack is incognito in his cloud and is unseen by the world and its inhabitants.
In cloud mode the player needs to interact with the environment of the level in order to expose the enemy’s weakness. This typically involves a lot of rapid tapping (or clicking for PC users) on specific objects during small time frames. But what do you need to interact with? That’s where Quack’s trusty ear horn comes into play.
While Quack is in cloud mode, he can don the ear horn to listen for clues as to what you may need to do to uncover the enemy’s weakness. Simply tapping (or clicking) anywhere on the screen while using it will give visual and audible clues to the player. Hear a ding or see a shine? That’s probably something you need to interact with at some point.
You can consider using the ear horn as somewhat of a hint system, but it’s not going to hold your hand. You’ll have to observe and solve the puzzles for yourself as well.
When the enemy becomes vulnerable you’ll move into the game’s second phase of gameplay — ATTACK MODE!
When you shift into attack mode, the gameplay changes up somewhat drastically. Instead of solving puzzles and turbo tapping with precision, you need to unleash a stool storm in an arcade shooter/bullethell type of environment.
What this means is that you’ll need to DODGE A LOT OF STUFF and UTILIZE YOUR ATTACK TYPES and ABILITIES! Speaking of attack types and abilities…
Quack has a number of different types of attacks, but for today we will focus on three: normal, spread, and beam.
Normal simply shoots straight down.
Spread shoots two smaller bullets down at an angle and does less damage than a normal shot.
Successful hits of either of these two attacks will build up your special attack meter, which powers…
The Beam attack. This shoots a large and wide beam of stool down for as long as you have the special resources for it. It does very high damage but it depletes quickly!
These So what about abilities?
Quack can obtain a number of different types of abilities, but the two we will focus on today are: shield and teleport. Quack can only equip one ability at a once, but they can be swapped at any time during gameplay.
All of the abilities have a cooldown on use so you can’t just frolic through the game spamming them constantly.
Shield creates a shell of invulnerability around Quack for a short period of time, making him immune to all incoming damage for its duration.
Teleport will instantly send quack to the end of the screen in whichever direction you are moving. Very useful for a quick escape or if you need to get somewhere quick to pump out some damage.
Utilizing all of these things to your advantage can help you defeat even the most difficult of encounters. When the enemy’s health hits zero, it’s a glorious victory for Quack and another step towards his ultimate revenge.
I hope this information gives you a bit more of an idea of what you can expect when playing the game. As promised, here’s a fresh look at some in-game footage. The footage takes a look at Newspaper Ned, the third encounter in the Parklands area of the game.
So now that we’ve shown off a little bit of what exactly the game is, it might be appropriate to explain what in the H is going on within it.
First let’s set up the story: You play as Captain Cornelius Quack — a mild mannered duck who one day discovers all that he holds dear has gone belly up when his home pond gets polluted.
Who is responsible for this sudden chaos? We don’t know. But Quack quickly dons his trusty hoverboard (he could fly himself but that’s just not as cool) and sets out on a quest for vengeance to unleash a furious storm of stool upon the world and everything within it.
The main game mode comes in three difficulties (Easy, Normal, Insane). The differences between these difficulties is more hand holding on Easy, along with varying changes to health/damage across all the enemies in the game. Insane also throws in some unique game mechanics. The reward for playing higher difficulties comes from Insane-only unlockables and bonus levels (as well as the sense of accomplishment, ya hobo!).
The gameplay itself comes in two parts:
Cloud Mode: In this mode, Quack is invisible to the world and it’s inhabitants. You’ll interact with and manipulate the environment to discover and exploit enemy weaknesses. Each enemy is unique and the strategy involved with them is as well (think Punch-Out!!). Upon revealing the enemy weakness, you transition into…
Attack Mode: In this mode you will take full control of your hoverboard and your stool-like abilities. Yes, what this means is you will be pooping on the enemies below. As stated above, each level and enemy is unique and you’ll have to use different methods of attack and avoid/defend against enemy abilities in order to defeat them.
In short, the gameplay is one part puzzle and one part arcade shooter.
We’ll do some more in-depth demonstrations and explanations of the gameplay shortly in the future, as well as show off some more of the five different areas of the game.
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