Strato Freaks 2
A downloadable game for Windows and Linux
THIS IS AN EARLY DEMO--PLEASE LET ME KNOW IF YOU FIND ANY BUGS OR HAVE ANY REBALANCING ADVICE
2023 was a big year for the Super Freaks. Their fourth mainline platformer, Super Freaks 1 Ultimate Edition, released at SAGE 2023 and became an immediate cult favorite, earning a whole truckload of cameos and crossovers. But that wasn't all; 2023 saw the long-awaited release of Super Freaks Presents: Strato-Scruffy, a Super Freaks shmup game from 2009 that was similar to Sega’s classic Fantasy Zone. 15 years later, it’s time for the Super Freaks to take flight again in Strato Freaks 2!
Gameplay
Just as in Strato 1, you can freely move your character around in any direction, with no auto scrolling. Traveling around is pretty quick thanks to the new endlessly looping level sections! Fly around and gun down those killer Kranibots at your leisure, but don't just sit there! You can rack up a gnarly combo by knocking out your enemies and collecting yorbs as fast as possible. Unlike in Strato 1, there is a time limit, and when it runs out, the sinister skeleton Sticky will drop in and hunt you down until he finally corners you! Oh, and don't forget to use the strafe button (or one of many strafing modes) to shoot in one direction!
In each level, the end goal is to find and collect the magic monkeys. They'll usually be found frolicking around, somehow completely oblivious to the chaos happening around them, though you may need to free some imprisoned monkeys by doing some star challenges. Once all the monkeys in a section are found, a portal opens to the next.
Strato 2 will contain a whole heaping of new levels, as well as every level from Strato 1. The Strato 1 levels are presented as they were in 2009, with (sometimes heavy) tweaks to the level layouts to better accommodate Strato 2's expanded gameplay. Strato 2's new levels, on the other hand, are split into multiple sections for faster paced gameplay, and contain some very smooth and fluid cartoon graphics!
Oh, and one more thing; this game has two player co-op! A buddy can drop in whenever they please and you two can team up. Don't ask me how I got the multiplayer camera working with the endlessly looping levels, I cannot explain that ungodly black magic coding in words.
DEFAULT CONTROLS (KEYBOARD + MOUSE):
Move - Arrow Keys, WASD
Shoot - Z, Left Click
Strafe - X, Right Click
Strafe Left - N/A
Strafe Right - N/A
Powerup - C, Shift, Middle Click
Start - Enter, ESC (Won't close the game this time!)
Move - Arrow Keys, WASD
Shoot - Z, Left Click
DEFAULT CONTROLS (GAMEPAD, XBOX LAYOUT):
Move - D-Pad, Analog Stick
Shoot - A, LT
Strafe - B, RT
Strafe Left - Right Analog Stick
Strafe Right - Right Analog Stick
Powerup - X, LB, RB
Start - Start
Confirm - A
Deny - B
Story
Welcome to the United States of Craziness, a galaxy where anything goes. Thanks to Unlimit Energy, anyone can do whatever they want, provided they gather enough of it. You can go to Brazil! You can smear sunscreen on your liver! You can even shoot frozen yogurt out of your armpits!
The Powerful Monkey Council is a group of magic monkeys who are perfectly attuned to Unlimit Energy and can easily control it. For this reason they are frequently sought after by evildoers, such as Sticky Funnybone of the skeletal Ribson family. In 2009, the evil skeleton tried to capture the powerful monkey council and make them his perfect power source, but he was stopped by his mortal enemies, the Super Freaks, in their brand new Grand Gyros.
The year is 2024, and things are as different as they are the same. The Super Freaks grew more powerful, and gained new forms and appearances. Meanwhile, after a time travel incident, Sticky’s hated brother Kranion stepped in and replaced him for a while as the galaxy’s most feared evil skeleton, and the other Ribsons followed suit.
After Kranion was forced to seek out Sticky to reluctantly ally with him, the evil skeletons now share equal prominence, which they hate more than anything—but the enemy of my enemy is my friend, after all. While Sticky’s Stronghold was under renovation, he was forced to stay at the Ribson household for the weekend, and put up with his half siblings: Kranion, younger brother Krankenspine, sister Whipeon, and the three headed cousin Geryon. He was also never too fond of his father Marrow Prime’s wife, Karen. And yet, the ever-scheming skeleton knew something useful when he saw it; all of these evil skeletons he was unfortunately related to were some of the strongest beings in the universe. Suddenly, hunting down and capturing the Monkey Council didn’t seem like such a sky-high notion afterall. Against his better judgement, Sticky decided to recruit the entire Ribson clan to do his dirty work.
Of course, if we were to repeat what happened in 2009, it was time for the Super Freaks to head back to the stratosphere. By a funny coincidence, they were just giving their Grand Gyros a new paint job when they noticed the massive skullships darken the skies. The Super Freaks no longer feared Sticky or Kranion, but the whole Ribson family ravaging the galaxy raised their eyebrows. They needed to act fast. Luckily, they had a lot going for them; Scruffy’s training in Brazil gave him white gloves. Gambi finally got that teardrop shaped head! With these new powers, and a whole helping of unwilling participants yoinked from a capsule machine, the Super Freaks were going to rattle some bones.
Download
Development log
- 3.1 Demo74 days ago
- Strato Freaks 2 Demo 376 days ago
- TV Tower and SAGE 202491 days ago
- Demo 2Jul 17, 2024
- Demo 1.3Jul 04, 2024
- Demo 1.2 Early Alpha: now with strafing!Jul 02, 2024
- Demo 1.1Jul 01, 2024
Comments
Log in with itch.io to leave a comment.
Splendid game, its style reminds me of the small 90s arcade games on the PC, it's so ironically campy that it cycles back to being unironically genuine: adding to how fun it is.
The smoothness of the gameplay, amplified by the consistently creative and speedy level design engages me to a point of addiction, and while I wish to clench my teeth more, I still love the casual P&P nature of it.
Overall, very nice all around, while I'm not familiar with the rest of Strato-freaks, I liked what was on display in this demo.
heyo, long-time super freaks fan here! i've been following the scruffy franchise since back when the name of your youtube channel was just your actual name - in fact, you were actually one of my earliest major inspirations for getting into game design myself. (and now im going to college for it!) i used to obsess over the strato-scruffy devlogs when i was younger, as well as basically any other scruffy content that you had, so seeing the game not only come together and actually release but recieve a more fleshed-out sequel has has made me really happy to see. i gave the demo a shot and its been really enjoyable so far! that being said, there is some feedback i'd like to share and this seemed like a good place to do it.
for one, the relationship between sticky survival mode and the boss feels a bit strange at the moment. currently (and im not sure if this is intentional), if you enter sticky survival before the boss then he leaves when you enter, but if you enter the boss with time remaining then when it runs out he will spawn in there with you. this wouldn't be hard to get rid of, but either way if you're going for a high score it makes the hot clock feel less like a timer and more like a progress bar, since there's no real incentive to do anything other than grind until it hits zero and then either go straight to the boss when sticky spawns, or try to survive him for a bit and then go to the boss. that's not necessarily a bad thing, since its meant to add a sense of risk, but the sudden death thing doesn't make things feel particularly risky either since you've likely already accumulated a lot of hp at that point and its very easy to just leave the second he spawns regardless.
i do have some suggestions for things that could maybe mitigate this. for one, maybe it'd be more interesting if sticky survival had some particular effect on how the boss plays out, like maybe if he activates in or is active by the time you reach the arena, he drops a giant cartoon bomb in the arena or something and then you have a hard limit on how much time you have to beat the boss before the arena explodes and you die. (the instant death thing should probably carry over as well if it doesn't already, i couldn't really tell) also, i wonder if casual and score runs would be made more interesting/tense if the hot clock for shorter levels like the ones in the demo was just significantly shorter.
another random suggestion that i thought of, since you're already taking some inspiration from pizza tower with the concept of sticky survival, i wonder if it'd be interesting if the game had some sort of p-rank equivalent. maybe the requirements could be something like a tight score requirement, maintaining your combo, and running the hot clock down to 0 before you enter the arena (maybe there could also be some way to maintain your combo while you are fighting the boss, like carrying over the spewing yorbs thing from the bosses in ultimate edition 1 or something) this is just a suggestion though, i'm sure the score attack mechanics would make for a fun experience either way.
think that's about it for feedback. sorry in advance if any of this comes off as overly negative or telling you how to make your game, that isn't my intention. it's just that writing feedback isn't something i do super often, and i just didn't really have much to say about the things in the game that i did like since it's just a basic premise that's really well executed.
it's been very nostalgic actually seeing this franchise become "active" again, so thanks again for just being who you are and doing what you do, and for defining such a significant part of my childhood. wish you the best! :D
OMG hey that’s so sweet thanks so much!!! You have no idea how good it felt finally finishing Strato last year. Same with 1 Ultimate, that one at least came together quickly but there’s no greater feeling than finally releasing that first “big” game. That’s really sweet that you’ve been following me all these years, I really owed everyone these games and nothing makes me happier than knowing I was able to pull it off and give you what you wanted. I hope your college life goes well, it’s not easy but it will be worth it!
As far as Strato 2… so funny story, Sticky being able to show up during the boss fight, that’s a bug and I should probably fix that, thanks for finding that! The idea is basically that when he shows up, you get as many points as possible while he hunts you down, and you can either keep that number going higher or go to the boss and kill it. I’m ok with keeping the boss easy enough and without any difficulty alterations since by that point if you have a big score the pressure of losing it right at the end is pretty high. It is an admittedly pretty weird scoring system that I’ll probably need to rebalance a lot. It’s a far weirder designed game than Strato 1 so I definitely think I’ll need all the feedback I can get—I’m usually pretty good about getting all this stuff refined in my head ahead of time but sometimes you can’t avoid overhauling stuff. That’s ok though!
Thanks again for the love (and feedback), I’ll do you proud!
This game is better than the time I injected funfetti into baked chicken.
And that was a 5/5 too!
bones
bones
This game is so freaking epic
it's so real
STRATO FREAKS MORE LIKE STRATO PEAK
H
he WILL return.
Mayor Cheddar will return in Turbo Leaper Endgame