Panky the Panda - new WIP homebrew

[e1will]

If a game has no violence or killing in it but has some crude sexual aspect to it - is it more or less family friendly than most video games where you kill things indiscriminately with no repercussions?

 

Depends on the family, dunnit? I mean, what if it's Chuck Norris' family we're talking about...

 

Why don't you do it this way: make it dependent on the difficulty switch, so:

 

A = violence and killings

B = penises

 

That way everyone's happy!

 

--Will

[jrok]

My guess is most people aren't really talking about morality or family-friendliness here, but just taste. I mean, humor is tough. What sounds funny to one guy might just make another guy roll his eyes. It's also just such a good, polished game that it the concept feels jarring rather than whimsical or Atari-weird. "Severed penises" seems like something meant to jazz up an inferior game, and this is an excellent one.

 

But, it's your baby. If unsevered penises (penii?) is what you want, not a man among us can stop you.

[raindog]

They're right, it clearly needs a new name. I'm thinking "Panky Panda and the Attack of the Humorless Twats".

 

I eagerly await the E-rated hack, "Panky Panda and the Quest for the Un-dunked Teabag".

 

This is one of the coolest homebrews I've seen in a long time. You should be proud to call it whatever you'd like to call it.

[Jess Ragan]

America is afraid of penises. News at 11!

[Ben_Larson]

Here's a new title screen with some theme music.

 

This theme music is actually the chorus of a song I wrote a while back for this band I was in with my friends for like... 2.4 seconds.

 

Figured I might as recycle it as the Panky the Panda theme song since it's kinda upbeat and catchy and seems to fit...

titlescreen.bin

[+Nathan Strum]

Catchy!

[Albert]

Great title screen and music!

 

..Al

[johnny_boy]

I agree on the idea of a new name. The low-brow humour doesn't hit it with everyone, and I wish this game to reach as large an audience as possible, even if it is just an 2600-aware one. "Panky Panda" is a good start.

 

The game is a cool demonstration of what the 2600 is capable of, in a platform adventure format.

[Ben_Larson]

Hey guys,

 

I decided to utilize the additional ROM space to do some in-game music, so I've been feverishly composing. Here's a new version with the music as well as some sound effects.

 

You won't actually hear all of the songs (3 of them in total) unless you make some progress in the game, so here's another binary which just plays the songs and allows you to cycle through them by pressing select.

 

The songs are pretty simple, but I still had to utilize Eckhard Stolberg's 'Atari 2600 VCS sound frequency and waveform guide' pretty heavily (along with my guitar). As you may be aware, the 2600 has notoriously weird sound pitch generation and the 'notes' (if you even want to call them that) are all over the place in terms of frequency and fitting into any sort of 12-note western music scale and not sounding terribly off-key. In fact if I didn't know any better I'd say the 2600's music capabilities might be better suited to play Arabic music or something...

 

Anyway, enjoy...

pp.bin

songdemo.bin

[TrekMD]

That is cool. The music and sounds work well.

[tremoloman2006]

Nice work Ben! Can't wait to see it on a cart someday!

[Devin]

Hey guys,

 

I decided to utilize the additional ROM space to do some in-game music, so I've been feverishly composing. Here's a new version with the music as well as some sound effects.

 

I love the work you did on the title screen. It is definitely one of those "I can't believe this is an 2600" moments! Are you going to add a death sound effect?

[Underball]

It's not a matter of lowbrow potty humor not appealing to some people. I love potty humor, beavis and butthead, dumb & dumber, south park, etc. When it's funny.

 

The problem is with this game/title, it's just not funny. Just kind of wierd, and stupid for a title of a video game about a Panda bear. Conjures up thoughts of beastiality or something. Kinda creepy, actually.

 

Maybe you should call it "Fappy the Panda and the Quest for the Uncensored 4chan".

[Devin]

It's not a matter of lowbrow potty humor not appealing to some people. I love potty humor, beavis and butthead, dumb & dumber, south park, etc. When it's funny.

 

The problem is with this game/title, it's just not funny. Just kind of wierd, and stupid for a title of a video game about a Panda bear. Conjures up thoughts of beastiality or something. Kinda creepy, actually.

 

Maybe you should call it "Fappy the Panda and the Quest for the Uncensored 4chan".

 

I think Panky the Panda is great name all by itself.

 

Perhaps, a tongue-in-cheek title would make everyone happy: Panky the Panda and the Mystic Bamboo.

[Ben_Larson]

Ok new version. I added the final ending sequence (which will remain secret of course), and 3 levels of difficulty for replayability purposes: normal, hard, and impossible. Normal gives you the normal 3 lives, whereas hard gives you 2, and impossible 1, for those of you who enjoy punishment and throwing controllers across the room.

 

This addition of the difficulty selection means that I had to remove the game subtitle from the title screen... so I think that should please those of you who don't like the title.

 

Of course... the backstory and game subtitle are still part of the official Panky the Panda canon, though, since retconning the storyline is obviously impossible at this late stage in the game. But yea... hopefully this compromise will suit everyone.

 

So I think everything is about done now except I need to change some things around so that sound effects work right in every room. Feel free to provide any additional feedback...

pp.bin

[TrekMD]

Excellent. I will give this version a spin. Thanks!

[Ben_Larson]

Here's an even newer version. I did a couple play-throughs myself and changed a few parts which I thought were kind of unfair in terms of jumping challenges and lack of save points.

 

There's still a bunch of secrets in the game that you need to discover in order to finish it, so it may still be kind of unfair without a manual and/or hints (especially based on modern gaming standards). I guess I would like some feedback in that regard - i.e. how hard it is to find things and discover items, secret rooms, and how use items.

 

I'm calling this one beta 1, since I think new feature development is pretty much done at this point.

 

Ben

Panky1.0Beta1.bin

[johnny_boy]

Mighty impressive. I remember playing the early WIPs, and so can appreciate even more how full the game looks now.

 

Nice title screen. The whole visual design of the game is remarkable, especially when aware of the hardware limitations.

 

Wish there was a way to turn off the music. It sounds good in the first few minutes, but then gets tiring to hear.

 

The transition between death and life indicator screen is too abrupt. I think it would be better to cook a small death animation or sound, to communicate more clearly to the player that he has failed. Think Super Mario death jingle, or Zelda 2 epileptic inducing death flash. Doesn't have to be fancy either.

 

I believe it would be neat if somehow there was a positive sound when the player finds a secret passage way.

 

It's hard to believe this is actually running on the ol' VCS. How far have we come since 1979.

 

Edit: Would be nice to have a "Game Over" screen, that lasts until player input.

Edited June 9, 2010 by johnny_boy

[Hakogame 箱亀]

I like this one better, you fixed the 2 spots I always die at (first long horizontal jump in the "orange area", and the double armadillo/rat things several screens above that).

 

I've only been able to find the boots and the flute, and so far no idea what to do with the flute or where to use it.

 

And there's a minor bug in the game (at least in Stella): start climbing on a ladder and jump, Panky's graphic will be screwed up while he jumps.

[Bakasama]

I do find that when Panky dies, it's too jarring. It really needs some kind of death animation or something.

[Devin]

I do find that when Panky dies, it's too jarring. It really needs some kind of death animation or something.

 

For falls, the classic fall sound - falling pitch sound - would work great. For hitting an enemy, Panky can be mirrored right-left very quickly and play a sound of some sort. That approach works great for Elevators Amiss.

 

Anyway, we are a needy bunch, aren't we Great game in any case.

[KevinMos3]

I love the game, but my GOODNESS it's hard. I'm glad you changed that one screen in the orange area because I had completely given up. I had a save-state right at that spot, but could never make the jump no matter how I tried.

 

I've found the winged? boots that make you jump high, the boots with cleats (not sure what these do yet), and a flute (not sure what that does yet either). I need to spend more time with it and maybe even map it out. Ah, the good ole days of mapping games like Pitfall and Secret Quest. The other day I found a map I was drawing of Bubble Trouble for the Lynx.

 

Thanks for making such an amazing game and thanks for removing the sub-name from the title screen. That really left a bad taste in my mouth. eww. ...not literally.

[Ben_Larson]

Here's a new beta version. Changes since the last one are:

 

* Added a death sequence when you hit an enemy, spikes, etc.

* Fixed screen roll issues when entering some rooms

* Tested on real hardware (thanks to my new Harmony cart) and tweaked all the colors to make text more readable, reduce color bleed, etc, on real TVs. Interesting side note: I don't know if this goes for all 7800s, but both my 4-switch and 2600Jr. seem to have much more vibrant output with less color-bleed than either of my 7800s...

 

I want to add some more sound effects but I'm literally completely out of RAM so I will have to look into the feasability of that...

Panky_the_Panda_1.0_Beta2.bin

Edited June 26, 2010 by Ben_Larson

[+Nathan Strum]

I don't know if this goes for all 7800s, but both my 4-switch and 2600Jr. seem to have much more vibrant output with less color-bleed than either of my 7800s...

I've found that to be the case as well.

[Ben_Larson]

Ok, the version I just posted earlier has a dumb bug that allows you to select the spikey boots even if you don't actually have them (during the falling-off-the-screen sequence after getting hit), so here's a new NEW version that fixes that. PAY NO ATTENTION TO THAT PREVIOUS VERSION.

Panky_the_Panda_1.0_Beta3.bin