WIP: Boingy Uppy

[sh3-rg]

Not sure if I should post this just yet but it's been a little quiet in here for a week and I've probably not a lot of time to do anything to it for a while, so no point letting it just sit.

 

Boingy Uppy is the name GGN gave this then when I showed him an animated gif someone posted in an Inty programming competition thread the other day, here's the gif:

 

 

There's something really nice about the movement and simplicity and it just felt like a good thing to try to make a version of during a slow morning. I did kind of get my character moving similarly, then I scrapped that and did the inverse of what I thought it was doing, then I scrapped that and went back to what I had. But none of that is actually included in this version, it's simply set to a very large, um, boingyness, so I could explore how it might feel getting projected into the unknown at great speed*.

 

 

You can bump your head on the bottoms of the bouncy things, so they should be avoided. There's not really much purpose so far, it's all a bit open ended and no real plan (nothing changes here), but I've been thinking along the lines of chaining higher scores for good clean bouncing, losing that for hitting ones head and also limiting movement a little before recovery (but not disabling left and right as I had before, or GGN will SHOUT!).

 

Obviously there's no proper player sprite gfx yet, there's going to be a little knight with some spinning moves and I'll have a crack at some perspective for the platforms maybe. The backdrop is obviously what I've spent the most time on so far, I've probably generated the graphics with GGN's tool and hand-edited them getting on for a dozen times or more, each time I decided there was another way to make it a bit better or wanted to experiment a bit. This version with the pivot points half way down the side walls and the offset object placement and scaling I'm quite happy with. I've experimented with some frame flipping for smoothing, but it's not 100% and might be more annoying than seeing a few sharp pixels for some people. Anyway, this latest version had the benefit of reducing the player gameplay width limits to about half the full display, which is not bad for a vertical game, the proportions feel right now.

 

Disclaimers:

There's no real gameplay or scoring yet, you can just boing, dodge, bump your head and die off the bottom.

*On my copies of VJ set to NTSC the game reports 62.5fps and seemingly runs at half speed (not uncommon with my rb+ stuff for some reason). So playing on VJ might feel a bit boring and slow.

The screen might be dark for you, it looks dark in a window on the emulator and in the screenshot above, but looks fine on my TV...

 

Give it a try and feel free to offer any feedback/suggestions type stuff and apologies for the tl;dr.

 

boingy.rom

boingy.abs

[Sporadic]

Sounds cool, can't wait to look! Won't get chance to check it out till at least tomorrow though.

[Albert]

Neat! This is like Bell Hopper in the 2600 collection The Byte Before Christmas:

 

 

Colors are a bit brighter for the version included in the cartridge.

 

This game has lots of potential to add all sorts of interesting gameplay elements.

 

..Al

[ggn]

Boingy Uppy is the name GGN gave this then when I showed him an animated gif someone posted in an Inty programming competition thread the other day,

Oh dear, my reputation! It is ruined!

 

(but not disabling left and right as I had before, or GGN will SHOUT!).

Well, every time sh3 committed stuff to svn he was explaining patiently what was the deal with that. But given I was in the same state of mind that came up with the name of the game, it is evident that I was in Mr Derp mode and wasn't really paying any attention to what he was writing...

[sh3-rg]

Got back too late for an edit so here's a vidya:

 

[Zerosquare]

So, basically, it's a reverse Downfall?

 

I like the perspective effect and the sounds

Edited September 15, 2015 by Zerosquare

[ggn]

So, basically, it's a reverse Downfall?

 

I like the perspective effect and the sounds

 

And downfall of course is sfdx turned by 90 degrees (if you remember a certain youtube video by a certain retard). REBOOT IS ALWAYS DOING THE SAME GAME! THEY'RE A SHAM!11111OONEONEONEONOENOeneonoenenefumesfumesfumesdroolfumesdrool

Edited September 15, 2015 by ggn

[+CyranoJ]

JUST WAIT FOR MY SCROLLING RIGHT TO LEFT GAME!!!!!!!!

 

(oh, wait, there's a cheat code in SFDX for that... bah)

Edited September 15, 2015 by CyranoJ

[sh3-rg]

This game has lots of potential to add all sorts of interesting gameplay elements.

 

..Al

 

It does and it's surprising how adding the tiniest elements change the whole feel and point you in other directions.

 

I wasn't supposed to find time to do this, but added rotary controls last night and it's definitely starting to get the feel of some crazy fast, twitchy 2600 spinner game thing. Very little to it from my end, but GGN had the fun of finding where and how gcc was bringing the pain. Zero's rotary code is very tidy. I fully expected to have to arse around with smoothing and weighting previous readings, but it's a magic box - you just ask and receive bacon.

 

I also added jump cancelling on B-button press and with a short delay timer. Holding B makes the player jump around like he's operating a jack hammer, which feels quite fun. This feature also makes me lean towards wanting to punish for bumping the head on the bottom of platforms, because it's completely avoidable now. SO not sure where this might go, but it definitely feels more fluid and fun on rotary, so I think the regular pad controls will be done away with.

 

Press B on regular pad in left port to start normal game.

 

Press B on rotary pad in right port to start spinner game.

 

Hold B to jack hammer. L/R or spin to steer.

 

boingy.abs

[sh3-rg]

So, basically, it's a reverse Downfall?

 

Hah, SCPCD said the same thing, but it's not really because you are in control of the scrolling, it's not something you fight against.

 

But yeah, uFLY is SFDX and this thing is downfall I must be lacking in ideas

[ggn]

you just ask and receive bacon.

Mmmmm, bacon

 

 

 

 

Hah, SCPCD said the same thing, but it's not really because you are in control of the scrolling, it's not something you fight against.

 

But yeah, uFLY is SFDX and this thing is downfall I must be lacking in ideas

Then in a few years we'll release prolog for jaguar and we'll find some AI student to port all the games again to that!

[GroovyBee]

I can see this game going Minteresque if you let it . How about keeping head bumping in, but you have to collect headache pills to counteract it .

[sh3-rg]

I can see this game going Minteresque if you let it .

Goat Up?

 

How about keeping head bumping in, but you have to collect headache pills to counteract it .

I think having lots of collects for *something* is a plan, there's plenty of scope for that. There is actually a full screen particle/text overlay on top of everything, and as I bastardised something else to start this one and just left it there... but it was set to be scaled x2, but there's still a ton of bandwidth and time left more for stuff with that there, so it definitely could get messy I began fiddling with particles again to possibly brighten up the jumping action a bit!

 

But now I really must get back to work and stop thinking about this... thing.

[Sporadic]

Sounds cool, can't wait to look! Won't get chance to check it out till at least tomorrow though.

Scratch that, I'm basically away until Sunday now. I'm having major rb+ and Jaguar withdrawals. Someone please help me lol

 

This will be the first thing I fire up when I get back though Imagine how even moar awesome it will be by the end of the week!!!

 

Please keep non-rotary controls as an option for us peasants

[sh3-rg]

It's already evan moar ossum!!!1

 

So here's a version with the front section of the generated gfx removed and replaced with some sub-pixel positioning of a 2x272-high strip matching up with the 240-high sidewalls. That saved ~400k. There's also an outside world to see (it's a sunny day with a very blue sky, you can imagine the white is the odd bit of cloud if you like). You can see it through some windows as well, those kind of help along the perspective stuff.

 

Normal pad is still in, but it feels pretty meh to "play" with. Spinner just feels right (with zero's instructions you can make a switchable one for a few quid!).

 

Think maybe I'll stick a ton of ching-ching-ching collects in next and see how that feels.

 

boingy.abs

boingy.rom

 

(the packed abs in the ROM above is well under 512k)

 

BTW, something fun happens if you leave him boinging away in a tight spot - the OP falls on its arse after a number of minutes. I think I know what it might be, but not looked at it yet.

[+CyranoJ]

That really does not work in VJ, does it?

 

SHAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAMMUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS!!!!!!!!

[ggn]

Please keep non-rotary controls as an option for us peasants

 

Switching between rotary and jagpad isn't too difficult anyway. In downfall falcon I enabled rotary mode if I scanned joypad left + right at the same time, and went back to dpad if up or down was pressed.

[Sporadic]

Finally had chance to play this. It was a fun and hilarious experience. You have to keep the boingy boing booingnggggg sounds in.

 

Love the perspective effect on the walls too, nice sense of depth etc.

 

As others have said, plenty of scope for pickups/collectables/modifiers.

 

Will be interesting to see where you take this

[sh3-rg]

Thanks for taking a look. Have left it alone since then, hoping for a flash of inspiration as to where to take it, but I started yet another "thing" and all thoughts have been less boingy and more side-scrolly. Done with that now though, it was a bit crappy :0)

 

The boings will stay, they have to!