Frogus

[SIO2]

In giving it more thought, I think that the burdensome way Frogus handles the cars has to go.  I like the randomness of it but, it is too heavy of a load for the old machine.

 

I have done some testing with a pre-generated field of cars and it runs much faster.  I have also done some experimenting with a second player.  My idea for that is: the frog vs a ms. pac like creature or perhaps the mouth from my game Sick Pickles.  The field of obstacles will be a mixture of cars and ghosts.  The frog will race to collect flies while the ms. pac like creature will race to collect fruit or perhaps pickles.  Whoever eats more before the timer runs out wins the round.  

 

 

 

 

 

[SIO2]

NostAlgae37 was kind enough to provide some new sprites with frog that displays more movement, a new fly and some smaller cars that folks were wanting.   So, I have put those sprites in to what I was working on last.

 

I was working on switching from a continuously randomly generated field of cars to a pre-generated field of cars when things got busy around here and this project got set aside.  So, there are a number of glitches and rough spots in the attached files.  For example, the option to set difficulty level (dense traffic, light traffic, normal traffic) is still in the menu but will not affect the number of cars on screen at this point.  There is also an option in the menu to select the color of your frog.  The color of the frog sprite and the color of the frogs in the caves does not always match and so on.

 

Oh, one interesting glitch is that the old way I was doing things the program would not insert a fly near a car.  Since it was constantly inserting and removing cars, it just put a fly in between cars.  With the constant field, I had to come up with a different way making sure the fly didn't get placed on top of a car.  That part I got but, currently there is nothing preventing it from putting the fly right back in the same place you just picked one up.  So, you may get multiple flys at one time.  Needs work obviously.

 

frogus08042019.bin frogus.bas.a78

Edited August 5, 2019 by SIO2

[NostAlgae37]

SIO2 hasn't been active here for awhile...  His attentions have been elsewhere, methinks.  I was hoping to see further development on this game; I think it has a lot of potential.

[+ZeroPage Homebrew]

ZeroPage Homebrew is playing Frogus on tomorrow's stream LIVE on Twitch, hope you can join us!

 

Tue Apr 5 @ 6PM PT | 9PM ET | 1AM GMT+1Day

WATCH: https://www.twitch.tv/zeropagehomebrew/

Games:

• Rip-Off (2012 | 7800) by Bob DeCrescenzo @PacManPlus
• Frogus (2019 WIP | 7800) by Brek Brixius @SIO2
• Super Circus AtariAge (2017 | 7800) by Bob DeCrescenzo @PacManPlus

 (WATCH AT 1080P60 FOR FULL QUALITY)

 

 

[Silver Back]

I really like this take on Frogger!  Can we expect anymore work on this one?

[SIO2]

On 4/5/2022 at 8:26 PM, Silver Back said:

I really like this take on Frogger!  Can we expect anymore work on this one?

It is possible but, this project has gone very cold for me. 

 

I did enjoy the ZPH video though.

 

At least I have gathered my resources on this and glanced at the code again.

[SIO2]

Support has ended for previous versions of Frogus. 

Please purchase a new 7800 and upgrade your software.

 

Just being silly but there is an update.  See below.

frogus10102022.a78 frogus10102022.bin

[SIO2]

Fixed a couple of bugs and added another car to dense traffic. Also changed the way the pattern of cars is generated again. Originally, it was entirely random. As soon as a car left the screen another one would be randomly inserted. That made too much work for the 7800. The last post had a field of cars generated randomly but before the game and then it stayed that way until the game was over. This one, gets a new randomly generated field of cars every time the frog crosses the top line or enters a cave/slot (whatever you want to call it) depending on the options you chose.

 

frogus10202022.a78frogus10202022.bin

 

Oh, forgot I also narrowed the road a bit to help prevent frog from easily slipping between lanes of cars.

 

Also, I am open to some color suggestions (mainly for the road). On my emulator these colors look nice. On real hardware, the road is a bit darker but still fine and I could adjust my TV.  I noticed though on JS7800 it looks kind of dark - better if I selected the cool light palette.  Still, I would be interested to hear people's thoughts.

Edited October 20, 2022 by SIO2
Forgot somethings

[gambler172]

Hi Brekk

I like all your games 👍

[+Pat Brady]

On 7/4/2019 at 12:19 PM, SIO2 said:

That is the way Frogger plays but not the way this game plays.  I am wanting to avoid this becoming a clone of Frogger.

 

Have you considered making the character something other than a frog? It's obviously in the same genre as Frogger, but the gameplay is quite a bit different. IMO using a frog sets the expectation that it plays like Frogger, and using some other animal would soften that expectation. Also, some other animal might better match the fine-grained movement.

 

[SIO2]

11 hours ago, Pat Brady said:

 

Have you considered making the character something other than a frog? It's obviously in the same genre as Frogger, but the gameplay is quite a bit different. IMO using a frog sets the expectation that it plays like Frogger, and using some other animal would soften that expectation. Also, some other animal might better match the fine-grained movement.

 

Frogus would be an odd name for a game about a mongoose.  

 

Someone suggested it could be Toader but IMHO that would be toaderly inappropriate. He he.

 

Hmmmm. A commonly recognizable animal you might see on the road that runs and corners quickly... I know - a chicken! LOL.

 

Just having some fun.  I will give that some thought. I have to say though, I am partial to the orange (poison dart) frog and frogs do come in many colors. So, that works well for offering color options in the game. A lot of animals do not come in so many or such bright color variations.

 

Thank you for your suggestion.

 

 

[SIO2]

I have been thinking about the expectation that the frog behave a certain way. I think that is just unfair to frogs in general and especially so for this video frog. I mean, are hedgehogs really that fast? Do they spin dash in real life? Are porcupines zippy?

 

I did some search engine research and according to those results, hedgehogs can run 4 miles per hour. Porcupines can run 6 miles per hour. Frogs can average 10 miles per hour on land and up to 50 miles per hour in water. Plus, not all frogs use the hop and stop method of locomotion - such as the red legged running frog. So if we imagine that Frogus might have a little RLRF DNA in him, he should be able to run circles around those other game critters.

 

Besides, there aren't that many animals that like to catch flies.

 

Considering all that and the fact that I have already created the label art I want to use means I am going stick with the frog on this one.

 

 

 

 

Edited October 21, 2022 by SIO2
Just because I could

[gambler172]

Hi Brek

Checked Frogus on real hardware.

Lite on the Car option is ok...normal is damn hard and the 3rd option is nearly impossible to beat. But the game is great. I like it. 

[SIO2]

Are there any pixel artists out there that might want to contribute some piranha sprites?

 

I am thinking the possibility of a water level where the cars would be replaced by piranha.

 

The sprites would need to be 24 pixels wide (or less) and 16 pixels tall and 3 colors (or less) plus transparency.

 

Just fishing for input here.

 

The attached file is just for reference to show the size needed.

 

<------------------  the sprite is that tiny spec LOL.  Not sure how to fix that.

Edited October 26, 2022 by SIO2

[TIX]

Hey @SIO2,

I like your game, although it's impossibly hard for me.. 🙄

 

here is a top down piranha (to match the perspective), !

 

21x15, 3 colors, animated in 2 frames  ->     and the frames  ->

 

Edited October 30, 2022 by TIX

[SIO2]

11 hours ago, TIX said:

Hey @SIO2,

I like your game, although it's impossibly hard for me.. 🙄

 

here is a top down piranha (to match the perspective), !

 

21x15, 3 colors, animated in 2 frames  ->     and the frames  ->

 

 

That is awesome!  Thank you so much for creating this.  I love it.

[TIX]

3 hours ago, SIO2 said:

That is awesome!  Thank you so much for creating this.  I love it.

 

Any time !

 

 

 

Edited October 30, 2022 by TIX