Bernie & the Tower of Doom [WIP]

[+Muddyfunster]

Bernie and The Tower of Doom

 

Bernie and the Tower of Doom is a puzzle game that follows our hero Bernie in his exploits after he escaped from the Cubic Prison (the other Bernie game that i've not finished yet, link in sig if you want to check it out...  ).

 

BTOD is a puzzle game, not a platform game so it controls more like Milly and Molly or Bouldedash, it's not Sonic or Mario.

 

Suggestions, feedback and bug reports are very welcome!

 

Background

 

Bernie is contacted one Friday afternoon by his old friend "Melvin the Really Forgetful" as the evil robot from "Bernie and the Cubic Conundrum" has escaped his Cubic prison to wreak havoc on the peaceful world of Oonie. scattered across the world of Oonie are old towers from "the time before". No one knows what they are for, or who built them but Cedric the evil robot has taken over them and is mind warping the inhabitants of the land.

 

Controls

 

Overworld Map

Left, Right, Up, Down - Move Bernie.

Button 2 - Interact with location items (monuments, quest items, signposts) or world markers, enter towers.

 

In the Tower. 

Left, Right, Up, Down - Move Bernie.

Button 2 - Jump.

Button 1 long press (about 4 secs) - reset the current screen.

 

Transit Levels

TBD.

 

Scoring 

Each attempt on a level adds 1 to your score, so at the end of the game, the lower the score the better. 

 

UI

 

The UI at the bottom of the screen shows how many attempts that you have left for the current tower (if you run out, Melvin's magic can't hold you in there and you get booted out and have to do that Tower again). It also shows the tower number and level number and finally on the right side it shows how many stars you have collected and how many you need to progress.

 

How to Play

 

Explore the map, talk to the characters (they will tell you generally where to go and what to do). Enter a tower and on each level collect all of the star boxes.

 

Each tower usually has 5 levels, once you complete the 5th level you shut that tower down.

 

Enemies should be avoided or otherwise dealt with using the environment  (You are Bernie, not Mario!)

 

Some levels have "blockers" and you will need to find the right "key" to get past them.

 

Some levels have blocks that can be "popped". 

 

If Bernie falls a long way, he will be stunned for a second or two.

 

If you get stuck (it can happen - it's a puzzle game remember) then do a long press of button 1 to reset the level.

 

ZOMG GIEF ME THE ROMZ!!

 

You can find the latest demo at the bottom of the post.

 

It should work on A7800, Bup, Argon, Dragonfly and Mister. It may work on legacy boards that support 256k images.

 

Roadmap & stuff to be added

 

• Music - the plan is to add some Pokey tunes. 
• SFX - current build has no sfx.
• More areas. Right now we have the forested area, there were be more added. 
• More levels, the plan is to have around 100 levels in total.
• On Rom instructions. I like to have these in my games and they are a bit of fun.
• Options, various things here like load and save game (savekey, av etc will be supported).
• Transit levels, more on this later.
• More cutscenes and story elements.
• Map animation.
• Collision tweaks.
• Additional environment elements.

 

Credits & Thanks

 

Thanks to @sramirez2008 @Trebor @-^CrossBow^- BTOD's resident code murderers, who beat, batter and torture every build in the spirit of bug removal and gameplay enhancement!

Special thanks to @ZeroPage Homebrew for previewing the game and inviting me on to chat about it and as always finding a bug that I missed  

Special thanks to Dave Hughes for additional graphics and level design.

 

Some screenies

 

 

 

Demo

 

Public Demo 1 is now available for testing

Bernie_TOD_145_pubdemo1.a78

Edited December 29, 2022 by Muddyfunster
demo

[+Muddyfunster]

<reserved for extra stuff> 

[Silver Back]

Reminds me a bit of Rikki and Vikki in having the cutscenes, single screen puzzles and the ability to fall from the bottom of the screen and wrap to the top (ZPH stream showed this aspect off). Can't wait to give it a try, seems like it'll be a nice addition to the 7800 library. 

[+littaum]

Really nice looking puzzler.  It takes a lot of creativity to make all of those interesting levels!

[Cousin Vinnie]

dude- get out

[vhzc]

Really nice looking sprite and tilework.

 

[+ZeroPage Homebrew]

Thank you so much again to Lewis Hill @Muddyfunster for staying up late and premiering his incredibly fun puzzle platformer on ZPH! While you're waiting for the demo to be released you can check out the live world premiere of the game on YouTube if you didn't get a chance to watch it streaming! Skip to 22:20 if you want to jump right into the game.

 

(WATCH AT 1080P60 FOR FULL QUALITY)

 

- James

[SlidellMan]

Is this like Lode Runner? (Just curious.)

[+Muddyfunster]

A little update :

 

I decided to finish up the 3rd tower before releasing the demo, so that means the demo should be available on 29th or 30th, depends how the brewing goes  and it means there will be 15 or so levels for folks to have a play with. 

 

Here's a little teaser of Tower 3 :

 

 

 

On 12/21/2022 at 12:42 AM, SlidellMan said:

Is this like Lode Runner? (Just curious.)

 

I don't think so, but it's probably been 25 years since I played Lode Runner  

Edited December 27, 2022 by Muddyfunster

[+Trebor]

Fantastic and super excited!  This game's graphic and character details are excellent. 

Most importantly, the gameplay is spot on - looking forward to tackling the 3rd tower!

[+Muddyfunster]

I've added a demo download in the first post of this thread.

 

A few comments:

 

The demo has 3 towers and 15 levels (you will need to wonder around the map a bit). If you manage to complete all 15 levels then you get a sneak peak at some other stuff

 

This is a work in progress demo, there are likely bugs and glitches, the usual caveats. 

 

Remember if you get stuck, a long (5 seconds or so) press on button 1 will reset the level.

 

The demo has no sound or music yet and will not work on Concerto due to the size (it's 256K - sorry). My plan in the future is convert the existing code to Banksets which I think will reduce the file size. Right now I use a lot of rom inefficiently to include lots of graphics, with Banksets I think I can include lots of graphics without needing lots of banks that are half empty  

 

Anyway, questions, feedback and comments are welcome!

Edited December 29, 2022 by Muddyfunster

[gambler172]

Hi Muddy

Another great game. But why is it so damn heavy? Moving is very sensitive.

This is the same like.RnV...good game....heavy to play.

Greetings Walter

[+Pac-Lander]

Looks fantastic. Incredibly impressive graphic work. Love the detail and design. 

[+Muddyfunster]

On 12/30/2022 at 5:24 PM, gambler172 said:

Hi Muddy

Another great game. But why is it so damn heavy? Moving is very sensitive.

This is the same like.RnV...good game....heavy to play.

Greetings Walter

Thanks Walter   I would say is think of it as a puzzle game not a platformer. In most situations, you have time to consider your strategy. I will take a look at the controls (it's on the to-do list).

 

Some levels are very puzzley, some are more action oriented. 

 

On 12/30/2022 at 10:17 PM, Pac-Lander said:

Looks fantastic. Incredibly impressive graphic work. Love the detail and design. 

Thanks  

 

BTW, did anyone beat the demo and get the "reward" ? (ok, it's not much of a reward, just a quick look at some stuff that will come later).

 

 

[gambler172]

Well....I get better. Finished four screens

[+Trebor]

9 hours ago, Muddyfunster said:

BTW, did anyone beat the demo and get the "reward" ? (ok, it's not much of a reward, just a quick look at some stuff that will come later).

[+sramirez2008]

Me too!

[+Muddyfunster]

Nice job you guys. 👍🏻

[+x=usr(1536)]

Factually-incorrect statement was factually-incorrect.  Deleted 

[Flashback]

it works fine with my PAL Console and the Dragonfly

 

Somtimes it crashes with a green screen in tower #2 and #3

[+Muddyfunster]

Thanks for the feedback, 

 

The current demo will work on PAL but it isn’t optimised for PAL yet (palette, speeds etc)

 

 

[mhodgeshvs]

I’m just replying to make sure I stay posted on this project and don’t miss out!

[+Muddyfunster]

Originally, the opening story sequence was going to be quite different. Instead of Bernie and Mrs. B drinking tea in the kitchen, Bernie was going to be in the bath.

 

It didn't seem to work as well, so I changed to the kitchen idea. 

 

Here's the original prototype.

 

vs the scene in game

 

 

[+karri]

10 minutes ago, Muddyfunster said:

Originally, the opening story sequence was going to be quite different. Instead of Bernie and Mrs. B drinking tea in the kitchen, Bernie was going to be in the bath.

 

It didn't seem to work as well, so I changed to the kitchen idea. 

 

Here's the original prototype.

 

vs the scene in game

 

 

I remember playing the demo. Your story is so cute. The cutscenes are sweet and nicely animated.

 

When I played the 7800 entries in January there were a few entries that did not start on the Analogue Pocket. This was one of them

"Error in framework. File ID [256] too large"
It worked nicely on the a7800.

I still have to try it on the real PAL console.

 

Most of the other entries played nicely on the new fpga atari7800 core.

 

This is definitely my kind of game. Although I did not succeed to get too far in the game. A bit limited on time right now.

 

[+sramirez2008]

11 hours ago, Muddyfunster said:

Originally, the opening story sequence was going to be quite different. Instead of Bernie and Mrs. B drinking tea in the kitchen, Bernie was going to be in the bath.

I like it. Maybe this can become something to unlock?