Berta And Butterflies - in development

[Dalton]

In March a programming competition started in Poland, where I live - https://100commitow.pl/

You need to develop an open-source project and commit at least once in a day for 100 days.

 

For several months I wanted to write something for Atari 2600. The contest finally motivated me to try it

Here is my repo: https://github.com/vandalton/BertaAndButterflies

I have the idea for the game, but it is not yet revealed

 

I hope that the result will be playable!

 

 

Current version: berta-and-butterflies.v0.51.ntsc.intl.bin berta-and-butterflies.v0.51.pal60.intl.bin

Current high score: 415 in the Beginner level - Mieszko (my work collegue)

 

Update 2024-04-19: v0.51

- "International" title screen

- Indication of the difficulty level. When the cloud is over "A" letter on the title screen it means "Advanced", while "B" means "Beginner". In the "beginner" mode the net is yellow and in the "advanced" mode it is red

 

Update 2024-04-16: v0.32 

- title screen with music (currently Polish version, but there will be also "International" version ;))

- two difficulty levels - you can switch them while you are on the title screen; there is no mark of the choosen level yet

- you can get back to the title screen after game is over

- butterflies are speeding up, the game is harder now

berta-and-butterflies.v0.32.bin

Edited April 19 by Dalton
New version

[Thomas Jentzsch]

Top Tip: Always attach a ROM if you want feedback. Screenshots help too.  

Edited March 4 by Thomas Jentzsch

[Dalton]

Sure, I've just started, there is not much to show yet

[+SpiceWare]

Good Luck!

 

You might find my Collect tutorial helpful, covers writing a 2K game from scratch.

 

 

[Bomberman94]

Nice idea with the diary for the game - Berta looks promising 😀👍

[Dalton]

So, my idea is to create a "port" of Game & Watch "Egg" game: https://nintendo.fandom.com/wiki/Egg

But I'm going to replace the main character with Berta - a small elephant based on my wife's stuffed toy  And there are butterflies instead of eggs.

 

You can find more details in the dairy: https://github.com/vandalton/BertaAndButterflies/blob/main/DIARY.md

 

And here is the first version in which you can actually score a point, but you cannot lose life yet:

 

berta-and-butterflies.v0.1.bin

[Dalton]

OK, so here is an update. In this version you can actually play - you can lose your three lives, there are sounds, there is "animation" of failure.

You cannot restart game yet  And butterflies are released at constant rate at the moment, so the game is pretty easy. It will be harder soon and there will be two difficulty levels.

berta-and-butterflies.v0.2.bin

[Dalton]

I thought it would be better to put all these intermediate versions in the first post of this topic. So there is another update there - v0.32

 

Update 2024-04-16: v0.32 

- title screen with music (currently Polish version, but there will be also "International" version ;))

- two difficulty levels - you can switch them while you are on the title screen; there is no mark of the choosen level yet

- you can get back to the title screen after game is over

- butterflies are speeding up, the game is harder now

[Dalton]

Today is a 50th day of the "100 commits" competition, so here is another update. 

 

Update 2024-04-19: v0.51

- "International" title screen

- Indication of the difficulty level. When the cloud is over "A" letter on the title screen it means "Advanced", while "B" means "Beginner". In the "beginner" mode the net is yellow and in the "advanced" mode it is red

 

I don't plan to make any significant changes and the game is close to be finished. When comes to the competition, now I'll focus on different elements/subprojects - labels for physical cartridges, manual, special SNES controller adapter and so on. 

 

When I started this project I didn't know that "batari Basic" exists. It turned out it is a perfect tool for creating my first game. I know it's simple, but it looks exactly like I imagined it before I started coding. So, big big thank you for all the batari Basic creators!

 

If any moderator reads it: could you move this topic to the "batari Basic" subforum? 

[Dalton]

No game update this time, but here is a very early draft of possible cartridge cover

[+ZeroPage Homebrew]

 ZeroPage Homebrew is playing Berta and Butterflies on tomorrow's ZPH stream LIVE on Twitch! Hope you can join us!

 

Fri Apr 26, 2024 | LIVE @ 12PM PT | 3PM ET | 7PM GMT

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

WATCH LATER: https://youtube.com/zeropagehomebrew/

 

Games:

• Robo Tito (2024 Exclusive World Premiere | 2600) by VHZC Games / Vladimir Zuñiga @vhzc
• Ninja Kombat (2024 WIP | 2600) by Shawn O'Brion @freshbrood
• Berta and Butterflies (2024 WIP | 2600) by Sławomir Krysztowiak @Dalton
• Paddlefield (2024 WIP Update | 2600) by Thomas Jentzsch @Thomas Jentzsch