Discussion: Pumpkin Bros

[Predseda]

I am really looking forward to this restarted project!
EDIT: maybe this post belongs to different thread (discussion), please mods move it

[DamienD]

Originally Posted by LeCaravage

After laborious debug sessions I have something that don't crash after few seconds.

The collision detection now works fine. The bottom screen flashes when a detection occurs (just a test feature). Red screen for a projectile hitting an ennemy and a green one when the hero is touched by a dangerous bob.

The way, our hero elimates an ennemy is described like this :

Hit ennemy with tomatoes, after several hits the ennemy turns into a big red ball. To finish him, you may pass through the ball and it will be ejected, slams against the walls and disappear.

Need to make the smoke trail a little bit more bigger. Carefull because if the player decide to hit 3 or 4 big balls in a row, it will add a lot of bobs during the next frames. The risk is a slowdown, but I'll try to avoid it.
The ennemy turned into a big red ball stays levitating during few seconds before returning to normal state if nothing happens.

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Great stuff LeCaravage

Originally Posted by Predseda

EDIT: maybe this post belongs to different thread (discussion), please mods move it

Done

[Gzegzolka]

Nice work

[LeCaravage]

Slowed down a little bit (33% slower) big red ball mvt's speed.
Added random differents angles of big ball mvt (amongst 16 possible vectors).
Display a bigger score points at the place where the big ball disappear (the previous was 5 pixels high and now it's 10).
Added a little background flash when the hero pass through a big ball.
Added a little background flash when the big ball disappear (when the little 50pts appears).

Looks more dynamic this way. Pleased.

This looks more and more like a game, I mean when I play I'm starting having fun. This is the first time this impression I have during tests sessions.

Next to be done :

Adding monsters warp in.
Flying hearts to pick (should be easy collision routine already ready).
Dynamic transition between 2 maps level.


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[Pyromania]

Cool game, please let me know when it’s available.

[DamienD]

Wrong section Pyromania, so I moved your post accordingly to here

Just as an FYI... anything under the Coders. Entries section is only for the game authors to post in.

Members discussions on the projects are to be done in the threads under the Coders. Contest section.

I didn't make these rules; Ian did... yet I'm the one who seems to be managing all this since the competition started

[LeCaravage]

Added the warp in sequence of monsters.
Every time new monsters appear in game scenery, they will have this "Star Trek apparition mode".
Need to tweak this effect to make it more dynamic.

Next to be done : Dynamic transitions between 2 levels.

Soory for the poor video quality.
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[malko]

Originally Posted by DamienD

[...] I didn't make these rules; Ian did... yet I'm the one who seems to be managing all this since the competition started

You are EAB's moderator HERO !

[Tigerskunk]

@leCaravage: Love your attention to details... You are a great designer...

[LeCaravage]

@all : Thanks for your kind words. Motivation goes up

[LeCaravage]

- Improved the warp appearing of ennemies. More pleased by this new version.
- Added falling hearts. You must collect them before they disappear. If they reach the ground, after a certain time, a warning message appears : 'Booom!!!'. If you wait too long (6 seconds), the heart disappear and you lose a life.

Next to do :

- When the hero grab a heart I need to add an animation, so the player understand he catch a heart.
- Dynamic transition between 2 levels.
- Mega Bomb released by hero.
- Invincibility bonus for hero.

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[LeCaravage]

- Now when hero picks a flying heart, it bounces against the wall before disapearing and let a +1 item behind it. The hero's colors also flashes from normal to a blue tone. So the player understand well he picked up a heart.
- The number of hearts to be collected in order to go to next stage is displayed in the bottom panel and decreased in real time. When reaching zero, the level is completed.
- Score is now working and updated in bottom panel.
- Different scores per ennemy added, now each killed monster gives you different score. Drawn all points items (I used Deluxe Paint 3 with the good old tank mouse).
- Speed up flash color of flying heart.
- Corrected lots of bugs (damn, when I was sure I fixed almost all bugs, I discover other ones...).
- Now the struct of a monster's occurrence is 64 bytes long, when I started, I was sure 16 byte was enough.
- Tweaked hero vs monster collision. Since I was unable to understand the clxdat and clxcon registers I need to make the box method more forgiving.
- Added copper rainbow in the bottom panel (score panel).
- Added 3 empty box icons in the bottom panel : Every time you pick a bonus, it will be displayed in this box. If all 3 symbols are same you win this bonus (super bomb, invincibility, points).

[Reido]

Looks great, keep it up!!

[Tigerskunk]

This game looks so charming...

[LeCaravage]

Transition effect between 2 levels finished. Pain in the ass to finalize. I used the bad option, Copper each lines instead of hardcoding (cpu) the effect.

Next in line, the mega bomb and invincibility.
Invincibility should be very easy.
Mega bomb, less easy, but doable.
The mega bomb can be triggered by pressing the fire button during 1 or 2 sec.

[LeCaravage]

Saperlipopette !
The transition between 2 levels is something not indispensable for the ingame but after unlocking ingame again (I locked the ingame in order to go fast to transition part coding and test) I realize the transition made the game behave strange. All the game works perfect except no bobs or objects is present, it's a sort of invisible game.
After losing too much time (several days) I decided to go back (Hi McGeezer ^^).
I removed the transition part and now the game crash. The screen crash and stranges copper colors appears.
We all have our off days.

[mcgeezer]

Originally Posted by LeCaravage

Saperlipopette !
The transition between 2 levels is something not indispensable for the ingame but after unlocking ingame again (I locked the ingame in order to go fast to transition part coding and test) I realize the transition made the game behave strange. All the game works perfect except no bobs or objects is present, it's a sort of invisible game.
After losing too much time (several days) I decided to go back (Hi McGeezer ^^).
I removed the transition part and now the game crash. The screen crash and stranges copper colors appears.
We all have our off days.

Absolutely....

Sounds like you problem will be initialisation of variables... it always is.

Geezer

[Pyromania]

Pumpkin Bros looks great so far and I see that progress is being made.

[LeCaravage]

After JMD, it's now Ralph joining the team. Making a band of 3 guys.
I have no choice, I have to finish this project.
Now I have the pressure

[LeCaravage]

Added death sequence of hero. He bounces on the walls before disapearing. He reappears by falling again from the top of the scenary.
Lethal touches for hero makes me think totally differently about the game design. I mean, it's more easy to find out what's wrong in the gameplay or difficulty. For instance, I noticed that the max time allowed for player to pick a dying heart (on the ground) is too short. I changed also the collision when the character touches a lethargic monster (the monster enters in freeze/lethargic mode when a tomato hits him), now if the hero touches him, he dies. Makes the game more balanced, before was too easy.
Changed also the "Booom!!!" flashing speed, slow at first, medium and then very fast just before heart dies.
Have a chat with graphic man, we came to an agreement that game doesn't need a scenario.

I need to prioritize tasks and choose what features need to be done before deadline. Because it becomes obvious that I'll not manage to complete the game in time.

So the main tasks left to after deadline :

- Transition effect between 2 levels.
- Game over message when last life lost.
- # level when scenary appears.
- "Bravo" when last heart collected.
- End sector Big bosses.
- Hi score.
- Attract mode.
- Mega Bomb.
- End sequence.
- Adding colors background flash/cycling to emphasize and make more dynamic some game phases (starting level, time alert, level completed etc...).
- Bonus appearing after killing monster, the more monsters you kill at the same time, the more intersting the bonus could be.

To do before deadline :

- Collision of falling hearts with some tiles.
- Ingame Music.
- Sfx.
- A monster appears and chase you if you take too much time without killing a monster.
- Press fire message before starting game.

And of course the more bugs removing as possible.