[ongoing] Trap Runner

[DamienD]

Just had a quick bash, very slick indeed

[zzbylu]

Gameplay:
[ Show youtube player ]

[ross]

Another little gem!

Great job phx

[Gzegzolka]

Looks very cool

[Tsak]

Originally Posted by phx

The graphics may look like 16 colours, but, as I wrote, they all have 5 bitplanes (32 colours).

No, they don't look like 16 colors, I just assumed that. Missed your 5 bitplanes note

[Tigerskunk]

Looks really amazing, phx.

The mountains in the background are a repeating sprite, I assume?

Looking forward playing this...

[Toni Galvez]

Originally Posted by phx

Late announcement, as the project nearly passed beta testing to final release status now, but here it is:

Trap Runner by Night OWL Design, distributed by Retroguru.

It is a classical horizontally scrolling Jump'n'Run, and the second game I did together with my brother Gerrit, after "Solid Gold" (http://aminet.net/package/game/jump/SolidGold).


It features 5 worlds with different graphics and four stages in each, always completed by a bonus level. So there are 25 levels, followed by a special boss fight in level 26. Additionally there are few extra levels you can warp to, like jetpack-flying levels.

The game is designed to be always fair. So it is not like Sqrxz, but you have to be alert all the time to evade all of the traps, obstacles and monsters. Besides the genre-typical jumping and running you can duck to evade flying monsters and use magic in later levels, after collecting potions, which enables you to fill transparent ghost tiles with colour, to make them solid. There are also magical pills to collect, which make you change your own colour and render tiles with the same colour passable. Collect lots of other items to increase your score, gain extra lives or fulfil one of the special level missions (like: collect all four puzzle tiles in a level to open the exit). Two of the four levels in a world have a mission. The other two are free runs - just reach the exit.

Some technical details:

• Runs on any classic Amiga. Minimun requirements: 512K Chip-RAM and 1 MB total.
• Written in 100% 68000 assembler.
• 50fps, soft parallax scrolling, more than 50 colours.
• Handdrawn pixels.
• More than 25 soundtracks and about the same number of different sound effects.
• Options menu with joypad-button configuration, ECS-borderblank, sound-check, etc.
• Passwords for each level.
• Writable options and high score table.
• Intro and outro story.
• Comes as fully packed disk (Doynamite compressed) with trackloader.
• Development started for real around February 2018.

Development tools used:

• vasmm68k cross assembler
• any C compiler (for the tools, not for the game)
• TilEd map editor
• Renoise and Milkytracker for music
• Gimp for graphics

Credits:

• Programming: myself
• Original concept, graphics, music, level design: Gerrit Wille
• Beta testing: Denny Müller (Retroguru)
• Doynamite LZ packer: Johan Forslöf
• Support and PR: Shahzad Sahaib (Retroguru)

Sorry for the boring text. No pictures and videos for now, because the game will be officially presented at the Function 2018 demo party in Budapest (http://2018.function.hu/). You can be sure I will post some pictures and Youtube links thereafter!

And sorry for the late announcement. But you may know that I don't like to talk about unfinished projects. The advantage is that you only have to wait few days now.

I saw the video, the game is very nicely done, congratulations. About the SFX and the Music, you have a problem, the SFX cut the lead notes, so, in cases like that, I suggest you to cut the bassline channel.

[phx]

Originally Posted by Steril707

The mountains in the background are a repeating sprite, I assume?

Yes. Sprite0, 2, 4 and 6 are repeated with AT-bit set, so all have the same three colors. Unfortunately Sprite6-data has to be loaded by the copper, because scrolling renders its DMA-slot only half-working on OCS-systems.

[phx]

Originally Posted by Toni Galvez

About the SFX and the Music, you have a problem, the SFX cut the lead notes

Yes, this may happen sometimes. It's still better than losing a whole channel to sound effects. Gerrit really prefers to have all four channels for his music.

so, in cases like that, I suggest you to cut the bassline channel.

I doubt there is a fixed bassline channel in all the different Mods. My protracker player tries to find the channel with most silence ahead automatically, when playing SFX, which is not always perfect.

BTW, in the bonus levels we indeed switched to 3-channel mods, because the collection of hundreds of items can really destroy the music.

[Leffmann]

Nice one! It's similar to Sqrxz, but has much better puzzle and game mechanics.

[DamienD]

Indie Retro News write-up

[Neil79]

Originally Posted by DamienD

Indie Retro News write-up

[rcman]

Glad to see people making games for the Amiga. I want to write one too, been a long time since I did any 68k assembler. Looking forward to playing and the source to learn from.

Thanks
RC

[DanyPPC]

Good game, high playability !

Thanks

[DamienD]

@phx; the jetpack level at the end of stage 2-1 isn't easy; especially when trying to collect red gems



BTW; I imagine collecting red gems is better than collecting yellow plates; what's the difference?

[Gzegzolka]

Wow, I see You have many great ideas for that game

[Clydos]

Wow, looks very cool! Any chance for some CD32 love (saving to NV-RAM) and a release on AmigaJays CD32 scene mag cover disk? Would made a nice CD32 title.

[Superman]

Wow what a nice polished game this is. Excellent work!

[phx]

Originally Posted by DamienD

@phx; the jetpack level at the end of stage 2-1 isn't easy; especially when trying to collect red gems

The red path is more difficult, because the gems are more valuable. But it can be done.

It's a bonus extra level, which gives you an extra life at the end. But you cannot lose a life, only your jetpacks.

BTW; I imagine collecting red gems is better than collecting yellow plates; what's the difference?

As long as the red gems are not the level's mission goal, just more points.
You may want to concentrate on collecting stars, because 64 stars grant you another extra life.

I think there are still too many extra lives in this game...

Originally Posted by Clydos

Any chance for some CD32 love (saving to NV-RAM)

NV-RAM is not the problem, but the game takes over the system completely and uses a low-level trackloader to read data from disk. Making it read from CD without OS is not trivial, and I don't have a CD32 myself.

As much as I want to support all classic Amigas, the CD32 (and CDTV) are unfortunately excluded. On the other hand it even works on an AA3000!

[DamienD]

Originally Posted by phx

The red path is more difficult, because the gems are more valuable. But it can be done.

Yup, did so using "save states", but only reloading at the start of the bonus extra level each time after I'd messed up

Cheating a little; but who says emulation sucks?

Originally Posted by phx

You may want to concentrate on collecting stars, because 64 stars grant you another extra life.

Noticed this

Anyway, having a blast playing!!! Thank you sir for another fine release, well done