New game released: Maxwell Mouse And The Missing Game Mystery

[Graham Humphrey]

Finally, Remainder Software are pleased to announce the release of the demo of Maxwell Mouse - a small game called Maxwell Mouse And The Missing Game Mystery. It's a flip-screen platform/adventure game with influences from Dizzy and old 8-bit platformers, and this is a demonstration of the game engine we've developed. A full game with new levels and a new storyline will begin development soon.

It features a 29-screen level, with a number of puzzles to solve and characters to converse with, as Maxwell the Mouse attempts to retrieve an Amiga game mysteriously taken from his home.

You can download the game as an .lha archive, or as a zipped autobooting adf at http://maxwell.mikendezign.com/

It should run on any Amiga with 1MB of RAM.

Instructions are in the archives, however you'll need to load the adf through Workbench to read them as the disk boots straight into the game.

Controls:

Fire = jump
Up = talk to characters/inspect specific objects (where available)
Down = pick up items and access inventory
P = pause
Esc = quit

If you have a CD32 pad, press Play/Pause on the title screen to activate specific CD32 pad support:

Red = jump and 'action' (i.e. progress conversations, select item)
Green = talk to characters/inspect specific objects (where available)
Blue = pick up items and access inventory
Play/Pause = pause
Both shoulder buttons = quit

Have fun and let us know what you think, through here, or through our Facebook page: http://www.facebook.com/RemainderSoftware

There are plenty of ideas still to implement and things to improve (like the status panel, animated NPCs, more enemies etc) but do let us know your ideas.

[viddi]

Well done!
Will check it out some time soon.

Thanks a lot.

[Greyfox]

Another amazing release into the Amiga scene, thanks so much for this gift, you guys rock

[prowler]

After trying the amazing Downfall, I'm definitely curious about the next one.

I'm off to download it now...

[leathered]

Well done guys! Eeurgh - when I get home from work...

[TjLaZer]

Nice game. But there seems to be a very serious bug on the very first level. Can't seem to pick up the key on the far right! I hover over it and press down. Playing it in WinUAE. Do I need a CD32 game pad to play the game?

EDIT: Tried it on a real Amiga and it works!

[Muzkat]

Wooo! Awesome news and awesome work!

[earok]

Gave it a quick try, works great! Looking forward to the final version.

[Paul_s]

any relation?

[Predseda]

Originally Posted by TjLaZer

Nice game. But there seems to be a very serious bug on the very first level. Can't seem to pick up the key on the far right! I hover over it and press down. Playing it in WinUAE. Do I need a CD32 game pad to play the game?

EDIT: Tried it on a real Amiga and it works!

Yes, it happens sometimes when you play the game for the first time (both on real hw and uae). It is a bug that hasnt been tracked yet. If this happen to someone, please abort the game by pressing Esc and start again. It should work fine then.

[hipoonios]

Nice to see a new Amiga game that is not made with Backbone as a change

I played it a bit and really enjoyed it. You said this is a demo? The game looks pretty much finished to me.

[ransom1122]

Thank you

[Predseda]

Originally Posted by hipoonios

Nice to see a new Amiga game that is not made with Backbone as a change

I played it a bit and really enjoyed it. You said this is a demo? The game looks pretty much finished to me.

In fact, it is a standalone game, one level that should demonstrate possibilities of our engine. It can be played and completed, it has its beginning, story and the ending, it is only not polished. This game will probably not be evolved (so no v1.1 etc., only in case of critical bugs). We need to get as much feedback as possible before we will start to work at the real 'big'game using this engine. So in this perspective yes, it is a demo.

Thank you all for kind words and critics.

[Graham Humphrey]

Big thanks everybody for the lovely feedback so far. I am glad (and relieved) that there are people out there who have enjoyed it, it's a big boost. It's been hard work but very enjoyable to see this game evolve and turn into what it is now. It wouldn't have happened without the serious hard work from Predseda and Chris (aka amigapd) with the graphics, as well as the significant contribution to the story, puzzles and general playtesting, and Mihcael for putting together a great little website for us and in pretty short time too! It has been a real team effort.

Originally Posted by TjLaZer

Nice game. But there seems to be a very serious bug on the very first level. Can't seem to pick up the key on the far right! I hover over it and press down. Playing it in WinUAE. Do I need a CD32 game pad to play the game?

EDIT: Tried it on a real Amiga and it works!

This is strange. Predseda reported that the first time he run the game, it automatically skipped the titles and straight into the game in CD32 mode, then he pressed Escape to quit and then it worked normally. Can you confirm if the same thing happens? And what control method do you use on WinUAE to trigger this?

I can't replicate this bug anywhere (either on my Amiga or under emulation) so the more info I have to hand the easier it will be to solve this mystery

[Gzegzolka]

Another nice game

[Hewitson]

Haven't had the time to play this yet but it looks great. Well done guys

[hipoonios]

Ironclaw have played through the demo version. He asked me if i could post his video here. He have some comments about it: [ Show youtube player ] (read the video description).

I have not much to say. There is two things i didn't like:

* When the music ends, the music is silent for about 13 secs before it starts again.
* When you are not talking to anyone, there is just a gray box. That looks a bit ugly. Maybe have a logo above the game when you not talking to anyone?

[nittamituaki]

I watched Ironclaw's longplay video, too.
And I understood why I was stuck.
Surely that hungry guy ignored me when I give him beer.
Perhaps we have to give him meat then give him beer immediately, right?
The game would be better if NPC receives a correct item even if we give him it later.

[Graham Humphrey]

Thanks for the comments! Great to see a video up so quickly.

The music thing is a bit annoying I agree, thankfully we have new music being produced especially for the game at the moment so hopefully this one will be resolved soon(ish).

The status panel at the top is a bit of a bugbear. It's a bit ugly and we need to work on making it look a bit more presentable. This is one of the first tasks to complete for the full game as it might mean changing its size which will impact the map.

Interesting that Ironclaw also had problems with the controls not working properly. I am strongly starting to suspect that Blitz Basic's CD32 pad commands are getting a bit upset with certain sticks/pads/control methods. If you have a one or two button controller setup and it starts in CD32 mode, you won't be able to collect anything or talk to anyone. But that shouldn't be possible without a CD32 pad. I have to try and find a way round this ASAP.

Jumping and collision are the two things noted most so far. Especially the collision. I have tried to tweak it before but with little success. Being so used to it it doesn't register as a problem to me so it's useful to see how newcomers react to it and I know I need to work on these things a bit more.

@nittamituaki - just to clarify - do you mean that if you don't give him the beer straight after the meat, he won't accept it? That's not intentional if so, he should accept it anytime after he has the meat. I will have a look at that and see what's going wrong.

Thanks all for trying this out! The feedback is really constructive and very handy

[Gzegzolka]

Ok, now time to write bit more. I have played Your game, I have managed to finish few quests but not all. I have fun with it and I will try to finish it.
Animated npc's would be cool feature. Quests are not hard and they are logic, You meet someone and he told You about his simple problem, there is no tons of items so even if You do not know what item give in first place You can check fast every one You have collected so far with no stress. I also like dialogs with characters, they have some funny parts.
I do not know is this winuae problem or game itself, but hit-box for monsters are so damn big. It's hard to jump over those ladybugs in narrow underground corridors or when they are on small platforms - they always hit me. While those jumping mushrooms and bees do not give me any problems. More monsters? No, thanks.
You should think about some way to replenish Maxwell energy, like putting here and there some hearts that will heal him. Like normal items, but they do not go into inventory, instant-consumable, You can not pick up them when You have 3 hearts, but when You lose one You get one again, they do not respawn and it's player decision when to pick them up.
Also there could be some well hidden one-up's items that act just like hearts.
Big plus for Your game for cd32 pad support, it's good feature.
Just like Hipoonios write, You can put game logo in that gray box when hero do not talk to anybody.