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[Moon Goon]

Yep.  Download the demo with your gamepad plugged in and see.  Also, the betabeta instructions in this thread mention which buttons do what.

DEMO http://www.esnips.com/doc/720b2beb-9001-4172-83d8-d099e4342a29/spdemo

Play, and be AMAZED at what you missed not playing this stunted stepchild of Pitfall!

Instructions: (Not grammar or smell checked)

Controls
Use arrow keys to move Pitifall Larry.  Z key to jump.  X key to fire if ammo present.  Aim for bottom of vine to swing.  Press UP + JUMP and LEFT or RIGHT to leap off vine or balloon.  Pressing LEFT or RIGHT for an extended duration accelerates Larry and makes him jump higher.  Press UP while standing inside door to warp.  Press UP or DOWN while on ladder to climb.  Use arrow keys to swim while in water.  Gates may be opened by touch once its matching key is in your inventory.  It is highly recommended to toggle full screen mode via F4.  ESC quits.  F1 displays this screen.   If a joystick is attached it will become the primary controller.  To regain keyboard mode detach joystick.  Press button 1 to jump or start game and 2 to fire.  Pause the game by pressing button 3 or ENTER.

Gameplay
Pitifall Larry is on a quest to obtain the Ralf Diamond.  To complicate matters his Nieces Lion was captured and she has been turned to stone!  Find the key and open Kittyclaw the Lions cage.  Obtain the Ralf Diamond.  Retrieve the antidote and cure Larry's Niece.   Once all of these items have been completed visit Larry's Niece to win!

I must also admit my programming skillz are not 1337.  When you have the gamepad plugged in the keybaord controls go wonky - thus the sentance: "To regain keyboard mode detach joystick."

[muku]

Ah, sorry, for whatever reason I completely missed the demo...

Haha, you can actually keep moving after dying! :D

It's pretty easy to get stuck at the bottom/top of ladders in tight spots.

Apart from that, very nice, strong retro feel to it. Will have to try again, bit short on time right now.

[Moon Goon]

I *think* I fixed the hard to exit ladders in tight spaces issue.  Thanks for the feedback!  The still moving while dying thing.. I dunno. I'll 'prolly fix it but it IS kinda funny.  Once someone got killed and fell into a balloon.  Floating carcass ahoy!

EDIT:  Okay.. I think I fixed the moving around while still dead thing.  Must.. eat.. brains..

[Moon Goon]

FINAL http://www.esnips.com/doc/7c1b82ed-7f1e-4a42-a25b-85bd0f8e8e7d/pitifall

Okay, after a very brief beta I'm deciding to let this thing loose.  I locked a friend in a room until he beat the darn thing.  I suspect some areas will still produce player-stuck-in-wall situations.  Probably still have random critters finding their way into walls too.  Alas, some bugs must be left alone lest they drive you mad.  'Sides, it happened in the real game anyway!

Some facts I learned from this contest:
* At some point you'll reach a breaking point.  Either change your tools or change your game idea.  Either way, change or risk getting stuck.
* Remaking a favorite game is a great way to retread the steps of the real game programmers and artists.  It sounds obvious but when you experience it - it is quite profound.
* Never count on promising your weekends away.  Life promises to steal your development time.  Put on your name-brand shoes and "Just do it!"

Also note the only credits I gave are TIGSource.  Really, if it weren't for the game ROM CHECK FAIL I'd never have heard of TIGSource.  If it weren't for the procedural game contest I wouldn't have wanted to enter a contest at all.  Finally, if it weren't for the free forum account and genuinely nice/helpful/similarly weird people in this place I wouldn't have kept going.  I wholly blame this unholy resurrection of Super Pitfall on you guys.

Thanks a bunch!

[shrapnel]

Cool.  The game sticks together nicely.  Quite an array of little beasties to kill you.  Including the magic you're-taking-too-long-you-worthless-pile-of-pixels KILLER SKULL that appears after a while.  Whatever happened to that guy?  The smiley of doom used to chase me around Thief (the Apple port of Berserk) like mad.

The first subterranean enemy, the purple bat, is allowed to fly through the ground.  He's close enough to the player's initial spawn point that he sometimes gets a few kills in before I can shoot or dodge.

I can't figure the vines out.  Or, I can't figure out how to jump off them effectively.  Especially in the fire area--the best I could do is manage a little hop off into the lava.  It's nice to be able to stick to them so easily, but maybe it could be less easy to stick to the one you're on?

The first time I hit the bridge, I managed to jump into one of the bridge segments.  They kept animating like I was stepping on them, but I was stuck floating just below the bridge.  Had to restart.  Heh.

If you're standing right up against a wall, there's no minimum firing speed, so you can blast through a very large amount of ammo just by touching the fire key.  Maybe the pistol should be a semi-auto?

A way to doublesize the game window would be great, too. =)

Cool game, great console feel.

[Moon Goon]

  Aim for bottom of vine to swing.  Press UP + JUMP and LEFT or RIGHT to leap off vine or balloon. .. It is highly recommended to toggle full screen mode via F4.

Really need to press F4 to go full screen to get the best effect.  I think I read that the judges don't like full screen or changing resolutions so I opted to make the thing windowed and HIGHLY recommend going full screen.  I made the sprites use 2x2 pixel blocks so that I'd get a slight blurring effect like an old TV when you go full screen.  I thought about pixel stretching the windowed mode but I thought going full screen was enough.  Might have been wrong on that one.

The vines can be tricky.  Couldn't find a balance between loosing grip on the vines and sticking to them too well. The trick really is in the instructions though.  Treat the keyboard like a joystick and press diagonally while hitting the jump button to attempt to leap off the vine.  You may have to do this combo more than once so keep hitting that jump button if you don't leap immediately!

Game Maker is partly to blame for the stuck-in-walls bug.  I don't know why this always happens in GM games in particular.  I avoided the built-in vspeed and hspeed movement to help alleviate this behavior but I think using non-integer x/y values may have goofed it up (i.e. x = 123.5).  Also, if you assign new sprites to an object (instead of just using images within the same sprite) sometimes you can loose proper collision checking.

Anyway, thanks for taking the time to play and thanks for the feedback!  One of the things I plan to do for my next contest is show off prototypes earlier to get feedback like this.

[shrapnel]

Heh, looks like I need to learn to read instructions.  I think I fired it up out of the megapack before I read the thread. =/

I wonder why this Game Maker game worked fine for me (under Wine) when several others didn't?

[increpare]

Loved your waterfall dude 

[Moon Goon]

I intentionally used Game Maker 5 as it has better compatibility especially with WINE.  A good sign is that WINE actually runs the IDE for versions 4-7 properly now except you MUST use an external code editor.  Someone wrote a style plugin for Notepad++ for GML mentioned here: http://gmc.yoyogames.com/lofiversion/index.php/t335737.html   ..but it didn't work for me.

I must admit the waterfalls rock.  Also, Moa heads and the snake are a personal favorite.  You'd think low resolution means easier to create sprites.. WRONG!!!!  If anything it becomes like a chess game - move one pixel and the whole picture changes.  The brown spider things were a challenge but turned out OK.  I might have just plain failed with the vultures: they look like plucked chickens at best.

[shrapnel]

Must be the version; I think the others were using GM 7.

The snake sprite was great.  It scared me a little the first time it stood up. 

[Derek]

Very nice!  I was considerably interested in this game because I'm working on a cave explorey platformer in GM myself and I'm also a fan of the genre in general (Pitfall, Spelunker, Rick Dangerous, La Mulana, etc.).  Something very appealing about the whole thing to me!

I like the overall aesthetic and how vast the cave feels.  If you fixed up the movement and collision code, it'd be perfect.

EDIT: Those bridges are scary!  Are they supposed to keep falling like that?

[moi]

Very nice!  I was considerably interested in this game because I'm working on a cave explorey platformer in GM myself and I'm also a fan of the genre in general (Pitfall, Spelunker, Rick Dangerous, La Mulana, etc.).  Something very appealing about the whole thing to me!

Hey Derek, I'm working on a game exactly like that where you can also dig the ground, and swim in underground lakes and discover hidden treasures.
But my game will probably not be finished before 2015, so brace yourself for 2015.

[Moon Goon]

Ya, the collision sucks.  I really thought I had nipped the getting-stuck-in-walls bug in the butt.  I clipped the top row of pixels from registering a collision for the player and that really helped with getting stuck in tight places.  Didn't help enough though.  My punishment is waiting until judgment is over to even think about fixing my code.  Done is done!  Thinking back, my previous (unreleased) Super Pitfall clone had collision issues because of changing sprites instead of changing images within a single sprite.  Live and learn.. ..and forget and then have to learn again I suppose :p

Not sure which sucky part of movement you were referring to Derek.  There's the hard-to-leap-from-vines movement issue and the acceleration-surprises-you-and-you-run-off-a-cliff movement issue   If you were having weird issues with the keyboard double-check that no joysticks are plugged in.  Super Pitifall runs in joystick-only mode if a joystick/joypad is present.

Indeed, the dropping platforms are supposed to recycle.  I figured it was more fair then having them permanently disappear (leaving you stranded.)  It requires immense skill to time your jumps once they start cycling - maybe too much.  It's a game balance issue not a bug

My ultimate goal is a new platform game where you can move north or south by reaching the middle of the level and press UP or DOWN depending on which direction you wanna head.  So, in effect, you get west (left), east (right) up and down and now north 'n south.  I was even going to include time travel but I have to rethink how I calculate changes.  Super Pitfall in 4D?  It could happen..

My prize in this contest was actually producing a complete game (albeit with collision bugs).  I've already moved on to reviving another obscure game called Battle Master.  No, it's not the horrible, obscure SNES Battle Master - it's the horrible, obscure Sega Genesis game Battle Master.  I'm calling it "Bittie Mister"

http://www.mobygames.com/game/genesis/battle-master

Instead of platform it's top-down.  I'm also deviating from the Orcs/Humans/Elves/Dwarves formula and instead using Predatory Triangles/Wumpus/Toast/Living Piles of Poo motif.  Instead of low-res/low color I'm going crayon and paper.  The whole thing is sufficiently different from Super Pitfall as to give me a nice break from platform action

[Derek]

@moi: Right on!  Is this the game you're developing that awesome-sounding water system for?  In any case, I am eagerly awaiting its arrival in 2015.

My own game is just a little 'un to learn Game Maker with.

@Moon Goon: Yeah, the biggest problem is the collision - pretty much every game I played ended with me getting stuck, either in a wall or on a bridge.  How are you handling it, exactly?  Are you treating the player as a square?

Regarding the movement, yes, the vines and surprise acceleration is problematic.  But mostly I was thinking about moving up and down ladders, which feels wonky (and got me trapped at least once).

Battle Master looks like a wicked game.  I'll have to check it out when I get a chance!

[moi]

Yeah it will have water, expanding lava, boulders, etc...
I'm glad the TIGS compos exist because I can take a break from working on the same game for months

By the way moon goon great game a bit difficult, but among the favorites for me