TIGSource Forums

SUPER CAKE FIGHT is a game where players barf and bake with the eventual intent of including each other in the resulting cake. Players inhale ingredients and then spit them into their cauldrons to make their cakes, and try to prevent each other from succeeding by vomiting cannonballs. Eventually, a cake will be completed, and the successful baker will attempt to stun, swallow, and barf the opposing player into the cake to WIN.

Pink uses Z, X, C, and S.
Green uses the arrows.

I made a couple of proper animations for the player sprite:
(http://lazercatz.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/01/player1.gif) (http://lazercatz.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/01/player1_bat.gif)

I started learning Flashpunk, which is slow going, but it feels good to be able to run things in Windows and OSX. I've decided to make a little single-screen platform game where players race to collect the ingredients to build a cake. Players will inhale the ingredients into their mouths (like Kirby) and then spit them into a cauldron. Players can also choose to hit each other with bats, or bat the other's ingredients around. When a cake is complete, a player can win by batting the opponent, inhaling him, and spitting him into the completed cake.

So, basic Bubble Bobble-y jumpy game with Super Mario Versus-style anger.

I'd imagine batting a foe would knock out their ingredient, like how hitting an enemy in SSB can knock away their item.

Yes, I am going to try and transport the frustration of losing your gems in Powerstone to a tiny, tiny (160x140) screen.

First (boring) screenshot of a level I made in Ogmo and loaded into the game. Player is just a static image right now, because I wanted to tackle the level building first, since it terrifies me. I'm used to the (admittedly shitty, but brainless) room editor from Game Maker, so it is possible that I feel inordinately proud of this screenshot. STILL.

(http://lazercatz.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/01/screen1.png)

Some progress!

It is slower than I would like it to be, but you can now move the little gentleman around and jump. Known issues:

- Possible to jump through the corners of the level
- Occasionally, the monster will get stuck on the corner of a block. Probably just need to shrink his hitbox.

Next steps: swinging the bat and bopping the other person!

It's a little bit humbling after looking around at the likes of Masjin, etc., but it is my very first piece of anything in Flash.

Er, that is a really awkward movement scheme. Z could go left, C right, and X jump. More natural that way.

Yeah, I found that the only way those controls didn't hurt my hand is by jumping AT ALL TIMES which is sortof impractical. Z+C to move and X to jump would work, and then perhaps M+. to move for player 2 and , to jump?

Thanks for the feedback, guys. I tend to think of keyboards as really baroque arcade controls, so I like to make mine two-handed, but with two players on a keyboard it becomes significantly more awkward.

Spent a long time putting the baseball bat in today (and fighting with Flashpunk's origin functions), and I realized I was creating the potential for keyboard-conflict griefing. So! I am trimming the design of the game. Originally I wanted four player verbs:

- Run
- Jump
- Inhale
- Bat

I've figured out how to collapse the last two into one button by putting a cannonball into the level that can be inhaled and fired at the other player. That should put more tension between collecting cake ingredients and thwarting the other player, too; players will have to choose which to inhale.

I'll save the bat animation for another game, since I rather like it.

I love the player graphics, level looks really damn boring though. It would be awesome if you could figure out how to make the levels look as nice as the characters, because they look pretty ace so far.

Maybe I should make some nicer tiles and a background? I didn't want it to be too busy, and I also wanted to mimic Bubble Bobble, but the only way to the future is over the corpses of fetish-y limitations.

Or do you mean different platforms / objects in the level?

EDIT:

Made a new tileset, and some ghosts / waves / clouds for the background. Will try to load it in tomorrow.
(http://lazercatz.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/02/ghost_bubbles_large.png)

(http://lazercatz.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/02/screen1.PNG)

Put in parallax scrolling and worked on making the tiles better. I call this stage "GHOST OCEAN".

To do:

- Implement inhale / barf mechanic
- Collision detection for other player
- Ingredient spawning / cakes
- Title screen
- Sound / music
- How to play screen
- A few boring sub-menus

The player can inhale now. Next: inhaling items and spitting them out!

VIDEO (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dpxNQmZFU7c)

This is looking awesome. Are you going to have moving platforms or maybe some dynamic elements to your levels?

I eventually want to have some hazards that will make you lose your currently inhaled item, but next stop is player interactions, items, and the win condition. I feel like I'm getting my feet underneath me as far as Flashpunk goes, and I'm finding more analogs to what I knew how to do in Gamemaker.

It's getting exciting! Less about reading tutorials, and more about implementation.

OOL kicked my ass this week. Found out how much I was co-opting from tutorials and bad, bad Gamemaker habits. But! Got one ingredient in the game, got the player creating the "inhalation" object, and the two are interacting. Sack of flour still not subject to gravity; that's next up. Revised to-do list:

- gravity for item class
- "spit out" mechanic
- cauldron (this one will be simple)
- "cake" condition (when all items have been collected: i have made a constants class to handle this)
- bowling ball item
- player v. player interactions
- menu
- etc.

objects now set some global variables; the game can progress. players can put flour in the cauldron to spawn an egg. if duplicate flours are put into the cauldron, the duplicate respawns without updating the game.

difficult time figuring out how to reset the flour to its original spot, but i did it! also checks to see which cauldron the ingredient goes into, even though there's only one currently.

more animations in, too. also, object gravity and friction.
(http://lazercatz.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/02/screen11.PNG)

(http://lazercatz.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/02/screen2.PNG)

I thought it'd be a lot more busy than it really is; I still suggest making the background more simple, though.

Also, those are some neat controls. I like them, they were just very 'unique', so I had to get used to them.

Fun game so far! Can't wait to try it with a pal.  :)

Fixed a LOT of bugs that didn't show up until I added all the items in and tried to play it with other people. In this version:

- items no longer get confused about who is inhaling them.
- cannonballs respawn properly
- there is a title screen, and
- a stage select, because now
- there are two levels: Ghost Ocean and Face Forest

I will see if I have time to add a little song and some sound effects tomorrow. If not, this might be considered the final version.

Hooray! First Flashpunk game. Things I am too tired to figure out right now:

1. How to compile a standalone executable.
2. How to get the splash screen to display properly (it's REAL BIG at 160 x 140).

Also, I know that Face Forest is crazy to look at; I will probably tweak the colors later.

FINAL (COMPO) BUILD (http://lazercatz.com/?p=438)

Put some sounds and music in. I'm sorry if it's a big download; I am not quite sure how to trim it down at the moment. I need to learn how to make a loading screen. Hope y'all enjoy it!

Haven't played it until now. Its awesome!

Hello this is Pencerkoff

Major Bubble-Bobble nostalgia trip.

-PENCERKOFF

Our group really liked this game. Cute, simple and one of the more creative games in the compo. However, couldn't figure out how to win or end the game!

We figured out the basics pretty quickly (for us). But it never hurts to have some basic instructions in-game, no matter how intuitive the controls and goals are.

At one point, it seemed like one player got stuck in the "stunned" state and couldn't eat anything or do anything to get out of it. We concluded it must be a bug.

We didn't realize you also had to get your opponent into your cake to win! Since we ran into that little bug earlier, we thought the victory condition was also bugged because we completed both cakes and couldn't figure why the game wasn't ending.

We thought the SZXC controls were counter-intuitive. WASD would be more in-line with other games, I think.

Earlier, right after the compo deadline, I was going through collecting links to all the online games. At one point I had all the games open in separate tabs, and I went through to copy the link from each. I didn't intend to play any at that time, but for whatever reason this one caught my eye and I tried it. I think this probably had something to do with the music and the clean, simple page the game is on.

Fun music. Cute, cohesive visuals. The aesthetics come together really well, I think. Thanks for making it!

Thanks for your comments, everyone! I'm glad you had fun with it; it's my first flash game and I had a good time making it.

I'll look into the bug you found, Fluff; I am working on a "how to play" screen for an attract mode, which should help players to know how to win. Something like a "bake opponent!" pop-up might work, too, but I like how little visible UI there is at the moment.

Do you remember where the player was in the level when stunned indefinitely? I think there might be something with the "on-the-ground" hit detection that is happening to prevent the stun from resetting. 

I don't know why I didn't change to WASD when I changed the controls to movement + one button. Seems silly to me now.

Thanks again for the feedback! I'm going to add more levels when I have time, along with the "how to play" screen. Stay tuned for exotic locales, like, "CRYSTAL OFFICE!" and "SAD VOID!"

Yes, this would make sense because I remember falling right after or before getting hit. After I landed, it never reset. I could have been hit midair, or (perhaps) knocked off the side of a ledge. I'm not sure where I was when hit, but I remember falling afterwards. Hope that helps. XD


Sounds great! :D