next »

[biphenyl]

I just saw the newer screen today -- totally reminded me of James Pond also, hahaha. It looks excellent -- I love the idea of impotently angry little Hitler throwing a temper tantrum!

[Eclipse]

James Pond is a horrible game that glitched frequently and gave me nightmares in my youth. It was about a fish who goes to Santa's workshop and fights a bunch of toys. In toyland.

You're talking about James Pond II: Codename Robocod :D
well, the PC version was great, don't know if the amiga one or the genesis one glitched.

You missed the most interesting parts of the game: James Pond can stretch himself to hook on high platforms and can drive toys veichles around the huge levels of the game.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Pond_2

He was out on almost every platform of the time and later on psx, gba, and recently on DS too.

oh, also James Pond 3 exist!

[moi]

Yeah sorry to shit on somebody else's childhood memory , but in my memory too James pond (and especially robocod, which I remember buying for my amiga) was a shitty game, just like zool and hundred of clones produced at the same time on a dying medium (amiga) with the intent to take advantage of the boom of the videogame market of the nineties,as such it was transferred to the 16 bit consoles. Like all of these infamous plateformers produced in europe (mainly the uk) these cheap clones in my memory weren't particularly better than the casual clones cheaply mass produced nowadays...
The game was just a serie of quickly produced level with a thematic (toyland, candyland, horror, whatever, etc...). The thematic was a way to avoid creating a complex story and it enabled to use repetition of ennemies and tiles in the level without second thought. All these games' levels were interchangeable. They all looked and played bland, nothing to see with the japanese games of the time which were much more sophisticated.

Wow...Sorry for the off-topic!

[deadeye]

Like all of these infamous plateformers produced in europe (mainly the uk) these cheap clones in my memory weren't particularly better rant rant rant...

But... but I like platform games

[moshboy]

Actually Robocod was up there with some of the best Amiga games in my opinion and it never glitched for me. From memory, it was kindof meant to be Amiga's competition for Sonic and Super Mario at the time, since it had Mario-esque gameplay and if you went down a steep enough slope you could gain a heap of speed. Graphically it was pretty nice. I didn't really see as a game developed quickly to cash in but maybe my memory serves me incorrectly.

[Eclipse]

Yeah sorry to shit on somebody else's childhood memory , but in my memory too James pond (and especially robocod, which I remember buying for my amiga) was a shitty game, just like zool and hundred of clones produced at the same time on a dying medium (amiga) with the intent to take advantage of the boom of the videogame market of the nineties,as such it was transferred to the 16 bit consoles. Like all of these infamous plateformers produced in europe (mainly the uk) these cheap clones in my memory weren't particularly better than the casual clones cheaply mass produced nowadays...
The game was just a serie of quickly produced level with a thematic (toyland, candyland, horror, whatever, etc...). The thematic was a way to avoid creating a complex story and it enabled to use repetition of ennemies and tiles in the level without second thought. All these games' levels were interchangeable. They all looked and played bland, nothing to see with the japanese games of the time which were much more sophisticated.

Wow...Sorry for the off-topic!

Mario was more sophisticated? Or Sonic? LOL. they had a plot?
I think Zool was awesome, much more complex than Sonic gameplay-wise...

And there was also Superfrog, and the Apogee ones, like Duke Nukem 1 and 2, John Romero's Dangerous Dave, Tom Hall's Commander Keen and so on...


this one bloodly pwns any japanese platformer, no way :D

anyway now... [/OT] for me

I'm looking foward for this entry, it's going to look colorful and old-style and that's good :D

[Smithy]

That whole stretchy cod thing was kindof cool, but he moved WAAAAAAAAAAAAAY too slowly when clinging to ceilings.

Also, frequently I would be in the middle of a level and the whole thing turned black and orange and psychedelic colors and froze.

My older brother and me, being very young at the time, always thought there was some secret combination of buttons that allowed James Pond to whip out his pistol and shoot the heads off the enemy toys. We just wouldn't believe that a game's cover art would mislead us with a fictitious promise of a contra-style gun-toting fish. Maybe that's part of why I harbor so much resentment for the game itself.

Also, for a game geared towards young kids, it was crazy difficult. Way harder than Mario.

[deadeye]

I hate to interrupt the current discussion but I have some discouraging news.

It seems that about 50% of people (three out of six) that have tested my game get a weird graphical glitch when the screen scrolls.  One of the testers took a screenshot:



Apparently the tiles jitter up and down by a pixel or so when the screen is in motion.  I have no idea what's causing it to render funny.  I do know that part of the problem is I'm using a 320x240 screen scaled up to 640x480 in an attempt to cover compatibility with most people's monitors, since a lot of newer monitors can't do 320x240.  Apart from that, it is a mystery.

I'm trying to figure out what's causing it, but I doubt there will be a solution by the deadline.  So just a heads up, I guess.

[Chris Whitman]

Rounding error, maybe? What are you writing this in?

[deadeye]

Rounding error, maybe? What are you writing this in?

I'm using Construct.  It's a game dev tool like Game Maker or MMF, but it's open source and has some cool features like HWA and Python scripting.

It's also still in beta, so basically I'm at the mercy of it's limitations and bugs. 

I'm sure the creators of Construct can fix the rendering glitch in the future, but for now the best I can hope for is to figure out the cause of the problem and warn people.  It only seems to happen when you do something silly like scale a 320x240 screen up to 640x480, and even then only on some machines.

This game is pretty much the largest project made with Construct so far, so I'm forging new ground here.  Which I kinda feel bad about, because A) it's a game about Hitler, so for a flagship project that's kinda, well... yeah.  And B) it's all retro style and doesn't even show off any of the fancy features like pixel shaders or the physics engine.  (Well, okay, I used physics for the gibs, but that's it.)

[Chris Whitman]

Yeah, I couldn't really say, then, but it sounds like some kind of numerical stability issue.

If you don't have access to the underlying source, though, I guess the best you can do is email the creators of the application.

[deadeye]

They're on it.  I'm on the forum like crazy over there, reporting bugs and such because I like what they're doing.  And the head creator is on the forum all the time taking feedback and suggestions, which is cool.

[moi]

If you can't work around it, then make it look like a feature! 

[Eclipse]

If you can't work around it, then make it look like a feature! 

yeah, paint all the ground tiles as pudding or coloured slime

[deadeye]

Why the hell did Jesus have to go and rise from the dead, anyway?!?  I'm already cutting this close to the deadline as it is, and now I have to go spend half a day eating ham and playing pictionary with my girlfriend's family.  Jesus Christ

I mean, rising from the dead.  Yeah okay, we get it... son of God.  Whoo hoo. 

Showoff.

If you can't work around it, then make it look like a feature! 

If I have time I'll build a 320x240 fullscreen version, so people can choose.  If it's not scaled, it should run okay.

Edit:
Okay, apparently it's not a scaling thing at all.  I built an un-scaled 320x240 test version and gave it to one of the testers who had the glitches, and it glitched in the same way.   

So if by some miracle I get this done by the deadline (just sixteen hours from now) then I'm sorry, but according to the results of my testers a good 50% of people who play it will likely have the weird graphical glitch, and there's nothing I can do about, at least not for now.

[deadeye]

*sigh*

So close, yet so far.  Half an hour to go, and I need an hour and a half.  Yes, I'm literally that close.  Just one hour.

So hey, okay.  No big whoop.  Didn't make it in time for the deadline, but I'll finish it up.

Edit:
I was going to do some level editing tonight, but I'm totally beat.  I figured I might as well upload my test level build, just to show that the game is at least feature complete.  It's not pretty, but it's something.

http://willhostforfood.com/files/5900079/LHiTrar

Anyway, yeah.  It's just the test level.  If you die, you restart the level.  If you win, you restart the level.  The death song is totally gay, and the info screen is ugly as sin.

Edit:
Feedback is appreciated.  C'mon, try it out   Let me know what you think.

[superflat]

Well I think it's great!  I wanna see it finished.  Definitely has the Mickey Mouse / Robocod feel.  As an Amiga guy that's a good thing (heard it dissed on another thread recently!)  And I finished Castle of Illusion about ten times, always thought it was an underrated classic, even if Mickey was as slow as a slug through glue.

[deadeye]

Well I think it's great!  I wanna see it finished.  Definitely has the Mickey Mouse / Robocod feel.  As an Amiga guy that's a good thing (heard it dissed on another thread recently!)  And I finished Castle of Illusion about ten times, always thought it was an underrated classic, even if Mickey was as slow as a slug through glue.

Ah, thanks.  I did try out Castle of Illusion recently, but man that game's slow.  I prefer quicker, more responsive controls, which is what I tried to do with LHiT.

Any problems with it?  Things you would like to see changed?

And yeah, I do plan on finishing up.  It'll probably be just four levels and a boss.  Something playable.  It's going to be a couple weeks or so because I'm not going to be rushing at such a breakneck pace.  I don't think I'll be developing it into a full-fledged game though, because it's silly.  I am considering using the hammer mechanic for another project, though.

And as silly as it is, it's still the most complete I've ever made a game.  And even though it's not in the compo, I still would like some feedback on it.  So keep it coming

[Hideous]

Oh wow, thanks for showing me Construct. I've been looking for something like that. And, sorry, I haven't had time to play your game yet

[deadeye]

Oh wow, thanks for showing me Construct. I've been looking for something like that. And, sorry, I haven't had time to play your game yet

Hey, you're welcome.

And the game is less than a minute long... there's only 9 enemies to kill in a space that's smaller than level 1-1 of Super Mario Bros.

Mainly I'm looking for feedback on the game engine itself, and the art.