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[ScaryPotato]

Trailer Videos:






Downloads and Links:

Adventure Apes Website

~ Sept. 19, 2012 Edit~

The game is now available through indievania. Woo hoo!




~End Edit~

Adventure Apes Facebook

Adventure Apes Blog

Click here to see all the different iterations of the game so far


About the game:

If you like old school platformers, then this game is for you.
If you like monkeys and guns, then this game is for you.
If you like colourful pixelated goodness, yep, this game is for you.


You must guide the hero, Mitch, through the inner labyrinth of a Mayan temple and capture Horatio Hawk from making a getaway with said temple's magical artifact.
On your mission, you'll encounter a host of enemies, from hungry bats to exploding pufferfish.
Then there are the bosses. Three of them, each progressively more evil than the last!

This is just the beta-demo of the game, and there are about 65 rooms to play through at the moment. The full version will have over 100, and a total of five bosses to battle.

Of course, if you come across any weird problems or errors while playing the game, let me know! Also, if by some small chance you were mildly entertained by the experience, I wouldn't mind hearing from you either  


Oh yeah, controls are explained to you when you start a new game, or when you pause it, but to get the ball rolling, refer to the stuff below...


Controls:

Use arrow keys to select New Game or Load Game, then hit Enter to start

Arrow keys - Run jump, roll and swim

A button - Lift and throw little blocks

S button - Shoot your selected weapon

D button - Lays a bomb

Spacebar - Switches/selects your weapons

T button - Talk to Dr.A or Otis to get hints if you find yourself lost!

P button - Pauses/unpauses the game

Esc key - Calls up the quit dialogue box

[emacs]

I remember playing this like a year or two ago.  Can't wait to see it complete!

[ScaryPotato]

ev149 - That makes two of us! I was at one point last year partnered up to port the game as DSiWare, but it fell through, so this current version of the game is what was intended for the portable release. The one you probably played was excessively large and difficult to find your way around in, and I hope that this new version takes what I learned from the past and improves on it   

[Blodyavenger]

I've tried the game and I must say it's really fun :D I like the art and the gameplay.

Although I would like to point out few things:
- Jumping. It's hard to jump sometimes. I've fallen into the water at start like 4 times in a row. Maybe I'm n00b but still
- At first I didn't know that key is needed for a chest and I was running around with stone trying to get trough that tiny passage. Maybe a quick "Key needed" pop-up text couldn't hurt at start

And then there was moss covered tiles that I believe can be destroyed somehow but I didn't find a way how (bomb?) and I stuck at some point because of that.

Other than that, GREAT! 

Oh, small bug when you're jumping. You get stuck in the middle of a tile:

[ScaryPotato]

Thanks for the input Blodyavenger!

One of my friends has a hard time getting past those waterfalls too, I may have to narrow the gap at some point if it's too troublesome, but was trying to get the player get used to making long jumps. Might be too early in the game for it though.

The issue with the chests should be fixed now. If you walk up to one and don't have a key, you'll be told to look for one.

If you mean the green blocks, you'll need a special weapon for it (bombs come later though!) I'm planning on setting up a 'tip' system where if you get lost or can't find an item that you need, you can get some directions or general info on where you should be headed.

The collisions with the tiles should be sorted out now

Here's the link to the latest file (also have it on the first post)

Thanks again for taking the time to play my game!

[ANtY]

Inspired by yesterday's dEnamed's post I decided to make some useful feedback from time to time.

I was looking for a game that has possibly the lowest amount of replies and from few others I chose this one, Adventure Apes and the Mayan Mystery!  

Website:

• Font you're using on the game's site is very unreadable
• I'm not a native English speaker but I think that big part of your players won't be, I don't know what 'Swag' means and it doesn't link to anything like download for me. Use something like 'Play' or 'Download'
• Button with a label "Download" would be much better choice than a screen with explanation below

Game:

• Main menu isn't intuitive, make all buttons visible at once, something like in old NES games (Mario/Battle City)
• You don't have to show at start keys for 'quit game' and 'continue', box that appears after clicking Esc explains how they work
• It's better to expand (vertically, to the bottom) the dialog box than to cut text in the middle of sentence
• Turn off drawing system cursor

Code:

___________________________________________
ERROR in
action number 1
of Draw Event
for object OpenChestMessageObj:

Error in code at line 1:
   TextboxScript('Congratulations!',text[i],show[i],c_black,c_yellow,0.5,'~C to Continue~')

at position 39: Unknown variable i

• I got this (twice) after touching that treasure chest
• Character is falling too fast, especially in water
• Jumping doesn't feel right, could use some polish
• Game is very frustrating cause of that jumping issues
• It gets much better after collecting the gun, since before the gameplay consists only of that not-good-enough jumping

Sorry if it sounds harsh, I pointed only things that seems wrong, others are good, nice retro feeling btw

Keep up the good work  

[ScaryPotato]

Whew! Another big round of updates on the game this weekend, not to mention the website.


ANty, the font on the site is a little different now. I think it's fine now, but if it's tough to read, let me know:) Also, the 'Swag' tab is now 'Downloads', so it's a little easier to navigate

As far as the game goes, I've started adding the introduction illos to help set the story. There'll be 12 in total that scroll automatically, here are the first three:



Also went and reworked all the player sprites to have a more consistent light source, as well as give it a nicer sense of depth.

Tweaked a couple of other things here and there, including a boss HUD that didn't go away after you beat him.

The error message is fixed on the chests.

Control schematic is staying for now, it'll get removed when I get around to making the new instruction booklet:)

Messages are being fixed to allow for longer lines of text...slowly!

Still a bunch to do...it was mentioned that getting rid of the score would be smart since it really doesn't affect anything, and I agree. Am thinking of swapping it out for a little counter to show how many keys you've found...

Hmm, as far as the jumping goes, I think I may change the first level around a little bit so you don't have to rely on jumping quite as much right away. The physics of it can't be tweaked much without really affecting the rest of the game since it is a platformer, and it's too far along to do anything drastic! That said, I'll see if I can do something subtle:)



The latest version is ready to go here! Give it a shot and let me know what you think!

[Franklin's Ghost]

Liking the look of the new screenshots in setting up the game. Also not sure if you've realised but you accidentlly have an extra "s" in the word "rested" in the third screenshot.

Game is looking nice though so will have to download it and give it a shot when I get the chance 

[ScaryPotato]

Dang! Good eye Franklins Ghost, I've fixed the spelling in the download file. Hope you like the game, but even if you hate it, let me know so I can make it better:)

[Farmergnome]

I really want to like this game, its got so much charm and the graphics and everything are just awesome, but something about the jumping is constantly driving me nuts, its like there is a bit too much gravity or something, I cant put my finger on it.

[happymonster]

I think you should add anti-aliasing to the font, all the backgrounds are very soft and the font is so sharp.

[ScaryPotato]

Farmergnome - I'm working on a fix now. You aren't the only person to have issues with the jumping...I'm so used to the way it currently is that it seems normal to me. Anyhow, I'm working on making it so when you fall, you don't fall with such force. (Also, falling in the water levels will be much more gradual per ANty's post)

happymonster - Yeah, I agree with you. I was trying to keep the different fonts to a minumum for the sake of consistency, but it doesn't really suit the images. I'll try to find something that suits them a little better!

Should have an update in the next couple hours, depending on how long I take to eat lunch



~Edit~

Okay! I think that the jumping/falling/landing is a lot less jarring now. As an added bonus, you can clear slightly wider gaps now too. Jumping around in deep water is completely changed as well...you can jump higher, and fall much slower.

I think I found a font that works reasonably well for the intro story, and changed the last two lines around as well.



Please let me know what you guys and gals make of it!
Download here

[ScaryPotato]

Here's a shot of the new font I think that I'll use for the intro to the game. Also, it's the first picture of the main antagonist, Horatio Hawk.
Yes, he is actually a bald eagle, however, he was adopted (info and backstory will be revealed as the game(s) progress)

[ScaryPotato]

I'm trying to polish up the game a little bit, and opted to have Dr A's initial message go over the controls with you, rather than having a diagram shoved in your face right away.



Hopefully it makes things a little more streamlined Still undecided about the headshot of Dr A though. Probably going to rework it, but not sure how just yet...anyone have suggestions?

[ScaryPotato]

Got through another round of minor edits and updates!

-I've been using an old version of Game Maker for the project and recently got the updated version, unfortunately the conversion wouldn't recognize several fonts. I tried keeping them as close to the previous styles as possible (not like anyone would notice, but it drove me nuts looking at something other than my first choice!)

-Still working on jumping physics. Tweaked it again so when you get the high jump item, you jump a little over 50% higher than without it.

-Added a handful more images for the poem/story at the beginning of the game. Only three or four more to go! I also eliminated the control schematic completely from the game (except when you pause)...

Here are the latest story images added:











My hope is that with the long weekend coming up, I'll be able to bang out the rest of the drawings for the intro, and finish up any little odds and ends in the demo, minus finishing the music that is.
Anyways, when I can call this demo version done, I'm planning on trying to get it out there as best as possible to raise interest in the full-blown game. Unfortunately, this is my first attempt as a serious game, and I'm not sure the best way to go about doing all this.
The plan right now is to have the demo made available from as many sites as possible while I work on the full game, and hopefully, when the full version is ready to go, enough interest will have been generated to entice people to pay a couple bucks for it (am thinking something like $2.50 or $3).

So, my questions are...do any of you more seasoned game creators out there have some recommendations for indie-game friendly sites out there? Reading through some posts in here I have discovered some that I was unaware of, so if you've any suggestions I'd like to know!
Also, does my plan seem sensible at all as a way to go about things? There are always so many opinions on how to handle generating interest in games, so I'm sure there are plenty of good methods...I just don't want to be the guy that finds the crappiest method possible!
Blarrgh, I'm rambling. But yeah, any advice in general would be awesome.


PS:
Download the game here!

[HarrisonJK]

The link isn't working... 

[ScaryPotato]

Well, that isn't going to help matters much is it?

Thanks for pointing it out HarrisonJK, the link is fixed now. Once extracted, it'll be around 6.6mb (the artwork is starting to add up apparently!)

Download the game here (I promise it works this time!)

[Ant]

I didn't get far... this error popped up when I got eaten by the piranhas on the left of the starting screen.

ERROR in
action number 1
of Draw Event
for object DarkenedScreen2Obj:

Error in code at line 1:
   draw_sprite_ext(DarkScreen,-1,MitchObj.x,MitchObj.y,1,1,0,noone,1);
                                         ^
at position 40: Unknown variable x

Seemed jolly nice though, the spriting especially. Your first post makes no mention of the return key so I mashed the keyboard at start up as there's mention in-game either. Having to press the C key seems a bit odd as well (maybe combine the C and return keys?) There also seems to be a slight delay between pressing the jump key and the sprite actually jumping which made it quite frustrating trying to make pixel-perfect jumping from ledges.

[Ichigo Jam]

This is rather nice (perhaps a little easy so far) but I think I got stuck:

There seems to be no way out. I have a jump upgrade, but no way of destroying the green vines (unless I'm missing something).

[ScaryPotato]

caiys - Thanks for pointing those things out for me! The error message should be taken care of now, along with several others that I discovered (losing your last life while fighting a boss was another). I added a little instruction thing on the game start screen to clear things up, and may do the C/Enter as you suggested. My concept was to make all the messages work based on the letter of the command, but the Enter thing is probably more universally understood!
As far as the jumping goes...dang, you guys are making me work hard on this aspect! What I changed this time around was the sprite mask width, but just slightly. It does make jumping a smidge easier, but if it gets any wider, then the player would be able to walk past the edge of blocks without falling. Either way, I hope it does the trick now!

Ichigo Jam - Dang! It's good of you to spot that situation...I made some changes to that room's layout and missed that area. It's fixed now. And don't worry, the game gets quite a bit more difficult as you progress!



Thanks guys for all the feedback, an update is ready to go...
Download it here



Also, as an added bonus, I figured that it was time to try making a semi-respectable trailer for the game...behold!!