FlyGuy II

[sometimes99er]

How about five pellets give you a bullet for your "good grid guy gone"-gun ?

[The Codex]

Love the idea of a semi-reliable teleport "flying" feature!

 

Another idea from the arcades is that one of the pills is a flashing pill (could blink on and off, or red-yellow-red-yellow) that is worth more than a regular pill point-wise (or could confer temporary invulnerability). The flashing pill would cycle around, either on a timer or any time the player collects a pill. This adds a more immediate goal to the level and can lure the player into more dangerous sections of the board in return for a reward.

 

I'm very excited to hear that you're resuming work on this and am looking forward to the final product. Anything I can do to help, just let me know.

[mäsäxi]

I wanted to make some comments, as I do like the idea and looks of this game a lot! This FLYGUY starts to feel like old good arcade games did!!

 

* being able to grab captured FlyGuys

 

So Flyguy is gonna grab dead fly bodies? As spider will surely bite and inject poison into fly guy in the very fraction of second fly guy is captured. And at the same time, fly guy´s inner body starts to melt because of spider´s digestive liquids. I am sorry to spoil your "Family game" ( where captured flies can of course be freed again by fellow fly ) had to give some scientific facts here...

 

Ahhh, of course fly guy must free captured fly guys! it´s a nice idea!! And gives nice feeling to player! (I can imagine little 1980s player becoming happy by freeing fly guy from spiders web!)

 

The random levels might give better repeat playability

 

I do like the looks of that random level in screenshot! It just looks exactly like EARLY EIGHTIES GAMES MAZES DO LOOK!!!! (well, some of them at least) So I personally suggest you putting your computer making random levels and choosing working ones to game. I think that if you keep original computer generated random levels and add human made ones, human made ones may have clear contrast in their looks when compared to random generated levels (means to say, that human made ones may look too different...) Though that depends on which kind of levels certain human is designing.

 

Wonder how it would look like if FluyGuy is bigger while he is flying.

(like in the racing game Bump 'n Jump when the car jumps).

 

I haven´t tested your playable demo so I don´t know how flyguy´s entrance do look like, but I imagined his entrance as randomly appearing from either top, bottom, left or right hand screen edge, being made of 16x16 sprite (or several sprites) to get him bigger, so it looks like he´s flying, and little wing animation could be nice too (wings could have another colour during flying, just to make fly guy look neater for few seconds and thus making this fly moment feel more special ) and fly guy wheels half-randomly around for a few seconds while first seconds of "Flight of the bumble bee" is played and then flyguy sits on randomly selected web spot, shrinks to 8x8 sprite, and that melody fades away in few seconds of time (by slowly turning volume to zero).

 

I can samelike think for this "hyper space" thing, fly guy should do some real fly like wheeling arounds for few seconds to make him really feel like a fly before he lands to the web again (well, landing again on spider´s web is not very wise choice for a fly, but anyway... ) Maybe same little melody could be played once again every time fly guy does his little aerial acrobatics. Or then, if you don´t like the musical part, you may just program him doing everchanging BUZZZZZZZZZ

sound during flying.

 

How about adding a Mrs. FlyGuy to the match ?

 

Hmmmm.... maybe it´s then time for a sequel? "FLYGUY III - MRS. FLYGUY"

 

wELL.... actually it would be nice to have Mrs. FlyGuy appearing during game.

 

Either between levels in some very simple "interlude" (like in pac-man and C=64 Frantic Freddie, Super Pipelines, etc... etc...) where Mr. FlyGuy could fly to home (black empty screen, mr. flyguy appears from the left edge and flies to the centre of the screen where mrs. flyguy sits and being a nice family game, mr. flyguy comes home bringing food along him! There could be a simple message like

 

"MR. FLYGUY COMES HOME

 

BRINGING FOOD TO MRS. FLYGUY"

 

There could appear a little red heart between mr. and mrs. flyguy and there could be little loving greeting message from mrs. flyguy to her ever lovin´ six legged husband! Maybe there could be few different love messages from Mrs. FlyGuy, different in each interlude, to make game more interesting, so player has to play more, to see all messages!

 

I was thinking, that if flyguy gets captured, maybe Mrs. FlyGuy could have a little (but very important) cameo role. Either player could control Mrs. FlyGuy for a moment, trying to free his husband from spider´s web, either player could use some "pill" (if player has any) by pressing fire button, to make mrs. flyguy appear to rescue. Again could some little melody be played. Maybe game could be silent otherwise, and music is played only during entrance and flying and rescue parts.

 

Sorry, I just have appetite for designing "nice little things which make game better".

 

 

By the way, you guys were thinking about how many cartridges you should make. Could this give somekinda of solution?

 

1) You could ask here, how many users want to buy FlyGuy cartridge?

 

2) Produce that amount of cartridges and bring them to the fair (maybe you have to produce some more to the fair, if just few forum users want cartridge)

 

3) If all cartridges get sold on fair, that´s great! If some cartridges are unsold, then ask money from forum users who wanted flyguy cartridge and send existing cartridges to them.

 

4) If there are not enough cartridges left after fair, then just send existing ones first to forum users, who were fastest in "I WANNA BUY FLYGUY CARTRIDGE!!!!". Slower forum users just need to wait someone produces last cartridges, and this way, there should be (at least almost) exact amount of cartridges and no cartridges are left to cartridge maker unsold. Of course, my idea is not trouble-free, but you can freely desing my idea better. "Just my thoughts"

Edited June 23, 2010 by mäsäxi

[matthew180]

Thank you everyone, all great suggestions!

 

Willsy: Yes, I'm planning on a cart release. :-)

 

mäsäxi: Thanks, that is quite a post!

 

Due to mäsäxi's accurate description of what happens when a spider captures a bug, maybe the captured FlyGuy's will become the antagonist in the form of a poisonous bug and chase FlyGuy around, exploding if he catches FlyGuy. Or maybe they just become little bombs and blow up if you get too close.

 

I'm not specifically trying to make a "family game" per se, I don't think bug violence is too much no matter the age.

 

I'm still not sure about random vs. hand made levels. I'm trying to figure out if this will move more towards a puzzle type game or challenging based on randomness. I'd like to have a little more depth than simply getting faster and faster. I think of PacMan and how much I *want* to like the game, but it just gets too boring too fast.

 

Matthew

[mäsäxi]

That "flyguy becoming antagonist" sounds good too! But I still like the idea about rescuing captured flyguy. If you get "too many" suggestions, maybe you will have to make sequel for FlyguyII! Or just call this assembler Flyguy as FLYGUY and it´s sequel as FLYGUY II.

 

I didn´t exactly mean you are making "family fame" with no violence at all I just meant that FlyGuy IS a family game already, suitable for everyone! (maybe with exception of those with BAD phobics for flies and spiders)

 

I think the same for Pac-Man. It easily gets too boring because of same maze and same ghost movement, only ghost speed increases. Though I am "too old" to play it anymore but sometimes I give it a go with my little son who likes it a much!!

 

Here´s one hint:

 

I just said about putting rest ideas to FlyGuy´s sequel (or to other similar type grid/maze game), but there´s one idea which I haven´t seen in MSX games. You could put little option menu in title screen, where you could select what kind of game you want to play. Like

 

"SELECT STARTING MAZE"

 

(of course you could select just first few, otherwise game would be spoiled)

 

 

"SAME MAZE EVERY TIME"

 

 

"SPIDERS JUST GET FASTER AND FASTER"

 

(and that´s it, no bugs, no rescuing, nothing else, but just flyguy, food and spiders on the grid)

 

 

"CAPTURED FLYGUY BECOMES A BUG"

 

 

"RESCUE FLYGUY"

 

 

"INVISIBLE WEB"

 

(it probably is too hard to play with invisible web, but it is a nice add for those who want a real challenge!! spiders are visible which gives player some hint about where there is a web)

 

 

 

"PARTLY INVISIBLE WEB"

 

(same as above, but visited web-grid becomes visible and stays visible, not visited web parts are invisible)

 

 

"INVISIBLE WEB AND SPIDERS"

 

(for very foolish players! spiders are only visible when they step to visible part of web. yes, i know, it must be very hard, but it adds some fun to the game and prevents boredom!)

 

 

 

and player could possibly select several options together, like "SAME MAZE EVERY TIME" and "CAPTURED FLYGUY BECOMES A BUG" to get always just same maze and dead flyguy turns to dangerous bug in that game.

 

I have always liked the menu which was used in Commodore 64 game "JUICE". It allows player select what characters (=enemies) are used in game! It had level selection option too. "KID GRID" by same author has difficulty selection and possibility to select amount of "STUNS". (to freeze enemies for 1-2 seconds)

 

I understand, that such options are not good for every game, it may spoil FlyGuy completely. But this was just an idea.

Edited June 24, 2010 by mäsäxi

[twoodland]

Did this game ever get updated with sound?

[matthew180]

Nope. Owen sent me a cool song, but I never got around to converting and incorporating it. I do think about it from time to time, so it is somewhere on my mental to-do list way down where all the projects exist in random chaos with no order.

[jrhodes]

Any plans to finish this? Looks awesome.

[matthew180]

That is a good question!  If only things were so simple.  I suspect I will try to finish the F18A MK2 before restarting work on this, but nothing is certain.  These days, I'm all over the place when it comes to spare time and a backlog of priorities vs hobbies.