175 replies to this topic

[Jan Hermanns]

GIANA BROS Demo Release

My goal was to make a little platform game that is actually fun to
play ...and has superb animations ...and smooth scrolling
...and sophisticated controls ...and is only 4K in size!

Controls:
Joystick Left/Right - move left/right
Joystick Up or Fire - jump

Any feedback welcome - especially if anybody could test this on real
hardware.

I hope you like it!

Jan

P.S. Keep the following in mind: a) the faster you move the longer
your jumps b) collecting four gold nuggets gives an extra life

 GianabrosIV.bin   4K   514 downloads

[xybot67]

Congrats on a fun game! It was a little hard to play using the keyboard (I used Stella), but I enjoyed it. How many levels are there?

[Animan]

Very nice! I'll throw it on my Harmony Cart later tonight.

[Jan Hermanns]

xybot67, on Wed Jan 25, 2012 7:45 PM, said:

Congrats on a fun game! It was a little hard to play using the keyboard (I used Stella), but I enjoyed it. How many levels are there?

thank you, this demo version includes three levels, full version will have 7-10 Levels...

[chjmartin2]

No You-tube?

[rockfistus]

Damn that's nice!

[jbs30000]

Wow, that's really, really good.  Very difficult too.

[Jan Hermanns]

jbs30000, on Thu Jan 26, 2012 5:35 AM, said:

Wow, that's really, really good.  Very difficult too.

Thank you!

May I ask you some questions?

1. Is it too difficult (i.e. is it challenging or frustrating)? If so, which part(s) did you find too difficult?
2. Did you play all three levels?

[Brian O]

Love it! Played using an emulator on my Droid. Will have to try it on actual hardware. When do you expect to add additional levels?

-B

[Jan Hermanns]

Brian O, on Thu Jan 26, 2012 7:13 AM, said:

Love it! Played using an emulator on my Droid. Will have to try it on actual hardware. When do you expect to add additional levels?

-B

Well, adding additional levels is no problem, because I have a leveleditor.

The hard part is making good levels that are fun to play, i.e. levels that are neither too easy nor too difficult.
So, it is very interesting for me to hear what you people say about the level of difficulty!

[Nateo]

Man, I can't wait til I get home so I can try this! Could you possibly post some screenshots?

[cd-w]

Nice work - the animation is nice and smooth. The difficulty level is very hard though - I struggled even to make the first few jumps

Any chance you could make the screen scroll down - it is frustrating to die when you drop of the bottom of the screen?

Chris

Edited by cd-w, Thu Jan 26, 2012 8:18 AM.

[Jan Hermanns]

cd-w, on Thu Jan 26, 2012 8:18 AM, said:

Nice work - the animation is nice and smooth. The difficulty level is very hard though - I struggled even to make the first few jumps

Any chance you could make the screen scroll down - it is frustrating to die when you drop of the bottom of the screen?

Chris

One of the early prototypes could scroll the screen down - but that was boring, because you could only loose a life if you hit an enemy.

I rather make the levels a bit easier...

[Jan Hermanns]

chjmartin2, on Wed Jan 25, 2012 9:33 PM, said:

No You-tube?

Voila, it's me playing the first level:

[theloon]

Very nice!  Physics look good.

I got my hopes up too much for horizontal smooth scrolling though

[atari2atari]

Wow, Jans - - thanks for your hard work!  This is really fun!

I like the idle "blink" animation, by they way, and he's (she? it?) is a GREAT little character!

The game is part puzzle, part action, and so clever level design will come down to nicely blending those two elements.

Any chance you will release the level editor for all of us to try and "compete" to make fun levels?  You could always do a fun competition, and we could all vote . . . ?  Just an idea!


Bravo!

-a2a

[Brian O]

Jan Hermanns, on Thu Jan 26, 2012 7:24 AM, said:

Brian O, on Thu Jan 26, 2012 7:13 AM, said:

Love it! Played using an emulator on my Droid. Will have to try it on actual hardware. When do you expect to add additional levels?

-B

Well, adding additional levels is no problem, because I have a leveleditor.

The hard part is making good levels that are fun to play, i.e. levels that are neither too easy nor too difficult.
So, it is very interesting for me to hear what you people say about the level of difficulty!

I think the difficulty is perfect. My only suggestion would be to change the name. Giana Bros calls to mind mario bros, which may set the wrong expectation in people's mind. I would give this game a more unique name. I think you have a nice little character to work with, and a backstory couldn't hurt. It may also help pave the way for some sequels. Just my two cents.

Otherwise, I think it looks pretty sweet and I can't wait to see more.

-B

[Jan Hermanns]

theloon, on Thu Jan 26, 2012 9:57 AM, said:

Very nice!  Physics look good.

I got my hopes up too much for horizontal smooth scrolling though

I hate to disappoint you, but horizontal smooth scrolling is not possible on the VCS :-(

[Jan Hermanns]

atari2atari, on Thu Jan 26, 2012 10:21 AM, said:

I like the idle "blink" animation, by they way, and he's (she? it?) is a GREAT little character!

It's a he and his name is Blinky!

atari2atari, on Thu Jan 26, 2012 10:21 AM, said:

Any chance you will release the level editor for all of us to try and "compete" to make fun levels?  You could always do a fun competition, and we could all vote . . . ?  Just an idea!

Nice idea, but the leveleditor is currently a little difficult to use (it's just a LISP program, that transforms textfiles into assembler sourcecode).
But I see what I can do...

[ComputerSpaceFan]

Oh my! This is running on an Atari 2600??? Color me IMPRESSED!

[theloon]

Jan Hermanns, on Thu Jan 26, 2012 11:34 AM, said:

theloon, on Thu Jan 26, 2012 9:57 AM, said:

Very nice!  Physics look good.

I got my hopes up too much for horizontal smooth scrolling though

I hate to disappoint you, but horizontal smooth scrolling is not possible on the VCS :-(

One possibility is using a multi-sprite kernel and have static rows of playfield blocks.  You could use sprites as the empty area between platforms.  Instead of moving the playfield you move the sprites representing empty areas, power ups and ladders.  Clipping is the only big issue I can think of.  You may be able to mitigate this by letting the playfield have foreground priority and leave a black column at either side of the screen.

Edited by theloon, Thu Jan 26, 2012 12:52 PM.

[ACrystal2011]

Very fun game. Needs some sounds tho great start

[Brian O]

ACrystal2011, on Thu Jan 26, 2012 1:15 PM, said:

Very fun game. Needs some sounds tho great start

Agreed.

[Brian O]

I was just playing it again (at work, of course), and I think that -- aside from the sound -- the game could also benefit from either implementing a timer (to add some tension) or a score. If you implement a score, for instance, you could award a bonus for collecting all of the dots. Even if you were to implement a timer, the dots could still be used to give you extra time. As it stands right now, I'm not sure why I would/should go out of my way to get the yellow dots.

Ninja edit: Just saw that you get an extra life for every 4 dots. Scratch my last comment.

-B

[ACrystal2011]

a timer would be nice