atari2600land's Blog - If you come to a fork in the road, take it.

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So anyway, I've been working on Oranges for the Game Boy again yesterday and tonight. There's about an inch of snow on the ground, right now it's 4 am. I got the flashing the way I wanted it. Haven't tested it on a real Game Boy yet, but works fine in emulation. The snow isn't going to stick around for very long, it's supposed to be 45 today. Even now it's slightly above freezing, which is weird because the snow sticks above freezing. Anyway, Bob flashes once he gets the fork. The fork is a power-up in the Oranges game. It allows you to eat the oranges for a limited time. Each orange you eat gets you 2 points instead of the one that you get if you let one pass. But still, I feel that there's something missing. The game is way too easy. I scored 200 points before giving up. I got rid of the "Get ready..." screen. I had mistakenly put extra code that I could have put outside the looping section where it gets the oranges' x positions. So I put the code outside the looping section, and sure enough, the game started almost immediately. I am not sure what to do. Perhaps put a few powerdowns in as well to avoid? Have the powerdowns come more often than the powerups? I think only having one life makes the game harder and better, but even still with one life, it's hard to lose it. Went shopping today, found a groovy little Game Boy game: Daedalian Opus. It's a puzzle game where the object is to fill a rectangular or square shape with blocks that look like Tetris blocks, although it's nothing like Tetris. As for added difficulty, you don't need to use all the shapes provided. This starts and becomes apparent in puzzle #3 where one of the pieces wouldn't even fit if you wanted it to. I guess it's a harbinger of things to come, as puzzle #4 you get one extra piece which you don't need and is much more subtle. One thing they could have done away with is the between level animations. I think there's only 42 puzzles. If they left out the unneeded level changing stuff, perhaps they could have fit more puzzles in the game. But it's not my game. What is my game I am continuing to work on. Hopefully one day I will have it just the correct degree of difficulty.

http://atariage.com/forums/blog/168/entry-13714-if-you-come-to-a-fork-in-the-road-take-it/