Hop Skip Jump! (PC game, WIP, level designers wanted)

Entry posted by bomberpunk August 28, 2013

1,205 views

[#009] after completing a very difficult, punishing, and downright sinister game on OUYA called Fenix Box, i decided i would try to bring that magic into the realm of Qbasic. thus Hop Skip Jump was born.

in one night, i quickly threw together the game engine and for that moment i thought i could get away with randomzing each level, adding more obstacles until a maximum is hit (500 obstacles at level 99). it sounded promising, but guess what? it sucks. look at the screenshot below of the final random level:

an easy win. now, imagine the exit way at the top. impossible! so, to do this game right, there needs to be level design. and for level design of this nature, there needs to be a level editor. so i created one.

after the tedious task of moving the blocks around, one at a time, i ended up with this complete level (after an hour or so):

if i want a game with 99 levels (or heck, even a dozen), that's a LOT of time i don't really have. my solution? ask you fine folks who are interested to design a level or two and send them to me with your AA username (or real name) to be included in the game's credits. and i will compile them in a final product based on difficulty.

for those interested, read on for a description of what can be done in the level editor.

most importantly, the game is played with the left & right arrow keys (and "Z" to jump) while the level editor uses the mouse only.

for the game download, scroll to the bottom of this post.

*** INSTRUCTIONS FOR USING THE LEVEL EDITOR ***

to enter the level editor: at the title screen, hold the RIGHT MOUSE BUTTON then click the LEFT MOUSE BUTTON.

upon creating a new level, you will see one blue block (the player), one green block (the exit), and a clusterf**k of red blocks (the deadly obstacles).

note: do NOT create a new level if you have an existing one that you are working on. it will be overwritten.

MOVING BLOCKS

to move a block (regardless of it's color), you will need to select it first. to do so, hover over it with the mouse and click the LEFT mouse button. the selected block is now "grabbed" and can be dragged anywhere on the screen with the mouse. to release the block, press the RIGHT mouse button. you can only grab/move one block at a time, which will make creating a level very tedious.

COMMANDS

in the level editor, the playing field will take up most of the screen with the exception of the status/menu bar at the top (the yellow words & numbers). at the top left are the current coordinates of the mouse. you really don't need this, however i did when creating/debugging the level editor. disregard the third number (another debugging tool i needed).

now then, there are five commands at the top right: FLOOR, TEST, REFRESH, CODE, and SAVE.

FLOOR: by clicking on this word, you will cycle through the 3 available floor types; (1) solid blue floor which is safe to walk on; (2) solid red floor which kills you instantly; and (3) no floor at all. with no floor, you will fall offscreen and reappear at the top of the screen during gameplay. if there is nothing there to kill you, you will keep falling offscreen and reappearing up top. i just repeated myself.

TEST: by clicking on this word, you will put the level editor in gameplay mode to test the level you are editing. to exit testing, you'll have to run into a red block and then click REFRESH at the top right. alternatively, you can press ESC (which resets the game back to the title screen and you lose any unsaved changes to the level).

REFRESH: by clicking on this word, you will refresh the screen. any accidental movement of blocks will be reverted back to the last-saved state of the level. you also click this after running into a red block while testing the level (see TEST).

CODE: by clicking this word the "HPJMPSKP.DAT" file (your level data) will open in Notepad. you can make advanced changes to the code quickly if you know what you're doing, but otherwise this feature is a necessity for renaming the DAT file to something else if you wanted to create more than one level. note: there is currently no way to load renamed files.

SAVE: by clicking this word, all/any changes you've made to your level will be saved, confirmed by a beep tone.

ADVICE TO LEVEL DESIGN

when designing your level, keep in mind that the player's main enemy is gravity. that said, keep your narrow corridors & twists/turns wide enough that the player has a little bit of "bounce/fall" room. you'll understand what i mean when you test your game and see how the blue block moves. also, please don't send impossible levels or levels that you yourself have not been able to complete via reaching the exit.

questions? comments? suggestions?

DOWNLOAD THE GAME & EDITOR NOW!

Hop Skip Jump! v08282013 (8k) [via MediaFire] <-- this is a BAS file (source code), you'll need QBASIC to run it.

QBASIC v1.1 <-- this is QBASIC. open the BAS file through the user interface and press F5 to run the game.