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Primate Plunge


Atarius Maximus

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I updated this game in 2024.  See it here:

 

This game is based on a freeware OSX game I downloaded a few months ago called 'Primate Plunge'. It's made by Aelius games and can be seen here: http://www.aelius.com/primateplunge/.

 

The game is pretty simple, you control a monkey falling through the jungle, grabbing limbs as you fall. If you miss and fall to the bottom, the game is over. There's also a trampoline that appears to bounce you up a little and help grab the next branch. I'm not sure why there's a trampoline in the jungle, but it's in the original game. ;) Your score increases as you grab tree branches.

 

This game was kind of an experiment to mess around with the new kernel options. It's my first game I've made in a long time that uses the standard kernel...I wanted to dive in and see what I've been missing out on. If anyone likes the game, let me know and I'll keep working on improving it. It's pretty fun like it is, but I've got lots of ideas that I could add to it. :)

 

Steve

primate6.txt.bin

primate6.txt

primate7.txt.bin

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I've tried it an its very nice indeed and really fun to play!

 

At the moment there are unlimited lives isn't it?

How about making different levels which can be reached at a precise value of points? First level is slow and the game gets faster the higher level you get.

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I've tried it an its very nice indeed and really fun to play!

Thanks.

 

At the moment there are unlimited lives isn't it?

No, not really. After you lose your life, the score is reset to 0, so you really only get one.

 

How about making different levels which can be reached at a precise value of points? First level is slow and the game gets faster the higher level you get.

That would be really easy to do, I just didn't want to spend too much time on this game if there wasn't going to be any interest in it. Posts like yours definitely encourage me to keep working on it! :) I'll work on adding a difficulty progression to the game.

 

Steve

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At the moment there are unlimited lives isn't it?

No, not really. After you lose your life, the score is reset to 0, so you really only get one.

 

Steve

 

 

Really? I played it with stella and if my primate falls beyond the ground the score isn't resetted to zero.

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At the moment there are unlimited lives isn't it?

No, not really. After you lose your life, the score is reset to 0, so you really only get one.

 

Steve

 

 

Really? I played it with stella and if my primate falls beyond the ground the score isn't resetted to zero.

 

Ha...you're right. The version I posted had that removed. I'll fix that problem and post again later today.

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Here's an updated version. The score should now be reset to 0 when you fall to the bottom of the screen. I did make a change to how the score was reset - but I'm not sure what the original problem was. When I ran the game at home with Stella on my Mac the score didn't reset, on my laptop at work (Win XP) the score reset just like it was supposed to. What version of Stella are you using, Nognir? Maybe there's a bug in an older release, or it's only a problem on the OS X version.

 

Other changes to the game:

 

The speed now gradually increases as you get further into the game (I put in an 8.8 variable to allow for more precise speed control).

The left difficulty switch will now change the width of the tree limbs, you can reduce their size by half to increase the difficulty of the game.

After you drop and grab 50 tree limbs, the game's difficulty resets to the easiest level again.

The background color will change as the difficulty level increases.

I didn't feel like doing a bunch of code cleanup, so I bumped up the size to 8k to accomodate the changes even though I'm not using anywhere near that much space yet.

 

Steve

primate7.txt

primate7.txt.bin

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I'm using Stella 2.3.5 on Win XP and it works now.

The improvements are really sweet, adding some sort of parallax scrolling to the game.

I scored 1133 on my first attempt, I hope to get better later on ^^

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Fun little game, i like it! Please keep on working on it!

 

Besides sound-effects maybe you could also include some items to grab (bananas?) for extra points?

 

My best score so far is 1399...

 

I'm glad you like it! This is turning out to be a fun little game to work on.

 

I was thinking the same thing about extra points, the game needed some way to get some bonus points. This afternoon I worked on adding in a powerup, and I decided on a parachute pack that falls from the top of the screen. When you grab it, you get bonus points. As long as you're holding the parachute, you get double the amount of points as if you were hanging on to a tree limb. While you're holding on to the parachute, you will float in mid air and will not drop, and you cannot grab on to tree limbs. After about 3 seconds, you will automatically drop the parachute and start falling again (be careful where you are when you lose your chute!). I've got the parachute pack set to drop intermittently throughout the game.

 

The bananas are a good idea too, although adding another sprite would just add more flicker to the game. I may experiment with that idea and see how it looks.

 

I also used the "shakescreen" function that SeaGtGruff pointed out a few weeks back. When you fall and hit the ground, the whole screen shakes. I can't wait to add a "thud" sound effect to that, it looks pretty cool. I'll get around to adding sound last, I'm still working on gameplay stuff for now.

 

Steve

primate9.txt

primate9.txt.bin

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the parachute and the shaking screen are realy cool additions to the game!

Right now the branches aren't randomized right?

 

This addition adds sound effects to the game too. I may tweak how it sounds a little bit, but all the audio code is in there now.

 

The branches aren't randomized, they follow a specific pattern that repeats itself after you've grabbed 50 branches. I could change it to be random, I just haven't experimented with that in this game yet.

 

Steve

 

EDIT - I added primate11.txt, which is an updated source file with lots of comments added. The game itself wasn't changed.

primate10.txt

primate10.txt.bin

primate11.txt

Edited by Atarius Maximus
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Atarius Maximus Posted Thu May 10, 2007 10:44 PM

QUOTE(Impaler_26 @ Thu May 10, 2007 3:33 PM)

Fun little game, i like it! Please keep on working on it!

 

Besides sound-effects maybe you could also include some items to grab (bananas?) for extra points?

 

My best score so far is 1399...

 

 

I'm glad you like it! This is turning out to be a fun little game to work on.

 

I was thinking the same thing about extra points, the game needed some way to get some bonus points. This afternoon I worked on adding in a powerup, and I decided on a parachute pack that falls from the top of the screen. When you grab it, you get bonus points. As long as you're holding the parachute, you get double the amount of points as if you were hanging on to a tree limb. While you're holding on to the parachute, you will float in mid air and will not drop, and you cannot grab on to tree limbs. After about 3 seconds, you will automatically drop the parachute and start falling again (be careful where you are when you lose your chute!). I've got the parachute pack set to drop intermittently throughout the game.

 

The bananas are a good idea too, although adding another sprite would just add more flicker to the game. I may experiment with that idea and see how it looks.

 

I also used the "shakescreen" function that SeaGtGruff pointed out a few weeks back. When you fall and hit the ground, the whole screen shakes. I can't wait to add a "thud" sound effect to that, it looks pretty cool. I'll get around to adding sound last, I'm still working on gameplay stuff for now.

 

Steve

 

I love that parachute and the shaking screen, they're great additions to the game! :lust:

 

I haven't tried much with bB yet so this might be a stupid question, but could the game be done with the multisprite-kernel?

If not maybe using a missile or a ball for the banana would do the trick? It wouldn't look that good but i think it would be ok.

 

I found myself falling to death quite a few times while trying to catch the parachute pack, trying to grab special items adds a lot of fun to the game!

 

I tried to improve my score a bit yesterday.... 2305...

 

I need to check out the latest version tonight, i'm sure i can do better than that :)

 

I hope attaching a screenshot will work this time...

post-12950-1178965903_thumb.jpg

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I haven't tried much with bB yet so this might be a stupid question, but could the game be done with the multisprite-kernel?

Yes, it could be done, but there would have to be some major changes. There's no built-in way to scroll the playfield with the multisprite kernel, and also no multicolored sprites. I think this game is pretty well suited for the standard kernel.

 

If not maybe using a missile or a ball for the banana would do the trick? It wouldn't look that good but i think it would be ok.

I'm already using missile0 for the trampoline and the ball for the parachute pack powerup, and I lose missile1 to make the monkey sprite multicolored. There's nothing left to use for another object on the screen.

 

I found myself falling to death quite a few times while trying to catch the parachute pack, trying to grab special items adds a lot of fun to the game!

Yeah, me too. :) It's pretty risky trying for those extra points!

 

Attached is the latest and most likely final verison of the game. I added in the scrolling colors thanks to a suggestion by CurtisP. I had originally wanted to slow the scrolling of the colors down a little bit as they scroll faster than the background, but I couldn't get it to work. Slowing the color scrolling down made the movement too jerky, it has to move faster in order to scroll smoothly. Either way, it still looks much better than how it was before. I also changed the background of the title screen to black, which definitely makes it look better.

 

Enjoy!

 

Steve

primate14.txt.bin

primate14.txt

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Attached is the latest and most likely final verison of the game. I added in the scrolling colors thanks to a suggestion by CurtisP. I had originally wanted to slow the scrolling of the colors down a little bit as they scroll faster than the background, but I couldn't get it to work. Slowing the color scrolling down made the movement too jerky, it has to move faster in order to scroll smoothly. Either way, it still looks much better than how it was before. I also changed the background of the title screen to black, which definitely makes it look better.

Steve

 

Did you try scrolling the colors each time you scroll the screen? I only see pfscroll used in two different places, so it doesn't look that hard to work in.

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Did you try scrolling the colors each time you scroll the screen? I only see pfscroll used in two different places, so it doesn't look that hard to work in.

I've tried various methods, but I haven't been able to synchronize the speed of the color scrolling with the speed of the playfield scrolling. If you could provide me with a code example based on what you saw in my source, that would be great. I must be missing something obvious?

 

Thanks!

 

Steve

Edited by Atarius Maximus
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Yes, it could be done, but there would have to be some major changes. There's no built-in way to scroll the playfield with the multisprite kernel, and also no multicolored sprites. I think this game is pretty well suited for the standard kernel.
I'm already using missile0 for the trampoline and the ball for the parachute pack powerup, and I lose missile1 to make the monkey sprite multicolored. There's nothing left to use for another object on the screen.

Ok, so no banana then... that's not too bad, the parachute pack is cooler anyway. :)

 

I really like the latest version! It's even more fun with sound effects and the scrolling colors look nice too!

It's also nice to see whats possible with bB, this and all the other great bB games motivate me to do something with bB myself one day. Keep up the good work!

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  • 2 years later...

Yes, I know, I'm bumping a nearly three year old thread, but I was playing this game again tonight and I'm frustrated that I still can't beat the high score of 2305 that was posted years ago. :) This is probably my favorite of the old games I made myself. My best effort tonight was 2089. Has anyone else ever beaten 2305? Care to try? :)

 

Steve

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  • 3 years later...

Yep, this game is indeed the best of your old games and i still enjoy playing it. My best score so far - 3259.

Yep, I'm bumping one of my really old threads again. I spent some time playing Primate Plunge tonight and didn't get anywhere near Impaler_26's high score of 3259, I had a hard time breaking 2000 on each attempt. Argh. It's still my favorite old bB game that I did myself, but I'm nowhere near the best score. :)
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Do you specify playfield colors in asm? If so, is there an example you could make? In pure bB if you specify both pfheights and pfcolors the colors CANNOT be changed after the first use. I'm wondering if using inline asm can get around that limitation..

 

Also, it seems like you've got one multi-colored sprite (the monkey) and two single colored sprites (the branches) how is that possible in bB?

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Do you specify playfield colors in asm? If so, is there an example you could make? In pure bB if you specify both pfheights and pfcolors the colors CANNOT be changed after the first use. I'm wondering if using inline asm can get around that limitation..

 

Also, it seems like you've got one multi-colored sprite (the monkey) and two single colored sprites (the branches) how is that possible in bB?

Only the titlescreen portion of the game is in asm. I created my own titlescreen kernel of sorts before RevEng made his far superior version. :) You can see it here: http://www.atariage....en#entry1474960. There's no way that I know of to use inline asm to force bB to adjust the playfield colors. I'm not saying it's impossible, though.

 

As far as the multicolored monkey sprite & the single colored branches, I just used 'set kernel_options player1colors pfcolors'. The monkey sprite uses the multicolored player1, the tree branches use the single colored player0.

 

Steve

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