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Sybil's Nightmare Run - Lynx 2020 Programming Competition entry


Igor

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This is my entry for the Lynx 2020 Programming Competition...

 

The game is called Sybil's Nightmare Run and you can get it from itch.io here - https://atarigamer.itch.io/sybils-nightmare-run-agpc2020-edition

It's a runner game, but instead of just jumping you also have a jetpack. Some gameplay and screenshots below...

 

Don't forget to have a look at all of the entries and submit your rankings for them.

https://itch.io/jam/lynx2020/entries

 

gameplay.gif.7356f4f6f23e17770980576f3c6bac8d.gif

 

 

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Screenshot5.png

Edited by Igor
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Played all the compo games intensively tonight and here are my impressions on Sybil.

 

I was a bit skeptical the first time I read about the game, and then I tried it... and gosh that's the game I played the most so far!!! Ok now I need to say that: I really start to hate the music, like really :D While the graphics are pretty simple, but work well for lisibility, you can tell that a lot of time and effort have been put into the controls: they feel great and quite responsive - even though sometimes I felt the jump is not recorded in time and I die miserably... Now the game suffers from two problems imo at the moment: I was playing on my pocketgo, so it might be the emulation there, but when I was using the jetpack or when the level name was displayed, the game suffered from severe slow down. And also the jetpack seems a bit overpowered - it reloads too fast I think.

 

Some ideas: change the color theme every now and then, just a palette switch for instance. Balance the jetpack a bit. Progressive speed increase (I think it was the same speed from level 1 to 20, and then a big boost all of a sudden from level 20). Now the weird one: Since the game use only 2 buttons, it could be interesting to explore a 2 player options on a single console :)

 

TLDR; Addictive little game that could turn in something really good actually.

 

(by the way I reached level 51 and still no trace of the easter egg :()

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11 hours ago, LordKraken said:

Played all the compo games intensively tonight and here are my impressions on Sybil.

 

I was a bit skeptical the first time I read about the game, and then I tried it... and gosh that's the game I played the most so far!!! Ok now I need to say that: I really start to hate the music, like really :D While the graphics are pretty simple, but work well for lisibility, you can tell that a lot of time and effort have been put into the controls: they feel great and quite responsive - even though sometimes I felt the jump is not recorded in time and I die miserably... Now the game suffers from two problems imo at the moment: I was playing on my pocketgo, so it might be the emulation there, but when I was using the jetpack or when the level name was displayed, the game suffered from severe slow down. And also the jetpack seems a bit overpowered - it reloads too fast I think.

 

Some ideas: change the color theme every now and then, just a palette switch for instance. Balance the jetpack a bit. Progressive speed increase (I think it was the same speed from level 1 to 20, and then a big boost all of a sudden from level 20). Now the weird one: Since the game use only 2 buttons, it could be interesting to explore a 2 player options on a single console :)

 

TLDR; Addictive little game that could turn in something really good actually.

 

(by the way I reached level 51 and still no trace of the easter egg :()

 

I agree about the color change of backgrounds maybe from level to level, that would be cool! I didn't mind the music so much but would be nice if the tune could cycle through to a different one every level or so, maybe from a pool of 3 different tunes to give it some variety.

 

Definitely could use some sort of obstacles to continue jumping over instead of just the pits though. The D-Pad input (I kept wanting to make the guy run faster, though doesn't respond) actually disables input from the A/B button so you die if you accidentally touch the D-pad and jump, like I kept doing.

 

Ooooo! I really like your 2-player option idea! Since the D-pad isn't used anyways, the screen could be split down the middle with the top part of the screen for player two sitting in front of you (as in across from you), running and jumping and it could be a race between both players on the same console.

Edited by Clint Thompson
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Thanks for the feedback! @Albert did some initial play testing for me and the rotating colour palette was on the cards...but I ran out of time, same for the music, I literally just typed in some random notes for @karri's ABCmusic and picked what sounded best. There as going to be a transition music tune (between stages) but I couldn't make anything that sounded OK in time for the deadline.

 

I know there's no compensation for the jump, so if you're literally 1 pixel over, you fall...this is something I need to address and give the player some leeway. The jetpack does need balancing too, I agree, same for the level speedup/progression.

 

The Easter egg is the massive speedup at level 20 ? I didn't expect anyone to get that far, let alone to level 51, wow that must have taken forever @LordKraken ?

 

The slowdown issue is due to text, another thing I need to address by chaining text SCBs. I'd also like to add some 'sway' to the buildings so they don't remain the same shape.

 

Glad you're all liking the game though, really puts a smile on my face! ?

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14 minutes ago, Igor said:

The Easter egg is the massive speedup at level 20 ? I didn't expect anyone to get that far, let alone to level 51, wow that must have taken forever @LordKraken ?

Arrgh. I have also been playing past level 20 looking for the Easter egg. Sigh...

 

But I must say that the game is nice.

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To avoid ithe slowdown caused by text drawing  you should use linked sprites including some sprites as text bufer.

You only need 3 sprites, 1 for the word LEVEL and two for the digits ( is it possible to make more than 99 levels?).

 

If you draw the word LEVEL with 5 letters sprites, drawing it  as one single image you could reduce most of the slowdown without using chained sprites.

 

 

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Yeah using a single sprite would solve it too but I'm using my new font so that draws one letter at a time (for now). It's possible to have up to 255 levels, not that anyone would get that far I think.

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  • 2 weeks later...

Hi, I finally had the time to play and rate all the competition entries.

 

Really cool entry Igor, it reminds a lot of the Flash game Canabalt (similar gameplay, but also both game have a strong and unique mood).

 

The game is simple to pick up and a perfect fit for the Lynx, but quite challenging in the later levels.

I love the graphics, the parallax scrolling, and the ability to automatically climb some obstacle but not all does add something unique to the whole "runner" formula.

 

Regarding improvements, like other have said, there is only two things I thought of:

- A faster progression of difficulty (each level should increase the speed / quantity of obstacle a bit)

- Other kind of obstacles / bonus to pick up ?

Maybe you could add in some flying bonuses or bonus lying on the floor to give the player a temporary speed boost, or higher jump or something like that. And also maybe some flying obstacles could spice up the difficulty (for example a block of spikes standing over a hole, so we would need to use jetpack, but don't fly too high)

 

Anyway, this is already a very solid game and quite polished, so congrats for making it in addition to running the competition itself! :)

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The game is really nice.

Maybe the jetpack is a bit powerfull (should decrease a bit quicker I think), and sometimes jump are a bit frustrating, so I usually prefer to play mostly with jetpack.

A cool option would be to have ability slide (with down direction) under obstacles (maybe after some levels).

 

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Thanks for the feedback! I do plan to add more challenging elements to the game, including finding that elusive ammo that is missing at the beginning (a runner/shooter style for some levels/bosses maybe). I love the sliding idea too. I'll see how I go on time with making updates, the 'final' version is likely to be a physical release, but we'll see on that.

 

I've been working with an artist on changes already, the new title screen has had a do-over and looks amazing, so I'm quite excited to do more on this game.

 

118572391_315767689755230_744669172851839435_n.thumb.jpg.58b368938e5c3b7b017b905bc6ee6bd2.jpg

 

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