Adventure [GBC] - Mini DevLog #2
~95% Feature Complete version of Adventure from Atari 2600 the GBC
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You can find Adventure [GBC] - DevLog#1 Here
With my hiatus from the beloved creature feature in my heart (Yes, I am talking about Monster Party GBC), most of my energy has been given to my Adventure GBC project. At this point, a majority of the problems Features have been completed, even the ones I had the most worry about, such as the Bridge mechanic. So I’ll jump right in with a small showcase and some thoughts I have had throughout development!
If love were a Bridge, it wouldn’t be this one:
At this point, I feel as though I have ranted about this Bridge problem to just about anyone I could trap into a conversation. It was a bit of a conundrum because one of the core aspects of GB/C development in GB Studios is how collisions and you are mostly equivalent to the Moon and a person; That is to say that they’re beautiful to look at, but it’s a herculean effort to do anything to them.
On top of the complexity that involved persistent location tracking for each item (See here for more on that) the Bridge requires full parameters and an engine edit to achieve a semblance of functionality.
A fun feature of GB Studio 4.0 was the ability to access the variables you created in UX directly from the Engine code, which streamlines that portion of the process. Essentially, we are adding a rule to the Collisions.h file, which passes through the Width/Height and X/Y, which we set based on the placement of the Bridge Actor in each scene. Here’s a quick clip to show the Bridge in action, though placement is the key issue at the moment.
Lunatic lady won’t stop saying “Hidden Maze”:
Yet another case of my rambling and rantings weaving through the GB Studio Discord channels. One of the features that I had been saving was the “Hidden Maze”, essentially a limited sight room that the player needed to navigate. While I took the approach of attempting to use the overlay or some fancy sprite work, nothing seemed to be functional, and I had spent quite a bit of time working on it. So I did what any good independent developer does in this scenario: find community support.
There aren’t enough words to express how creative and intuitive the solutions that this community member creates are. They were able to provide a demo in a matter of minutes, which showcased the feasibility of an invisible maze. Since both the image and demo touch on the method, I’ll end this section with just a functionality clip from Adventure GBC.
Easter Egg this, Secret Level that… :
For those unaware, the original designer for Adventure was Warren Robinett, though most Atari releases lacked proper credit at their time among other unfriendly business practices. This led Warren Robinett to hide a single invisible pixel sprite in the game that allowed players to unlock a secret room that had his name hidden away in it. Whether true or not, this is commonly known as the first Easter Egg/Secret within a video game.
In addition to this, I thought it would be fitting to include my own secret room that had extended parameters to unlock. While not integral to the game, it was an enjoyable divergence that includes a short change in gameplay with an alternate ending. I had fun bringing over sprites from other Atari releases such as ET, Xenomorphs, Mountain King, and other adorable bootlegs from the era.
Housekeeping Thoughts:
There are a few things left to wrap up with development, mostly the Green and Red Dragons. While I have a “chase” mechanic functional, the location tracking has been spotty and required more time in the oven. Since the Red Dragon is functionally the same (except for move speed), completing the Green Dragon will accomplish both tasks. The one feature I have yet to touch, outside of a sprite, is the item-stealing Bat. While I have some thoughts on design and function, this is a back-burner item on my punch list. Additionally, Difficulty 1 & 2 are fully implemented, though Difficulty 3 has a randomization mechanic for items which should be fairly simple to program.
All in all, this project has been coming along swimmingly and has let me mentally reset the burnout I had been feeling with Monster Party GBC.
-Ria りあ