Giana's Return Is Out

[fettouhi]

Finally it is here . The public beta of Giana's Return is out and it is for the Wiz .

Little info about the game:

Giana's Return aims to be a worthy inofficial sequel of "The Great Giana Sisters". "The Great Giana Sisters" is an alltime classic Jump'N'Run game made in the late eighties mainly by Armin Gessert, Manfred Trenz and Chris Hülsbeck and gained massive attention as "Super Mario" copy, but still had it's very own charme and fanbase.

Giana's Return – Features:
* 7 Worlds, with each 8 Levels – followed by a "big boss"
* Power Ups and Extras
* Oldschool style pixeled sprites and tiles
* Wonderful hand drawn backgrounds
* Illustrated hand drawn storyline
* Over 18 Tracks of finest chip music!
* Multi-Language: German, English, French, Spanish
* Password and/or save game (depending on release platform)
* Hidden Warp Zones and Bonus Caves
* Hidden Trainer
* TOP 10 Highscore

Giana's Return - Team:
Rudolphe Boixel (Thor) - Main Coder
Shahzad Sahaib (Kojote) - Project Organizer & Level Design
Jane S. Mumford (Jayne) - Graphics Artwork
Alexander Oldemeier (Operator) - Music
David Wuttke (AM-FM) - Music
Adam Karol (Wizzard) - Graphics Artwork
Simon Butler - Graphics Artwork
Virgil Metier (tHUG) - Graphics Artwork
Christian Hildenbrand (DayDream) - Graphics Artwork
Denny Müller (Mulle) - Main Beta Testing
Ed Mandy (Flavor) - WIZ Port

This release is a PUBLIC BETA to gain feedback and take suggestions for the final version. You are more than welcome to let the authors know your two or three cents.

Get it here:

http://www.gianas-return.de/ (official site)

http://www.pdroms.de/files/2207/ (download site)

Regards

André

 

[sbock]

OMG! :blink: I don't belive this. Giana's Return finally arrives...

Thanks for the news!

 

[rx_shorty]

Very sweet!

Thanks for the good news

Going to test it tonight... hope without finishing the game straight away

 

[JeanLouSchmidt]

What about the GP2X version ?

 

[Don Flamenco]

I just played it 10 minutes, this is all the feedback I can give:

-no problems with the menus
-sound goes perfectly
-the spanish traduction is quite good
-No problem with the controls, the cross works, the buttons and the volume controls works fine
-the game runs smooth, I don't see slowdowns
-No problems when going back to the wiz menu

Good work, I'm enjoying this game so much

P.D: Maybe later I made some icons for it, I'll post them here if you want

 

[Alex.]

Incredible work Giana Team, the game is of professional quality I can't wait to give it a good run this evening.

Just a small suggestion, start the default volume lower.

What about the GP2X version ?

It seems to run fine under Open2x, albeit slower.

 

[Kojote]

Very sweet!

Thanks for the good news

Going to test it tonight... hope without finishing the game straight away

I doubt you can finish it that fast

What about the GP2X version ?

Speed issues...

 

[Burbruee]

What about the GP2X version ?

It seems to run fine under Open2x, albeit slower.

Hey wow, you're right. The Wiz build works perfectly fine on a GP2X with Open2X. h34r:
I was running firmware 2.1.2, so after a quick upgrade I can now enjoy Giana's Return on my GP2X. (although a bit slow)
Overclocking to 255 MHz (my max) + ram timings makes it run at playable speed, however when there is lightning flash the game goes turbo.
edit: Just beat the first area boss. The second area stages

Spoiler

snowy terrain

are much slower to play though, even overclocked.

Thanks Giana Team. :wub:
And I hope your team will be able to sort out the speed problems for the GP2X soon enough.

 

[DaveC]

Nice game, very professional, thanks.

Suggestion though. An options menu would help allot. In this the ability to set the "default volume" (default is too loud now) and an option to set the buttons. Right now jump is set to "A", that would have been my LAST choice for the jump button as it is the least convienient, X or B would have made more sense.

Good work it is nice to see this working so well.

 

[rtb7]

I don't know if it works on wiz (it's ok on win32) but you can add a file named giana.cfg where the executable is and add these lines:

j_jump=0
j_fire=1


it means button 0 for jump and button 1 for fire (start button can be changed too)
you can change these values and tell me if it works.

 

[gruso]

Look forward to trying this tonight! (On GP2X)

 

[fettouhi]

I played through the first 2 worlds now and it is a really good 2D platformer game and worthy sequel IMHO to Giana Sisters. Here are a few things I find that could improve the final version:

1. Sound in menus is to loud on the Wiz.
2. Find a bit tedious that you start at the beginning of the level every time you die. Would be nice with some save points within the stage or a least let the all the monsters live again when restart the stage.
3. Controls are bit sluggish some times on the Wiz (at least with firmware 1.1.0).

Regards

André

 

[Magic Sam]

Hi,

The Giana's Return Team is looking for people to port the game to GP2X, Dingoo A320 and Pandora

http://www.gianas-return.de/?p=406

Is anyone interested ?

Bye, Magic Sam

 

[gruso]

Beautiful game. Love the pixel art, the level design, everything. Great old school music that builds nicely too.

I'm running it on an F200 @ 275mhz. It does seem a little bit slow, but only in the sense that you feel like you should be running a little faster (or falling faster). Perfectly playable though, nice and smooth without any glitches. It did crash twice (in stage 2, then 3) kicking me back to Gmenu. But it's not an official GP2X build so I wouldn't expect you to worry about that right now.

Other things of note... the flames are very unforgiving. Planting yourself next to one to jump over can be very frustrating. Or maybe I'm just a bigger girl than the one on the screen. And those cactus/tree things. Little bastards! One must keep one's eyes open at all times.

 

[Magic Sam]

Beautiful game. Love the pixel art, the level design, everything. Great old school music that builds nicely too.

+1

And those cactus/tree things. Little bastards! One must keep one's eyes open at all times.

At first I thought they were some kind of Christmas trees, so I jumped on it, hoping for a bonus...
You know what happened next
Bye, Magic Sam

 

[Don Flamenco]

Beautiful game. Love the pixel art, the level design, everything. Great old school music that builds nicely too.

+1

And those cactus/tree things. Little bastards! One must keep one's eyes open at all times.

At first I thought they were some kind of Christmas trees, so I jumped on it, hoping for a bonus...
You know what happened next
Bye, Magic Sam

I agree, at first time I though they where part of the background. I was like "WTF? a bug?"
I hate those fuckers, great game by the way.

I made two icons for it, hope you like them

 

[notaz]

Nice game.

The Giana's Return Team is looking for people to port the game to GP2X, Dingoo A320 and Pandora

I could take a look (for GP2X), maybe hw accelerated SDL + some tricks can take care of speed issues. PM me if interested.

And those cactus/tree things. Little bastards! One must keep one's eyes open at all times.

Yeah, I guess they get the most "frags".

 

[Pickle]

Nice game.

The Giana's Return Team is looking for people to port the game to GP2X, Dingoo A320 and Pandora

I could take a look (for GP2X), maybe hw accelerated SDL + some tricks can take care of speed issues. PM me if interested.

Well if its working on open2x, shouldnt it be using hw surfaces automatically? I seem to remember Paeyrn saying he forced every surface to be hw.
The key is if they optimize the surfaces to the display format when they are loaded. If it doesnt that will have decent performance drop.

 

[Magic Sam]

Hi notaz

I could take a look (for GP2X), maybe hw accelerated SDL + some tricks can take care of speed issues. PM me if interested.

I'm not a member of the team You should post your interest in porting the game to the GP2X here:

http://www.gianas-return.de/?p=406#comments

Or get in touch with Kojote:

http://www.gp32x.de/board/index.php?/user/2114-kojote/

Bye and thanks, Magic Sam

 

[fusion_power]

Nice game.

The Giana's Return Team is looking for people to port the game to GP2X, Dingoo A320 and Pandora

I could take a look (for GP2X), maybe hw accelerated SDL + some tricks can take care of speed issues. PM me if interested.

Sounds very good, the game would be in good hands if you make an straight GP2X port. I only have a old GP2X F100...and NO Open2X Firmware installed, so I hope the Game will run at full Speed even onto Firmware 2.1.1. some day. But When I see, how great (for Example) "PicoDrive" can run such classic 2D Games even emulated and even with only 200MHz, I'm sure, you can accelerate such a nice Retro-Game like Gianas Return alot.