Panjoust - A New Simple Platformer

[Masterfurbix]

Whoops... mod, delete plz Edit: Ah, might as well use it.

Since almost everything of this project is open: The test video of spikey in Panjoust (low bandwith graphics/music)

Might not be the final graphics, but happily strolling around allready.

Ahh! he looks great! sent you a file with some SMALL tweaks to the jumping animation, but other than that, this is a grand success.


Any recolors to fit other levels will be easy to handle, let me know when you want those.

 

[Jourdy288]

I say we have a special guest appearance by Tux himself :lol:
I've (finally!) decided on a design for a new egg, I'll show you once it's finished.

 

[MarkoeZ]

Hiya,

For those involved: Sorry that things have been quiet last week. Connecting problems, major tax issues to resolve, and loads of work, ugh... Did manage to do some small stuff though.

- All new backgrounds now implemented (golden level looks amazing already!)
- spikey is nice and deadly
- Somehow, after all the changes, gameplay got a bit sluggish, so modified that. Also some other changes to get the movement feeling better
- lots of small restructuring and bugfixing
- started with some leveldesigns (i notice now i've been playtesting too much, gonna need some volunteers for feedback : )

Currently working on:

- Time limit levels
- new parallax clouds
- started work on 2 player mode (local, not network (yet?)).

Cheers!!


Edit: Apparently my code is not as crappy as i thought. Rock on spikey just works, and basic 2 player is working too no interaction between heroes yet, also some collision stuff to be fixed, but obstacles and enemies work as they are supposed to.

 

[fusion_power]

Uh, Time Limit AND Puzzle elements in a level, sounds stressful, I hope there will be some kind of time-expander item. ^^

Do you plan to make a Cave-Level like I suggested a while ago? I also thought about non-floating platforms, some could be ontop of a stone pillar or some could hang from the "ceiling" if there is one. Creates a platform + additional obstacles.

 

[Xenu]

There are so many cool things you could ad. I don't know if you're planning to ad weather like rain, snow etc. If your thinking about that wouldn't it be fun to have gusts of winds?

 

[MarkoeZ]

Ok, strictly for the contributors, i made a executable snapshot. Others can download and test it (please in fact ; ), but it's not for publication outside this thread.

I know about the major uglyness of the fonts, not happy with the bottom bar yet, and second rock does not land right on the catapult. All work in progress, but so many issues and so little time...

Music: For upload reasons, only one short track, of 9 excellent ones allready made, is included.

Win32 executable

Most curious about speed/gameplay on older machines, but if you encounter other issues, please tell me!

Cheers!

MarkoeZ

Oh, and if it plays, make sure to get to level 3, it's quite nice

Edit: About the level editor, whole editor is WIP. Mostly works technically though. And pressing Q currently unselects the object

 

[bzar]

For those hoping to try this in linux under wine: I already tried, no cake (Ubuntu 9.10 32bit, wine 1.0.1). Maybe I'll try it later on a windows machine

 

[MarkoeZ]

hmm, could try a linux build. let me see.

 

[MarkoeZ]

Ok, this one is even more work in progress i guess, but there is a linux build online

Linux x86 32bit

Seriously not tested a lot, but im curious how much works

Edit: oh on every build, controls are pandora oriented, so on normal keyboard different: arrow keys and Z/X/A/S (q/w)

 

[Xenu]

Really good! I played a few minutes and I enjoyed it very much. Congratulations on a great game.

 

[Masterfurbix]

Okay, there are a couple goofs on my end of this deal, I'll try to point them all out.

1. The quit sign on the menu still flaps around like a fish, that needs fixing
2. The 'Try again' thing is ugly as hell, I need to completely rework it.
3. The status bar simply DOES NOT work on the bottom. (It is also an ugly shade of brown)
4. The clouds on the main menu could use some retouching.

Things that I need to add

1. backgrounds for the achievements

1b. achievement graphics​

2. Another layer of mountains in the first two levels, or an edit of first layer of mountains that includes more mountains
3. A solid ice wall to use on the left side of maps (Marko currently has a bunch of spikes there as a placeholder
4. A better measurement of flight power, a simple edit of the wing graphic will do (probably)
5. Arrow and A/B button indicators that match the game better
6. A crosshatch fade .gif for when you lose your last life and possibly for other transitions
7. Slightly recolored windmill for use in the greener/browner levels

Most pressing I think would be the changes to the HUD.

a. Move the wings slightly higher
b. Move the hearts a TINY bit lower
c. Move the level requirements to the left underneath the wings
d. Remove as much as possible of the bottom bar
e. Change the color of the bar to a more neutral brown


And just some housekeeping things that Marko probably already knows
I. The porq's eye still glows red before he jumps
II. when some of the birds switch direction, they change colors
III. When the rock hits the pillar, it becomes slightly darker, I think we already addressed this a page or so back.
IV. Even after you die for the last time, the graphic that is displayed says "try again!"

Some help from the community would be if you guys could quote this post and point out the problems that bother you the most, so we get a sense of priority.

And just a personal complaint, the icicles do look a bit silly hanging from nothing, I'm not sure HOW we'll address that without vertical scrolling

 

[MarkoeZ]

a. Move the wings slightly higher
b. Move the hearts a TINY bit lower
c. Move the level requirements to the left underneath the wings
d. Remove as much as possible of the bottom bar
e. Change the color of the bar to a more neutral brown

And just some housekeeping things that Marko probably already knows
I. The porq's eye still glows red before he jumps
II. when some of the birds switch direction, they change colors
III. When the rock hits the pillar, it becomes slightly darker, I think we already addressed this a page or so back.
IV. Even after you die for the last time, the graphic that is displayed says "try again!"

Yah that's the WIP part, repositioning stuff and changing graphics is easy, i was focusing on making things work untill now But nice to have a list to work by, so many graphics

 

[fusion_power]

Whoa, WAYYYYYY to hard for me, sry. :lol:
I would like to see lvl 3 but without level select or god mode I can forget this. I have to say this is not a game for me, I really hit EVERY possible obsrtacle thats available. even the first one. Moevment is not as bad as the original Joust but hard enough to loose control when accelerating to fast. The main problem is the slow acceleration and the slow braking. hard to control the Sprite in any way. Fast movement also causes in fast falling, nearly impossible to flap away from the abyss with full-speed.

But the look of the game is nice. I still trying to make a Jungle-Mockup with many scrolling layers. Oh, Spikes shouldn't "hang in the air" from the top of the screen. Maybe in a Cave this fits better.

 

[bzar]

Ok, this one is even more work in progress i guess, but there is a linux build online

Linux x86 32bit

Seriously not tested a lot, but im curious how much works

Edit: oh on every build, controls are pandora oriented, so on normal keyboard different: arrow keys and Z/X/A/S (q/w)

Thanks! I'm having some problems though:

$ ./PanjoustLinuxTechdemo 
Penjin says: No command line args provided.
Segmentation fault

I checked gdb output to find this:

Program received signal SIGSEGV, Segmentation fault.
0x00304f30 in TTF_RenderUNICODE_Solid (font=0x8150278, text=0xbffff1e2, fg=...)
    at SDL_ttf.c:1413
1413					*dst++ |= *src++;

(gdb) backtrace
#0  0x00304f30 in TTF_RenderUNICODE_Solid (font=0x8150278, text=0xbffff1e2, 
    fg=...) at SDL_ttf.c:1413
#1  0x003051c0 in TTF_RenderText_Solid (font=0x8150278, text=0xbffff26e "-", 
    fg=...) at SDL_ttf.c:1267
#2  0x0808e31c in ?? ()
#3  0x080ba1a8 in ?? ()
#4  0x080ba30f in ?? ()
#5  0x080732f6 in ?? ()
#6  0x08077d32 in ?? ()
#7  0x0804d349 in ?? ()
#8  0x0808830d in ?? ()
#9  0x08072321 in ?? ()
#10 0x004ceb56 in __libc_start_main (main=0x8072270, argc=1, 
    ubp_av=0xbffff544, init=0x80be100, fini=0x80be0b0, 
    rtld_fini=0x11dd20 <_dl_fini>, stack_end=0xbffff53c) at libc-start.c:220
#11 0x0804b561 in ?? ()

So it looks like some call to TTF_RenderText_Solid segfaults. I am using SDL 1.3 which will also be on the pandora. Could this be the reason? There is always the possibility that I have broken my SDL libs. Ideas?

 

[PokeParadox]

It may be possible that for whatever reason you do not have the fonts.
It may be differences in SDL but I don't know enough about SDL 1.3 to know for certain.

 

[fusion_power]

So, another Quick drawing to visualize of what I'm talking.
Idea for Jungle level background, not full up in the air but clearly over the ground, some parallax-Layers, nothing complicated:

Maybe I can inspire Amigo Bandito for drawing some more useful graphics of this kind.
Could be more Temples in the scene, moving clouds and higher trees in the foreground as obstacles. Platforms attached ontop of Tree trunks maybe too.

Maybe the whole game could start in the jungle, near the ground (No falling, easy beginning this way). After this, we could have this Mid-Air Jungle setting, then the well known mountains (day) then Mountains night, then night even higher in the Air (clouds bellow, not many obstacles but many enemies) Then maybe a hard Cave Level (Mountain Caive high in the Air) with this icicle Elements and the Catapult.

Just my thoughts. ^_^

EDIT: My Idea for the Title graphics: not longer Photo Realistic but this way it fits much better into the game I think:

 

[MarkoeZ]

Whoa, WAYYYYYY to hard for me, sry. :lol:

Ah well the final game will have an easier learning curve. Really, i still die sometimes, but i happily fly through most levels.

I like the jungle idea, but im not the graphics man.

About the linux build: No idea, seriously. More people having problems?

And the spikes hanging, dunno how to improve that yet, but they are really useful to keep levels interesting so want to keep them in some form.

Cheers!

 

[Xenu]

Whoa, WAYYYYYY to hard for me, sry. :lol:

Ah well the final game will have an easier learning curve. Really, i still die sometimes, but i happily fly through most levels.

I like the jungle idea, but im not the graphics man.

About the linux build: No idea, seriously. More people having problems?

And the spikes hanging, dunno how to improve that yet, but they are really useful to keep levels interesting so want to keep them in some form.

Cheers!

The third level was quite hard, but I like hard. Games nowadays are wayyyyyy to easy. After a few tries my highscore is 23p. Can't wait for the finished game and a Pandora to play it on.

 

[MarkoeZ]

The third level was quite hard, but I like hard. Games nowadays are wayyyyyy to easy. After a few tries my highscore is 23p. Can't wait for the finished game and a Pandora to play it on.

Ah, thanks!

Given the playtesting results (forum and friends), i think a couple of difficulty levels will be appropriate. Kill everything and collect everything, or just survive the level. and some inbetween.

Small update:
-Bar is gone
-hud graphics repositioned
-colour changes of ice pillar added
-Eye fixed

 

[fusion_power]

Aaahhh, now I got it. :lol:
The flight ability is limited, you have to land to recover your Flight Power. Ok, now the Wing-graphics onto the left makes sense. XD
i've seen the 3. level but i shoot way over the goal and died under the birdcage XD.

Is it possible to add a litte "turn around" Animation onto Sprites? So we see the enemies and Player a short frame from the front until they turned around. This Could look a little bit better than just "instant direction switching" by mirroring the Sprite.

I also don't like the bottom menu bar. Doesn't separate from the game graphic and you could think it is a place to land ontop XD. I would make the menu onto another place but not at the bottom of the screen, so the "Abyss of death" effect is not as clear as it should be.