Protozoa - New Game Being Released Today

[DaveC]

Hi everyone. Just thought I'd let you know about my new game that I will be adding to the Archive later today.
It was a speedy development for this one - started late yesterday afternoon and it's now finished (just need to add sounds and music.) The game is basically a snake clone but inspired by the snake mini game in Timesplitters 2 where the snake can travel in any direction. I'm quite pleased with the movement, unlike most snake games that basically stamp the body of the snake into the background this one actually moves smoothly with all the body segments following the head.

Hi nice game. I like these kind of games with nice clean graphics and nice tune and SFX.

A few suggestions:

Make the player controlled sprites a different color than the enemies like red or purple or something of your choice. While not a big deal it can be hard in the very begining to pick out your "snake". Plus it would be colorful anyway.

Maybe add a "slow" mode so you would have a slow, normal, and fast mode. The slow mode would be more about strategy of not touching the tail and not so much about twitch reflexes. Would be good for beginners too.

Thanks for the nice game.

 

[ruckage]

Thanks for all the comments, great to hear that people are enjoying it. I'm keeping a note of all the suggestions and many of them will be included in the next version.

Here is a list of some of the changes and additions I have planned:

A nice pseudo random background generator.
Several different music tracks (please pferguso )
Level progression - achieved by reaching set targets with different enemies introduced every few levels etc.
Once a level is complete the ability to jump straight to that level.
Continuous mode available for any previously completed level.
Enemies to include Cubozoa, nematode, slug, medusae and stinger (more as I think of different movement patterns.)
Will scrap the speed selection and instead have a choice of snakes to choose from with different movement and turning speeds. (may have some as unlockables for reaching a certain level.)
Pause feature.

The next version will also be more colourful, originally everything was the same colour which from a style point of view looked quite nice but as DaveC said it can make it tricky to tell the difference between sprites so I think in the name of gameplay more colour has to be added.

@sam fisher I'll pm you my details - not sure I can help though as I didn't know the xadvance function existed until today, I just use advance and angle separately.

 

[LineOf7s]

Well since you're making a list of suggestions, I'll chime in with one I've discovered whilst explaining how to play to people:

Perhaps instead of starting as a single circle with but a teensy line to indicate direction, your entity could start with a single cell hanging off the back. That way, you're already a 'snake' of sorts, and it's much easier to tell which direction you're going in at any point in time...

 

[Yorper]

The next version will also be more colourful, originally everything was the same colour which from a style point of view looked quite nice but as DaveC said it can make it tricky to tell the difference between sprites so I think in the name of gameplay more colour has to be added.

Could you please keep the old colour set as an option then? I really like how it is and as im colourblind your new colour setup may become very hard for me to see clearly, even more so if the backgrounds are going to be changing. So if you can keep the original colours and background as an option as well as your new colours that would be perfect

EDIT: Fixed broken quote.

 

[ruckage]

Could you please keep the old colour set as an option then? I really like how it is and as im colourblind your new colour setup may become very hard for me to see clearly, even more so if the backgrounds are going to be changing. So if you can keep the original colours and background as an option as well as your new colours that would be perfect

EDIT: Fixed broken quote.

Don't worry, I don't think the new colours will be a problem as I will still be sticking to relatively dark backgrounds and bright sprites, however if you do find you're having problems with it I'm sure I can sort out a custom graphics pack for you.

 

[pferguso]

I think it is cool that this is getting such a good response. I'll do up some more music tracks for you Ruckage...

 

[goob]

My HI-Score is a rather feeble 862.

 

[yodaofborg]

Well, after several attempts at beating my personal best score of 712, my other-half wiped the floor with me and scored 864! So now I _have_ to play this game!

 

[pferguso]

Hey Ruckage,

I have a few suggestions to improve Protozoa.

1. Allow level advancement via total cell length, and set each level to require a increasingly longer cell to advance further. Level 1 objective should be 30, Level 2 should be 40, etc.
2. Make the enemies bounce off your tail. This way, the longer you get, the easier it is to "trap" the enemies.
3. Add an "eater" enemy, who can eat segments from your cell if he collides with your tail. (on a harder level that is.) You can only kill him by touching him with your head...
4. Add a randomly generated "temporary invincibility" icon which will allow you to pass through your tail and the pink enemy for a limited period.
5. Redesign the background with the dark parts on the outer edge, to give the impression that the action is taking place under a microscope.
6. Allow greater enemy point values for the faster gameplay setting, since it is harder.
7. Add an "evolver" enemy, who can grow bigger if he collides with another enemy. If he grows more than 2 times though, he becomes a pink enemy, who can't be eaten.

That's all for now. Let me know what you think. I am quickly falling in love with this game already.

 

[Quiest]

Great lil game, me likes very much!

Keep up the good work!
I wish I would be such a talented graphics artist

 

[abertalia]

Yeah, about graphics...Do you like draw your stuff on paper with pens and pencils, Scan them onto your computer and edit them with photoshop or whatever? Or...What do you guys do? Is it all drawn on the computer? :huh:

 

[Yorper]

Don't worry, I don't think the new colours will be a problem as I will still be sticking to relatively dark backgrounds and bright sprites, however if you do find you're having problems with it I'm sure I can sort out a custom graphics pack for you.

Ok thanks alot. Just so long as it not colours and stuff like thruster, i love it but struggle so hard to see it most of the time

Oh also, top score 968

 

[ruckage]

I think it is cool that this is getting such a good response. I'll do up some more music tracks for you Ruckage...

Excellent - thanks very much

Hey Ruckage,

I have a few suggestions to improve Protozoa.

1. Allow level advancement via total cell length, and set each level to require a increasingly longer cell to advance further. Level 1 objective should be 30, Level 2 should be 40, etc.
2. Make the enemies bounce off your tail. This way, the longer you get, the easier it is to "trap" the enemies.
3. Add an "eater" enemy, who can eat segments from your cell if he collides with your tail. (on a harder level that is.) You can only kill him by touching him with your head...
4. Add a randomly generated "temporary invincibility" icon which will allow you to pass through your tail and the pink enemy for a limited period.
5. Redesign the background with the dark parts on the outer edge, to give the impression that the action is taking place under a microscope.
6. Allow greater enemy point values for the faster gameplay setting, since it is harder.
7. Add an "evolver" enemy, who can grow bigger if he collides with another enemy. If he grows more than 2 times though, he becomes a pink enemy, who can't be eaten.

That's all for now. Let me know what you think. I am quickly falling in love with this game already.

1. That's the plan but with the addition of different types and an increasing quantity of enemies.
2. Nice idea but I'm not sure it would work particularly well - would make it too easy to avoid the enemies - plus it could cause speed problems as there would be a lot more collisions to check.
3. Like this one but requires some thought - something I have considered though so maybe.
4. Sounds like a good idea - perhaps there could be a few different bonus items.
5. That can definately be one of the styles of backdrop but there will be a greater variety anyway as they will be randomly generated.
6. Wont be needed as there wont be speed settings anymore just different types of snake to control. What I will probably do though is have a highscore for each snake type.
7. Excellent idea but I think it should be a separate game mode (panic mode) and have a different mechanic to what you describe. What I suggest is that in panic mode the screen starts off with several single celled organisms which over time increase in size until they transform into an enemy. The aim would be to eat them before this can happen but as they are eaten more will be added into play.

QUOTE
Yeah, about graphics...Do you like draw your stuff on paper with pens and pencils, Scan them onto your computer and edit them with photoshop or whatever? Or...What do you guys do? Is it all drawn on the computer?


Depends on what the graphics are used for really. For low res sprites like in this game I just draw them directly in the computer, for larger pictures I draw them by hand and then touch up and colour them within the computer.

 

[manhill]

fantastic work! i always loved games using vektor-graphics. thank you!

edit: and by the way, the first ever created snake-game (as far as i know) was "surround" by atari...:

http://www.atariage.com/software_page.html...wareLabelID=535

 

[DaveC]

Don't worry, I don't think the new colours will be a problem as I will still be sticking to relatively dark backgrounds and bright sprites, however if you do find you're having problems with it I'm sure I can sort out a custom graphics pack for you.

This is a great idea and I am glad you know about keeping the backgrounds darker. Alot of people blow it here. They make the background too bright to the point of being distracting. I had problems in Thruster because of that.

Keeping the backgrounds dark make the brighter sprites stand out more and give the game depth and contrast. Hopefully you will keep that feature even with the random backgrounds.

 

[hitbyambulance]

2. Nice idea but I'm not sure it would work particularly well - would make it too easy to avoid the enemies - plus it could cause speed problems as there would be a lot more collisions to check.

this would be a good 'power-up'. i like the idea of enemies bouncing off the 'tail'

 

[Yorper]

This is a great idea and I am glad you know about keeping the backgrounds darker. Alot of people blow it here. They make the background too bright to the point of being distracting. I had problems in Thruster because of that.

Im glad im not the only one then that struggles with thruster due to its brightly random coloured backgrounds then B)

 

[Shadowsithe]

I think a classic Snake mode with the Protozoa aesthetic would be really nifty. At the same time, I really like the minimalistic pick up and play nature of it. It's got a wonderful simplicity, and attractiveness to it that lets me invest more time than I normally would in a homebrew effort. Just... don't go overboard pumping it full of goodies.

As far as the new music that's possibly being added, house beats are perfect for these games.

And, as seems to be the fashion, I'll throw up my hiscore of 1074. It took a lot of tries, and a lot of cussing to get there, but I'm happy.

 

[fusion_power]

Snake? Yes, always nice game and fun to play.
Me for myself prefers the TRON-Setting of this Game Area. I would like to see games in this style on GP2X:
http://www.tron-sector.com/games/
Since Payback, we know, that our Handheld can do cool 3D graphics. Now we just need a coder who makes a nice 3D Lightcycle-Game

 

[reiboul]

This game sure looks nice I'll try it as soon as possible!