Frumpy

Show us what you're working on, (preferably with screenshots).
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bob_fossil
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Frumpy

Post by bob_fossil »

I saw video from the C64 version of Blockheads back on the rllmuk forum in February / March and thought the wall jumping mechanic was a cool idea. I also remembered an old game called Bumpy, a platform puzzler that I also used to like and wondered what would happen if the two got mixed up a bit - Bumpy + Friction = Frumpy. The game is based around a hacked up version of the engine I used for Thoroughly Modern Willy (TMW) with added wall jumping. It incorporates some familiar elements from Miner Willy - disintegrating platforms, deadly blocks, conveyor belts, exit blocks, and those room changing switches I added in TMW. It also adds doors, water, fire and quicksand.

Default controls are Q, left, W, right and SPACE to jump. Joysticks and redefinable controls are supported. Pressing BREAK pops up a menu which lets you restart the level or quit the game. If you press jump and a direction and hit a wall during the jump, pressing jump and the opposite direction will jump you up and away from the wall. You can also wall jump in the opposite direction if you're falling against a wall. Pink spikes and fires are deadly. You can die if you fall too far. White vertical and horizontal chain link doors can only be opened with a key. Yellow switches can change or toggle the layout of the room - not always to your advantage!

Image

Get to the green pipe in the fastest time. Each room has a 'World Record' time. There's currently 5 rooms.

Download here.
Freespirit
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Re: Frumpy

Post by Freespirit »

Looks like a good game, i like the idea. :)
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stupidget
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Re: Frumpy

Post by stupidget »

I can't get off the first screen :x :x :x
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R-Tape
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Re: Frumpy

Post by R-Tape »

stupidget wrote: Fri Jul 31, 2020 3:25 pm I can't get off the first screen :x :x :x
Brutal! Me neither yet.
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Ast A. Moore
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Re: Frumpy

Post by Ast A. Moore »

I give up. Can’t jump out of the little space between two magenta spikes on the second screen.
Every man should plant a tree, build a house, and write a ZX Spectrum game.

Author of A Yankee in Iraq, a 50 fps shoot-’em-up—the first game to utilize the floating bus on the +2A/+3,
and zasm Z80 Assembler syntax highlighter.
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bob_fossil
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Re: Frumpy

Post by bob_fossil »

I did wonder whether I'd made the screens too difficult. Back to the drawing board I guess based on the feedback so far. :)
Ast A. Moore wrote: Fri Jul 31, 2020 9:23 pm I give up. Can’t jump out of the little space between two magenta spikes on the second screen.
Spoiler
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R-Tape
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Re: Frumpy

Post by R-Tape »

bob_fossil wrote: Fri Jul 31, 2020 9:47 pm I did wonder whether I'd made the screens too difficult. Back to the drawing board I guess based on the feedback so far. :)
Hard to say. I spent about 20 minutes (god knows how many tries!) on level 1, the best I've managed so far is the crumbly platform. But the controls are unusual, so once you're used to them, I suspect you can get match fit very quickly.

It'd be nice to be eased in a tiny bit more perhaps.

Might this end up a 16K game? (thinking of catmeows's game jam)
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bob_fossil
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Re: Frumpy

Post by bob_fossil »

R-Tape wrote: Fri Jul 31, 2020 10:03 pm
Hard to say. I spent about 20 minutes (god knows how many tries!) on level 1, the best I've managed so far is the crumbly platform. But the controls are unusual, so once you're used to them, I suspect you can get match fit very quickly.

It'd be nice to be eased in a tiny bit more perhaps.

Might this end up a 16K game? (thinking of catmeows's game jam)
You just need to set up your jumps correctly to get across the crumbly platforms. I think as I've played the bits of the levels over and over again during testing and creation that I'm not the best judge of difficulty any more.

I did wonder about trying to do a 16k version. It would require a bit of a rework and re-jigging as I'm liberally using memory here and there and IM2.
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Re: Frumpy

Post by smurphboy »

bob_fossil wrote: Fri Jul 31, 2020 9:47 pm I did wonder whether I'd made the screens too difficult. Back to the drawing board I guess based on the feedback so far. :)
Ast A. Moore wrote: Fri Jul 31, 2020 9:23 pm I give up. Can’t jump out of the little space between two magenta spikes on the second screen.
Spoiler
If you do make it easier, please leave the original difficult levels in. I love a proper challenge. I think you might want to ease the player in a little more gently though.

Great game, I'm enjoying learning the mechanics
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Re: Frumpy

Post by Freespirit »

I was wondering if you thought about making it possible to move left and right when jumping in the air? You could then not just jump to the opposite wall but back to the wall you just jumped from. I could also then move when falling into that gap on the right on level 1 that I couldn’t do after 10 attempts. Just an idea. I do actually want to progress in your game so you’ve done something right :)
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Ast A. Moore
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Re: Frumpy

Post by Ast A. Moore »

bob_fossil wrote: Fri Jul 31, 2020 9:47 pm
Ast A. Moore wrote: Fri Jul 31, 2020 9:23 pm I give up. Can’t jump out of the little space between two magenta spikes on the second screen.
Spoiler
Yeah, I know how it’s supposed to be done; I just can never manage to jump over the left thingy. Keep brushing it by a few pixels and dying. :D
Every man should plant a tree, build a house, and write a ZX Spectrum game.

Author of A Yankee in Iraq, a 50 fps shoot-’em-up—the first game to utilize the floating bus on the +2A/+3,
and zasm Z80 Assembler syntax highlighter.
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Ast A. Moore
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Re: Frumpy

Post by Ast A. Moore »

Okay, now I get it what people mean when they say Yankee is too hard. :?
Every man should plant a tree, build a house, and write a ZX Spectrum game.

Author of A Yankee in Iraq, a 50 fps shoot-’em-up—the first game to utilize the floating bus on the +2A/+3,
and zasm Z80 Assembler syntax highlighter.
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Morkin
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Re: Frumpy

Post by Morkin »

Plays very nicely, but yep, far too difficult... Am assuming this is the final screen :lol:

I can't get through that hole on the right without hitting the spikes...
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bob_fossil
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Re: Frumpy

Post by bob_fossil »

Freespirit wrote: Fri Jul 31, 2020 11:15 pm I was wondering if you thought about making it possible to move left and right when jumping in the air? You could then not just jump to the opposite wall but back to the wall you just jumped from. I could also then move when falling into that gap on the right on level 1 that I couldn't do after 10 attempts. Just an idea. I do actually want to progress in your game so you've done something right :)
I have made a change so if you jump and hit a wall and fall against it, you can now move into gaps. So if you jump left and hit a wall and start falling, you can now press left during the fall to move into gaps or holes. Previously, you could only move during a jump. So now you can either jump through a gap from the opposite wall or jump onto the wall, fall down and then move into the gap.
Morkin wrote: Sat Aug 01, 2020 11:47 am Plays very nicely, but yep, far too difficult... Am assuming this is the final screen :lol:

I can't get through that hole on the right without hitting the spikes...
You need to time the jump so you hit the piece of wall below the long row of spikes. This will stop your jump but if you hold down the right key, when you clear the wall block, you will start moving right again which should get you clear of the spikes.

I've added a new first screen which lets you get to grips with the mechanics of the game - or if you're double hard you can just move on to the next screen. I've also modified the graphics slightly, so you can get a better idea of what point of the walk cycle the character is in, which might make positioning the player before a crucial jump a bit easier. These changes and the above fix for falling can be found here.

Thanks everyone for the feedback and all your patience so far. Looks like my poor history in games completion (Bruce Lee and Robocop) has made me a horrible level creator. :)
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Re: Frumpy

Post by Morkin »

bob_fossil wrote: Sat Aug 01, 2020 12:36 pm Thanks everyone for the feedback and all your patience so far. Looks like my poor history in games completion (Bruce Lee and Robocop) has made me a horrible level creator. :)
That tweak to the controls is nice, the movement is good and controls are responsive.

Soft Play aside :) I still can't get past the first (proper) level, though I can now get into that middle section with the crumbling platforms.

For me it's not a case of me knowing how you're supposed to do it, or getting used to the controls/game mechanics... It's just that the the first (proper) screen is from the Dinamic school of level design... :lol: Personally I think everything else about the game is great, but the first level just needs to be a (much, much!) later level.
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R-Tape
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Re: Frumpy

Post by R-Tape »

Finally managed screen 1 in 00:28:06 :D
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Re: Frumpy

Post by Freespirit »

Thanks, it's still hard, but nice hard and i did the first screen in 23.4 :D Great game.
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Re: Frumpy

Post by Freespirit »

I've completed all the levels now. I thought they were really clever, one of the best games i've played for awhile. Well done! :)

I noticed you introduced the rotation of the main character, i'm not sure that works, just looks like a blur at speed.
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bob_fossil
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Re: Frumpy

Post by bob_fossil »

Freespirit wrote: Sat Aug 01, 2020 6:36 pm I've completed all the levels now. I thought they were really clever, one of the best games i've played for awhile. Well done! :)

I noticed you introduced the rotation of the main character, i'm not sure that works, just looks like a blur at speed.
Wasn't expecting that! I thought the levels after 'First Things First' - which seems to be giving people a lot of grief - were harder. You sir, are a gaming colossus! :)

The rotation was just an experiment to let you know where the position of the player was to help with locating your jumps and letting you know when you're about to fall off a platform. Like a lot of things in the game, it's all up for grabs at the moment.
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Ast A. Moore
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Re: Frumpy

Post by Ast A. Moore »

I must say, I’m not sold on the rolling animation either. Then again, I’m stuck in room 6, so what do I know?
Every man should plant a tree, build a house, and write a ZX Spectrum game.

Author of A Yankee in Iraq, a 50 fps shoot-’em-up—the first game to utilize the floating bus on the +2A/+3,
and zasm Z80 Assembler syntax highlighter.
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Re: Frumpy

Post by scoppack »

Just played it, loved it! and completed v1 all in 25 mins :) but very tough.
Then found 002 but like others, dont like the roll anim
Enjoyed it though, good job!
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Ersh
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Re: Frumpy

Post by Ersh »

Very addictive! I've made it to Room 6 on the 002 version, I don't mind the difficulty at all since you've got unlimited tries. Going against the flow here, but I like the rolling animation.
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bob_fossil
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Re: Frumpy

Post by bob_fossil »

Thanks for the positive feedback. Guess I need to add some new screens. :)

There's another update, 003 with the following changes:
  • Restored the old player sprite.
  • Added new 'first' room 'The Corkscrew'.
  • Swapped the order of 'The Ol' Switcheroo' and 'First Things First' rooms around.
  • Modified the spike jump in 'The Ol' Switcheroo' to try and make it a bit easier.
Download here.
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Ast A. Moore
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Re: Frumpy

Post by Ast A. Moore »

Grrr . . . Now I have to play the whole thing through to Room 6 again. :twisted:

:D
Every man should plant a tree, build a house, and write a ZX Spectrum game.

Author of A Yankee in Iraq, a 50 fps shoot-’em-up—the first game to utilize the floating bus on the +2A/+3,
and zasm Z80 Assembler syntax highlighter.
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Re: Frumpy

Post by Morkin »

I think that's loads better..! The corkscrew seems to be a really good starter room to get you going. I've now managed the heady heights of screen 6, but my terrible finger reactions are letting me down.

Very nice game..!
My Speccy site: thirdharmoniser.com
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