Box's Adventure

[jayenkai]

Box find himself in a large open area.
Collecting gems will keep his power and health topped up, digging and shooting will use up the power, and getting hit by baddies will sap his health.

Try to find all 16 badges. 12 of them will enhance Box's powers, the other 4 once collected will reveal the level's exit.

"Your never ending quest begins today!!"



You can download it here!

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Engine - Important

Part of my All-New BlitzMax framework engine, so let me know if you have any issues with this game. This is important, since I'm going to be reusing this framework over-and-over for more games in the future, and can't have it wussing out on folk! The worse your system is, the more I need to know that it runs!!


Hit Tab to open the menu and go crazy with all the options. Different Resolutions?! From me!?! It's insanity!!


It's also available for Linux!! Cor'Blimey! (Although it was compiled under Ubuntu 9.10, and I have absolutely no experience in Linux, so couldn't begin to guess as to how it runs on anything other than that!!!)

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Game Thoughts

This game's a little different from my norm. It's actually a slow paced romp. And, to be honest, I can't this type of game! I'm really kinda surprised at how the game turned out, although you can probably still tell it's one of mine, mostly due to those frantic action bits that crop up!

Is it good?
Honestly, I don't think I'm the type of person to judge that.
Like I said, this isn't the type of game that I normally like, but I have enjoyed it quite a bit, so. Does that count?! I dunno.

Let me know!!

[Pater Alf]

I played two quick games (before I have to go to bed) and so far everything worked fine for me. The only issue I have is that some statistics (Collection, Used memory, Drawn Images, Drawn Glow, Drawn Particles) show up in the upper left corner when I swith to fullscreen (and stay when I switch back).

The game itself is fun to play. As you said yourself: Not as fastpaced as most of your other games, but I like it a lot. It's very retro and it has charme and some good ideas (like loosing power with every shot).

Also a very good idea is the diagram in the highscore table.

[jayenkai]

Glad to hear it works fine.
I've had a bunch of coders testing it, so far, so everyone systems have already been setup for these sorts of engines, but.. Good to know it works for someone who probably hasn't installed 100,000 languages beforehand


And, yes, I forgot to remove the "change res=Debug" switch.. You can hit F12 to turn the debug info off and on!
(*me changes for future compiles, and adds a little "F12 for Debug" message into the option tab thing.*)

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Highscores
The neat little highscore graph is now a permanent feature, and due to the way I created the framework, happily implements itself without me actually having to do anything! Score 1 for laziness!!

I added it because I can't have online scores anymore.
I'd like to, but.. I'm delaying it, but I'm going to have to start posting all my sourcecode! Argh!!
If I want "everyone" to play these, they're going to have to be able to recompile them on their own systems. BlitzMax can handle Linux and Mac, but I've no idea exactly how well.. Best to be safe, so best to have the code available. Right!? *shrugs*

Posting code means that folk can (and likely will) cheat their scores, so the whole point of having an online scoreboard is pretty much ruined, but that doesn't mean you can't challenge yourself.
That's what the lovely little graph's for.
Shows the last 20-or-so plays, but also keeps the highscores.



Framework
For those interested in the development in this framework, the BlitzMax basic Framework has been released here (with scary old-skool code!) and two previous games have been released.


Centipong 2
Not quite as good as the first one, mostly because I couldn't think of anything new to add, and it all got a bit dull and uninteresting..
Bah..


Munky Train 2 : Munky Tests his Engine
Nice little fast-paced typing game, with a great big poem in it
Also needs a new DVD case, this was the first test of the new engine!! (hence it's name!)

I'm not making proper topics for those, yet, though.
The framework still needs finishing off properly, and the other two games will be recompiled once everything's ready.

Thanks for the test! Enjoy the plays

[Chroelle]

I tried it out longer today and was extremely hooked. An amazing game. It is so much better than it seems at first glance on the screenies. I needed a bit of direction in the game, and that alone is what is keeping it from being a real gem - but it is still GREAT!

[jayenkai]

It's not very often I make a game that's anywhere near as slowpaced as this one is. I can't even remember what made me do it, but I think it was something about integrating the badges (/accomplishments/whatever) into the game, as opposed to just having them be something to collect.. If you grab the "Badge of Visibility" you get a bunch of dots on the screen, to help you along a bit..
Maybe I should make that one of the closer badges, or even have you start with that?
Dunno.

I like it, but time is a rarity, atm, and I haven't played it in AGES!!!

bah!

I've been trying to come up with a way to get this to work on the iPhone, lately.. I think it might work well on there.. Pull out, play a bit, pop back... But those controls ... Bah.. Why no buttons, Apple!?!?

[Moogle]

I found this game very interesting at first glance. To be truthful, I love randomly genereated map-type games, and am usually excited when I hear about them. With this one, there is no direction at all. So it's either learn it yourself, or die, in my opinion. When i first started I had no idea what I was doing, (that's where a tutorial should've come in .) And just found myself moving around collecting upgrades. As soon as I overcame the learning curve, though, the game became a lot of fun. I didn't mind not being able to save since the game only takes a short amount of time to play (unless you're really good at it.) And the competitive scoring makes it more fun because you can challenge yourself (or friends).

[jayenkai]

yup.. Me and tutorials Seems to be a common complaint, but I grew up in the 80s, where you got home with a brand new game, slammed it into the machine, and figured it out as you went along!

I find it really hard to write good tutorials, without worrying about putting the player down.
"Now you need to get another one of those!!!" (&$*! OFF, You stupid patronising tutorial!!!)

.. Maybe, some day, I'll learn to write them well.

Until then, if there's anything, it'll be the occasional little tiny clue along the way!

(You're lucky the badges have descriptions )

[Chroelle]

Well here it is at CWF:
http://www.curlysworldoffreeware.com/games/view/384

I am not sure about the genre so please let me know if you think it should ahve another label.

[jayenkai]

Woot!
Arcade's fine with me, assuming there's not a "Slow paced, occasionally uninteresting wander" catagory

Thanks!