New game: Archeomania
Yesterday we had in Poland a retroparty called Wapniak 2014 and I was presenting my new Spectrum game there (it was only Spectrum game, the rest were for 8-bit Atari). Now I'm presenting it for the people of WOS too
The game is called Archeomania. It's a clone of Tetris but with a "twist"
The download: https://www.sendspace.com/file/9ov8ei
Controls are show in menu, extra controls: R-restart level,X-quit to menu
The protagonist of the game is a female archeologist visiting an ancient temple. Unfortunately things get really bad there - there are bricks falling from the ceiling and deadly spikes slowly moving down.
To save our lady we must erase full block rows like in classic Tetris (we control the blocks, not the girl) so she falls down to the level bottom. Dropping a block onto the lady isn't harmful for her, she'll just climb it up. It may be good - getting out of some pit or bad - suicide by climbing right to the spikes
The game is a remake of Tetris Plus - arcade game from 1996. You can see the original gameplay e.g. here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DyTchU44hQ8
Game code and graphics are mine, music was "borrowed" from archive of Russian modules.
I can see some things to improve and may deal with them one time:
-music slows down when beeper playing
-falling block hidden behind spikes, I would try to move it to front
Have fun !
The game is called Archeomania. It's a clone of Tetris but with a "twist"
The download: https://www.sendspace.com/file/9ov8ei
Controls are show in menu, extra controls: R-restart level,X-quit to menu
The protagonist of the game is a female archeologist visiting an ancient temple. Unfortunately things get really bad there - there are bricks falling from the ceiling and deadly spikes slowly moving down.
To save our lady we must erase full block rows like in classic Tetris (we control the blocks, not the girl) so she falls down to the level bottom. Dropping a block onto the lady isn't harmful for her, she'll just climb it up. It may be good - getting out of some pit or bad - suicide by climbing right to the spikes
The game is a remake of Tetris Plus - arcade game from 1996. You can see the original gameplay e.g. here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DyTchU44hQ8
Game code and graphics are mine, music was "borrowed" from archive of Russian modules.
I can see some things to improve and may deal with them one time:
-music slows down when beeper playing
-falling block hidden behind spikes, I would try to move it to front
Have fun !
Post edited by Ralf on
Comments
it spins the blocks twice usually when you press it once.
Struggling a bit to control the falling blocks, it seems some shapes don't rotate the way I expect them to, and occasionally fall quickly if I 'drop' the one before it.
EDIT - jinx! Just seen Slenkar's post.
"Although this game has a female protagonist she is dressed in a stereotypically feminine way with a skirt instead of pants. The player is encouraged to crush her with blocks throughout the entire game. All she can do is wander left and right which matches up with the brainless bimbo trope. She can't do anything without the help of the player 50% of whom are going to be....men."
I didn't know she had any interest in the zx spectrum!
Any chance of a fix Mr Ralf? :-)
(@slenkar: 50% men?!)
She's right about the stereotypical female lead. The original was a dimwitted professor - why did they change to teenage fantasy-style female?
Sarkeesian is wrong about the bimbo part though - that's how the arcade's protagonist behaved.
D.
As for the "sexist" part I completely don't get it. Yes, in Tetris Plus you play a professor. In Tetris Plus 2 you can choose between him and his female assistant. I decided to make the protagonist female. I suppose I just like to draw female characters more, many painters suffered from this syndrome ;)
And yes, she's wearing a skirt (very strange for a woman ;) ) and is supposed to be cute, what's wrong with it?
As for the controls I'll think it all over but now I need some rest from the game. Personally I got used to the controls while making and testing the game but there is always room for improvement.
I wouldn't be worried at anything she said. She isn't your intended audience. She doesn't pay you anything if she thinks it's a good game. In fact, she just misused your game for her ad income.
It's okay. You can't please everyone. It's not like you're making an AAA game anyway. :lol:
There's one rule I use when I make my games: The audience of my games is ME. There will always be people who doesn't like your game, but as long as you like the game, it doesn't matter.
Games List 2016 - Games List 2015 - Games List 2014
Agreed about the spacebar! :)
But a very very good game!
(*for the benefit of foreign readers, 'three-penny-bits' = 'tits').
- IONIAN-GAMES.com -
not played this variation of tetris before, it's a novel concept and makes it more enjoyable
as said the spacebar is oversensitive, sort that out and it's a winner imo
Oh, I thought you were kidding. I couldn't find this comment/review on the web, any chance of a link?
No problem with the pieces speed being fast if controls (rotate and speed-up) weren't a bit misleading.
JSpeccy-win32-portable
yeh I was kidding, I recently watched all of her videos over a couple of days to get a better idea of what she is about, so I was able to write something that she would probably write :grin:
Argh I was right first time, should have kept quiet!
Now I look like some kind of goddam fool.
(Good gag by the way!)
Btw, I like how clean looks the loading screen$.. very nice!!
thx if you dont know much bout her you could be forgiven for thinking she does reviews for old systems
Maria on Tour casts Maria as a hero......but! Only after Willy has kicked her up the arse to go do her job for being a lazy fat cow.....I'd like to hear her views on it tbh? :lol:
-How many Levels does the game have? I reached level 10 but I feel Im far from completing it!
-I like it, the element of the girl walking around and needing to reach the floor adds quite enough to consider it a simple tetris clone, its almost a new game.
-Good graphics, not spectacular but they do their job quite well.
-It would be good to add a reset button, as there might be situations where the girl gets trapped and there is no time limit, so the onl solution is to reset the Spectrum.
-It would be nice to remove a bit of response to the Space bar button, as it is now too much sensitive and in complicated situations, you will lose a life most of the times.
Good game, Ralf! :)
EDIT: Seems that the level aborts at some point when girl gets trapped, right? as while I was writing this, the game went back to the men?!
There are 50 levels.
You can restart a level by pressing R, I've written about it in 1st post.
Besides you have somehow missed a crucial element of the game - the spikes.
They are slowly but constantly moving down. If the girl touches them, then it is live lost. And in later levels there is one big race against the spikes.
I can think of adjusting the space and maybe a few other things, now when some time has gone and I have made a rest from this game
Whoa, that happens when you dont read the first post :D
Then, there is no problem at all with getting locked, and besides, the spikes are coming down, as you said (this happened at the very start of the level, so between that and that I was starting to feel tired after a looong day, it made me think wrongly ;) )
50 levels, I think it should be feasible with practice.
Danke!
Even if the game wasn't sexist (it is) and doesn't alienate women gamers then some of the conversation thats been had around it might.
Agreed! It's unreasonable to put a nameless helpless stereotyped girl in the game background... unless she's naked! :)
(hint, hint!)
I remember the 'Tetris Plus' I used to enjoy playing that. I also tried it on Mame a month or three ago too.