Game Submission - Bob the Unlikely

[Dr Obvious]

Hello all, I've had this ready for a while, just now finally getting around to submitting this 

Anyways, the game is Bob the Unlikely and it's a Guildhall submission.  I (Tommy Westerman) am the lead level designer and the artist is Joowon Kim (who did an incredible job).

A few things about the game:
 -Use a gamepad if at all possible!  The game was designed for using a gamepad and is pretty difficult without one (though completely doable).  My biggest problem when not using one is that I usually accidently hit the windows key and get booted out.
 -The game turned out pretty hard (mainly the 2nd level).  In the second level, try your best to stick to the building tops and make it to the top of the 6th building.
 -You need 50 cents to buy an energy drink

Other than that, I think that's it.  I hope yall have fun with it!  Here's the link:
http://drobvious.net/bob/bob_v1_3.exe

If you want to see more about the game, you can just go to the following link:
http://drobvious.net/bob
It doesn't have the most recent version of the game, but it has the documentation, older version, and hits and tips.

Lastly, if anyone finds any problems with the game, please post them here or email them to me at twesterm@smu.edu and I'll fix them as time permits.  I think I got all the big problems, but knowing my luck, I probably missed a few. 

[Dr Obvious]

I was just messing around on my server and noticed 2 people downloaded bob_v1_2.exe,I  should probably mention that that version doesn't always work in a few places and bob_v1_3.exe fixes that.  I updated the site and if you try to download the current version it sends you to the most current version instead of v1.2.  Sorry about the trouble.

[durnurd]

A couple of complaints here.  Every time a message shows up, I have to push the button twice to view the next message (and on the first message of a series, the message doesn't show up until I push the button once, so it looks like the game freezes)

I don't quite understand the solidity of things.  In the first level, how do the window ledges work?  I can sometimes jump up onto them, sometimes not, sometimes I can get onto the ledge above the first ledge (or was that a mistake the first time that happened on the first window of the first level?)  And in the second level, why can't I jump up onto the top of a building when flying past it?  (I understand the game mechanics, but not the reasoning)

At the beginning of the second level, I got an Overflow error after reading about flight the first time I played.  The second time I played, I noticed that there's probably a special function or something that creates the first enemy you kill, and it doesn't seem to be activated "on initial touch only" since there's a considerable slow-down when touching that area.  Also, if one comes from the right side and touches it again, the enemy appears while you can see it, so it looks like it comes from nowhere.

Also, there is a small grey speck right there at the beginning of the level that I can only assume is there for collision between the player and it to cause something to happen.  A suggestion:  Make it black, so it doesn't show up so much.

The tutorial isn't so much a tutorial as a representation of the control scheme.

Flight is somewhat confusing.  How exactly does it work?  I understand that one must push the button and jump into the air (or walk off a ledge into the air) but the length of flight is not denoted by the flight bar.  It just goes from full to empty in one jump at the end of the flight, so you have no idea how long you can fly for.

You're using SGDK 1.4.5!  The newest version is 1.4.6, you know.

[bluemonkmn]

Dr. Obvious,

Now ya tell me.  I just today finished downloading all the Guildhall games from your cohort (which one was that, by the way, 4? 5?)  I'll try to remember to be sure to get the updated version of your game before playing and posting a review.  I reviewed one other game this evening (haven't looked at bob yet) and hope to get a review posted before tomorrow.  I don't think I'll have time to review more than one game a day.  And I probably won't have time to review every day.  Man, these GuildHall games take a while to clean up.  I downloaded 800 MB of content (and that's compressed!), but probably a quarter of it is unnecessary files.

Durnurd,

Guildhall was forced to use 1.4.5 until recently because of some configuration issue or something.  But indeed if Dr. Obvious continues work on the game, 1.4.6 would be a good version to use if it works in his configuration

[Dr Obvious]

lol whoops, I thought they hadn't sent them yet!  Just goes to show I rarely know what's going on. >.<


Anyways...

A couple of complaints here.  Every time a message shows up, I have to push the button twice to view the next message (and on the first message of a series, the message doesn't show up until I push the button once, so it looks like the game freezes)

Ugh, long story about this one.  We were trying to get a message box style that looked a certain way and I just really couldn't make it happen with the message boxes in game dev.  Sadly, that is the best I could get them with the time I had.  If I do continue working on the game, I'll try fixing that (because yeah, it gets annoying :-/) but dunno how much time I'm gonna have to work on it anymore. 

I don't quite understand the solidity of things.  In the first level, how do the window ledges work?  I can sometimes jump up onto them, sometimes not, sometimes I can get onto the ledge above the first ledge (or was that a mistake the first time that happened on the first window of the first level?)  And in the second level, why can't I jump up onto the top of a building when flying past it?  (I understand the game mechanics, but not the reasoning)

I made the window ledges so you could get on some if you worked at it.  If you feel like being clever and taking your time, you can get something like $1.50 and get 3 drinks in the level so you'll be well prepared for level 2, otherwise you can just come back and get everything in level 3.

At the beginning of the second level, I got an Overflow error after reading about flight the first time I played.  The second time I played, I noticed that there's probably a special function or something that creates the first enemy you kill, and it doesn't seem to be activated "on initial touch only" since there's a considerable slow-down when touching that area.  Also, if one comes from the right side and touches it again, the enemy appears while you can see it, so it looks like it comes from nowhere.

Yeah, just went back and looked at that and completely missed that.  I knew that something funny was happening there (though it did make that first enemy look kinda cool like he's sticking his tongue out at you) but never had the time before it was due to investigate the draw issue there too much.  Somehow I got all my draws shifted over a building (draws are between buildings and supposed to draw 2 buildings over).  As for the overflow, did you get v1_3?  I thought I fixed that, if you did get 1.3, I'll look into that some more.  I know at the exhibition last Friday everything worked perfectly until I had the game running for about 6 hours and then I finally got a few errors (one due to lag because it drew too many sprites on the final boss and another screen overlay error at the end of the second level).

Also, there is a small grey speck right there at the beginning of the level that I can only assume is there for collision between the player and it to cause something to happen.  A suggestion:  Make it black, so it doesn't show up so much.

Ah, that stupid speck.  Yeah, that's just collision.  I'll try making it different colors and giving it gravity and see how that does.

The tutorial isn't so much a tutorial as a representation of the control scheme.

Once again, a time issue.  I was originally going to have a tutorial level, but by the time the game was due we didn't have it near finished so we took it out and made that screen.  As for the word tutorial, I didn't want to make the artist remake that screen since she was busy touching up a lot of art (including my own crappy art in there >.<.

Flight is somewhat confusing.  How exactly does it work?  I understand that one must push the button and jump into the air (or walk off a ledge into the air) but the length of flight is not denoted by the flight bar.  It just goes from full to empty in one jump at the end of the flight, so you have no idea how long you can fly for.

In short, you fly for a second and it then regens for 2 seconds.  You press the fly button and then you can move in 8 directions.  Sometimes (and I have absolutely no clue why) the flight lasts for maybe .1 seconds and you just pretty much jump.

You're using SGDK 1.4.5!  The newest version is 1.4.6, you know.

Yeah, that's the version we were forced to use as bluemonkmn said.  I think I actually started out with 1.4.6 and then had to uninstall it would caused all sorts of problems but luckily those problem were just with little projects to get to learn the engine and not this game.



Anyways, thanks for all the constructive critisism!  If i do indeed decide to work on this some more, this will all help a lot! 


-oh, and the current Cohort is 5.  And since you have all the games, I would have to recocmend Candy Crisis (I think it's what it was called, the gingerbread man one), that game is the bomb diggity.

[Zorb Burger]

I'll be reviewin' teh game of Bob teh Unlikely soon once it got post in teh listin of oder gams.

[bluemonkmn]

-oh, and the current Cohort is 5.

[durnurd]

As for the overflow, did you get v1_3?  I thought I fixed that, if you did get 1.3, I'll look into that some more.  I know at the exhibition last Friday everything worked perfectly until I had the game running for about 6 hours and then I finally got a few errors (one due to lag because it drew too many sprites on the final boss and another screen overlay error at the end of the second level).

I was playing the version I downloaded from the link you supplied.  That should've been 1.3, yes?

[Zorb Burger]

Since no one else notic but me, this don't be belongin' in her'.  dis topic belong in projects, if I not be mistakin'!

makes me feel all warm inside fer catchin' this and not the admin guys!!

dis is guild hall dough, so they so they get be special prebliges.  after they praise, then comes der over ated GAAAMMMMEEE!!!!
whomever dis ben guy is, he seems to be overratin these guild hall demos. (Dayuumm!!)

[Dr Obvious]

-oh, and the current Cohort is 5.  And since you have all the games, I would have to recocmend Candy Crisis (I think it's what it was called, the gingerbread man one), that game is the bomb diggity.

Actually Candy Crisis is the first game I played, but I didn't pull together a review yet because I got an error on the boss screen.  There are two files in the project HIT_5.wav and HIT_6.wav that even Windows Media Player can't find the proper codec to play.  Also, Candy Crisis is huge.  I would have to put in significant effort to get it down to a managable size.  But if someone can help me fix those two sound effects I might be up to it.  I don't know what they're supposed to sound like.

Hmmm, I'll ask him about the sounds today.  I don't think he's changed anything since last term and as far as I knew they worked then (the sounds are my favorite part, especially the death sound, that and the elevator).

As for the overflow, did you get v1_3?

[Zorb Burger]

scoo man, i no yer new to dis stuff, like me, so yer fergivin.

Besides, teh lil admin guys counld not catc it like me.  Mayb i should be a admin.

[bluemonkmn]

I haven't been enforcing the topic appropriateness too strictly because (at least until recently) there haven't been enough posts to make it worthwhile/important.  Usually there were only a couple posts a day and everyone had time to read all the posts no matter where they were.

[Guilect]

Hmm... I was wondering Dr. Obvious, did you get any kind of inspiration from a SNES game called, 'Lester the Unlikely', for Bob the Unlikely?  Both games have many similarities, such as both of the main characters for your game and the other have to do with geeky, middle-school teenagers, who are into comics .

[Dr Obvious]

Nope, never heard of it  .  It was bad enough when I was making the game that people were telling me it was like Viewtiful Joe (which I also never played  ).

[GameDeveloper]

Even if you say you got no inspiration from the SNES game 'Lester the Unlikely', the similarities are actually quite striking.  Here is a screenshot of the title screen in lester the unlikley.



It's just really odd, same title[name], same type of character...  Nice find, Guilect.