New game - Beluga Dreams

[8-Bit Waves]

I'm ready to start selling these. It comes with the grey game cartridge, universal game case, sticker, and cover art. Pictures of the cover art and cartridges can be seen here: www.8bitwaves.com/

Beluga Dreams + US Shipping = $40
Beluga Dreams + International Shipping = $60

PM me if interested and I will have you send payment through PayPal F & F.

I know things are weird with international shipping right now so I'm going to leave it up to you if you want to take the risk or not. Some countries are handling shipments better than others. If your country is having huge delays or worse then you might want to wait. 

Sorry for the international shipping costs. 

- Nate


Original Post:

I made a simple game as a side project. It was supposed to take a few hours but somehow took all of my spare time over the last 6 days.

I plan on cleaning it up and optimizing it a tad more but it is basically done as far as I'm concerned.

Can you all take a look at this and see if there are any major issues? PM me if you have any thoughts.

8-bit-waves.itch.io/beluga-dreams

If there are no major issues I'll post it in VFU and AA.

[hcmffm]

Good to see a new Vectrex developer around! Thank you, 8-Bit Waves or your effort. I'll try out Beluga Dreams on the weekend and will provide some feedback. A link to a video showing Beluga's gameplay would good.

[TrekMD]

Nice. I will check it out.

[Malban]

Uh, oh.

I'm no big flappy bird fan - my hand to eye coordination is really bad in respect to these games.

One single "flap" to many - and BANG!

That being said people who like flappy bird (variations) will like beluga dreams.

It seems well executed - without to many things to distract from the game.

Having played it a few times I only (I think for my skills that is excellent!) acchieved a score of 21.

The game seems random generated, which might make it even more difficult at times.

You can collect "game changers" (after a score > 10 I think). So far I encountered 3 different ones:

a) size variation of the "path"

b) change direction of the beluga

c) dispositioning of the "path" along the vertical axis

None of which made the game easier for me - but certainly more diversified and challenging.

Its not a game for me (the genre ...) - but thumbs up!

Cheers

Malban

[8-Bit Waves]

Thanks for the review, Malban. And thank you for everything you do for the Vectrex community.

[VECTREXER]

No major issues with the basic movements as far as they go. I find the flappy games a bit frustrating. No less so for Beluga Dreams since I have only made it to 16 so far.

Nice soundtrack.

Other desires.
Because of the title, I would have liked to see clouds, or call then anchovy balls, as the beginning object.
Would have liked to see fluke movement.
Maybe make the sea surface and floors a bit higher and lower?
Perhaps Incorporate a digital joy control for flapping as too?
Perhaps retain a high score for all games played until turned off?

[8-Bit Waves]

Thanks for the feedback Vectrexer. I know it is a love it or hate genre so I appreciate you giving it a shot.

I'll look into making it more "dream" like as the level is supposed to be the Beluga dreaming about flying.

I had left and right movement in an early build and it didn't help much with the difficulty for those who have trouble with it. It sort of just added one more thing to worry about.

I debated about the top and bottom of the level being too tight. But after a bit of practice I'm getting very high scores. I even considered making it harder. The current size also leaves room to add a simultaneous 2 player option (which was the original design before adding the "modifiers").

I think I might add the joypad control for those who want to use it. Good call.

As for the highscore, that number is always at the top right. The current attempt score is at the top center. Is that want you were thinking?

[gtoal]

Is this using the curve/circle code you were asking about the other day? (I can't get past the first hurdle to see more than the whale drawing, and it's hard to tell in the emulator if the whale is drawn with curves. Sorry, really have no time for this style of game. Do appreciate the programming however!)

G
PS Can I recommend against using that mock pixel font at your itch.io site?  It's unreadable.  Defeats the point of typography which is to make text more readable.  (If you must use a kitch thematic font at least pick something appropriate like the atari vector font?)

[8-Bit Waves]

gtoal, It was drawn using Inkscape, imported into VIDE using the Vector Panel, sent to Vecci, then exported as Malban's synced list (draw_sync_list).

It is around 100 vectors with around 20 "sync and move" operations.

No curved lines. I was asking about that because I want to eventually make a proper racing game with curved roads.


Playing Beluga Dreams in an emulator makes it significantly harder. You really notice the delays associated with emulation.

[hcmffm]

Just come from the attic where I played some rounds of Beluga Dreams on a Vectrex console. Below you'll find some impressions, feedback, and suggestions.

+ Music (Lullaby)
+ Intro graphic with credits and greetings

As other people wrote already, Beluga Dreams is a variation of Flappy Bird. I've played about 10 games and my highscore was 9. Personally, I think it's very hard to control the whale and pretty much a lucky game because obstacles in the middle are pretty hard to pass and the level setting seems to be random. I'm not sure whether difficulty ramps up or not. Personally, I find initial difficulty of Beluga Dreams too high and it's pretty difficult to control Beluga.


= Suggestions:

• Lullaby: Loud and soft
In the intro screen and during the game some music is played.
Suggestion: Music could vary in loudness. Partly loud and partly soft. This way the music might fit even better to the theme of the game (soft lullaby for sweet dreams).

• No obstacle at start
Currently, at the very beginning of the game, you see the first obstacle, already.
Suggestion: This first obstacle looked like score "0" to me. I think it would look nicer if the first obstacle would be invisible at start and appear after a short instance.

• Whale animation
Currently, Beluga uses his front fins, only.
Suggestion: The whole body including back fin could be animated so that it looks more like a whale.

• Underwater
Currently, there's the top line and the square obstacles. There is no water element.
Suggestion: Add some graphics that makes the player feel that the gameplay is underwater. E.g. some faint bubbles (see Polar Rescue).
EDIT: Just read that Beluga dreams of flying. An environment with clouds (as suggested by Vectrexer) makes much sense, then. I just wonder what the obstacles could be. The environment could be even surreal.

• Name of game
"Beluga dreams" as a game title sounds somehow wrong to me. What about "Beluga's dream"? (Please note that I'm not a native speaker.)

• Difficulty: Initial difficulty
Personally, I think difficulty starts to high.
Suggestion: Start with lower difficulty and then ramp up difficulty gradually.

• Gameplay: More skills - less random
Currently, the swim area is very narrow in height. Therefore Beluga crashes into "walls" very quickly.
Suggestion: Initially, the swim area could be larger in height. This might give the player the opportunity to bring back Beluga on track once he/she made a mistake. Perhaps appearence of blocks could fixed and not random.

- o -

[VectorX]

Oct 18, 2019 15:45:04 GMT -5 hcmffm said:

VectorX: Could you please move this topic one forum level higher so that it becomes more visible?

What, you mean just on the Vectrex forum, and not here?

[8-Bit Waves]

Thank you all for the feedback!

I'm a little sad that the game is seemingly too difficult as I spent a good amount of time thinking about the difficulty and tweaking things. It is very hard to pull off a perfect balance that makes everyone happy: too easy and you can play forever and get bored; too hard and you may get frustrated and stop playing. Personally, I'm able to get between 50 and 150 just testing the game (granted, I've had a ton of practice). I haven't sought out my highest possible score.

I'm a little torn on what to do. While the obstacles are random, there is always a path to take. Sometimes it is wide and sometimes it is narrow, but it is totally doable once you get the timing down. Although the majority of you agree that it is too difficult, I think I will leave the difficulty as is for now - not because I'm stubborn, but because I'm at the point where if I make it easier then I'll find my own game boring.

I hope you all don't take that as a bad thing! I truly believe that if you put a little bit of time into it then you will find some joy in making it farther and farther. I think for those that dislike the genre there isn't a whole lot that can be done to make you like it.



Dream graphics: I agree with those who wanted more dream-like elements in there. I added a moon and star in the background. I don't want to make the obstacles into clouds because that will take more lines and make it harder to understand where the hitbox is (that is already hard enough with the beluga). I'm also just about at line capacity due to the scale fluctuating level. I'll try to think of more things to increase the dreaminess.

Animation: I've thought about more whale animation but I keep going back to wanting to keep the hitbox situation less confusing. I sort of consider him "falling" vs swimming so he wouldn't necessarily be moving his tail much (although, I've never seen a falling or flying beluga whale so who knows?).

Music: I’ve left this as is. As you will see later in the game, the music speed changes with certain “modifiers”.


Things I have done so far (but not uploaded yet):
+Moved the Beluga forward a bit to fully clear a box before it leaves the screen.
+Added the joystick as a digital button essentially.
+Made the hitboxes more precise and corrected a bug with the hitbox and the "modifier" item (sometimes it was not activating them).
+Added a star, moon, and a 3rd background plane

I am considering taking the first obstacle off the screen to give a little bit of time to adjust to the controls.

I still need to clean things up a bit and put more time into it to make sure it is where I want it.

[Malban]

Perhaps the game needs not be easier - how about a version where it gets more difficult over time?

Its good to lure people into the game ... let them have a success story in the beginning ...

And after some gradually evolving difficulty from a certain level its YOUR difficulty again...

---

I never really thought about it that way - but flappy baluga is not that much different from VeCaves - I like that one very much... 
That one has good difficulty curve - the cave getting smaller and smaller ...

just a thought...

[8-Bit Waves]

I didn't realize the cave got smaller in VeCaves. I have seen it but never played it. I almost overpaid for it a few times... (Anyone here have a copy to sell/trade? )

After having dinner and thinking about it I will do something about the difficulty. What you are all suggesting makes sense. There is still a balance there that is hard to perfect (difficulty/boredom) but if I can get you all to enjoy it more it would make me happy.


So wider level and smaller objects that get harder every ten levels or so until... 100?

I have uploaded the latest with a bunch of changes (still the same difficulty). The moon looks like garbage to me so I'll probably change it. If anyone has any other feedback let me know.

Edit: I just played around with widening it and that alone makes it significantly easier so I'll probably leave the objects as the same size.

Edit 2: I am also putting a time limit on the modifiers which will help with the difficulty deeper into the game. I'm doing this more because they just become annoying once you are used to them. They used to actually stack but will not anymore.

I'm almost done with the difficulty changes but I can't keep my eyes open anymore... I'll finish it tomorrow and upload it for you all to test.

[8-Bit Waves]

I have uploaded the latest with difficulty adjustment. I think it is a nice change.

Download: 8-bit-waves.itch.io/beluga-dreams

Changes: 8-bit-waves.itch.io/beluga-dreams/devlog/105638/difficulty-adjustment