New game - Beluga Dreams

[8-Bit Waves]

Uploaded a fairly large update (large for a flappy game I suppose). After this I'd like to do one more final update (Who am I kidding!?) after getting more feedback.

I added a new modifier and did a lot of graphical updates.

Edit: If you downloaded this right away I had the wrong file uploaded. The correct one is up now.

Download: Beluga Dreams


I also put up a simple site if you are interested in the other Vectrex projects I keep starting and not finishing. I'll work on this more in the future.

Website: www.8bitwaves.com

[VECTREXER]

Nov 11, 2019 21:45:23 GMT -5 8-Bit Waves said:

Uploaded a fairly large update (large for a flappy game I suppose). After this I'd like to do one more final update (Who am I kidding!?) after getting more feedback.

I added a new modifier and did a lot of graphical updates.

Already loving the new graphical updates.
Fluke movement. +1
Eye wink +1
Whirlpools / Spinning Galaxies whatever they are. +1
Scoring History. +3
Digital Joystick control during game play. +1


Thoughts on other features.

Game Cart Startup:
• Noted that the buttons will advance past the titled screen. But the joystick will not. However, when on the Attract mode / Inter-Game screen both the buttons and the joystick are usable to start a new game. Should the controls be unified across all screens? Alternatively, are you saving the joystick control on the title screen for other/additional functions on that screen?

Attract mode / Inter-Game:
• Add fluke slowly stroking/randomly stroking as if Beluga were lazily dreamtime swimming on its own before the play starts their game. Beluga attract mode might also give some cool graphics such as Beluga blowing bubbles/stardust that floats away.

• Keep the music playing prior to game play. Albeit, at the same slower cadence as is played on the title screen.

For the the Beluga end of game sequence.
• Perhaps a movement / scene where Beluga awakens, blows some bubbles, and swims back to the beginning. As in, back to the left. Then falls back to sleep and starts to dream swim again. Allow for the player to abort the ending scene with a button press.
• Perhaps a set of happy sleepy time themed thoughts of encouragement randomly presented to the player for a few seconds at the end of the game. Allow for the player to abort the thought display with a button press.

For game play:
• Add a bonus point for a level where Beluga can swim to open areas at the top. Bonus for Beluga "breaching" to peer above the line but still come back down before the next part of the surface continues. Or bonus for Beluga being able to "Breach" and jump over line sections inside the score display area without going off screen. Beluga breaching might also give some cool graphics such as Beluga blowing bubbles/stardust that floats away.

• During attract mode, enable the use of Buttons 1,2,3,4, to to do more than just start the game. Also allow the buttons to modify gravity value for the current game. Either for the entire game; or for just the first level of the game. Think of it as a game skill level selection. So yes, this opens up a can of worms for score comparison. To notate game skill level values include a cool graphical symbol paired with player score denoting the skill level value the player chose for the game played.


For Game display:
• Alternate display mode for landscape presentation.

For Game Scoring:
• Add support for a memory device to retain the highest score. This could be one or more of the following.
◦ A 1-Wire EEPROM written to using Alex Herbert's documented method.
◦ Reserved AtariVOX EEPROM Memory location using the documented method to write to AtariVOX memory.


For the Web page (https://8-bit-waves.itch.io/beluga-dreams):
Include a long video demo played automatically.

[8-Bit Waves]

Thanks for the feedback.

I'm still thinking about how to handle an attract more or demo mode. I have an idea similar to yours that I might try.

I'll look into the buttons being the same across all screens.

I still need to research the score saving. I'm not sure what method is best or if it is even worth doing in this case. I may need one of the more experienced devs to help me out with that.

[fmml]

Just played Beluga Dreams for the first time.
I can see you already included many of the recommendations here.
The intro is nice. I like the game graphics with the beluga and the background with cloud, moon and stars. It seems you altered the obstacle squares a bit and I think they fit in the game theme pretty good now.
Highscore is displayed after every round. The different items give variation to the game. At first they are very confusing but it gets better once you are used to them. You can also try to avoid them.
I find the difficulty to be alot easier compared to Veccy Bird. After a few attempts I could score 50.
I am not a fan of the genre but I think this is turning out to be a nice game.

[8-Bit Waves]

Nov 12, 2019 18:57:29 GMT -5 fmml said:

Just played Beluga Dreams for the first time...

Thanks for playing! Since you got to 50 in a few tries would you say it is too easy, just right, or harder than you prefer? Just curious. As of now the level closes in on you until you reach 200.

[fmml]

Maybe „ a few tries“ is not the precise expression. I played a good half an hour maybe. Knowing now that the level ends at 200 I would say for me the difficulty is about right. It’s a challenge to finish but does not seem impossible with practice. I didn’t have the impression the difficulty increased a lot while you progress except that more items appear (?).

Saying that for me the difficulty is right might mean that for many others it is too easy maybe?
In Vector War I invested about the same time in Veccy Bird and scored 12. That put me in 16th place out of 20.
But maybe playing VB established new brain circuits I didn’t have before and I profit from them now with Beluga?

Overall in the beginning people complained the game was too difficult so I guess you are on the right track.

[hcmffm]

Thank you for providing a new version of Beluga Dreams, 8-Bit Waves . I just tried out the latest version. From previous playing for the Vector War I still had the blue overlay of Solar Quest on my Vectrex and with Beluga Dreams the blue overlay colour worked perfect: It looked like a moonlit night with pale, dim light. The impression of depth with the speeding cloud in the front and the slow stars in the background works out really well. Within 10 minutes of playing I made it up to 18 points and think that Beluga Dreams is just right and not too easy at the beginning.

All in all Beluga Dream seems pretty mature to me and there's little I can suggest to improve the game even more:

Shape of obstacles
The whirls are much better than the square obstacles in previous versions. Somehow these whirls remind me of "Clippy", the assistant of Word. Perhaps the whirl could be a little bit less rectangular and rotation could be a bit smoother - atm, it seems like 90 degree rotations to me.

Shape of Beluga

Currently, Beluga looks a bit like he has problems with his spine. And an important bit is missing, I think: A mouth. Perhaps not a big mouth but an indication of a mouth (just a very short line) might improve graphics of Beluga significantly and make Beluga even cuter.

"Borders" - Horizontal lines
Now that the rectangular obstacles have dissappeared, the game's graphics are much more organic and natural which is good. Currently, the vertical movements of Beluga are limited by horizontal lines at the top and the bottom. The horizontal borders are straight lines which pulsate in brightness.
Suggestion/Idea: Perhaps the horizontal borders could be drawn in a way that these also look more organic. E.g. there could be some very slow wave-like animation. I.e. left starting point and right-end point could go up and down a little (a bit like a seesaw). The horizontal lines could even be drawn only partly and the part that is drawn could move horizontally (this might look like some kind of shimmer / reflection).

Thank you for your good effort in programming and fine-tuning Beluga Dreams, limitzer0!

[8-Bit Waves]

hcmffm, Thanks for the input as always.

Obstacles - The whirls are more like animated sprites than a rotating object. That is why I looks a little choppy. I'll think about how to make it look less like a paperclip and be smoother. I'd like to keep the rectangle shape of it as that is part of the difficulty and the "illusion" that makes players think it is harder than it is. I have about four pages of ideas that I tried to make work there (hot air balloons, UFO, rocket ships, etc) before settling on the dream spiral/portal thing.

Beluga shape - What part specifically looks odd to you on the spine? The tail movement is supposed to be from the momentum of him flapping. The tail itself isn't "flapping" if that is the issue. I can try think of something else if it looks odd or just remove the tail animation. I'll look into adding a mouth. It is actually shaped after a plush that has the mouth open *see below*.

Borders - I'll think about some things to do regarding this. I like the lines in that it shows you exactly what you need to avoid. Maybe just decreaseding the brightness on it could help.

The obstacle and beluga tail alone have taken many hours of trying various things so I'm pretty close to being done with them.

A lot of my design decisions are based on the "original" for better or worse. I've been wanting to show you all the original for a while but I couldn't capture it very well. 

[gauze]

ok I like the easier version with the animated swirling obstacles more now I got to 14 before dying.

[8-Bit Waves]

For those interested in a physical version see the first post.

[TrekMD]

PM sent!

[fmml]

PM sent!

[kurtori]

PM sent 🙂

[8-Bit Waves]

Thanks for the orders everyone!