Bubble Bobble remake!

ivanb303

After playing Pietro Brothers and marvelling at the colors with the Nirvana+, I think the prime candidate to be remade to me Bubble Bobble. While very playable the official one was one that made me green with envy at the version of the beige one. Apart from the lack of color it also lacked the lots of secret tricks and items too. I do realize this would be a Herculean task :)

fog

spectrum version is decent enough surely? cpc one did get a remake, but it did need it.

ivanb303

It was certainly super playable it just lacked some of the secret doors and the extra food tricks present in arcade and other versions. Looking at Pietro Bros done with Nirvana+ I instantly thought someone has to remake one of the best platformers of all time :) I'm a bit of a coding noob and time poor guess can set it as a long time goal :)

ivanb303

I feel bad for our CPC brethren they really got a lot of bad versions of games even though it's a very capable machine. I played a lot on it in my younger days at my cousin's house

morcar

The only thing that gets to me is the sound of when you jump. Man....that really grates on my nipples

ivanb303

I don't think you've ever had your nipples grated :) The sound is not that bad !

retromad

I hate the nipple grater noise too... that's about all I'd change ... plus could never get the music to work without graphic corruption and crashes.

joefish

I'm not sure it's suitable - when the screen is full of bubbles, there are far too many sprites to redraw to get any decent speed out of a multicolour engine.

gabriele amore

this is not nirvana, just regular graphics done with AGD
I am thinking of not redoing the same game...maybe giving a different twist...

ivanb303

That's still pretty neat I haven't had a good go with AGD. When I find the time and my kid is asleep :)

hikoki

Awesome! I see chameleons likkers and chameleons changing their colours to blend in with environment thanks to colur clash. A strategy/stealth platformer based on camouflage..

gabriele amore

Just a test (no bubble capturing yet): 1 player spirte, 6 enemies sprites, 3 bubble sprites plus explosions and sounds plus all those colors...not too much slowdown ... i think something nice can be done..

4throck

The colours and big sprites are nice, but I'm not a fan of attribute based animation.
I prefer single colour for sprites and smooth animation as in Donkey Kong Reloaded Again :)
Perhaps you can try it like that.

MatGubbins

It's a nice fast preview.

gabriele amore

4throck wrote: »

The colours and big sprites are nice, but I'm not a fan of attribute based animation.
I prefer single colour for sprites and smooth animation as in Donkey Kong Reloaded Again :)
Perhaps you can try it like that.

welll i though the point was to go beyond monochromatic sprites... the other option would be to use Bifrost or Nirvana graphics as suggested by ivanb303 but that requires programming skills i do not have...

PS thanks for appreciating DKRA btw :D

gabriele amore

new wip video (and yes there are many things that need to be fixed...it is a WIP)
anybody doing a nirvana+ demo out there?

MatGubbins

Will the blocky attributes for the background always be on screen?
It will look a lot better without them and make the game easier on the eyes.

gabriele amore

i like some color in the bckgrd...but coloring sprite with AGD does not allow fro complex backgrounds (sprite colors will bleed) so i may use something like that

hikoki

Hi Gab. Could the baddies be trapped inside the bubbles as in 'Bubble Frenzy'? It may be funnier to see.. maybe this would limit the number of sprites at the same time?
Another idea to make it more like 'Bomb Jack' could be that the number of bubbles available was decreased as they are spent on baddies. The player could replenish bubbles by taking soap powerups.
The new background suggests a few nice ideas.. you might find some good fun both as an artist and game designer.. what about blending background designs with gameplay? For example making platforms like rooftops of a city landscape, baddies disappearing/appearing when passing through treetops, waterfalls, etc blocks would be placed to draw the landscape but also to impact on gameplay as for camouflage, barriers, fire, rivers, light, etc watch this place, i'm going to look for some images :)

hikoki

Hi again. Some backgrounds with mosaic blocks: https://postimg.org/gallery/2fy2six2s/
Sprites chashing between air and underwater is always good looking

gabriele amore

hikoki wrote: »

Hi Gab. Could the baddies be trapped inside the bubbles as in 'Bubble Frenzy'? It may be funnier to see.. maybe this would limit the number of sprites at the same time?
Another idea to make it more like 'Bomb Jack' could be that the number of bubbles available was decreased as they are spent on baddies. The player could replenish bubbles by taking soap powerups.
The new background suggests a few nice ideas.. you might find some good fun both as an artist and game designer.. what about blending background designs with gameplay? For example making platforms like rooftops of a city landscape, baddies disappearing/appearing when passing through treetops, waterfalls, etc blocks would be placed to draw the landscape but also to impact on gameplay as for camouflage, barriers, fire, rivers, light, etc watch this place, i'm going to look for some images :)

Lots of good ideas....some of which i might mange to implement at some point...thanks

hikoki

Hi Gabriele. Glad that you've found the "painting-background" blocks inspiring to play with.
I've just added a few more backgrounds above.
The way with which you avoid colour clash is intriguing. I think it has to do with having blocks separated 8px from each other. I wonder if you could get interesting clashing effects by alternating blocks which look the same to the eye, that is, bright blue next to dimmed blue or bright red and dimmed red side by side. Maybe this way you could make a blue(red) mask around the character? like the black mask on Brunilda, only that this way might be less visible..

4throck

gabriele amore wrote: »

(sprite colors will bleed) so i may use something like that

Looks fine to me.
I get the appeal of colored sprites, and I can accept some color clash.
Perhaps some middle ground?
4 pixel step movement might look smother and still don't clash too much.
Or limit color variation to columns, if the sprites moves mainly horizontal.

Just some ideas, that's all, perhaps for a future game.

hikoki

I was wondering about appearing/disappearing sprites behind trees.. Has this trick been used in other games to give the illusion of having many more sprites at the same time? I think AGD allows up to 12 sprites at the same time, this way you could "double" or "triple" the number of sprites! You could temporarily hide them or leave them visible as a block camouflaged with a tree. Something like that could be work with mummies on shifting sands or airplanes behind clouds. This kind of trick could be useful in genres which require lots of sprites like Tower defense games, rts, etc

gabriele amore

well.... for now i am working on this: a mix between bubble bobble and bomb jack...

hikoki

Nice! Could you add some landscape element? just a small detail so that players turn their 3d goggles on.. Maybe a star in the form of white dot within windows, a piece of moon on the top side, some agd particles crossing the sky from time to time, etc. some minor details that make backgrounds feel "real"
If you make the game a bit like Bomb Jack, I guess baddies will have some characteristic motion patterns and be reactive to player movements. Collision detection on AGD seems to be a bit unforgiving.. is there some trick to make it clearer/easier for the player? maybe doing something like, if distance < -1 then collision