JOUST (arcade game) WIP

[Shockman]

JOUST (arcade game)

http://sandbox.yoyogames.com/games/188010-joust

 

[LeeVanCleef]

Looking good, Shocky! Gotta be a tough game to program! Sure as hell was a tough game to play.

 

[Shockman]

It is turning out to be harder than I thought. I have never made a platform game of any kind before, but joust is my favorite.

The new version has 20 levels and the platform structure is all in except for the behavior of the birds being on or landing on a platform before and during the crumble.
The lava troll is built, but not working yet.
There are still a few sticky spots where the bounce is not working right. A bird needs to land from top, stop from the bottom, and either bounce, reverse, or go around from the sides of platforms.
The 20 levels that are in are labeled correctly for both one and two player play, but the tracking and results for team waves, gladiator waves, and survival waves are not programmed. The first 4 egg waves are in but I just have the eggs hatching into birds with riders, as I have not even started on getting a buzzard to retrieve an egg yet.
Each time an egg hatches it should hatch into an advanced fighter, up to the shadow lords, but all spawned and hatched birds I have so far is the bounders, and only 6 per level, which is correct up to level 13 or around there where it becomes more of one type, or a combo totaling up to I think 10 or so. Also all eggs hatch at the same time in this version, so on egg waves, if you wait, you will have 12 enemies at once.
All of this I plan to sort out and I do have a chart of all 90 levels, which shows the starting enemy types, the wave type, the missing platforms for that wave, and the number of pterodactyls.
By doing this I learn games inside and out and there has so far been at least one element of each game I either was unaware of, or did not completely understand before. To me it's just recreation like putting a jigsaw puzzle together, but having to cut the pieces first.

Today I think I will put player two on it's stork, instead of the modded ostrich it is on now. Then I will build the hunters and shadow lords. But as I want to keep moving forward with new elements, it's important to get the ones that are in in order first, because much of the code is copied and pasted into the controller for the next level. So though I could build the structure of all remaining levels in a day, if I did, all revisions of behavior would have to be implemented into 90 places.

 

[Shockman]

Instead I worked on making some things that were in and not correct better.

The latest version now has,

-Game over for either player. If it was a two player game the remaining player continues and the levels revert, starting on the next one to the one player levels.
-The Lava Troll will grab buzzards and either player. The buzzards will remain held until speared, but the players will slowly be pulled into the lava, but can escape if they flap hard enough (fast enough).
-The Pterodactyl can kill and be killed by either player.
-Much more collisions (nearly all, at least)

As far as levels, it is complete enough now, at 20, for many players

It's very fun and playable as a one or two player game right now, but with just bounders, and some other missing features and a few bugs.

 

[LeeVanCleef]

HA! You coulda stopped at level 10 and would have been as far as I got on my best game! I'll have to give your version a shot in the next couple of days to see if I still suck at it!

 

[Shockman]

With bots as dumb as these 'Bounders', and the nonchalant ptero, I have, I'm sure you, and everyone else, could do better on this version.

 

[Shockman]

This update includes,

-The first 30 levels with Survival, Team, and Gladiator wave tracking and scoring.
-Player 2 on a stork
-Preliminary attract/instruct mode.

 

[Shockman]

This update includes,

-The first 30 levels with Survival, Team, and Gladiator wave tracking and scoring.
-Player 2 on a stork
-Preliminary attract/instruct mode.

 

[Shockman]

This version is not up at YoYo

It has,

- The first 33 waves
- High score saving
- Options menu (cheats, number of lives, etc)
- Bounders, Hunters, Shadow Lords, pterodactyls
- Interaction with the crumbling platforms
- Proper scoring and bonuses
- Working Lava Troll (grabs players and buzzards)

Differences,

- Eggs hatch into buzzards with riders
- Easier and higher scoring


Known bugs,

- Sometimes eggs fall faster than they are suppose to
- Sometimes buzzards dive into lava (happens in the arcade too)
- Some sticky spots mostly after wave 5 (getting less every day)
- Sometimes eggs disappear after wrapping the screen (mostly fixed)
- Sometimes the buzzards death does not register, it is rare and you could press N to move to the next wave if you need to.

 

[Shockman]

Nevermind. I can't open the attachment manager today.

 

[Shockman]

The first release version of Joust is up at YoYo games. It has 60 levels. Free men every 50,000 points, attract mode, high score saving, cheats, options save to .ini, and 1 and 2 player modes.
http://sandbox.yoyogames.com/games/188010-joust