Sunday 22 March 2020

Chiller 2 - Two Level Demo

It's been a difficult couple of weeks for everyone (and by that I mean the entire World) with the onset of Covid-19 across the globe.

Therefore, to spread a little bit of love and cheer, I've decided to release a 2 level demo version of Chiller 2!

First a word of warning!  The game has not undergone extensive play testing yet by anyone else other than me, so some may find it a little hard!  After the play testing is complete, there are lots of tweaks that can be made to make things easier if required.  It has already been discussed that perhaps energy will be reset between levels and/or energy being 'topped-up' during play somehow.

This demo aims to give a little taster of the type of game it will be!


On the title screen, select either to play as the boy or the girl by pulling left or right on the joystick.  The boy is ' stronger' than the girl so can take collisions and lose energy a little slower than the girl.  However, the girl is a little lighter than the boy, so when jumping will stay in the air just a fraction longer making it easier to cross larger gaps or reach higher platforms.  Choose carefully, then press fire to play!

The aim of the game is to collect 20 crosses on each level to progress to the next level.  Each cross collected adds '1' to the cross counter in the middle of the status panel at the bottom of the screen and '100' to your score on the left of the status panel, as in the screen below.



Move your character around the level using the joystick, left and right to move.  A single fire button press activates 'jump'.  Holding down fire enables a double-jump; some 'platforms' may initially appear too high to reach with one fire button press so holding down the button and double-jumping means the character will jump up to the platform and then jump again.

Gravity is always active in the game, so walking off the edge of a platform will result in your character falling down the screen.  There is no limit as to how high you can fall from and no energy is lost.

If your character touches an enemy or certain parts of the scenery such as mushrooms, then energy is lost from your energy bar at the very bottom of the status panel.  Collision with enemies is quite 'loose' so they can often be passed without energy loss even if a few pixels are overlapping.  Mushrooms will only drain energy if they are walked over or fallen on.  You can jump up through or past them without energy loss.

A few tips!

Although the player character can move relatively quickly, rushing about is a guaranteed way of losing energy very quickly, ending the game.

Each level has been purposefully designed to be a type of 'puzzle' with some routes through being more optimal than others.  Take your time and plan your path; there is no time limit so you can stop and think.  Use strategy!  There are safe places on the levels where you can stand without fear of enemies crashing into you!

While stopping, watch and learn the enemy patrol routes.  Timing your jumps between and over them will result in more success!

The game ends when you run out of energy.

Please have fun, but more importantly, ensure you and your loved ones stay safe during these troubled times.

To play the 2 level demo, you can download it here...

EDIT:
TRIAD have just released a cracked version which you can download from CSDb here...

Thursday 9 January 2020

Crimson Twilight Recordings

I've spent some time recording the C64 music 'suite' that I wrote for an in-production and upcoming C64 CRPG called "Crimson Twilight", to be released by Arkanix Labs.

The music was written in and exported from GoatTracker v2.71 in .sid format, transferred to, played on and recorded using a real C64c with 8580 SID connected to a Dolby amp (with NR) in 'music' mode then input into a PC using gold leads.  The audio was captured using Audacity, with some noise reduction applied, the sound 'amplified' slightly due to lowish recording level and fade out added.

These recordings are the 8580 SID versions.  Versions for the 6581 iterations of the SID chip have also been written and will be recorded shortly.

The music track titles describe what the track will be used for in the game. All the tracks fade in the recordings fade after one play-through, but in the actual game they will loop continuously.

The music playlist should appear below, but if not can be accessed on SoundCloud here.




Sunday 5 January 2020

3D Galax Recording

A couple of days ago, C64CD released 'F15 D'Gamma Clone', an intro that featured a SID tune by me.  Information about the intro can be found here...

I wrote the music using a PC based tool called Goattracker.  The SID has been recorded using an 8580 SID equipped C64c, run through my Dolby amp.

The tune was started towards the end of 2018 after news of the death of Ben Daglish and was originally intended to be part of a tribute to him, but was unfortunately not completed. It has been finished recently for the above mentioned intro and is respectfully dedicated to his memory and legacy.

I've uploaded a recording to my SoundCloud account; listen to the tune's below. If the player does not appear, hear it on it's SoundCloud page here...




Saturday 4 January 2020

Tiny PETSCII Compo 2020

Late last night I noticed a new compo on CSDb called the 'Tiny PETSCII Compo 2020' with the quite simple rules of producing a PETSCII no bigger than 8x8 chars (or smaller than 2x2 chars) and 2 colours (1 main colour and a background colour).  Rules and various entries can be found on the compo page here.

After noticing the compo, I decided to enter with a couple of images that were started last night and finished this morning.  The first 2 below are mine and the final is from my grandson, who I roped into doing one too!




The first above is called "That's No Moon" for, hopefully, obvious reasons?  The second, hopefully just as obvious, is called "Yodascii".  The final is called "PETendo", a portamento of PETSCII and Nintendo - it's a GameBoy if you can't tell!

The images were pixelled in my (still unreleased) screen editor, 'ChillED' and I wrote some quick and dirty code to display them.

If you want to download them as a bundle, click here.

Alternatively, you can download them individually on their respective CSDb pages using the following linkies:

That's No Moon

Yodascii

PETendo

Friday 3 January 2020

F15 D'Gamma Clone

T.M.R has been really busy with quite a few entries for the 'Intro Creation Compo 2019'!  His latest is called 'F15 D'Gamma Clone' and has been released using his C64CD label.  For this entry, I provided the SID music.


If you stalk follow T.M.R around the interwebs, you may have seen something similar to this before.  This intro is a 'conversion' of a crack intro that T.M.R coded for the Apple II, here.

On the C64CD site, T.M.R writes...

"The code and graphics are based on what was created for that original, Apple-flavoured release but with some reworking for the extra resolution of the C64 and converted to characters at the same time. The music was originally composed by Ben Daglish for the Amiga and Atari ST game 3D Galax, with the slick C64 conversion being used here being handled by aNdy.

The extra colour data and soundtrack for this C64 version mean that, if it were handled in the same way as the Apple II code did things, the final intro would have exceeded the competition’s 16K memory limit, but it’s worth noting dear reader that both machines are running at around the same speed so the C64 could have handled a more direct port."

As T.M.R mentions, the Goattracker written SID is a cover of 3D Galax by Ben Daglish, more specifically, the Amiga version of the tune.  I originally starting covering this tune towards the end of 2018, not long after the death of Ben and intended to use it in a dedication release, but unfortunately I just didn't have the time to complete it.

You can download the full intro from CSDb here.

You can also download it from this blog, which also includes the music as a stand-alone SID file, as well as in it's original Goattracker SNG file.  Click here.

You can read more about the intro on T.M.R's blogs here and here.

Alternatively, you can watch the intro in the YouTube video below!  If it doesn't appear, click here...