Pipanic - Movie Game Contest Entry

[Holzchopf]

Remember the film Titanic? Well, here's the game to the film:

Pipanic

Can you survive long enough between all the scrap in the ocean to reach the level you need to accomplish your life goal? I bet you can, because a game would be quite bad if the goal wasn't achievable

I went for beautiful low-res graphics, as you can tell from this picture:


And I compiled a Windows version for you, as you can tell from this archive:
Pipanic.zip containing an executable for Windows

Next planned step:
- Release for Android

Enjoy!

[Derron]

Very cool thing. "Screen transition" was a bit slow - but yes, pretty nifty little arcade game.

I played and after 4-5 small healing portions I drove around for ~2 minutes without an healing extra on the ocean surface - also ships were rare.



Think the game could benefit from a little "speedup" (animation wise) to make it more "fast paced".
Ripple-animation was nice to look at.


bye
Ron

[round157]

Remember the film Titanic? Well, here's the game to the film:

Pipanic

Hello, Holzchopf,

Is this game made with    BlitzMax NG? Thanks!

[Holzchopf]

Thanks Ron

Think the game could benefit from a little "speedup" (animation wise) to make it more "fast paced".

I will definitely look into the transitions. Wasn't my highest priority for the contest entry Also, I consider spawning objects more likely in the direction the player moves, to prevent too long phases of "driving around on open water" (which is actually "driving around and having half the objects spawning out of screen and being too slow to ever come into view").

Is this game made with    BlitzMax NG? Thanks!

No, it's made with Cerberus X

[Holzchopf]

I'm already working hard on an Android version. This means minor things like adjusting the texts that tell you about the controls but also major things like correctly handling the back button or suspending the game mid-play, closing it and reopening it, which preferably should behave according to the players logic =/ So it's either "saving all current objects to restore them all" or "opening a hole for possible cheating". Plus I'm planning to add quests so the game doesn't stay the same over and over again until you encounter the Pipanic. And of course all kind of adjustments and improvements.

That said, I really appreciate all kind of feedback and would be happy if I could add you as "beta tester" in the credits. If you wish so, write how you'd like to be listed (what name).

In the meantime, I attach a screenie to show that the Pipanic really exists ingame 

Sank you and goodbye

[iWasAdam]

Have to say I really enjoyed this. playing as the iceberg is a shot of genius

[Derron]

For a mobile game I think the clickable elements (pause/menu) should be a tiny bit bigger.

@ game state
I assume it is not that hard for this kind of game. Use the sharedpreferences android provides (and cerberus is surely somehow wrapping). I think there is not much to store "per object" (position, life, lifeMax, direction, color, type). So you normally just store everything needed to "reinitialize" (color -> CreatedColorSprite(color) ...).

Serialize this stuff (eg. as XML or JSON to keep things clean and easier to debug/cheat). On Android (especially newer ones) you can never rely on anything, back can mean "suspend", "send to background" or also "kill the whole app". Dunno if Cerberus informs you about this. When writing in "native" Java you will have to handle that stuff (did that some weeks ago for a business app).


@ ideas
For powerups I could imagine something like "break apart". So you collect another small "iceberg" to grow a bit. When you use that power up, you split apart into "big" and "small" iceberg. Movement of both is synchronous (up = up) while position might become independent by a bit (eg. smaller iceberg is crashing into a ship). To be able to "come together" again, the smaller one should be moving a tiny bit faster than the bigger one (you can assume that when playing a moving-iceberg-game - stay away boring realism! ).

Another idea is to have "wind". So sometimes a strong wind blows and removes control : of ships (unmotorized) and icebergs.

Islands: you might add some islands here and there. Bigger islands might be having "harbors" (piers) on which ships start/land - so they start at an island (you need multiple of them, so you cannot gank/camp them) and then they cruise around until they move to another harbor.

Warm temperatures: maybe have TOP/BOTTOM be cold while the middle is a bit warmer (increase water "teal-colorness" and brightness). In warm waters you sloooowly lose energy. Warm waters (especially near some islands) will have more "low level" ships.



@ Critics
As said it animates a bit "slowly". Speeding it up might make it look more "snappy" when it comes to user-action-reaction (aka "UI interaction").


bye
Ron

[Holzchopf]

Well thank you for your feedback! Both of you.

Wind and temperatures sound like fun ideas The "break apart" feature also sounds interesting, but I have no clue what I could use it for right now. But the weather conditions would definitely spice it up.

[Scaremonger]

I had a bit of a problem with the game: The graphics have a big black box around them, but it's enjoyable to play.

I've attached a screenshot from my laptop (win10).

[Holzchopf]

Thats odd Yes this can be described as "a bit of a problem" Thanks for reporting this. Seems like the masking doesn't work properly where it should be done by the GLSL fragment shader. Could you provide some informations about your graphics card?

Edit
Holy shit I forgot what I actually came online for:



Pipanic is now on Google Play

Yay! And the timing! It's been exactly 106 Years now since the incident.

[TomToad]

Why is Pipanic listed as incompatible with all my devices?

[Derron]

Compatible with all my devices. 4.x devices, 5.x devices and 6.0 device - tablets, media players and smartphones.


bye
Ron

[Holzchopf]

Why is Pipanic listed as incompatible with all my devices?

Do you have an iPhone?



Joke aside. Could you please be an eighth of a byte more specific about what you mean with devices? What devices do you have?

[TomToad]

Lg K20 plus with 7.0 Nougat, Galaxy tab 4 with 4.4.2 Kitkat. AmiDuOS with 5.1.1 lollipop. Just wondering what unusual feature the game is expecting that none of my devices works with it. Only permission I see is"other"

[Derron]

You might fetch the APK and install it manually - then check via ADB / logcat what makes it crash (means what is missing ).

https://apk-dl.com/ch.holzchopf.pipanic


bye
Ron