Rock'n'Roll - Syntax Bomb Game Competition Sept to Oct 2018

[Morpheus]

Rock'n'Roll is my entry for the competition Sept to Oct 2018.



After my success (well I thought so) with Triss, I felt that I had to make another entry for these great little competitions.

RnR is game that I played a lot in the late 80s early 90s. I have to admit I was totally cr@p at it, but there was something about it that kept bringing me back to try and get passed the 3rd level! Not that I never did, which is quite ironic as I only managed to get the first 3 levels in the remake. More on that further down.

So that was a reason why I wanted to do the remake:

• I really like the way the ball (player) moved in the original game, it was very realistic at that time. So, I wanted to try to learn how to do that; I could have just use the inbuilt physics built in to GMS2 (Game Maker Studio 2) but I wouldn't really learn anything from that as its pretty much tweak some variables and thats it.
  
  
• The game design is very clever, each level can be played in different ways: A high scoring run, or a timed run. There's also lots of neat little secrets and hidden things for the player to find. To give you an idea of how clever the first level is it wasn't until the deadline day of the competition did I find *the* fastest route! It had been staring me right in the face but just ignored it! 


• I wanted to challenge myself with a larger project than I have attempted before:

I had been pretty busy ploughing through the code and ripping the graphics out of the original game and cracking on with the remake.... I thought I would post a video on here showing the first level been played (the long, high scoring route). When it was pointed out to me that I was using copyrighted material... Anyway....

At that point I had the first 3 levels in and working nicely... I was ready to push on over the next 2 weeks to see how many levels I was going to be able to add to the game and maybe even have complete remake! Sadly that didn't happen... Instead I was changing all the graphics from the original rips I had done to completely reworked ones at 4 times the resolution. The originals graphics were at 16x16 tiles. My new ones are 64x64 with a lot more detail.

So this is where we are: Completely reworked graphics, had to change a lot of code as it was all working around the 16x16 tile sizes which a re now 64x64. Things don't just scale up 4x do they?  To make these changes it took me 37 hours in Graphics editors and 24 hours changing code, objects, tile maps and level layouts. These times were taken from a Resource Timer.

I am really pleased with what I have achieved. It's not what I had originally planned... Does any project go right?

Here's what I used to create the game:

Game Maker Studio: 2, written in GML.
Adobe Fireworks and Affinity Designer for the Graphics.
Snagit and Camtasia to lift screen shots and videos out of the original.
Permute to convert video to audio for Music and Sounds.

At this point I need to say a HUGE thanks to Chris Huelsbeck  (for giving me permission to use his music/sounds in the remake).

I think I have bored you enough already so get on and have a play of the game... https://conceptalpha.itch.io/rock-n-roll

Post some of your scores (1 Play through) and more interestingly some of your Times for each level.

Hopefully you're still awake, Morpheus.

[therevills]

Really like a the style and reminds me of the classic 8 bit computer games

When deploying the parachute and I fell down a hole to nowhere I got stuck

[Xerra]

Really like a the style and reminds me of the classic 8 bit computer games

When deploying the parachute and I fell down a hole to nowhere I got stuck

I wondered about that and then used the pickaxe instead to fill the hole. You just had to select that one with tab and then hold space as you move over it. I got caught a few times until I twigged I was doing it wrong.

[Steve Elliott]

I like the colourful graphic style, and the arcade with puzzle elements game play - but the game window is far too small.

[Morpheus]

The game window is that size to stop you from seeing too much of the map. The idea is to make you explore the level fully.

Thanks @Xerra for pointing out the parachute verses pick axe above.

[plenatus]

I could be wrong but seemless tiles could be more eyecandy