Joe Snow (Test Demo)

Joe Snow is my first attempt to create a game in Blitz.

The game is based on a DOS game with the same name that you play as a creature made up of snow to travel through many levels to find the legendary power item. (Main story is still under development.) To keep alive, you have to keep your score above zero or else Joe will melt. Coins and crystals will add your score, while fire, lava, and acid will subtract your score. The game is mainly platformer, but has some strategy involved too.

The purpose for the demo to be called a test demo is to listen the user's reaction to how the game is played, in terms of performance and actual game play. (That could be another word for open beta, but unsure.) I had a fixed idea for how the rest of the game will work, but new ideas could be added.

What I planned to do for the final release is to have many levels created, maybe 100 to 300 levels (or 10 to 30 worlds) in total, and cinematic scenes.

You can download the latest version of the test demo for Joe Snow here: Joe Snow page
As of version 1.1, I'm been trying out a few things to reduce heavy memory consumption for using active objects and particle effects.

After the test demo is running smoothly and stably, I'll carry on and resume working on "Joe Snow."

Screenshot is a bit outdated, but still accurate.

I've not played it, but the screenshots look good. I think "Joe" is cute looking, I like his little feet things.

I like this game but was very frustrated with the controls.

I had problems with jumping on to platforms and staying on them. When close to a platform edge sometimes it doesn't register the jump and you fall.

Overall it's a good game and I like the gfx, music and sfx and the overall retro feel to it.

:)

Suggestion. Why not have the walls as brighter colours and the backgrounds a dimmed our darker colour to make it less glaring overall and clearer what is background and foreground?

Gave it a run. It had a nice feel to it. Left shift was a bad idea as jump, since I have sticky keys on. Jump-jump-jump-jump-SQUEEECK!! "Hey you just messed up my game! Damn Microsoft."

Reminded me of this http://warp.povusers.org/joe/
I remember spending hours on the original Joe. It's a shame it doesn't seem to work on my current rig.

I used to use shift for one of my games until I realised the stupid microsoft sticky key thing, so I used Z instead. It's a bummer.

why not just use the Up arrow for jump?

I'm not a big fan of the sticky key thing myself, but thankfully got that shut off. I'll attempt to change the default key once again to something more suitable. Space bar maybe?
As for Perturbatio's suggestion for using the up key instead of Left Shift, the up key is currently used and the game doesn't allow the same key to be used more than once.

For the background, I'll make it a tad darker.

For Amon's suggestion, I'll see if I could make Joe Snow land on a single block more easier.

I'm pretty sure version 1.2 will be necessary to release, heheh.

I felt the controls are a bit stiff. I prefer a more natural feeling of gravity and inertia to the character. Worst though is there is a slight lag when pressing the jump button and seeing Joe jump. It's maybe 50ms or so, but that makes the conveyors on Level 3 very hard. With platform games, you need to feel 100% in control of your character, and that bit of lag was enough to make me quit.

Tachyon, maybe your computer is too slow. What computer are you using?

Hello jp, good to see you on here :)

I think Tachyon and others might be refering to the entirely grid based movement.

Did you ever try making the engine tile based, but the movement free? Could be an idea to experiment and see which plays better. Also could be used to BEEF up the platform movement too, things like:
- skidding on ice
- sliding slightly when you change direction mid walk
- easier to stop on single platforms
- moving platforms
- etc

I thought that making the movement tile based to make it more old-school and relevant to the original. I'll try the free movement as a test for the next version.

I'll add some new elements to the game, but not for the test demo.

I uploaded version 1.2 of Joe Snow test demo. Hopefully that would take care of the control issues.