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Agrajag
13-12-2008, 03:27 AM
This is a puzzle game.

You are Dairy, a mutant cow with augmented intellegence and a hunger for bacon living on a hill. Your quest is to eat all of the delicious bacon on each level and then reach the exit. Gameplay is viewed from a top down perspective. Watch out for rocks, if they (or bacon) hit you while rolling downhill it causes you to explode (but I'm not sure why yet).

Here's a screenshot of what I have so far.
http://lh3.ggpht.com/_7IeuligT1L8/SUMNqdCSMDI/AAAAAAAAAEw/saDIy_ntbTo/s400/cow%20quest.JPG

I'll give a link to a download as soon as I deem it playable rather than just prototyping stuff. The gameplay may remind some of Supaplex (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Supaplex)
I'm quite proud of how it's looking so far since I drew the pictures myself and I'm terrible at art. I think the restriction on the size of each picture (24X24 pixels) means that I don't need to worry about the fine details since nobody is going to zoom in to see the fine details.

edit (18 December): I've got most of the groundwork in place and I'm crafting a nice level selection mechanism, complete with gates to stop you from playing the last level first and an autosave. I'm also coming up with a little story. My best idea for why you need to open all of these gates is that your mama cow has been taken away by the possibly evil farmers and so now you have nobody to MOOch off of. I just need to do some level design and I'll hand out a playable demo.

edit (2 January): Ok, i have a working product now http://www.box.net/shared/03ru6kt5k8
Enjoy. It's a bit short but apart from that, I think it has... oh dear, I've forgotten the word I wanted to use here. You win again, sleep deprivation!
Use the arrow keys on your keyboard for the cellphone's cursor keys, the numpad for the cellphone's numbers (assigned by position, not by number), Enter for the cellphone's enter button select key thingy and backspace for the cellphone's back button.
POTENTIAL! I think it has potential.
If you like the music, I have an mp3 version that I recorded as well here http://www.box.net/shared/z38es9k0jm As with the game, it was created from scratch by me so give it to all of your friends for free.
Oh, and finally, I know I said originally that Cow's Quest is a temporary name but now I've called it that myself so many times that it has stuck.

edit (3 January): If you like it, please show it some love on The Great Games Experiment. http://www.greatgamesexperiment.com/game/cowsquest

edit (26 January):
Mirror 1, box.net http://www.box.net/shared/z38es9k0jm
Mirror 2, willhostforfood.com http://willhostforfood.com/files3/6564820/Cows%20Quest.zip

Elyaradine
13-12-2008, 09:32 AM
He's a mutant cow. That's reason enough for anything illogical, like rocks causing him to explode. :D

I'd play that. :P

edg3
13-12-2008, 02:36 PM
Epic. Supaplex style gameplay will work hundreds on mobile phones! Have you finished supaplex yet/before? There are some realy great puzzles throughout the various levels that you can look at if you run out of ideas.

I considered at one stage remaking supaplex for the retroremakes competition but got a better idea and then sidetracked.

Agrajag
13-12-2008, 08:13 PM
Epic. Supaplex style gameplay will work hundreds on mobile phones! Have you finished supaplex yet/before? There are some realy great puzzles throughout the various levels that you can look at if you run out of ideas.

I considered at one stage remaking supaplex for the retroremakes competition but got a better idea and then sidetracked.

I haven't quite finished it yet, I'm stuck on level 108. I agree, some of the puzzles are really great. I think I might copy a few of them but for the most part I think I should try to make original levels.
I'm not quite sure how I'm going to do level selection at the moment. I could just have a list like they have in Supaplex or I could make some sort of warp room (warp barn?) like they have in Crash Bandicoot.

The other issue I'm having is I don't know what to make the exit look like. It would be nice if it fitted into the theme. At the moment I just drew a rainbow for no reason except that my bridge (to take Dairy on to greener pastures) looked a bit like a rainbow.

Fengol
13-12-2008, 08:17 PM
a mutant cow that loves bacon! Yahtzee would be so proud of such a novel idea!

Nandrew
16-12-2008, 10:21 AM
OHHHHH, Supaplex is a Boulder Dash clone!

Dude, GO FOR IT! If there's a game that would work on a cell brilliantly, it's this!

Just make sure that you give yourself enough time to figure out some fun/interesting puzzles after you're done with the groundworks -- it's a lot more difficult than it may seem at first. ;)

AndrewJ
22-12-2008, 01:11 PM
Cool idea dude.

"Cow's Quest" - Two Guys From Andromeda?

Agrajag
02-01-2009, 12:44 AM
Update: link to download in first post.

Kensei
02-01-2009, 04:52 PM
Legendairy game, Agrajag :D -> Perhaps THAT is what you should call it!

I didn't get very far but I love the concept :)

Suggestions:
- Maybe a menu screen before you start the game (so the flow would be: menu>New Game>Story>play)
- Maybe the bacon bursts into flames if it falls to fast and that is why it kills you? :p

Nandrew
03-01-2009, 11:46 AM
\O/

I *love* these sort of games, and your interpretation has done well. I like the variety of elements you've got in your gameplay, and the level design thus far seems to be pretty solid (any of them homages to classic Boulder Dash / Supaplex designs?).

Elyaradine
03-01-2009, 12:00 PM
Ohmigosh, that was fun. :D Ten coffee beans to you!

Agrajag
03-01-2009, 01:21 PM
\O/

I *love* these sort of games, and your interpretation has done well. I like the variety of elements you've got in your gameplay, and the level design thus far seems to be pretty solid (any of them homages to classic Boulder Dash / Supaplex designs?).

Thanks. The levels were pretty much bashed together at the last minute so none of them are actually hottibly detailed unfortunately. I also found that if I put in too many rocks I started to get performance issues so some optimisation in the code is probably a good idea at some point, I just wouldn't know how to make it more efficient. I've never played the original Boulder Dash, only Supaplex, so the homage there is a bit limited. Things like the way that Supaplex kept on spelling out "Think" all over the place (keep your eyes open for the occasional "MOO") and the maze level would be the tribute.