So I made a screen with a fire flower coming out of a block with a giant question mark on it. In Super Mario Bros. this is a common occurrence, but I don't know ahout other games. When you fly in the screen, you are in a race with a moth to see who gets it first. If you get to the fire flower first, you can just press A to shoot a fireball to melt an ice block and continue on. There is only one shot you can make though. This is due to me programming for hours and not figuring out a way to see if
So I tried once again to put in the option to save whenever the user wants to by pressing the Select button. I worked on it, went to sleep, woke up, worked on it some more and I think I finally have it so all the screens I have so far work. I had to change the igloo screen's goal since it wasn't working. You can just pass by the igloo without going in. But what's in the igloo? That is what I changed. Because originally I had it you had to go in the igloo and press a button to open up the rest of
"Ultimate" here meaning "last." It was partly spent working on Frank the Fruit Fly. I looked through the guide I had made for the Pokemon Mini version. So I made a snowman on a screen. You cannot pass this screen until you make the snowman disappear.
This was tough to solve how to do. I wanted an easy way to do it, but as it turned out, there isn't one. So I had to go my hard way I first thought of. And so another day, another screen added to Frank the Fruit Fly game for the Game Boy.
I was looking through my code and thought "What can I make talk?" If you go up to certain characters and press B, they will give you a short comment or hint. I worked yesterday on the snowman, so I decided to make him talk. If you go up to the snowman's face and press B, he'll say something.
Well, not "say" something as in making the game talk (although that would be cool. Having Frank say "ouch!" in a tiny little fruit fly voice whenever he gets hurt. But that's not going to happen.)
I think it's okay to steal from yourself. I lifted the frog from the Pokemon Mini version and put him in the Game Boy version of "Frank the Fruit Fly." I got bored and so I decided if I had an idea I'd might as well just program it. And then I tried to go to sleep, and couldn't, so I got out of bed and made him face the other direction. I'm satisfied with the result. Don't touch the frog tongue! You'll lose health if you do.
I don't remember who designed the frog, I just know it wasn't
So I didn't make anything new for Frank the Fruit Fly today. I was sick of waiting forever for it to compile, so I decided to take today and see if I could reduce the time it spent compiling the game. It took two minutes to compile the game. I had to sit there and wait for it being awfully slow.
I wondered what I could do. I noticed in my code I had some very long switch statements in the main part of the code. So I changed them into voids and then pointed the correct void to the correct sc
So I had to give up on my Frank the Fruit Fly game. But I had an idea about maybe fixing it while I was trying to go to sleep last night. So I got up and a couple of hours later it was working again.
Although it automatically saved when you got to a new level for some reason even though I didn't tell it to. The problem was it was saving automatically after all screens, something I didn't want it to do. I want players to decide when they save by pressing Select. Oh well. I guess it's good it
Working on Frank the Fruit Fly for Game Boy again. It had been a few days I took off. Even still I forgot what I wanted to do next.
I went ahead and made a screen for level 3. I made a better saving game noise.
After much trial and error, I finally made the beginning to level 3. While it's not a screen you can lose health on, it's still a big step since I needed to continue the work on the beginning of level 3. I found that the game did not save health properly, so I think I fixed
It seems like only yesterday I posted that blog entry. Oh well, it's 4 days later. I had to give up on the Odyssey 2 program I was working on. I went back to Frank the Fruit Fly. I finally fixed all the major problems that has been plaguing this game.
Save sound now works no matter what level you start on.
Game now fades out after passing every screen.
I changed Frank's sprites, I added two more frames so his flight looks more fluid (at least it does to me.)
Health now
So it's a unusually hot October day. It got to be 85 here today for some reason. So this got me thinking about tropics. And how they're as hot as deserts. So in the last screen of level 3, I merged the two. I put palm trees and a dolphin jumping in and out of one of three random ponds. How a dolphin can fit in that tiny pond, I don't know. I was having trouble trying to draw a dolphin. Attempt #1 looked good, but I forgot that white=transparent so it couldn't work. So I changed the white parts t
I've been working on Frank the Fruit Fly again. I've got three screens done since October 1, my last blog entry.
Also, I got my 5200 in the mail yesterday but I can't test it because I need the special rf switchbox and a controller. I spent big, getting a refurbished 5200 controller instead of all those UNTESTED ones on eBay. Question: If you're selling controllers for a console, why not just take the time to actually test them? Because if you don't have the console, how did you get a
Today is the big day: I'm supposed to get my 5200 RF switch. After a couple weeks of my 5200 console sitting on the floor, I can finally hook it up and see if it works. I have an AC adapter, I have a console, I have a controller, I have a couple of games (Galaxian should be great for testing the "refurbished" controller I bought) So I should be all set for when it comes.
In the meantime, I worked on Frank the Fruit Fly again. Level 4 has been completed and work began on level 5. I composed
So I was having trouble drawing the window shade on the window Frank enters in in "Frank the Fruit Fly." I tried using sprites, but that didn't work because of the fact that when two sprites overlap, it gives preference to the left-most one. This cut off a bit of Frank if you happened to stop at a certain place. Settled on an ugly window solution and went to sleep and woke up and while I was in the bathroom. Where I do some of my best thinking. Another place I do my best thinking is laying in be
For a long time, I thought that the Lynx/Windows game "Chip's Challenge" would be a perfect fit for the Game Boy. Years went by and nobody attempted to do it. Well, I took it upon myself to try my hand at it. My attempt is called "Ugly, Uppity Umpire." Why? I like video game titles that begin with the letter U. Must be because I don't have very many. Uniracers, Up 'n' Down and... well.
Anyway, here is a screenshot of level 1.
I attempted a second time drawing a pair of underwear.
I began work on level 6 of Frank the Fruit Fly. I was angered by the amount of time spent compiling. So I decided to try to do it myself after asking for help. That way, if I fail to do it myself, I can still have asked for it.
Bank 0 was taking about 2 1/2 minutes alone to compile. So I broke up a giant switch statement into various void functions. That worked, believe it or not. It now was all speedy. But then I had to get rid of the kinks. For example, if I selected "new game" with no pr
