Mr Lee's Alishan Tea Collector (FC)

[fcgamer 4,362]

As some of you know, we managed to get our games showcased at an upcoming software exhibition. The game we chose to showcase is Hungry Ghost Night, as there are two different games in the franchise, and it is arguably the best to present given that there will be a lot of high school and university students attending the show, making things like Trippy Club and Piss the Fish not particularly appropriate. 

As we are going to be the only ones showcasing Famicom software on cartridges, it was decided to do a bit of a publicity stunt and give away a new game as well (Ghost Night dates back to 2020 I guess), so we set about putting together a complete demo* for a game titled Mr Lee's Alishan Tea Collector.

The idea for Alishan Tea Collector dates back to 2019. We put a hidden message referencing it in Cross Strait Independence, and we had sketched out some plans for what the game was to be about. To quote a passage from the 2020 Insider's Guide, "Alishan Tea Collector is not as lucky, though. When initially thinking about the game, I thought it would utilize an engine similar to that of the original unreleased Hungry Ghost Night game, or of Peace, Love Trippy Club. With that being said, the game would have been fairly generic, and I honestly don't think the world needs it, and if I were to release another game of this style, I'd prefer to do a follow-up to Trippy Club. Who knows though, if I can think of an alternative style of game play, or a way to spruce things up a bit, then maybe I'll revisit this idea. Otherwise, it's likely to just end up as vaporware, unless it ends up as one of many titles on an ITG-Soft multicart."

Earlier this year, a friend of mine and his girlfriend came to visit me, and we had one hell of a time exploring the island and bouncing around all kinds of crazy ideas, such as controllers that would allow the notorious Dian Shi Ma Li (TV Mario) game to function better in an actual gambling setting, to 80-pin game cartridges for a brand new retro game console. While in the high mountains of Taiwan, getting high on tea, the idea of a tea-based Famicom game came up, and Alishan Tea Collector came back to my mind. Our driver on the trip was the affable Mr Lee, who then met up with us a few nights afterwards, taking us to a night market. He would now be immortalized in this game, as the protagonist.

The game itself is arcade style - collect bags of tea, while dodging enemies or attacking them with grenades, and make it to the goal to advance to the next screen. While this doesn't sound particularly interesting, we also opted to make the game somewhat educational - there is a tea quiz mini-game built in (do you know which kind of tea is oxidized more, black or green, as well as which has a higher caffeine content?), and there's also a mini-game where one gets to brew tea by heating a burner under a pot.

*While this was initially intended as a demo to be given out locally, I had received quite a bit of interest from some folks in Europe and South America, so it was decided to turn the game into a "complete demo". What this means is that the game is able to be completed, and compared to many other early gen Famicom games (Donkey Kong, Dig Dug, Nuts & Milk, etc) this one could be seen as complete, especially since we expanded it and added eleven extra stages to the version below (compared to the one that we are giving away at the local Taiwan expo). On the other hand, this is still a WIP. It's likely that the graphics will get a huge overhaul between now and the end of the year, and we'd like to add a lot more bells and whistles including more power ups, at least fifty+ stages, more enemies, etc. The more we learn about game development, the better our games become, and each release strives to experiment and improve upon various points. With that being said, I envision that a final release will be so drastically different from this one, hence some here might be interested in owning both releases, or who knows, maybe we can just consider it to be a prequel and a sequel?

Either way, even if you're not interested in this game, I highly recommend getting a clay tea pot and purchasing some tea leaves from Alishan. The tea quality is extremely high (one can brew six to eight batches of tea generally from the leaves before having to change leaves due to poor flavor), and the gong fu brewing method is great for when socializing with friends. 

Finally, on a different note, we designed up some snazzy t-shirts to wear to the software exhibition this weekend. If anyone here wants one, please contact me - cost is $25 plus shipping, though if I order larger quantities then the price gets reduced. 

Mr Lee's Tea Collector (Purchase)

[CT 27]

cool 

[a3quit4s 3,669]

Ordered a copy of Tea Collector. I might have asked this already - you don’t have any extra copies of Cross-Strait Independence about do you? Shoulda never traded my copy!

[a3quit4s 3,669]

Sorry forgot to @fcgamer

[dale_coop 158]

Looks nice !

[fcgamer 4,362]

Thanks so much everyone for the support! Tomorrow is the big day of the indie software exhibition local to me, so I've been busy this past week staying up waaaay too late finishing everything up for there.

I'll go back this weekend and reply to posts here, I've read everything and really appreciate the comments and thoughts, but I want to respond individually too, just haven't had the time. I'll post pics from tomorrow's event afterwards too. Thanks guys

[ThePhleo 2,037]

1 hour ago, fcgamer said:

Thanks so much everyone for the support! Tomorrow is the big day of the indie software exhibition local to me, so I've been busy this past week staying up waaaay too late finishing everything up for there.

I'll go back this weekend and reply to posts here, I've read everything and really appreciate the comments and thoughts, but I want to respond individually too, just haven't had the time. I'll post pics from tomorrow's event afterwards too. Thanks guys

Man, I know it sounds weird but I'm so proud to see you doing all of this

Living the hobbyist dream, and doing cool stuff like this and the books!

[Tanooki 4,829]

Good job Dave.  Nice seeing this finally out.  It has been fun talking about this off and on for a little while now, seeing the back story and how this has all been rolling out at that expo you have had going with the demo game now too.  This looks good, and it can as you say grow and look a lot better with time.  And likely at that rate it probably should be a sequel depending how the stage design all works out.  I could see this being a moderate boost to what’s there but just more layers added to where it can be something just big as you want.  Even a small but notable graphics nudge upward would do wonders I would think as I said before off site.  It’s just about balance and the right tools and time to do it.  I’ll cut it off here, this stinks using my phone to write on here, even if I am using a keyboard which is just weird.

[fcgamer 4,362]

On 7/1/2023 at 1:52 AM, ThePhleo said:

Man, I know it sounds weird but I'm so proud to see you doing all of this

Living the hobbyist dream, and doing cool stuff like this and the books!

Thanks so much man, it means so much hearing this, and words such as yours push me to continue doing this stuff.

[fcgamer 4,362]

Thanks so much for the support everyone! To those who ordered copies, I was incredibly tired after the conference last weekend, but I have been finishing up the last of the extra stages for demo 2, which I'm sending out to those who purchased it. Just gonna do one final play test over the weekend then assemble everything and get it out next week!

 

 

[fcgamer 4,362]

And for everyone, here's a writeup about the conference:

ITG-Soft’s Adventures (substack.com)

[fcgamer 4,362]

Alright guys, thanks to those who ordered this! 

Just an update: I thought things were ready to go, but I felt industrious after adding the extra stages, and implemented some other features as well, which are missing from the demo I showcased at the conference a few weeks back. I also got the scoring system working, after bashing by head against a wall for about four hours.

That being said, this should be going into the post next week, and I will keep everyone updated. In actuality, I think I *could* upgrade this one to full game status, aside from the fact that I do plan to redo the graphics and add more enemies, unique music later (as opposed to the notorious gawd awful ITG-Soft stock music, haha), plus more mini games, etc. 

I'm also going to try to write a little development book about this one to send out to everyone as well, as I know this is something people are interested in.

[fcgamer 4,362]

And an update for those who ordered Mr Lee. I just got this printed yesterday, there's a few minor corrections I need to make, but everyone who ordered Mr Lee gets this as well.

This is a 5.8 x 8.3 mini guide for the game. There's thirty pages plus the cover, it details the story behind the game, has maps for the different stages, information about the disputed question in the mini game, etc. I'm really pleased with how this looks, I think you guys will enjoy it too.

[fcgamer 4,362]

Also sorry about the white borders, print shop charges 0.25 a side to cut them off, so they've gotta stay .

[fcgamer 4,362]

Thanks to those who ordered this, and sorry for the wait time. Originally I just planned to add eleven extra stages to justify the fact that I was selling a demo, but something took over me and this became so much more.

Added sound effects tonight, also implemented a second quest. There's an ending and a secret ending, I might try to implement a non-secret second ending for the second quest, but only if I can get it done in the next few days.

A few minor things that I need to correct since adding the second quest, but my plan is to start assembling these at the end of next week.

What you guys are getting is so much better than the original demo I made for the indie convention, that I'd possibly not even consider this a demo anymore, aside from the fact that I do plan a graphics / music overhaul as I plan to pitch this to some folks and see what happens. 

Edited July 26 by fcgamer

[fcgamer 4,362]

Got the chips burnt last night, assembly begins tonight!

[fcgamer 4,362]

Ready to go out next week, the booklets look nice and will be limited in nature, something future editions won't have.

[VegHead 127]

Should I still order through the link or direct here?  Also, do you have any XL-Tall shirts?

[Code Monkey 1,865]

This is the first I've heard of this. Are you actually writing this in Assembly yourself?

[fcgamer 4,362]

On 8/30/2023 at 10:39 PM, Code Monkey said:

This is the first I've heard of this. Are you actually writing this in Assembly yourself?

Well this one was just done using that notorious NES Maker tool and editing scripts and stuff; however,(and this is the part that I think was lost upon the "from scratch" snobs a few years back when they were mostly concerned about keeping competition out to protect their profits), a lot of folks (myself included) have been using the NES maker tool as a springboard to push forward into from scratch games.

Back in July I signed up for an online assembly course relating to NES development, and I also bought a book a few months back relating to programming for the NES, though sadly the focus of the book is mainly programming for the NES in C, something I'm also working through.

A lot of folks don't realize this as I don't discuss it often, but I actually have a minor in computer science and had studied that stuff (including a course in assembly) back in 2004-2006. Never really did anything with it though as at the time I discovered my true passion was for languages, writing, etc., and now it's been almost two decades ago. I've been enjoying these materials though, and hope to do a from scratch game sometime in the next year or so.

 

[Ferris Bueller 455]

I got mine! Thanks, @fcgamer!

[fcgamer 4,362]

Here's a lovely unboxing:

And here:

 

[dale_coop 158]

Great job!
I can see that the packaging has been done in a DIY style (reminds me those Japanese doujin FAMICOM games). That's fun!