The third Pedro game for
Boys' Life is underway! This one promises to be dramatically different from the previous ones. Here's about the sum total of what I've accomplished so far:
That's in the corner of the screen (yeah, the background is still Mad Planet). You might recognize that gear! What happens in this game is that Pedro runs around collecting handy tools he needs to do the jobs his boss is giving him, but he can only hold two at a time. One is used by pressing Z, the other by pressing X. You can push Down+Z or Down+X to drop an item so you can pick up a different one. This is 'inspired' by a... ZX Spectrum perhaps? game with the same concept. Something about a mansion? I don't remember. Maybe somebody out there knows what I'm talking about.
It makes for a unique sort of puzzle. How do I get the key up to that ledge? I need to swap to this tool here, use it, run back and get the other, and so on. What I'm thinking right now is actually having a hard time limit on the game (you are supposed to be preparing for a party, so you have until it starts!), and your score is what percentage of all the tasks you got done in that time, so a perfect score is possible, but you'll have to practice and learn the routes to get it. And then I suppose for high-score challenges, you could show how much time you had left when you got 100%, so people could perfect further. Getting hit will of course cost you time.
Anyway, since that bit of hud (and the ability to pick up and drop a gear) is all I have done, I'm still in a very experimental stage. I don't have a lot of time to experiment, because this game has to be done by the middle of next month. So I reserve the right to toss the craziness aside and just make it a plain old blast-everything hop-around-in-the-basement kind of game. I'm hoping I won't have to, though. I think this idea has real potential to be new (well, new to the modern era) and interesting.
