Weekly High Score Challenge #45
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This week we will play a brand new game from a a Fuze debutant:
Terrestrial Locomotion
by @mpfdev
Link here!
Download code:TY573MNZLE
The challenge will be to get the highest possible score.The time frame for posting high scores starts now and ends Sunday, July 18, at 9pm CEST.
The rules for the challenge can be found in the first challenge here. Good luck, everyone!
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Thanks for choosing my game. I feel honoured.
I am already looking forward to the results. I will also integrate the winner's score into the game. Have fun!
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I'll start it off with 2793. This game looks super cool. I like how you have multiple background layers that scroll at different speeds.
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@mpfdev Deceptively difficult this one. I can only manage 721 so far.
I also think there is a memory leak. You are losing about 50MB with each restart. Eventually this will crash Fuze
If you change Settings -> Preferences -> Show FPS + Memory Meter When Running Programs to Yes you can see the memory drop
I have had a look and I think it is the repeated calls to loadaudio. At least commenting these out stopped the problem.
Because there is no freeaudio at the moment I suggest that you load all of your sounds up front into an array and then just play them using an array of handles. They are automatically freed at program exit.
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My current high score is 5664. Very well done game, @mpfdev
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@pianofire thanks for pointing it out. I will upload my fix when the challenge has been finished.
Isn't there a way to free the audio handle? Loading all audio files at once, significantly increased my startup time.
@Dinocoder holy moly, my personal high score is only 1697.
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Whoops, sorry. You already answered my question. Nevermind. đŸ˜…
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Logging
19322667 on a good run. Good job with your game! It is quite challenging, and also very nice effect with the parallax! -
1908 is my best so far. Really nice use of the assets in this game, and the mechanic of the game feels original to, well done :)
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@mpfdev said in Weekly High Score Challenge #45:
@Dinocoder holy moly, my personal high score is only 1697.
I think you forgot to reset that value before releasing it, seeing as it's still there. It's also a bit disingenuous how the scores are calculated, so I added a live score counter. It's quite satisfying seeing a number becoming a bigger number.
I noticed the mushrooms and the foreground move at the same speed, which is a different speed from the ground, so they're just kinda gliding over it. I also noticed some of the obstacles don't pop out at all, they sorta blend into the background.
The jump charge meter is cute, but all the obstacles are the same height and gauging minimal jump height is tricky to keep track of when the power meter is way off from the action. What I suggest is either removing it and have jump height be dependent on how long B is held as you jump, or to move the gauge somewhere in the middle of the screen. Either way, more obstacles of different height are definitely something to consider.
Lastly, my high score is 2983. Nice job, could use a bit of polish.
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My best is 1196.
It would be nice to know how the score is calculated. I went really slow one time and played for quite a while, but still only got a measly score in the end…
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@vinicity said in Weekly High Score Challenge #45:
My best is 1196.
It would be nice to know how the score is calculated. I went really slow one time and played for quite a while, but still only got a measly score in the end…
I checked the code, it's the average speed multiplied by travel distance (multiplied by 100). That's also what my live score feed is based on.
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Improved my score to 3635
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@devieus said in Weekly High Score Challenge #45:
I think you forgot to reset that value before releasing it, seeing as it's still there. It's also a bit disingenuous how the scores are calculated, so I added a live score counter. It's quite satisfying seeing a number becoming a bigger number.
Actually, I didn't know at that time that the saved files would be shared. But looking back, I thought it was a good idea to share the high score. As motivation to beat it. The live scorer is a very good idea, thank you!
I noticed the mushrooms and the foreground move at the same speed, which is a different speed from the ground, so they're just kinda gliding over it. I also noticed some of the obstacles don't pop out at all, they sorta blend into the background.
I re-wrote my entire parallax-scroller. As soon the challenge has been finished, I try to fix that. Not sure how to increase the contrast of the obstacles though. Suggestions?
The jump charge meter is cute, but all the obstacles are the same height and gauging minimal jump height is tricky to keep track of when the power meter is way off from the action. What I suggest is either removing it and have jump height be dependent on how long B is held as you jump, or to move the gauge somewhere in the middle of the screen. Either way, more obstacles of different height are definitely something to consider.
That, in turn, is part of the intended game mechanics. The player is occasionally even forced to run slowly and often has to recharge the jumping power while still in the air (without discharging it too soon). But if it helps, I like to move the gauge a bit to the middle.
Thank you again for the detailed feedback. I appreciate it very much.
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@mpfdev I shared an altered program, it should be in my friends programs list
I've moved the jump gauge to be next to the player as a triangle and recycled the jump gauge box for the live score feed. Unfun game mechanics that are intended are kind of poor design, though in this case I feel it's more a case of good ideas just not quite constructed as best it could, e.g. forcing the player to slow down is a good idea, but not being able to adjust your speed for the incoming obstacle that wasn't there when you jumped feels a bit cheap; landing somewhere with the second Sonic paradox where you want to go fast because it feels good, but you have no foresight of what's to come, so you can't do that.
You can make the obstacles stand out by changing their color, I did that by changing the sprite.r, sprite.g and sprite.b values to exceed 1, but you're going to want to tweak that for each type of obstacle/background.
Other tweaks I made are the jump power going up way faster so smaller hops are more viable (though I did that mostly for testing) and additional variables that keep track of which asset has been loaded so you can dynamically load something when it's needed, rather than having to load everything upfront or having to load the same asset twice.None of these changes actually improved my score, but it does feel more fun.
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The results are in for High Score Challenge #45.
This is the hall of fame for Terrestrial Locomotion:- Dinocoder - 5664
- PB____ - 3635
- Devieus - 2983
- Ben 2.0 - 2793
- DaddyJDM - 2667
- mpfdev - 1697
- vinicity - 1196
- pianofire - 721
Congratulations, Dinocoder. Nobody did the Locomotion better than you!
A big thank you to everyone who participated. Stay tuned for challenge #46. -
Thanks for all who participated.
I just re-shared a complete overhaul of the game. It should be online soon.@Dinocoder your name is listed in-game until somone beats the score.
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Cool, thanks @mpfdev !