Man Goes Down

Hello people!

Since I’ve already spilt the beans about my new game in another thread, I thought I’d post a little update.

For those who don’t know, I’ve been writing homebrews for the Vectrex for a little while, Protector (Defender clone, nothing to do with the Jag game of the same title) probably being the most well known. Anyway, tucked away in the initial limited edition release of Protector was a hidden bonus game Spike Goes Down, a game which is well suited to the Atari 2600 hardware.

So, I recently started work on the 2600 version (title tbc) and here’s how it’s looking so far…

I’ve only just started putting in level data, so you can’t get very far. (Blue level will finish you off.) With regard to the collectible objects, picking up 4 fruits in sequence will open up the power-ups. (I haven’t drawn the 4th fruit yet, so for now it shows as a bronze question mark). The skateboard increases speed (on the x-axis) for a short time – good for negotiating levels with long platforms/small gaps. The down arrow increases gravity slightly – you need to collect several of them to really feel the effect. The red stop sign temporarily slows the scrolling, the silver question mark doesn’t do anything yet. Miss a fruit or power-up and you have to start back at fruit 1. I’ll almost certainly change the way this works, and the stop sign doesn’t really do much for the gameplay so I’ll probably ditch that.

All feedback welcome.