Pitfall

6th entry in "The 20 Games Challenge". A poor implementation. I enjoyed developing the random level generation (all 255 levels are generated at the start of the game and can then be navigated), but I got bored with the old-school platformer gameplay, which, between tutorials and experiments, I’ve already done a dozen times or more. In the end, I gave up on designing the pixel art myself and used a pack from the amazing Kenny. Even that didn’t improve the situation much. (Only the crocodiles survived, they’re not Kenny’s fault)

The "20 Games Challenge" itself recommends not spending too much time working on each game, but rather dedicating around 20 hours and moving on. I’ll take that as an order in this case.

And once again: if you find yourself going in circles, unable to finish or even start any game, lost in tutorials and so on, start the "Challenge" today.

Controls:

  Movement: "A", "S", "D", "W"  or  "Left", "Down", "Right" , "Up" Arrows 

  Jump: "Space bar"

  "Escape" for in game pause menu

 * the menus are mouse only.

 * Gamepad support is also available.

Goal:

• Create a 2D character controller. The player should be able to walk left or right, jump, hold onto swinging vines, and climb up and down ladders.
• Create a world made up of pseudo-randomly generated game screens. Each screen should contain an upper level and an underground tunnel. The upper level should have one of the following:
  • A ladder connecting the upper and lower levels, or a ladder with a hole on each side that the player can fall through.
  • A tar pit (black). The pit can be crossed by swinging on a vine, or will expand and contract, allowing the player to run across.
  • A lake (blue). The lake can by crossed by jumping across the heads of 3 alligators that will open and close their mouths. Alternatively, the lake can expand and contract, or be crossed with a vine.
  • There are also logs that will roll across the screen on some levels, causing the player to trip.
  • There can be a static hazard to jump over (a fire or a snake), or a treasure to collect.
• The tunnel will contain a scorpion that walks towards the player. Alternatively, it can contain a ladder and/or a brick wall. The brick wall blocks the path, forcing the player to go above-ground.
• Exiting a screen above-ground will move to the next (or previous screen). Exiting a screen in the tunnel will move forward or backward 3 screens.
• Make sure to record your best Tarzan yell for the player when he swings on a vine. (You should probably add other sound effects, too.)
• Add some background art as well. Moving the trees around for each level will give the impression that you are wandering through a random forest instead of just visiting the same screen repeatedly.
• Add a score counter, life counter, and timer.

Stretch Goal:

• The original game only took 4 KB of disk space. You won’t get close, but do try to optimize you game a bit. See if you can figure out how to derive an entire map from an 8-bit number. (If you can’t figure it out, feel free to look it up, it’s a really cool piece of code!)
• Feel free to make a “modern remake” of Pitfall with fancier graphics and sprite animations.

Art from Pixel Platformer pack  by Kenney

Music: "Cruising for Goblins" Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com) Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0 License http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/

Sound effects from Pixel UI SFX Pack by JDSherbert

For the background, I used an image from Raven Tale's "Nature Parallax Background"

Fonts by Nimble Beasts Collective