A small post to tell you a bit about a game I made for the GameBoy Jam #3, a 10 days game jam that consists in making a game with the technical limitations of a Gameboy, that is a resolution of 160x144 and 4 colors (plus transparency).
The game is called Super Hyper Hippo and it's a platformer in the vein of the Warioland games (a special mention for the Warioland 4 for the GBA that is actually one of my favorites). Due to the time limit I couldn't make make more than 5 levels but you also have a final boss to defeat.
As of the gameplay, it's all platformer-related. A button allows you to jump (the more you keep it pressed, the higher you'll jump), an other button allows you to dash and break boulder blocks (like in the Warioland series). The twist is that you can mix the dash with a rolled attack (useful to break ground boulders) and combined the two of them to make combos and reach hidden parts of the level.
I also made what I like to call the "triple replay value", a concept well known by platformers addict (the recent Rayman's being a good example of it):
- you first have to finish a level to proceed to the next one
- you can try to find some small ordbs hidden in each level (getting them generally involves advanced techniques)
- finally you can try to speed run each level in order to beat the time limit set for each level
Completing all these 3 challenges will earn you the 3 medals, meaning that you've fully beaten the level.
At a more art-related level, this game was for me the opportunity to focus a bit more on animations. Since my past games were all a bit stiff, I really wanted to give this one a nice bouncy feel. I had recently watched again the work of amazing french animator Jeremie Perin and it inspired me a lot. At the end, I'm quite happy of the final results, especially given the time constraints.
As for the reception, it has been really well appreciated. I've had lots of good comments overall and the game ranked #11 (of some 250 entries), which is not bad at all.
You can have it go here at Gamejolt (best played under Google Chrome or with the desktop version)
