[Release] Pause Screen From Battletoads 2!

z_bill · January 10, 2020

You read that right! I made a sequel to my first Wizard Jam Game (for WJ#1 and my first game ever, coincidentally)!

Presenting Pause Screen From Battletoads 2, or.....

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Pause Screen From Battletoads/ Double Dragon

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IT'S OUT NOW!! (at start of jam)

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Here is the itch link!

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Here are some (fake) screenshots (that don't appear in the game at all):

Here's the title screen that is actually in the game if you crave something like that:

Here is a clue:

You gotta escape from and glitch out Battletoads...

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...and figuring out what to do, what exactly you can do, is very much part of the game. So don't spoil the surprise and use spoiler text to talk about anything weird you find!

Pressing "H" may help, no guarantees...Fullscreen recommended, but F11 toggles windowed mode.

I've been planning this game, goofing with bits of it here and there, for over a year. Yeah, I totally cheated, what did you expect? It's kinda long...I might guess 40 minutes (no savegame!) if you gotta figure out all the puzzles. Expect a rollercoaster of a thing...

Many thanks to Idle Thumbs, this community. Thank you for propelling me into my gamedev life, I'll never forget...*sniff* (I actually am getting sorta teary)

Oh yeah! Here is the itch link to the first game too! Is there continuity?...I believe yes.

Please enjoy! And I'd love to know what you think!

nkornek · January 10, 2020

I don't know how to describe what I just experienced.

z_bill · January 11, 2020

gif action...pretty much the only thing I'm willing to reveal...

On 1/10/2020 at 2:47 AM, nkornek said:

I don't know how to describe what I just experienced.

Did you beat it?!

nkornek · January 12, 2020

I got close I think. I got stuck at the part with the boat and the little tiny things. I sadly had to stop because I alt-tabbed out and then when I tried to go back to it the mouse input wasn't working anymore.

Ben X · January 13, 2020

This is great, but I got stuck pretty early on, at Enemy Phase.

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Okay, immediately figured it out! I assumed that:

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Okay, now I'm definitely stuck at Press [redacted] To [redacted]

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atte · January 13, 2020

Very good! :lol:

First time trying I got stuck in a way that felt like a bug/some weird edge case:

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But trying again later I had a good experience filled with enjoying the intriguing visuals and slowly but steadily making progress.

Some random notes:

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z_bill · January 13, 2020

On 1/12/2020 at 11:10 PM, nkornek said:

I sadly had to stop because I alt-tabbed out and then when I tried to go back to it the mouse input wasn't working anymore.

Ah sorry...someone else got hit by that bug too. I'm going to try to fix it before jam ends. You were extremely close to the end!...

On 1/13/2020 at 8:54 AM, Ben X said:

now I'm definitely stuck at Press [redacted] To [redacted]

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(Press Pause To Jump.) If I press space, I can move my character and the pink wizard things around, and there are pale spaces for them to go into. It feels like I'm supposed to be putting them both in the right spaces so I can 'cheat' a jump, but no combination seems to do anything...

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Thanks so much for playing and being so into it everyone!

z_bill · January 13, 2020

On 1/13/2020 at 11:20 AM, atte said:

Very good!

First time trying I got stuck in a way that felt like a bug/some weird edge case:

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The 'hate wave' didn't trigger after getting rid of the Double Dragon dudes, and I was just trapped in that area forever...

Thanks so much! Ohh, I'm going to take a look at that...I was worried about that transition breaking things...

On 1/13/2020 at 11:20 AM, atte said:

Some random notes:

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As soon as I saw the Golden Axe graphics I was just eagerly waiting for the treasure goblin to appear.
The turbo tunnel and the transition via the 10h pause theme youtube video to the next phase was really really good.

The 3D part was sort of spoiled by seeing the resource folders, but that's kind of unavoidable and I would probably have expected that cool 3D bone realm to show up at some point anyway.
The music in the end screen was nice, in contrast to the rest of the game's strange and harsh soundscape it was an uplifting conclusion.

Endgame spoilers, "making of" discussion:

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Your reply made me very happy, atte. Thank you!

Ben X · January 13, 2020

On 1/13/2020 at 6:25 PM, z_bill said:

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The radical jump puzzle was already solved by you it sounds like. Basically you had to click & drag the player out of the mass of barriers a couple times to float yourself over them.

Now you need to find a means to match exactly the faint white patterns. How do you get 4 barrier obstacles on screen at once?

Hmm, interesting! I managed to

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Thanks for the hint!

brendonsmall · January 14, 2020

This is basically Frog Fractions 3 :tup:

I did encounter a Fatal GM Error, sadly. I think I was on the right track.

Here's the error:

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Here's how I managed to get the error:

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z_bill · January 15, 2020

On 1/14/2020 at 7:18 AM, brendonsmall said:

I did encounter a Fatal GM Error, sadly. I think I was on the right track.

Here's the error:

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___________________________________________
############################################################################################
FATAL ERROR in
action number 1
of Step Event0
for object o_todd:

Variable o_todd.createspooce(100072, -2147483648) not set before reading it.
at gml_Object_o_todd_Step_0
############################################################################################
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
stack frame is
gml_Object_o_todd_Step_0 (line -1)

Here's how I managed to get the error:

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I turned the chest into a pipe and played the pipe at the green gate, but nothing happened (need 33 spooce?). So I walked around to the green circle thing on the ground and tried playing the pipe there, and then the game crashed out. Looks like it was going to generate some more spooce, but it had some errors in doing so.

I assume the solution is to get another white platform thing, put it on the yellow switch to open the gate. Then use the spooce to open the green gate and get a third white platform, and place all three on the marks on the ground and exit?

Thanks for that! I fixed it I think...That and the alt-tab getting you stuck error!...new version is up!

Your error was caused by:

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On 1/14/2020 at 7:18 AM, brendonsmall said:

This is basically Frog Fractions 3

Yeah! It's funny I originally pitched my first game, based on episode "Pause THEME From Battletoads," as: "Why don't we take Battletoads and Frog Fractions it up?" And then I decided to figure out how to make games and do just that!

Total full circle. I poked @mogwai_poet on twitter about it hehe.

I though this was fun too, just noticed it the other day. On the itch dashboard is a list of all the jams you've submitted to:

I'm a slacker and just did 6 of 10 Wizard Jams. Happy I made it to over half tho!

sergiocornaga · January 16, 2020

I finished this without getting stuck, but I figure I'll mention the one thing I ran into that didn't feel quite right:

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Henke · January 16, 2020

Hey, this was featured on Alpha Beta Gamer, congrats!

Just gave it a whirl. Very inventive! I got stuck in the 3D part tho.

z_bill · January 17, 2020

On 1/16/2020 at 9:24 AM, sergiocornaga said:

I finished this without getting stuck, but I figure I'll mention the one thing I ran into that didn't feel quite right:

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For the puzzle that's solved by dropping the block to the side of the staircase, the way I initially tried solving it was to carry it right in front of the staircase, drop it, and then move into a position where the text for picking it up and the text for descending the staircase overlaid so I could do both at the same time. That would have really fit with the glitch aesthetic if it had worked!

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Thanks so much for your constant support, Sergio! You are the best!

z_bill · January 17, 2020

On 1/16/2020 at 1:09 PM, Henke said:

Hey, this was featured on Alpha Beta Gamer, congrats!

Just gave it a whirl. Very inventive! I got stuck in the 3D part tho.

Yeah, it's funny. At first I thought it was just a tweet, which I RTed. Then an hour later noticed the link and saw the write up. Then an hour later I noticed the link to the YouTube vid playthrough! I am not an observant person!

That vid's getting some eyes on the game, which is exciting! The comments are funny, some hilariously harsh! YouTube!

Synnah · January 25, 2020

I have a lot of fond memories of the first Pause Screen From Battletoads; it was an early indicator of the kind of cool, weird, unique stuff that could come from Wizard Jam! I just played through the sequel, and I really enjoyed it. It was every bit as surprising and unexpected as the original;

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I have a few thoughts about the game that are largely inspired by having watched all of Petscop (and a series of analysis videos) recently. I don't think there's going to be anything particularly spoiler-y, but I'll hide them just in case:

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I've been really into the idea of having stuff hidden really deeply in a game for quite a long time; the touchstone for this is how Warren Robinett hid his name in a secret room in Adventure (which was the only way to get credit for his work at the time), and within a few weeks of the game's release some kid had found it and written to Atari about it. The idea that if you reach a large enough player base it doesn't matter how bizarre or inscrutable the method of finding something hidden in your game is, there's a chance that at least one person will. I've thought about this idea a lot; not to say that anything I make would reach a large enough audience, but even just making something that and no-one ever seeing it is a cool idea to me.

I don't know if you've seen Petscop, but I recommend watching it if you haven't; I feel like it would be your kind of thing. The basic premise is that someone finds an old unfinished PlayStation game, and is given a cheat code that grants them access to a whole new area of the game that requires more and more exploitation of broken game logic to progress through it, and becomes more and more unsettling as they do. The inscrutability of the Pause Screen games feels a lot like that to me; it's a hard balance to strike when 'breaking the game to find hidden stuff' is your primary mechanic, and you obviously don't want people to completely bounce off it, so you have to nudge them in the right direction in a way that Petscop has the luxury of not having to do. Petscop is presented as a kind of 'found footage' thing, but it's no secret that the series is an art project and the person making the videos made the game specifically for it, so they can do things like have the game require you to stand in one spot for several hours in order to progress, and then cut to the relevant parts of the footage so that the viewers aren't bouncing off that in the way that they obviously would if they were playing it themselves. I think you've done a good job of capturing that feeling, though, and there were several moments where I felt like I was cleverly subverting the mechanics in a way that was unintended (though clearly it was).

I still think a lot about doing a kind of Frog Fractions 2 thing and making a fairly straightforward and inconspicuous game that has a whole different thing inside of it; you carry out a (mostly) untelegraphed sequence of actions and suddenly you're inside something else entirely, with its own set of inscrutable rules, and which is a lot more akin to Petscop. The idea would be that (I guess similarly to Fez), a community builds around it and solves the mysteries of it together (in the way that they unravelled the story of Petscop, but this time they're the ones figuring out how to progress through the game). But man, I don't have the confidence that I would be able to make that happen, and while I did say earlier that it would be kind of cool to make something like that and for no-one to ever find it, I don't think I'm at a point in my life where I could spend a year or more doing that, and not be absolutely crushed if it failed.

Just some thoughts, anyway! Thanks for making both of the Pause Screen From Battletoads games!

z_bill · January 28, 2020

On 1/25/2020 at 12:10 PM, Synnah said:

I have a lot of fond memories of the first Pause Screen From Battletoads; it was an early indicator of the kind of cool, weird, unique stuff that could come from Wizard Jam! I just played through the sequel, and I really enjoyed it. It was every bit as surprising and unexpected as the original;

Reveal hidden contents

In particular, while I'd seen your 3D Bone World before, I wasn't expecting it to turn up here! As Atte mentioned, the transition from the previous section to Bone World via the YouTube video worked really well.

I have a few thoughts about the game that are largely inspired by having watched all of Petscop (and a series of analysis videos) recently. I don't think there's going to be anything particularly spoiler-y, but I'll hide them just in case:

Reveal hidden contents

I've been really into the idea of having stuff hidden really deeply in a game for quite a long time; the touchstone for this is how Warren Robinett hid his name in a secret room in Adventure (which was the only way to get credit for his work at the time), and within a few weeks of the game's release some kid had found it and written to Atari about it. The idea that if you reach a large enough player base it doesn't matter how bizarre or inscrutable the method of finding something hidden in your game is, there's a chance that at least one person will. I've thought about this idea a lot; not to say that anything I make would reach a large enough audience, but even just making something that and no-one ever seeing it is a cool idea to me.

I don't know if you've seen Petscop, but I recommend watching it if you haven't; I feel like it would be your kind of thing. The basic premise is that someone finds an old unfinished PlayStation game, and is given a cheat code that grants them access to a whole new area of the game that requires more and more exploitation of broken game logic to progress through it, and becomes more and more unsettling as they do. The inscrutability of the Pause Screen games feels a lot like that to me; it's a hard balance to strike when 'breaking the game to find hidden stuff' is your primary mechanic, and you obviously don't want people to completely bounce off it, so you have to nudge them in the right direction in a way that Petscop has the luxury of not having to do. Petscop is presented as a kind of 'found footage' thing, but it's no secret that the series is an art project and the person making the videos made the game specifically for it, so they can do things like have the game require you to stand in one spot for several hours in order to progress, and then cut to the relevant parts of the footage so that the viewers aren't bouncing off that in the way that they obviously would if they were playing it themselves. I think you've done a good job of capturing that feeling, though, and there were several moments where I felt like I was cleverly subverting the mechanics in a way that was unintended (though clearly it was).

I still think a lot about doing a kind of Frog Fractions 2 thing and making a fairly straightforward and inconspicuous game that has a whole different thing inside of it; you carry out a (mostly) untelegraphed sequence of actions and suddenly you're inside something else entirely, with its own set of inscrutable rules, and which is a lot more akin to Petscop. The idea would be that (I guess similarly to Fez), a community builds around it and solves the mysteries of it together (in the way that they unravelled the story of Petscop, but this time they're the ones figuring out how to progress through the game). But man, I don't have the confidence that I would be able to make that happen, and while I did say earlier that it would be kind of cool to make something like that and for no-one to ever find it, I don't think I'm at a point in my life where I could spend a year or more doing that, and not be absolutely crushed if it failed.

Just some thoughts, anyway! Thanks for making both of the Pause Screen From Battletoads games!

Thanks so much! I'm so glad I was able to sorta "bookend" Wizard Jam with these 2 games. At times I felt like I was going too far afield of anything related to Thumbs or any of the pods' inside jokes. I just riffed off in my own direction...which is all I know to do really. I'm happy they found their own little slot in the community.

Petscop etc..

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...furthermore on promoting this game...So I'm thinking I might do 2 things:

1) putting it on Pirate Bay as a "bootleg," just cuz I think it fits the game theme.

2) changing the series name to: "Pause Screen from BT" and "Pause Screen from BT/DD" due to the nebulous legality of this thing.

Good ideas? T/F

When I started the first game I really was just "hacking" a game I knew to see if I could learn gamedev. Kinda just to learn. And I feel like the idea was more novel and accepting 5 years ago: hacking an old game seemed only fun and ppl weren't obsessing over the legality. I still consider these games akin to doing a musical mashup, using samples to built an original thing. But it's something you have to play it to realize, and I can't announce it or it gives it all away.

Thus it can look like I'm shamelessly meme-ing, riding on BT's coattails as a fan game. It makes this thing just super tough to promote & talk about. To the point where I wonder how something like Petscop or Frog Fractions got all their momentum from...ha, the eternal "how do I get out there in the internet age?" we all ask ourselves.

Er...starting to ramble. Guess lemme know if anyone knows any outlets or YTers that would give this a look!

Thank you everyone!

[Release] Pause Screen From Battletoads 2!

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