Thursday, January 31, 2013

More Alphas

Wow!  It's been a long time.  I guess I got a little burnt-out after all my Fahrfall-related activities last year.  But, at least I could have posted the updates that I actually made!

Alpha 2

In preparation for the Burlington Mini Maker Faire in 2012, I implemented a few new features:
  • keyboard control of Fahrve, including both CoCo and Dragon keyboards
  • an interstitial screen when starting the game
  • a Hall of Fame screen for collecting high score information
I have made a fresh rebuild of the Alpha 2 code available here:

http://www.tuxdriver.com/download/fahrfall/alpha-2/

FWIW, this is also the same version of Fahrfall that I had on display at VCF East 8.

Alpha 3

In advance of Maker Faire NC 2012, I had a few more changes:
  • improve the wording on the interstitial screen
  • improve the workings of the Hall of Fame screen
  • make the platforms change color as the game progresses
I have made a fresh rebuild of the Alpha 3 code available here:

http://www.tuxdriver.com/download/fahrfall/alpha-3/

I assure you that with this version, great fun was had by all... :-)

Coder's Block

I still maintain that I am not yet done with Fahrfall.  I have a few minor improvements in mind here and there, but mostly I want to add some in-game music.  I even have a few tunes in my head!  The problem I originally had was that I knew that playing music would require some precise timing, and that inserting code to do that would make it difficult to make further changes to the game.  Now there are few changes that I really want to make, so I guess that excuse is no longer valid.

I am not sure when I will get back to Fahrfall either for adding music or for any other new features.  By now I already have a few other projects in mind or in progress.  Maybe I should add support for my rotary controller to Fahrfall? :-)

In any case, I still think that I will be back to Fahrfall before too long...do stay tuned!