Libbet and the Magic Floor v0.08

Improvement to onboarding new players.

Highlights:

• Revamp instructions with visual aids and add tutorial floor "Closet"
• Wait before detecting Super Game Boy
• Correct note periods to concert pitch
• Make shadow during jump more visible
• SGB, GBC: Lighten green to reduce Helmholtz-Kohlrausch illusion
• SGB: make border tile 0 transparent to reduce flash during fade
• Add an experimental way of allocating subroutines local variables, using a new feature of RGBDS 0.7
• Allow building with out-of-tree RGBDS for regression testing (RGBDS 0.7 includes this project as a test case! gbdev/rgbds#1260)

Libbet and the Magic Floor v0.07

This release incorporates a graphical facelift based on feedback in various Discord servers.

Highlights:

• Achievements: Don't get stuck if player earns "No scope" just before reaching the exit
• Wall facelift: Add volume and top-to-bottom gradient to wall (suggested by Daid); remove shear on side walls (suggested by DragonDePlatino); define door frame (suggested by M-Tee); darken area outside floor on GBC
• Add a shade to the underside of Libbet's body
• Floor: Larger dots on black tile (suggested by DragonDePlatino); larger flat areas on dark gray vent/grating tile moving detail to corners; square off corners (suggested by IRCWIP)
• Compute entire GBC palette before copying it first frame (reported by toxa)
• Switch to slightly faster random number generator
• Work around crash on boot related to STAT IRQ in VisualBoyAdvance
• Document sprite sheet rectangle list syntax (requested by ISSOtm)
• Switch from dedenter to RGBDS 0.4.0 indented local labels

Libbet and the Magic Floor v0.06

Now it's in color.

Highlights:

• Widen squash in landing cel
• Super Game Boy and Game Boy Color enhancement
• Scroll to center between debrief and copyright notice
• Code size optimizations

Libbet and the Magic Floor v0.05

It's been the better part of a year, and still no action on the last part of #6. So I decided I might as well push out what I have.

Game changes:

• Fix first word of attract text after achievements and combo
• Improve arm position in many cels
• Buzz on invalid move (#10)
• Make fades much smoother (#9)
• Make skin color distinct from sack color using 7-shade display
• Add pattern to black cell so as not to be misread as a hole
• Add intro that wipes away console maker logo
• Display combo that just ended, with sound effect

Behind the scenes:

• Build-time option to use tilemap $9C00 instead of $9800 (requested by mattcurrie)
• Docs: Describe achievement conditions, and clarify that some are harder than others (requested by ISSOtm)
• Docs: Document metasprite format (requested by ISSOtm)
• Rules research: Discover that bidirectional evaluation does not appreciably improve speed of floor reachability evaluation
• Encoding guide: Add SGB aspect ratio and frame blending
• Sketch larger versions of Libbet and title screen
• Sketch SGB, GBC, and Genesis floors
• Add tool to prototype an animation before coding it

Libbet and the Magic Floor v0.04

Highlights:

• A+B+Select+Start during gameplay to reset
• Combo counter shows number of tracks laid without hesitation
• Add achievements Completionist, Sink it, Dash for the door, No scope, No peeking, Restless
• Display achievements in a window when they are earned
• Display floor scores and achievements after completing all 5 floors
• Popslide: Option to limit length of +32 runs and literals to save ROM size
• "Debughex" option to display a variable at runtime even on hardware
• Rules research: Confirm 92% chance of seeing a dead end in a game
• Docs: Add guide to encoding video with bgb

9540 bytes used.

Feedback is appreciated:

• See how big of a combo you can make. I want to know whether players find it unduly difficult to make large combos.
• Come up with names for the floor sizes for use on the result screen. Currently I have "Corridor" for the 2x8 and "Anteroom" for the 4x4; the 6x4, 6x6, and 8x6 remain.
• Title screen and ending concepts are still welcome.

Libbet and the Magic Floor v0.03

This is a small release, as progress past the fifth floor is still behind writer's block.

Highlights:

• Rolling and landing sound better fit the material
• Reduce clicking when sound channel turns off
• Show squash cel when landing (first of 12 principles of animation)
• Make hands clearer in push-off cel
• Dead code removal and other size optimizations
• Rules research: Confirm that 100+ score for 8x6 is highly unlikely
• Comparative testing: Add patch to make GBA version work on GBA Movie Player
• 8611 bytes used

Libbet and the Magic Floor v0.02

Highlights include a demo, more obvious indication of the exit, and sound effects. Size is 8848 bytes.

• Combine identical strips, saving a few bytes
• Fix head bob when rolling left
• Draw track and score updates using Popslide, a VRAM transfer buffer
• Draw exit arrows at top left and right of 8-cell-tall floors
• Fade from white at 90% and 100% completion
• Fade to white on exit
• Tutorial demo (press Select)
• Separate Libbet's elbows in push-off cel
• Sound effects
• Animate falling in a hole and being ejected

Libbet and the Magic Floor v0.01

Initial release.

• In: floor generation, gameplay, animation of rolling and jumping, instructions, floor size sequence
• Not in quite yet: fancy title screen, overall score, animation of entering dead end, a proper attract mode, audio

Though the Game Boy's CPU is by no means 6502-like, this ROM coincidentally uses the first 6502 bytes, leaving the rest of 32K padded.