Two Level Demo

It's been a difficult couple of weeks for everyone (and by that I mean the entire World) with the onset of Covid-19 across the globe.

Therefore, to spread a little bit of love and cheer, I've decided to release a 2 level demo version of Chiller 2!

First a word of warning!  The game has not undergone extensive play testing yet by anyone else other than me, so some may find it a little hard!  After the play testing is complete, there are lots of tweaks that can be made to make things easier if required.  It has already been discussed that perhaps energy will be reset between levels and/or energy being 'topped-up' during play somehow.

This demo aims to give a little taster of the type of game it will be!

On the title screen, select either to play as the boy or the girl by pulling left or right on the joystick.  The boy is ' stronger' than the girl so can take collisions and lose energy a little slower than the girl.  However, the girl is a little lighter than the boy, so when jumping will stay in the air just a fraction longer making it easier to cross larger gaps or reach higher platforms.  Choose carefully, then press fire to play!

The aim of the game is to collect 20 crosses on each level to progress to the next level.  Each cross collected adds '1' to the cross counter in the middle of the status panel at the bottom of the screen and '100' to your score on the left of the status panel, as in the screen below.

Move your character around the level using the joystick, left and right to move.  A single fire button press activates 'jump'.  Holding down fire enables a double-jump; some 'platforms' may initially appear too high to reach with one fire button press so holding down the button and double-jumping means the character will jump up to the platform and then jump again.

Gravity is always active in the game, so walking off the edge of a platform will result in your character falling down the screen.  There is no limit as to how high you can fall from and no energy is lost.

If your character touches an enemy or certain parts of the scenery such as mushrooms, then energy is lost from your energy bar at the very bottom of the status panel.  Collision with enemies is quite 'loose' so they can often be passed without energy loss even if a few pixels are overlapping.  Mushrooms will only drain energy if they are walked over or fallen on.  You can jump up through or past them without energy loss.

A few tips!

Although the player character can move relatively quickly, rushing about is a guaranteed way of losing energy very quickly, ending the game.

Each level has been purposefully designed to be a type of 'puzzle' with some routes through being more optimal than others.  Take your time and plan your path; there is no time limit so you can stop and think.  Use strategy!  There are safe places on the levels where you can stand without fear of enemies crashing into you!

While stopping, watch and learn the enemy patrol routes.  Timing your jumps between and over them will result in more success!

The game ends when you run out of energy.

Please have fun, but more importantly, ensure you and your loved ones stay safe during these troubled times.

To play the 2 level demo, you can download it here...

You can also download the game preview from CSDb here...

TRIAD have released a cracked version which you can download from CSDb here...

Next diary entry coming soon...

Xmas Demo Released

The Xmas demo was emailed to Freeze64 subscribers on Christmas Eve, so I guess it's fine to post this here now, doubly so since it has appeared in 'cracked' from on CSDb!

If you would like to play the demo, you can download it here...

If you want to play a 'cracked' version by TRIAD, with some built-in cheats, you can grab that from CSDb here...

Next diary entry...

Xmas Demo Complete

Since the last entry, I've been working on a couple of entries for the 'Intro Creation Competition' over at CSDb (see here and here), so work on the Chiller 2 Xmas demo for Freeze64 came to a bit of a standstill.

To make up for this, the last few days have been spent preparing the demo for Vinny.  All that really needed doing was working out some coordinate locations for the cross to move to once collected.  I ended up doing this in work on a printed screen grab of the demo level.  The photo below shows the scrappy piece of paper with the screen coordinates on!

As an afterthought and in the sprit of making things extra Christmassy, I edited the charset to include some holly for the title screen and a snowman for the demo level.  Those look a little like this...

Also, in last post I apologised for the short, repetitive music.  Gone!  I've written a short piece of music especially for this Xmas demo based on 'God Rest You Merry, Gentlemen', also know as 'Tidings of Comfort and Joy'.  I did try to make it sound 'scary' in keeping with the game theme; hey, it was the best I could do in the short time I had!

In not wanting to give away too much of the game early on, I've taken the decision to only include 1 enemy type, the ghost which moves along very simple paths.  All other enemy sprites have been removed from the sprite bank!  I've also only included the boy as a playable character along with removing some 'dangerous' scenery.  I've taken the liberty of adding a simple demo complete message as well, should you collect all 20 crosses.

The demo has been tested on a real C64c, with the game engine holding up quite well in the demo.  It appears I have learned how to code 6502 to some extent this year!

Vinny should be emailing out a special subscribers only 16 page Freeze64 email issue on Christmas Eve, with the Chiller 2 demo attached!  The announcement for this can be found on Twitter here...

Next diary entry...

FREEZE64 Christmas Demo

A few days ago, Vinny, who writes the really rather excellent C64 fanzine 'FREEZE64', messaged me on Twitter asking for a few screen grabs of Chiller 2 in action.  He is going to send an email out to his subscribers on Christmas Eve and will include some information about the game, along with said screen grabs.  He will also publish the URL of this blog to the "wider world".  Up to this point he is one of a very small, select group of trusted people who even know that this humble dev diary exists.

I should say at this point that Vinny has been very supportive "behind the scenes", offering lots of encouragement and interest.  Because of this support, I thought it might be a good idea to offer him an exclusive download as a thank you.

So currently, I'm stripping out all code pertaining to everything other than the title screen, level 1 and any display routines.  The result will be the first playable demo of Chiller 2.  I am limiting some things because I don't want to give too much away in this demo.  Thus, only a partial charset is included with the minimum number of sprites needed.  The music is a very early version of the main title screen music and amounts to about 10 seconds worth on a repeating loop.  If you play the demo and it drives you mad, tough!

As a bit of an afterthought, since this demo is an exclusive Xmas gift from FREEZE64 to it's subscribers and also riffing on the FREEZE title, I've decided to make the text in the demo white and various hues of blue, while adding settled snow and ice to the forest level.  I've also altered the "Chiller 2" sprites on the title screen to read "FREEZE64".  Why am I explaining this? Surely some images would be better!

Next diary entry...