We have obtained the rights to be the exclusive online distributor of Platypus. This game was developed by the ultra-talented Anthony Flack, who often posts here.

It was developed for Idigicon and was really only intended for retail. So I came to an agreement with Idigicon to get the online rights, and then I made it suitable to be a downloadable :)

The most difficult part was getting the file size down, but I managed to get the trial version down to 5.5 megs, woohoo!

game page: http://www.retro64.com/platypus.asp
screenshot: http://www.retro64.com/images/ppf_big_1.jpg

It's not final yet, but we hope to release soon :) Hit me over the head if you find any bugs!

Moving again into the publisher direction Mike? ;-)

Good move with Platypus! I played it on the Idigicon site a while ago and loved it - damn hard though.

Good luck with it!

Alex

Yeah one of the first things I did was make it easier. You can select easy, normal, or hard now. Also I added mouse control- which makes it a lot easier...

All I have to say is "Wow!". I've been wanting to play a demo since I saw a screen shot of the game a couple months ago, and let me tell you I am not disappointed... I think I played the first 5 min with my jaw dropped... amazing graphics style and bg layering! Congrats Anthony and Mike! :)

Excellent... especially since I always thought about buying the game. If I buy it now, at least Anthony will get a few bucks out of it. :)

Good luck with the release!

Patrick

Originally posted by Midnight
Excellent... especially since I always thought about buying the game. If I buy it now, at least Anthony will get a few bucks out of it. :)

Good luck with the release!

Patrick
I wish that was the case. But my deal is with Idigicon- Anthony created the game for them. They own the intellectual property. Not me, not Anthony. We do, however, plan to make Anthony an affiliate with a big fat commission :) He's fine that I am distributing the game, and even gave me some pointers for dealing with the code.

Of all the indies out there, I think Anthony has the most talent. His art is magnificant, and his design is detailed and creative. Ola's pretty good too!

Ah,

Is that the game with too professionally prepared graphics and annoying too colorful screens? :D :D :D

Great game, Anthony. Really great!
And great move Mike!

Just played the demo and have to say...


1. Mouse Controls: YEAY!
Much easier to control, I think - of course I'm biased since I wrote Intensity XS! :)

2. Autofire: DOUBLE YEAY!
This was the one thing I didn't like about the original release. I'm all for button mashing in the arcade, but on my keyboard it was torture!

3. Level of difficulty: YEAY!
Definitely much easier now (also because of 1 and 2), which should play much better to the shareware audience. I gnawed my teeth on the original, and here I made it through the first level on my first try (having, of course, played the original before)


Should do great!

Cheers,
Patrick

Did you optimize it for speed at all? I remember it sucking on a slower card / older computer...

That is the actual running of the program, the game itself didn't suck at all, it's a great game :-)

I just downloaded the demo for the first time.

Anthony that's incredible work. It's one of the best looking independent games I've ever seen! How long did it take for you to develop it?

After playing that demo, it makes me look forward to seeing your platformer even more! :)

Originally posted by Mike Boeh
It was developed for Idigicon and was really only intended for retail. So I came to an agreement with Idigicon to get the online rights, and then I made it suitable to be a downloadable :)

Very cool, I can't wait to redownload it. I grabbed it from Idigicon some time back but I have some memory of having to jump through hoops just to play. Can't wait to try your rerelease out!

That is a great game. I tried the one from Idigicon a while ago and I recall that it was much too hard for me. I'm not very good at this type of game so having different difficulty levels helps out a lot (took me 3 continues even on easy). It just looks and feels really cool. Great game. I hope it does well.

When game is paused it says "press any key to continue" (or something like that) I pressed space to continue but it also made player two alive, something that I wouldn´t except.

That pause/quit button feels pretty stupid, I think that normally pause button pauses/unpauses so now it´s possible that some people quit by accident (Infact I did).

Me, I like the Old Skool music. As soon as I started it up I knew I recognized it from somewhere... check the music_credits.txt shipped in the demo if you didn't place it yerself. Then get out your credit card and buy the CDs :)

Excellent news! I think I'll have to purchase this again, just for the improved difficulty and mouse control options. Nice work Mike!

The graphics blew me away!

The game crashed on my computer (a win XP box) - it simply quit. I think the program produced this (http://geocities.com/bitzidio/platypus.exe-up.txt) file as a result.

Yeah, I've experienced a crash bug while playing Platypus before. It always happened while I was shooting the green shield weapon. Is that the weapon you used Diodor?

By the way, small bugette - in the readme file, it says 'Copyright Idificon'.

I don't remember very well what I was doing. I did shoot the energy shield though quite a lot - without any immediate problems.

Crivens. No disrespect to Anthony but this plays way better than the Idigicon version thanks to the autofire and easy mode. I didn't bother with the mouse control much, though, as the sensitivity made it hard going and you can't really alter that without buggering up everything else.

Yes, I think Mike is doing an incredible job in making the game more palatable for a wider audience... when I originally made the game, I wasn't all that concerned with the larger public (as I wasn't getting royalties), so I basically just made it to please myself. I totally endorse the modifications Mike has made (and is continuing to make) and I'm really pleased with how it's coming out.

I'm even pleased with the stuff I was dead set against at the time I made the game - like mouse control (actually works pretty well!) and auto fire (I really wanted to have people pounding as fast as they could in a desperate attempt to destroy the big ships in time... but Mike has timed the autofire just perfectly, so it lays down a good solid covering fire, and yet pounding the button can still give you a faster firing rate if you really need it - I love this and should have done it this way to begin with).

And of course the difficulty settings - I'm totally sold on putting them in nowadays. It means I can set up the game to be just how I want it (heh, the hard setting), and still keep everyone else happy. Rest assured, the "Platypus too hard" syndrome will not reoccur... and I think Mike is doing great work fixing this up.

All in all, I'm really happy to think that the game now has a chance to reach and be enjoyed by a much larger audience - which is what it's all about really. I mean, making money is just a necessary evil you need to keep a roof over your head. But entertaining people is truly the most gratifying part... so all you people out there in indie-land, please enjoy! :)

Oh, and Chris: Development time was around 18 months. Although I did face a minor setback when my house burned down halfway through! Given that I spent a few months experimenting before getting to work on the new game, and I have been developing the new game for nearly 18 months now, it means that it has been nearly 4 years since I started work on Platypus! Incredible. And I still haven't released my second game, heh...

Needless to say, I've come a long way in the intervening time, my technology and techniques have improved, the new game is quite a lot more ambitious than Platypus and I reckon you're gonna be well impressed if I do say so myself. Personally I can't wait to unleash Cletus Clay onto the world! (still a few months off yet I'm afraid).

Typo in the copyright ( it's written idiFicon )
Copyright for music is wrong, it's written Chris Abbot when it's a music from Rob Hubbart from the good old monty on the run if i remember well ( C64 experts will figure this one out better than I )

30 fps on a radeon 9800 , needs a little bit better VRam management i guess. ( i have 128 MB of VRam )

Apart from these little glitches it's a nice game.
pat.

Originally posted by Anthony Flack
And of course the difficulty settings - I'm totally sold on putting them in nowadays. It means I can set up the game to be just how I want it (heh, the hard setting), and still keep everyone else happy.

There's a blog on gamematters.com that basically says difficulty settings are bad. I don't know that I agree but it's kind of interesting. He touts auto adjusting difficulty settings instead and suggests that difficulty settings are for lazy programmers. (he being the well known Scott Miller)

As for Platypus, I agree that Mike did a good job fixing the game up. Platypus is definitely one of those titles that I kept wincing as I played it thinking.. "Man this could have sold well... or gee if only this was a little different how great it could be" -- so to see it massaged into a new more accessible version is really great. I'm replaying the game with Mike's new settings now. Anthony's original design of the game was fantastic. It really only needed a few tweaks and changes. There's a lot of good stuff in this game. If you haven't played it or were one of the unfortunate few to play the idigicon demo be sure to check this version out.

Basically, the original version was created purely from a love of old arcade games. It was meant to be played with an arcade stick; and it was made to play as hard as arcade games were back in the day! In the end, it really didn't sit that well on a modern PC... a market which I had actually been wholly ignorant of for several years, entirely forgoing it in favour of the newly emerging retro-emulation scene.

But as far as making a homage to old arcade games was my only real objective (as well as finding out if I really could make a finished game), I was pretty happy with the old version, and didn't really mind that most people couldn't handle it too well (there were some people who understood though; and loved the game and could complete it). And in fact, the whole game was really made in honour of all the great 1943 sessions me and my old flatmate used to have at the local fish & chip shop.

But now, it can be enjoyed by more than just me and a few other diehard arcade game players! :D And that is just great. But remember; it wasn't really that I didn't know any better - it was more that I didn't care, he he. I am much more practical-minded now that I'm actually trying to make money though! And as I say, more people enjoying the game = more good buzz for me. Although I still must insist that "hard" skill is the REAL way to play it...

Patrox - I don't know what the problem is, whether it's my code, Mike's code, a peculiarity of the current build, a weird problem with your machine, or what... but it runs fine on cards with only 16Mb memory, or at least it used to. Actually I think 8Mb was the minimum I set myself, now that I think about it. But, hey, that is Mike's problem now... heh heh heh

And I also can't say I agree with the idea that auto-adjusting difficulty is the best way... frankly, I've always hated it in every game I've experienced it in. I would much rather the game stays THE SAME so I can accurately measure my performance against it... not get ridiculously hard when I'm doing well or ridiculously easy when I'm doing badly. If I'm doing well, I want to get further... and if I'm doing badly, then put me out of my misery already! It's also totally inappropriate for the majority of game styles. It sounds like Scott Miller has a thing for auto-adjusting; that's fine for him I guess, but to say that NOT auto-adjusting is simply lazy is pretty one-eyed.

Originally posted by Anthony Flack
Patrox - I don't know what the problem is, whether it's my code, Mike's code, a peculiarity of the current build, a weird problem with your machine, or what... but it runs fine on cards with only 16Mb memory, or at least it used to. Actually I think 8Mb was the minimum I set myself, now that I think about it. But, hey, that is Mike's problem now... heh heh heh


I've been raised with the Amiga VBL syndrome :) 30 fps leaves a nasty little motion trail behind the aliens, nobody will notice though.

pat.

Thanks for all the comments guys. The random crash is going to kill me! I had a chat with Anthony about it, and we both think it has to do with the dynamic loading and unloading of images. It's going to be tough to track down. I am going to rewrite the caching system this weekend.

There's about 10 other tweaks that still need to be done :o

Great job, Mike (and Anthony of course)! Love the game, and this new version should rock even more!

I love this game, the demo is great too. I'd buy it right now if i hadn't just dropped 1200 in mechanical work on my car and am feeling a little poor. :)

Just another incredibly positive view on this game. I, like many others, had downloaded the previous version of Platypus and had difficulties with performance and playability. But I have to say... I love this game.

Mike: Excellent work cutting down the size and preparing it to be appreciated by a wider audience. I found the mouse control to be perfect, and the auto-fire just increased my level of fun. It ran quite well on my system (P4 1.7, WinXP), and I finally got to experience the game as a cohesive, easy-to-play whole.

Anthony: This truly is one of the most original looking and BEST looking games out there, indie or otherwise. I suppose one of the most common complaints I have against indie games is that many of them don't pull me in to a fully realized world, whether they are simple shooters or RPGs. Platypus, however, is just excellent in this regard and is now a pure joy to play.

Good work guys.

one of the most common complaints I have against indie games is that many of them don't pull me in to a fully realized world, whether they are simple shooters or RPGs. Platypus, however, is just excellent in this regard

That's a great comment, and yes, it's something that I always take great pains to try to achieve: an immersive environment. To me, that's just as important as gameplay, even! Can't wait to show you guys the new game now...

EASY MODE! :cool:

Damn, this clay look is seductive... On the way home from an errand, I swung by Staples and picked up a little kid's bucket of plasticene and simple modeling tools...

What can I say? - Absolute Class :)

Great work!

I havn't played the new version, but I am looking forward to it!!
The old version was great, and I love the difficulty ...

Anthony : Why don't you create a little article about Platypus on your web site. Like a post mortem on the game, what your design goals where , how you decided on the clay models and how you implemented it. Some technical stuff and your inspirations and perspirations.

This will generate some trafic to your site and hopegully some future sales ...

Yeah, I should. I certainly have enough to say about it! Deciding on clay models was an easy choice - I always use clay models, heh! It's like a weird compulsion I have. Probably me having a background in clay animation has something to do with it though...

I'm also planning to do a little behind the scenes on the claymation techniques up there. But I'm afraid my website suffers from a serious case of neglect right now. Long overdue for some fresh content... when my game is closer to release there will be loads more activity...

I fixed several bugs and re-uploaded. That nasty random crash should be gone now...

Originally posted by Mike Boeh
I fixed several bugs and re-uploaded. That nasty random crash should be gone now...

Would this new version recalculate trial time counter? :D :D :D

(I know this was mentioned before, but I didn't realize this myself until just now)

Only on the second level did the music suddenly hit me. "I know this!" And sure enough, it's all old Martin Galway and Rob Hubbard tunes! :eek:

Extra extra extra fanboy super cool! I thought I couldn't believe my luck when I got Purple Motion to do the soundtrack for Wonderland, but maaaan this is super-cool!!!! (sorry Jonne, if you're reading this, but Rob was my first love :) ... I practically grew up on Monty on the Run). How did you convince them, Anthony?

Pant, pant, pant...

Downloaded tonight.

Crashed to desktop during my second run through the first couple of boards. Very distinctly different game.

Idigicon did the deal for the music after I decided it wasn't worth it to do all the music myself as I originally intended. All the tunes are remakes of old c64 tunes, apparently.

Hehe, now svero got his grubby little hands on it. ;)
http://www.twilightgames.com/platypus/platypus_info.htm

Anthony I hope you're making some money off this...you should at least sell it on your website as well. Might help you build up a customer base for Cletus.

Originally posted by Chris_Evans
Hehe, now svero got his grubby little hands on it. ;)
http://www.twilightgames.com/platypus/platypus_info.htm

Anthony I hope you're making some money off this...you should at least sell it on your website as well. Might help you build up a customer base for Cletus.

It's just a really cool game and I don't have too many arcade titles. I'm just selling it as an affiliate for Mike at retro64. I was kind of jealous when Mike made the good decision to get it from Idigicon. It really was the proverbial diamond in the rough.

- Steve

Well the screenshots were intriguing enough to download the demo and I finally got around to it awhile ago.

...
The biggest issue was that the sound didn't work at all and I've rarely ever had a problem with sound in non-dos games before (I have a santa cruz sound card).
....
comments removed, sound working now, other comments I made don't really apply now

Maybe it's just not your kind of thing. I don't see any problems in these areas that require fixing. Of course everyone has their own preferences.

But you know, I didn't intend points to be the main goal... the main goal is finishing the game. Points earn you extra lives to help you do this. If you don't feel any incentive to continue playing, I think it just means you're not really interested in the game, 'sall.

I figured I'd drop in my 2 cents since I haven't said anything before. First of all I absolutely love the graphics style (and the game overall), awesome!

Originally posted by Anthony Flack
If you don't feel any incentive to continue playing, I think it just means you're not really interested in the game, 'sall.

And this is the other thing I wanted to comment on. I have to agree with Anthony here, I definitely felt that there was enough incentive to buy the game (when I have some cash :)). Just the lure of the what the new worlds look and play like was enough for me. And I imagine there're more weapons. Either way, I'm totally hooked. I also found it to be a lot more fun with a gamepad than mouse or keyboard.

Ok, nevermind my previous post. I reinstalled the game and the sound worked this time. A much different and better experience.

Oh, in response to earlier posts - yes I will be setting up an affiliate thingy to sell Platypus from my site *real soon*. My site attracts almost zero traffic at the moment, and I don't think putting up a single affiliate game will do a whole lot to change that, but what the heck, it's a start. With any luck it'll be a whole different story 6 months from now...

Oh and Svero, I see on your site that you say there are 5 levels in the full version - better change that 'cause there's actually only 4. I know a few people have been confused by that map screen - but the way I intended it to be read was, you travel the length of the dotted line over the course of the level. So level 1 spans from 1 to 2. And level 4 spans from 4 to X.

Yeah I know, I really should have made that clearer.

Allrighty!

I have set myself up as an affiliate and for the first time ever, I can actually promote my game from my site! Yay!

If anyone's feeling particularly charitable, they can toddle off to chez Squashy Software and get it - don't forget to bring your bags of spare cash!

Well, you can't blame me for trying.

Boy oh boy, I was so sad when I played Platypus the first time because it was too hard, but still fun. But now there is a chance it's worth buying !!

(I wonder if it will play when the trial period is up on the old version?)

I don't see why not... why don't you pop over to my ;) site and find out?

Mike's already heard my comments but Anthony, congrats on designing and creating a fantastic game! Very original, very good looking, and very fun. I think it is a real stand out among indie games.

I am looking forward to your next title.