The Daily Click

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Ziggy (Demo)

Author:

--Tom--

Submitted:

12th March, 2009

Favourites:

Genre:

Platformer

Downloads:

1474

Rated:

67th Place

(4.45 / 5)

Edited By --Tom-- on 3/13/2009

Edited By --Tom-- on 3/12/2009

Ziggy is a simple platform game where you take control of an acrobatic lizard. It's essentially a remake of the Superfrog Clone I submitted about 5 years ago, not sure if anyone will remember that.

Controls:

Left/Right Arrow Keys - Move Ziggy
Down Arrow - Stomp / Crouch / Slide
Z - Jump (Hold for variable height)
X - Aerial

"Ctrl Y" - Change Controls
"Alt Enter" - Full Screen Toggle

T - Toggle window size

Every 2000 points now earns you an extra life.

This is the demo version 0.9 but I'm calling it done for now because I'm pretty sick of working on it. I originally wanted a boss fight, better music (plus a different track for the temple) and a little more bug fixing, but this will have to do for now. After a little feedback/break from it I may release version 1.0 as it should have been with the above features mentioned.

This was originally supposed to be an interactive graphics set where you could just walk around 1 small level, but after making the engine I decided to add a little more and thought what the heck i'll turn it into a full demo. Comments, critique and bug reports are very much welcome.

Have fun!

Review This Download

http://homepage.ntlworld.com/tfilhol/temp/ziggydemo.zip (2.04 mkb )

Posted by Ski

12th March, 2009

Rated :

Finally! Downloading

!!!!

Posted by Ski

12th March, 2009

Rated :

So wonderfully made

Awesome artwork. I adore the snake and frog enemies, so cute. Great level design too

Posted by -Liam-

12th March, 2009

This is the first game I've downloaded this year. Looks WELL worth it

Posted by -Nick-

12th March, 2009

Rated :

Beautiful graphics, animation and gameplay. But it's almost unplayable due to very severe slowdown on my machine

Posted by Mr G

12th March, 2009

Rated :

This game is really nice. Reminded me Sonic but with a different taste.

Some critique:

- Add a double jump, with would be a nice feature
- To gain life, you could add flies that he can eat with sticking out his tongue (?) perhaps

- The music fits nice in my opinion, it suits it's cartoony vibe, don't make it serious.

Didn't notice any serious bugs at the moment. You should definately make it's presentation worthwhile

Posted by --Tom--

12th March, 2009

Thanks for the comments guys. Nick I get a little slowdown on the temple, but the forest should run smoothly, I tested it on a really old PC and it ran fine.

Btw I think the temple runs slowly due to the amount of active objects, but I can't help that until Clickteam finish HWA. Until then, any tips for a speedier runtime would be greatly appreciated.

Comment edited by --Tom-- on 3/13/2009

Posted by W3R3W00F

12th March, 2009

Rated :

The graphics are superb, and the gameplay is rather interesting. Good job

Posted by Silveraura

12th March, 2009

Loved the graphics, engine was really smooth, but performance was lacking.

PS: Unless you NEEDED to include full screen in the game, there's no excuse as to why you couldn't use HWA. It's perfectly stable to run a game like this. I'm using it for ArcaneTale and I've run into no HWA related issues what so ever.

Posted by OMC

12th March, 2009

Rated :

WOW COW!

This is one of the most professional looking and feeling click games I've ever played!

Music and graphics are superb!

I kind of lost interest, but I don't think it's the game--I always feel like making rather than playing.

BTW, do you charge per-work or per-hour? I may have to come up with a game concept just to hire you as the pixel artist!

Comment edited by OldManClayton on 3/12/2009

Posted by Aptennap

12th March, 2009

Hey cool saw this on Pixeljoint!

Posted by --Tom--

12th March, 2009

Thanks guys, glad you enjoyed it. Don't worry about losing interest, I'm happy if it even gives you a couple mintues of enjoyment. Brandon I'll try out the current HWA and see how it goes.

Posted by Simon Czentnár

12th March, 2009

Rated :

This game looks amazing!

Posted by Dr. James MD

12th March, 2009

Rated :

Hah! I remember the SuperFrog engine and them early screenshots. Before I even read the description I was gonna say how Amigay this felt. Love how the secret rooms open up.

Couple of things though; because of the speed I was running through it's not clear that them brown sticks were spikes, maybe if they had some animation (like a white 'flash' or something) or something to make them stand out a little more to show that they do damage.
It also has that inconsistent water damage that a lot of old games have, where one type of water is okay to swim in and another causes death but offers no visual difference between the 2.
Oh and hardcore slowdown on the temple level, plus I thought the level design here was a bit cluttered for the character speed and didn't flow as well as the forest area.

But yea. Love the Superfrog feel of this.

Posted by Ski

12th March, 2009

Rated :

"because of the speed I was running through it's not clear that them brown sticks were spikes"

Was apparent to me the first time I played it. Even if it wasn't it would be obvious the first time you die by hitting them, not to make contact again.

"It also has that inconsistent water damage that a lot of old games have, where one type of water is okay to swim in and another causes death but offers no visual difference between the 2"

Except the kind on the bottom isn't semi-transparent and kind of obvious that you'll die if you cant see where it goes?

Posted by Yami

12th March, 2009

Rated :

I first noticed your screen shot on pixel joint and seen that it was playable only to be surprised yet again in the fact that it was placed on here as well. The graphics are nice and crisp along with the engine. My favorite part was in the temple with the series of destructible tiles and the fact that after several attempts I was then able to easily go through that area at a really fast pace.

Posted by Ski

12th March, 2009

Rated :

"My favorite part was in the temple with the series of destructible tiles and the fact that after several attempts I was then able to easily go through that area at a really fast pace."

Omg! Mine too, it was a real learning curve

Posted by -Nick-

12th March, 2009

Rated :

I got equal slowdown on the forest as in the temple, the temple wasn't any worse. I'm running it on a 3ghz dual core machine with an 8800gts in so i'm confused as to why only i'm suffering?

Posted by --Tom--

12th March, 2009

Darn that is really strange, I can't understand it either. I'm going to have a fiddle with some of the settings and see if I can fix it.

Edit: Nick do any other klik games slowdown for you?
Comment edited by --Tom-- on 3/12/2009

Posted by Dr. James MD

12th March, 2009

Rated :

On my 4gb ram/2ghz C2D I only had slowdown in the temple. I'll give it a try on my newer 2ghz C2D later.

Posted by -Nick-

12th March, 2009

Rated :

No, i don't think i've ever had it before except for just really badly made ones.

I just played it again now, and the slowdown was *barely* noticeable - i assume it was running normally. Maybe my computer was having a funny five minutes scanning something earlier?

Posted by Blue66

13th March, 2009

Rated :

I had no slowdown whatsoever. Really great graphics, music was kinda annoying after 5 minutes but the gameplay was really nice. Gave me a little the feeling of Jazz Jackrabbit. First I didn't understand the use of the flip, but it's a nice feature.

On to the negative aspect...
Please fix the spikes. Instant death spikes drag down the fun of the game immense. Played through forest area and thought 'wow this is a really nice game, I'll spend my whole evening on this!!'

But then spikey hell came and ruined the fun

The difficulty between forest and temple jumps incredibly high and makes it all of a sudden very frustrating. First you start the game and jump around, kill enemies like mario and then BOOM you die and die and die and die and die. What happened? Feels like the game went to I wanna be the guy and there are more spikes then anything else in sight. wtf?!

Comment edited by Blue66 on 3/13/2009

Posted by --Tom--

13th March, 2009

For the next update I'll remove some of the spikes to make it fairer, though I need to keep them instant kill to stop the player from accessing secret areas. Or I may end up having a two different sets of spikes (one instant kill, one not.)

Posted by UrbanMonk

13th March, 2009

Rated :

To increase the speed of the game go into the pickups' active object options and set "Inactive when to far from window" to "yes" and that should fix the problem. Besides that, after playing this I've decided to quit game making, I'll never be this good. J/K awesome game!
Comment edited by UrbanMonk on 3/13/2009

Posted by Neuro

13th March, 2009

Rated :

Good control and nice and easy on the eyes. I also got slowdown on the Temple level, so I couldn't play any further. I can't rate it from just playing the first set of levels, since I see from a few posts that it gets more difficult, and is probably where the gameplay shines a little brighter.

Is there any more purpose to collecting the fruit other than increasing your score?

Posted by alastair john jack

13th March, 2009

Reminds me of Croc! Really nice game.

Posted by --Tom--

13th March, 2009

Neuro, every 2000 points earns an extra life.

Posted by --Tom--

13th March, 2009

UPDATE! v0.91 The speed issue in the temple is almost completely resolved. People were complaining about the amount of spikes in the temple so I decided to replace some of the nastier ones with smaller spikes that don't kill you in one hit.

Also "T" now toggles the window size, if the temple still runs slowly (which it shouldn't) then a smaller window size may help.

Posted by Ravi Jayant

13th March, 2009

Rated :

GREAT GAME! wow... this is really impressive!

Posted by UrbanMonk

13th March, 2009

Rated :

Beat it!

Posted by Neuro

13th March, 2009

Rated :

Ran a little faster, playable enough to get through it all, but still a little choppy. I'll try another window size next time.

The Temple levels are great! Player movement really flows, and it's a good level of challenge. All the little paths and tunnels make the levels feel huge.

Really well made

Posted by --Tom--

13th March, 2009

Thank you. :^]

Shame to hear it was still a little choppy tho. Nevermind, as long as it's playable it's alright I suppose.

Posted by Fish20

13th March, 2009

Rated :

If there was 6 stars, you would get it.

Posted by Jess Bowers

13th March, 2009

Rated :

Tom, that was fantastic! I saw your stuff on PixelJoint but didn't know you were making a game with MMF. Great stuff! Do you have any other games you've made with MMF?

Posted by AndyUK

13th March, 2009

This is a nice surprise. It really is very good at the moment. The one thing i will comment on (ignoring the performance issues for now) is the difficulty curve. It shoots up in the temple. I didn't get hit once in the jungle but got a GAME OVER after losing all of my lives in quick succession in the temple.

About performance, The temple did scroll rather jerkily for me. I think perhaps because you've made all of the collectibles animated and all of the active objects in a level are all there at once. My suggestion would be to create stuff on the fly or try to look into disabling groups you wont be needing.
The biggest issue is most likely the actives though.
Comment edited by AndyUK on 3/13/2009

Posted by Joellie

14th March, 2009

Rated :

I really love the graphics! Its one of those games that im really glad i downloaded. I mean the only thing i would have said to improve it would be to put some incentive in it or something. Like you have to explore to find something in order to carry on etc. Apart from that it worked fine on my laptop.

Nick said hes sorry he rated it so low, as its worked better for him again later.

Posted by --Tom--

14th March, 2009

Haha don't worry I'm not really that bothered about the ratings. Yeah I should have made a little story really, I may add one later if I do finish it off with the boss etc.

Thanks Jess, unfortunately I don't have any other games at the moment, only realllllllly old stuff that I don't want to share. This will be turned into a full game, though not for a while.

Andy good job you didn't play the earlier version, it was about ten times harder. I too thought it was the actives, but all the fruit is not animated and uses as little memory as possible. It may have something to do with the enemies off screen, I should have coded them more efficiently.

Posted by Ski

14th March, 2009

Rated :

I hope you're working on this right now

Posted by Dr. James MD

14th March, 2009

Rated :

If its just the enemies you could add a line or 2 that enables them as you get closer.

Posted by The Chris Street

14th March, 2009

Rated :

I saw a screenshot on the front page under the Spotlight section of this game and immediately thought of your SuperFrog demo

Then I find its by the same guy so definitely downloading

Posted by --Tom--

14th March, 2009

Circy I miss you! Will you ever release MSD2?

Posted by The Chris Street

14th March, 2009

Rated :

Got stuck on the first bit of the temple, its really hard and fiddly! I would use HWA beta B for this, the gameplay would be so much smoother

But its brilliant so far

Posted by The Chris Street

14th March, 2009

Rated :

Oh, and yes, at some point I will do

Posted by Matthew Wiese

14th March, 2009

Rated :

Great game, great gfx, good music, and nice challenges in the temple area. I faved this one.

Posted by Chloe Sagal

14th March, 2009

Rated :

i got stuck at this one part in the temple where you gottat run on the destructable platforms then slide, for some reason when i slide he only goes like 2 pixels over then gets back up, so no matter how i do it i get stabbed. but it was kind of fun untill that point.

Posted by Tropik

14th March, 2009

Rated :

character animations and backgrounds are sometimes similar to Superfrog game.

Posted by Marko

14th March, 2009

Rated :

I really like this game - it's well made all round; the engine is exceptional, the sound is great and the graphics are well drawn. However, it reminds me of beans on toast. It's well made and has all the ingredients, but there's something missing. It needs a little more attitude, i think - something to make it really stand out. At the moment i am more in awe of the engine rather than the game.

Don't dwell on this though as i really am impressed with it and it's miles better than any platformer i've ever attempted! Can't wait to see more of it

Posted by Mr G

14th March, 2009

Rated :

I easily passed the place where chloe said she was stuck. You should use aerial on those gaps

Posted by MasterM

14th March, 2009

this looks incredible beautiful!

Posted by W3R3W00F

14th March, 2009

Rated :

"You should use aerial on those gaps"

Lol that one took me a while to figure out before I just decided that maybe...

Heh, it worked.

Posted by --Tom--

14th March, 2009

I'm glad to hear that Circy. Chloe you have to get a slightly bigger run up to slide further, it shouldn't be too difficult. Mark thanks, don't worry the full game should offer way more in terms of gameplay, I just kinda wanted to get the demo out there for some feedback, and by the way the engine is a heavily modified PMO. Thanks for the feedback guys.

Posted by danjo

15th March, 2009

well, graphics etc of course is great. BUT the scrolling method you've used is painful. NEEDS work.

Posted by Bricnic

15th March, 2009

Rated :

Beautiful and fun game. I'm really glad something came out of that superfrog-clone engine/demo, and this is better again. Keep up the good work!

Posted by OFFINC/Aharms

15th March, 2009

Rated :

Very cool game, impressive engine and I think your character "Ziggy" is so much more likable than 'Sonic.'

With such a likable character I really feel like some story would be awesome!

Posted by aphant

16th March, 2009

Rated :

The difficulty curve really goes up at the temple. You can just blaze through the jungle no problem, but once you get to the temple you've got to do things (aerial across gaps) that you haven't done before in a manner that severely punishes you (death). A section where you need to use the aerial to cross a gap without death spikes underneath would be good, with the only punishment for failure having to go back around to try again; This would help the player learn that you can use the aerial for stuff like that, if they haven't already played around with it.

In the temple level with the collapsing floors at the start with all the insta-death spikes, I made it to the final "floor" of the initial gauntlet. I screwed up on the last slide->aerial part, and hit the top spike. Went poof, fell through the collapsing floor and went poof again. Only lost one life, though.

After getting hit by the shield guys, you can run into them when flashing and jump once to kill them, if you haven't touched them yet.

A few of the collapsing floors should be redone to collapse slightly slower. The graphic for them should also be redone; In motion, moreso while falling than anything, the cracks become less distinguishable. I found that while on a section where the tiles are collapsing, that it's only possible to tell that the tiles will collapse based on comparison. Simply put, I can only tell that they'll collapse because they look the same as the ones collapsing, not because they're recognizable as being the tiles that collapse.

Posted by MBK

16th March, 2009

Rated :

I, like miss cakes, got stuck for a few moments on that sliding part. I eventually slid just right to make it through, but soon after there are a few places that look like you can slide through, but the slide won't take you all the way.

Was this intended as a trick to get you to try to slide under, or is there some movement glitch that keeps it from making it all the way?

The flip is neat, I liked rolling through the air horizontally to get across pits. The ground pound attack is kind of pointless though, as a regular jump does the same thing, just a little slower and more controlled. Maybe take that out and make the slide into a sort of slide kick that knocks the enemy down and gives you a few moments to not get hurt by them while they are on their backs or knocked in the air.

Good graphics, it does feel like Jazz Jackrabbit a bit, which is a good thing, but the level design leaves something to be desired. For such a polished looking game, the level design really needs to be as finely-tuned as the rest of it, or it just winds up being another half-decent platformer that merely pleases the eye and not much more.

Note that I also expected some sort of climbing ability because he is a lizard after all.

Add a climbing ability, a tongue flicking ability and some flies to eat to recover health (you could make them difficult to target but abundant)

The first few levels should be easier imo, difficulty should raise only slowly as the game progresses, although most get to around the center of the game then level off the difficulty, ideally a steady rise is best. It jumped quite quickly in difficulty with the introduction of so many spikes and pits.

Great game despite the minor flaws, you should make a full game out of it.

Comment edited by MBK on 3/16/2009

Posted by MBK

16th March, 2009

Rated :

Bleh, didn't have the rate box checked.

Really oughtta be able to add a rating through the "edit" feature. The TDC webmaster should add that.

Posted by --Tom--

16th March, 2009

Thanks Adam and MBK for your detailed feedback, in the next update I will try and fix all the issues you mentioned, apart from the tongue flick/climb which I do have plans to include but only for the full release.

Posted by aphant

16th March, 2009

Rated :

@MBK:
Those long slide sections require you to find the star powerup to get enough speed to clear them, and the ground pound is actually used to clear secret areas built into the floor.

Posted by Dynamite

16th March, 2009

Rated :

Reminds me of the Jazz Jackrabbit series! I LOOOVE it!

Posted by Assault Andy

17th March, 2009

Rated :

This is awesome. I only quit because it glitched and wouldn't let me click 'retry' after dying. It had something to do with dying on spikes in mid air, but I can't recall completely. It was a few days ago.

Great job

Posted by Liquixcat

17th March, 2009

Rated :

I enjoy the art, but the game itself reminds me a lot of some SNES game you'd rent and forget about.

If I have but one suggestion it's make the camera do more than lock on the character the whole time. A little smoothness goes-a-ways.

Posted by Sphax

17th March, 2009

Rated :

Beautiful !

Posted by MBK

17th March, 2009

Rated :

@Adam Phant, oh, didn't realise that.

Posted by --Tom--

17th March, 2009

Yeah, I should really include a short tutorial level.

Posted by Hempuli

18th March, 2009

Rated :

Very good indeed. Perhaps a bit generic, but that really isn't a reason to give it a worse grade. I don't know if I personally enjoy this kind of games, but whatever, that's my opinion. The graphics are extremely well done!

Posted by OMC

18th March, 2009

Rated :

I know I commented on this game... where'd my comment go? O_o

Posted by Torava

19th March, 2009

Rated :

First thing I thought about the screenshots was Super Frog. Not without reason, I see. I don't really enjoy playing this kind of games - I got bored shortly. But you have done good job with the graphics. Parallax backgrounds looks amazing.

Posted by Tomssuli

20th March, 2009

Rated :

OMG a lizard! Downloading right away!

Posted by GlassShard

23rd March, 2009

Rated :

The spike/disappearing platform sections in the temple were brutal, but fun. I think this game rocks.

Posted by Vertigo

26th March, 2009

Rated :

Cool game! But the Temple level still laggs for me and I sank into the ground in that same level... I picked up the flower that stands right from a stream, and then I slowly moved down :S I didnt die at the bottom of the screen so I was forced to quit the game

Posted by Tomssuli

27th March, 2009

Rated :

Great game. I thought it reminded Superfrog and then I read through the description =D

It was kinda hard, but I beat it. The difficulty slope is too sleep to my tastes, but probably the full game will slope more gently.

Engine is stable, I found only one little annoying bug: You can't jump if you're too near to a wall.

Anyways, I loved superfrog and I love Ziggy =

5 stars for the lizard! (BTW is it girl or a boy lizard? The headband/bandana is kinda girlish)

Posted by Jason Orme

29th March, 2009

Rated :

Fantastic. love it. Takes me back to the days of the Amiga.

Posted by Poobical

1st April, 2009

Rated :

Very nice very nice indeed. Colourful graphics that are stunning to look at. The music was excellent, to be honest it made me feel that I was playing a top quality game on the SNES. Great demo!

Posted by Toadsanime

7th April, 2009

Having tried it out yet, but it looks fantastic and I'll be downloading it now.

And seeing all this positive feedback makes me think that this game should be finished off.

Posted by Abos Games

24th April, 2009

Rated :

I really like this game! (I mean gfx and gameplay, they are perfectly done)
Mmm.. a bit more of animation in the background art, but I know you know it..
The sound and music (nice, btw).

I'll give my help for this game:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=414cqbbvC8s

Posted by Saml

18th May, 2009

I played the demo, it was great, but now there's a broken link!

Posted by phanto

3rd June, 2009

fix the link please

Posted by --Tom--

3rd June, 2009

Fixed.

Posted by Aliashoj

2nd September, 2010

Rated :

Is there anymore to play of this game yet? x

Posted by --Tom--

22nd September, 2010

Hey John, the game is currently undergoing a massive overhaul, including brand new gameplay mechanics and fresh graphics/music which should hopefully blow this version out of the water. As to when the new demo will be released, I have no idea. All I can say is I can't see it being done before early next year.

By the way thanks for your playthrough/commentry on youtube. Not only was it hilarious and almost had me in tears, but you made some good points about the design of the game too. Great stuff.

Posted by Ski

12th February, 2011

Rated :

I hope this is nearly finished.

Posted by --Tom--

26th February, 2011

Not even close.

Posted by The Chris Street

21st March, 2011

Rated :

I just played the demo of this again after a couple of years and finally beat it on my first go

Posted by Jess Bowers

14th July, 2011

Rated :

I still play this on occasion, too. Mostly for the amazing pixel art but the game play is also top notch. I wish I had even half of Tom's pixel art talent!

Posted by Aliashoj

3rd November, 2012

Rated :

I'm glad you liked my commentry Tom, I go a bit over the top I must admit. Any news on this project?

Posted by --Tom--

4th November, 2012

Going over the top is what makes it hilarious though. <3

I haven't worked on this yet but I'll be starting it again in 2013. I'll be sure to post it on TDC as a project when I begin.

Posted by Aliashoj

5th November, 2012

Rated :

Glad to hear you'll be picking this one up again, it's certainly worth continuing with. I'll keep an eye out =