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[The Friendly Monster]

edit: you can now download and vote for my game at the Indie Game Showcase.

http://www.indiegameshowcase.com/in...&id=38566484-07D8-D20E-16C8E32824A7E95A&igc=1

http://gilescoope.googlepages.com/pizzicati.html

Youtube video, apologies for the quality, I'll see what I can do inre getting a higher quality video somewhere. The game is more polished than it looks from the screens or the video, but it'll give you a flavour.

Formerly "Jolt", "pizzicati" is a one button action puzzle game; think armadillo run crossed with the helicopter game.


Controls:

Space Bar: action
Ctrl: reset the ball
Right, Left: switch level

+/-: increase/decrease volume
N: disable effects

to change the size and resolution of the window press Left Shift + either 1, 2 or 3 (above the letters) for 1280*720, 960*540, 640*360 respectively.

there are three levels you haven't finished unlocked at all times, 30 levels total. to reset the levels to being incomplete press Left Shift + R.

Link:

http://gilescoope.googlepages.com/pizzicati_0_2_4.zip


To run this use http://xnamatrix.com/xnareq.php to check you have the stuff below,

or download separately at:

The .NET Framework 2.0 Redistributable.
The XNA Framework Redistributable 2.0. Note: This is NOT the entire XNA program, just a 2mb file to let you play XNA games.
The latest DirectX 9.0c files.

To play the game just extract the files to a folder and run pizzicati.exe.

POSSIBLE SOLUTION TO THOSE HAVING TROUBLE RUNNING THE GAME:

I'm reading on Aaron Steiner's weblog that there is another dependency not listed in the XNA help documents.

To run an XNA 2.0 game you must have The Visual C++ 2005 SP1 redistributable package. It's clearly not a problem for most people but I hope this helps those who are nice enough to try my game but having difficulties.

Thanks a lot for taking a look, feedback would be welcome here, via pm or email to my gmail account (gcoope).

Giles (a.k.a. The Friendly Monster)

 

[DeathWasHere]

Is it good?

 

[The Friendly Monster]

Is it good?

I think it's sitting at around 89 on metacritic.

 

[JavaMava]

tag for latter

 

[MutFox]

I read Pizza Cats...

 

[Label]

Is it good?

Imo yes it is!

Just played around with it, I like it quite alot! Very smooth and slick.

I have a few questions though how long did it take you to create, and have you experience programming before? (hope this is not a stupid question )

 

[Peronthious]

Not bad, not bad at all. Love the sound effects especially, and the level organization is pretty entertaining.

 

[No_Style]

Wow. I have low expectations for these kinds of things, but this 'pizzicati' is quite interesting. I'm liking it a lot.

One suggestion, this game begs for a timer. I look forward to more.

 

[The Friendly Monster]

Imo yes it is!

Just played around with it, I like it quite alot! Very smooth and slick.

I have a few questions though how long did it take you to create, and have you experience programming before? (hope this is not a stupid question )

Thanks, I started about 3 weeks ago. A couple of hours work each day. I had a little experience algorithm programming with C++ at university, this is my second project with XNA, I spent about 2 weeks on the first one. There's a great thread here for people interested in starting with XNA or any game programming.

 

[The Friendly Monster]

Wow. I have low expectations for these kinds of things, but this 'pizzicati' is quite interesting. I'm liking it a lot.

One suggestion, this game begs for a timer. I look forward to more.

Thanks a lot, surely you can't have finished it already though?! Major features still to be added include a slicker version of the level editor I've been using and a replay. I'm not sure a timer would be appropriate, a lot of the levels would have a near identical time every time. Thanks again for the feedback though.

 

[The Friendly Monster]

Not bad, not bad at all. Love the sound effects especially, and the level organization is pretty entertaining.

Thanks a lot, the sound effects were really the last thing to be added. The pizzicato sounds weren't in my initial idea for the game to be honest!

 

[Scottlarock]

looks like pong with a beach ball.

I love XNA, Ihope MS puts out a blade for it soon.

 

[Tain]

Nice! Screens make it look sloppier than it is; the audio surprised me.

What did you think of working with XNA?

Stuck on stage 16. edit: booyah. This is cool.

 

[No_Style]

Thanks a lot, surely you can't have finished it already though?! Major features still to be added include a slicker version of the level editor I've been using and a replay. I'm not sure a timer would be appropriate, a lot of the levels would have a near identical time every time. Thanks again for the feedback though.

No, I didn't finish it yet.

Some of the levels where I could keep the ball alive felt like it would be great time trial opportunities.

It could be just me, but I'm finding the light blue 'pushers' on white lines to be a little difficult to distinguish. Is this by design?

 

[chubigans]

Neato, will check this out later. Gotta support my fellow indie devs!

Also, love the name.

 

[The Friendly Monster]

Nice! Screens make it look sloppier than it is.

What did you think of working with XNA?

Stuck on stage 16.

Yeah, I should probably have a go at putting a better screen up.

XNA is great, I'd only programmed algorithms with notepad and gpp before so it was a pretty nice transition. My major problems with it are the poor audio library and the difficulty letting other people try out my game, it's not that big a deal for people here to install the redistributables but I can't just email it over to my less computer literate friends, a method for building an installer would be good.

Remember that you have 3 levels unlocked at any point, so if you are stuck then move on to the next one! 16 has a fairly nice solution though.

 

[The Friendly Monster]

No, I didn't finish it yet.

Some of the levels where I could keep the ball alive felt like it would be great time trial opportunities.

It could be just me, but I'm finding the light blue 'pushers' on white lines to be a little difficult to distinguish. Is this by design?

Not by design, I'll tweak that now since you're the second person who's said that.

 

[The Friendly Monster]

Neato, will check this out later. Gotta support my fellow indie devs!

Also, love the name.

Thanks a lot.

For those wondering, pizzicati is the plural of pizzicato; an Italian word meaning 'plucked' I think. It's the name given to the method of playing a string instrument where the string is plucked rather than bowed. This is the effect used in the sound effects in the game. To be honest it was a toss up between the italian 'pizzicati' and the dutch 'geplukt'.

 

[DELittle]

This game is great, although I little frustrating for me sometimes.

What did you use to achieve your effects (I'm a programmer so don't worry about getting technical)? Also I love the sound effects. Perhaps some music would top it off?

Once again awesome game . Good job The Friendly Monster

 

[The Friendly Monster]

This game is great, although I little frustrating for me sometimes.

What did you use to achieve your effects (I'm a programmer so don't worry about getting technical)? Also I love the sound effects. Perhaps some music would top it off?

Once again awesome game . Good job The Friendly Monster

Thanks for the kind words. I don't think I need to get technical to describe the effects though! Basically I have a class called "Particle", its similar to the "Ball" class, but particles don't have rotation and do have a colour. In the physics engine I check for collisions between the particles and the lines, goals and fails and do simple collisions (no angular velocity makes it much simpler). Adding collisions between pistons caused too much slowdown. Then I just have a line which reduces the radii of every particle every frame by a certain amount and deletes them when they have radius zero. Now I can just add a bunch of particles in any position at random angles and velocities whenever I like and the physics engine does the rest.

 

[DeformedOnion]

Nice game. The audio was a little strange at first, but, it really grows on you. Nice to see indie game like this, and, once again, awesome job.

 

[nbraun80]

first I'd like to say that this is a pretty fun game....

Secondly, I guess I don't know what you're intentions are for this game and I don't know the technical part of it, but I just wanted to mention if you could get it into shockwave or flash format you could upload it to a site like Kongregate where, if people think it's good enough, you can get some cash.

 

[DeathWasHere]

I played it... I really liked it.

 

[JeremyR]

I think the name is a bit misleading, I don't see any pizza or cats. (Which isn't as strange a combination as you might think, cats love melted mozarella cheese)

Beyond that disappointment, it's not bad at all. There are definitely worse (at least in terms of gameplay) on XBLA...

 

[The Friendly Monster]

Nice game. The audio was a little strange at first, but, it really grows on you. Nice to see indie game like this, and, once again, awesome job.

Thanks a lot.

first I'd like to say that this is a pretty fun game....

Secondly, I guess I don't know what you're intentions are for this game and I don't know the technical part of it, but I just wanted to mention if you could get it into shockwave or flash format you could upload it to a site like Kongregate where, if people think it's good enough, you can get some cash.

Thanks a lot, no intentions for any other distribution though. This is purely a personal/portfolio piece at the moment, it's also not that light on processor power, I doubt flash or shockwave could cope without a lot of effort on my part!

I played it... I really liked it.

Cheers.

I think the name is a bit misleading, I don't see any pizza or cats. (Which isn't as strange a combination as you might think, cats love melted mozarella cheese)

Beyond that disappointment, it's not bad at all. There are definitely worse (at least in terms of gameplay) on XBLA...

Thanks. I explain the name a couple of posts up.

 

[professor_t]

Don't listen to anyone else -- the name is awesome.

I'm hoping I'll get a chance to play this tonight.

 

[DELittle]

Thanks for the kind words. I don't think I need to get technical to describe the effects though! Basically I have a class called "Particle", its similar to the "Ball" class, but particles don't have rotation and do have a colour. In the physics engine I check for collisions between the particles and the lines, goals and fails and do simple collisions (no angular velocity makes it much simpler). Adding collisions between pistons caused too much slowdown. Then I just have a line which reduces the radii of every particle every frame by a certain amount and deletes them when they have radius zero. Now I can just add a bunch of particles in any position at random angles and velocities whenever I like and the physics engine does the rest.

Are you looking into collision detection methods that could speed this up?

 

[Slavik81]

...'d only programmed algorithms with notepad...

*shudder*

 

[The Friendly Monster]

Are you looking into collision detection methods that could speed this up?

Perhaps, in fact I've made a couple of changes to the collision code since adding particles, so it's possible that it'd play fine now. To be honest though it's not a feature I'm desperate to add. Either way is equally aesthetically pleasing to me, I mean should the particles collide with each other too? One thing I do want to change is where a couple of particles "leak" out of the other side of a failure or goal thing.

 

[chubigans]

Just played it. I love the simplicity of it...so great. It reminds me of a game I did a year or so back called Liquisity, but you controlled the ball instead. I really love the piston aspect more though, and the levels so far are just excellently designed.

What do you plan to do with the game, TFM? I just got an email that the Indie Game Showcase is starting to take entries...you should enter this puppy.

http://www.indiegameshowcase.com/

 

[The Friendly Monster]

Just played it. I love the simplicity of it...so great. It reminds me of a game I did a year or so back called Liquisity, but you controlled the ball instead. I really love the piston aspect more though, and the levels so far are just excellently designed.

What do you plan to do with the game, TFM? I just got an email that the Indie Game Showcase is starting to take entries...you should enter this puppy.

http://www.indiegameshowcase.com/

Thanks a lot, any levels you particularly like/dislike?

I'd be well up for submitting my game for a contest/showcase. I haven't looked into it yet at all. Cheers for the link I'll take a look later.

 

[chubigans]

I like them all (hah, what a copout eh?) but I'll let you know once I beat the game which are my favs.

 

[The Friendly Monster]

I like them all (hah, what a copout eh?) but I'll let you know once I beat the game which are my favs.

Don't feel you have to complete them all, 21 is a mess, I wouldn't blame you for not bothering with that one, and I don't know anyone aside myself who's done either 29 or 30.

Did you hear that competitive-GAF?

 

[Mr_Furious]

To be honest it was a toss up between the italian 'pizzicati' and the dutch 'geplukt'.

I think 'geplukt' is a better name

 

[xxjuicesxx]

Got stuck on 16, 18 , and 21. Just cant figure the timing out to get the ball to gain momentum.

 

[The Friendly Monster]

I think 'geplukt' is a better name

Yeah well it's my game!

Got stuck on 16, 18 , and 21. Just cant figure the timing out to get the ball to gain momentum.

On 16

minor hint:

Spoiler

you use all the pistons.

major hint:

Spoiler

from the left hit pistons 4, 2, 4, 1, 4, 3, 4

On 18 just time it right, don't be too quick on the first hit.

21 is just wanktastic, you don't need to gain momentum, just not lose any.

 

[sykoex]

I can't seem to get it to work. If I'm on regular old Vista Home Premium 32-bit, which version of the .net framework am I supposed to download?

When I double click the .exe I just get a message saying "pizzicati has stopped working" :lol

 

[The Friendly Monster]

I can't seem to get it to work. If I'm on regular old Vista Home Premium 32-bit, which version of the .net framework am I supposed to download?

When I double click the .exe I just get a message saying "pizzicati has stopped working" :lol

You need the .NET 2.0 x86 redistributable.

http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/...cb-4362-4b0d-8edd-aab15c5e04f5&displaylang=en

Also the XNA redistributable and the DirectX updates, links in the OP.

 

[The Friendly Monster]

bump for morning Gaf, "morning, Gaf!".

 

[xxjuicesxx]

Definitely a fun game. The sound effects got repetitive and since theres no volume I had to mute it after awhile. More variety and/or background music would be nice. Maybe background scenario. Lots of potential, keep up the good work.

 

[RSP]

I installed everything but it does'nt work

i'm on vista business with a core 2 duo processor. do I need a different .NET framework than the 32 bit?

 

[pn18]

Hi TFM,

I just (tried to) play your game and I think it's awesome! I love the simplistic art style and the sound effects.

However, I can't really play it due a bug. Every time I start pizzicati, the CPU usage of one of my cores goes up to 100% (what makes the game kinda slow as you can easily imagine). I guess it's a problem with your game and not with the XNA Framework itself, because the XNA sample game works fine. Is there anything I could do to help you fixing this problem?

 

[Brashnir]

will play when I get home. sounds interesting.

 

[Shawsie64]

Bookmarked this thread. Will download when im un-capped (shitty Australian internet FTL!!!)

 

[B-Rad Lascelle]

All of a sudden I have this urge to play Trivial Pursuit...

 

[clav]

I can't seem to get it to work. If I'm on regular old Vista Home Premium 32-bit, which version of the .net framework am I supposed to download?

When I double click the .exe I just get a message saying "pizzicati has stopped working" :lol

.Net should already be on your computer. This isn't XP.

 

[MCD]

http://xnamatrix.com/xnareq.php

perhaps this will help.

 

[Tony Rocky Horror]

I can't seem to get it to work. If I'm on regular old Vista Home Premium 32-bit, which version of the .net framework am I supposed to download?

When I double click the .exe I just get a message saying "pizzicati has stopped working" :lol

Same here.. I got all the direct x and xna stuff installed.. tried rebooting. still the same eroor.

edit:

http://xnamatrix.com/xnareq.php

perhaps this will help.

Didn't help either.

 

[Inspirius]

Same for me, I tried the XNA requirements checker and everything was OK but pizzicati won't run.

 

[Meantime]

Really nice