A remake/demake (plus a few new features) of one of my childhood favourites on the C64, "Tapper". It's my first attempt at making something with Pico-8, but it has been extensively tested by myself so hopefully I caught all bugs.
The barebones version was done in one day (got up, started programming, went to bed). Sound, extra graphics, little features and additional animations took three more days.
Manual included in the cart. Enjoy! (and maybe submit your highscores /w difficulty)
Full Manual:
Because stuff has been missed, I'm writing a full explanation of all features here.
You use Z to tap a beer. Holding the button will fill the glass, releasing it will send the beer across the table. The fuller the glass is, the more the receiving patron will be knocked back. If all patrons are knocked out of the bar, you win the level.
Patrons have to be fully inside to catch the glass (nobody likes being served while he hasn't even entered yet). Any glass that is not caught will smash and lose you a life.
When they finish drinking, they send the glass back to you. You have to either catch them, giving you a fresh glass (or loses you life if you fail to), or have the waitress collect them, which is convenient, but gives no points and you have to wait for her to return to receive the glasses.
You send the waitress by pressing X next to the bell at the bottom.
When the barrel is empty or close to empty (3 pixels of beer left), you press X while next to it to order a fresh one.
TIPS:
- Always have the waitress running, especially after level 2! You will need the glasses and can't afford to wait for them.
- The waitress also saves you from moments when two empty glasses arrive at the same time.
- You don't need to always send a full glass. If the patron is near the left end, a half-full glass will be faster and use up less of the barrel.
- At 3 pixels left in the barrel, you can get about one and a half glass out. Think of this as an emergency reserve and get a new barrel as soon as you can.
Great job with this! I always loved Tapper too and at one time thought about making a PICO-8 version. Couple things I noticed -- they aren't necessarily "wrong", because maybe you made these variances intentionally, but figured I'd point them out:
-
In Tapper, you can move horizontally to collect empty glasses (and tips). This makes it a bit easier to manage efficiently.
-
Serving a customer would give a 'knockback'. The goal is to push all the customers off the left side of the screen (out the door?)
- Pressing up while at the topmost bar, or down while at the bottommost bar, wraps the player to the opposite side.
Because of these variances though, the game seems exceptionally difficult, even on "Easy" mode.
Edit: I see you DO in fact have the knockback, but it's so small I hadn't even noticed it on my first playthrough.
@Scathe:
I'm glad you enjoy the game, and thanks for the feedback!
For more knockback, try filling the glass a little more than just a "tap" by holding the button ;-) A good freshly-tapped beer takes time :D
I decided against being able to walk left and instead added the waitress because I always disliked "teleporting" back to the right as soon as I changed the lane, and I don't have a stage you can collect the tips for. I actually forgot that you could wrap around through top or bottom, but had I remembered I'd have left that out too.
Not bad at all. I like the waitress...since she goes through all the rows it makes you think a bit more about when to use it to maximize it.
The limited beer is a killer, however, which I'm not too fond of...especially since you can't get more back. I was expecting the collection of empty glasses to give me more beer.
Pretty sweet. This was an arcade favorite of mine too. I had started a shooter/tapper a while ago but never finished. Yours far exceeds what I would've (re)made. Kudos!
@morningtoast:
Thanks!
You can get more beer by activating the barrel just like the waitress, it's explained in the game :o)
wow I gotta say I love the graphics and animations are really nice, well done!
[Please log in to post a comment]
