Q*Bert ?-??-83


 

This is a late beta for Q*Bert.  The game is pretty much complete, but there are some sound and music differences.  There's also an odd bug in the movement logic for Coily where he can jump off the pyramid under certain circumstances.  Although it's impossible to trigger this bug without dying (Coily must be on the lower right square and it's impossible to lead him there without being hit), it was still fixed before the final version shipped.  The WIP.5 on the label stands for Work in Progress version 5.

Special thanks to Kr0tki for analyzing the code for me to find these differences


Prototype Differences
The order in which the end of level music is played is different.  In the final version each of the four different tunes are played in order: tune 1 after level 1, tune 2 after level 2, tune 3 after level 3, and tune 4 (which is also the starting tune) after level 4.  When the player completes level 5 it starts with tune 1 again.  In this prototype tune 4 is played after levels 1 and 2, tune 1 after levels 3 and 4, tune 2 after levels 7 and 8, and tune 3 after level 9 and every level after.
The Red Ball is a slightly lighter shade of red
Sam's jumping sound is very different
Wrongway and Ugg's jumping sounds are very different
The path finding algorithm for Coily has a bug in this prototype.  Normally after Q*Bert jumps onto a disc Coily will pursue him for up to 4 moves and if he reaches the edge of the pyramid he will jump off.   However if Coily does not reach the edge in four moves he will ‘randomly’ move around the pyramid (moving to the bottom right corner then to the bottom left) until Q*Bert drops back off the disc after which he will begin chasing Q*Bert again.  In WIP 5 there’s a bug in the ‘random movement’ routine which makes Coily jump off the pyramid after reaching the bottom right corner instead of then moving towards the lower left corner.  This was fixed in the final version.

An additional collision check is made when Q*Bert and an enemy are jumping towards the same cube.  This check was removed from the final as it was unnecessary due to the fact that there’s already a collision check made once Q*Bert lands on a cube.  This extra check is also flawed as it only checks for collision when both characters are very close to landing on the cube which means that if the player jumped off fast enough they could potentially escape being hit.  However this isn’t actually possible to do due to the other collision check being in place.



Bye bye Coily!

 

This was actually the original name of the game

 

Notice how the Red Ball is a shade lighter?

 

Here's the Red Ball from the final for comparison

 

 

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