Finally, my new milestone in Flash game development. Bass Abyss is ready to play. Play it now. It’s very intuitive, or if you wish, read more first.

Well, actually this is a very solid version, but not the final one. Not even 1.0. Since I was doing Flash experiments the past year I decided I wanted to make a new game with the knowledge gathered. But I didn’t want to make something too ambitious, since I’m still testing the main tile engine. Months ago during my lunch I was playing on of my cell phone games waiting for the time to return to job. The game was Deep Abyss, wich have the basic gameplay Bass Abyss is based on. Then I thought, probably this is the game I should implement to test if my previous experiments were viable or not for a full game. After all, this game is SO simple, it runs on a dumb cell phone, I mean, how demanding can be to implement this game? I bet I’ll have it ready in a week.

Yeah, right. I underestimated badly this one, considering the little time I can devote to my personal stuff nowadays. But well, since I bet code this thing for a cell phone must be endless times harder than in Flash, I took the challenge very seriously. Especially for all the stuff I plan to add later.

Development improvements.

I’m glad with the stuff implemented so far:

Engine separated of content. In theory, I can keep creating more and more levels, and the same engine will just play them without any major change.

New loading system. This time the game assets (music, graphics, levels) will be loaded on demand. So no more waiting for a 4MB game if you didn’t want to play beyond the first level. Downside: You must be online all the time. Not a problem if you use cable, dsl, or any better broadband connections.

New configuration menu. While playing, just press ENTER to set the controls. Changes take effect immediately. Yeah, pretty standard stuff in commercial games, so I did the extra job to solve that.

New high score system. Well, the new stuff is actually in the backend. For now I emulated the high score system of Deep Abyss. I don’t agree very much with it, these are the speedrun times, so in a next version I expect to have that implemented as in my earlier games.

Those modules above were meant to be reused in future games, so I expect to polish them even more while I develop this game.

What is the game about?

Just play it. It didn’t come with instructions for me. But well, if you really want the surprise spoiled I’ll tell you the logic I detected.

You play as Bass and must find the exit of some maps. The game consists in many levels. They are very cheap, traps everywhere. One touch to spike wall, or lava, and you’re dead.
The problem is that find the exit is not enough. You’re required to find a minimum number of discs, or the exit won’t open. Extra bonus if you find all the discs of the level.

There are plenty of moving platforms. Some slow down when you land of them, others change direction and others totally stop.

And that’s it. Of course the maps get more challenging as you advance. Even I haven’t beaten the game, so I don’t know how long it is, but I plan to make all the maps I’ve unlocked so far.

For the rush of this update, there are only 3 maps. I expect to add another one, or more before the next week end. Also sorry for the simple look of the maps, since I was just testing, I didn’t spent much time beautifying them. But expect better looking one, or even revamps of the current ones once I find some free time. We all know it can be done if you checked the past Vile demo.

Why the rush? Well, this is the FIFA WORLD CUP month! I’ve planned to watch as much matches as I can. Watch those matches, the news, the discussions will keep me busy, that was my rush to pause this development for now. Really, I have plenty of maps to add, but I’ll just enjoy the worldcup first.

The Plot of the game?

Hahaha. Good one.

That would be all for now. Have fun and contact me if you find any (remarkable) bug.