Gravity Has Almost Disappeared, by L [Demo: World 1]

[_L_]

"Things are going away."
"I must see her, before I too go."

Gravity Has Almost Disappeared.

You must use build 944 or higher to play this quest!

This demo only contains World 1. Other worlds will be completed, but not right now.

The protagonist is Ribbon, a small frog girl dolly that someone has forgotten about.

Controls

The "A button" is Jump. Due to ZC limitations, there is only one jumping height. So, press A in midair to call off a jump!!

The "B button" is Powerup. You can only hold one powerup, and collecting another will replace your current powerup. If a Feather ever appears in the box, please report this bug to me.

The Three Coins

Zelda Classic divides its game world into separate, discrete, screens, much like Knytt Stories. This is convenient for me!

Most screens in GHAD have three coins in them. If you collect three coins in rapid succession, your chain count increases by one. If you collect only one or two coins before the "chain timer" runs out, your chain count drops to 1.

What is important is that a chain consists of exactly three coins. If a screen has only two coins on it, then you must avoid them or else lose your chain! If a screen has four or more coins, you must collect only three of them and avoid the remaining coin!

The Experience Meter

You might remember this sort of meter from La Mulana! When you defeat enemies, the meter rises! When it fills, you refill one (1) heart.

The large number is your chain count. The amount of XP you gain from enemies is multiplied by your chain count. So, the longer you maintain the coin chain, the more frequently you will be healed!

The Five Letters

There is one other way to refill a heart! And, in an age-old videogame tradition, that way is to collect letters that spell the name of the protagonist!

That is, an R, an I, two Bs, an O and an N.

But, unlike some other games that you might be thinking of, you will only refill a heart if you collect the six letters in order! When you get that R, the next letter had better be an I, or you'll flunk the whole thing and have to start over with the next R that comes around.

You'd better believe you'll need to be careful around these letters in later levels!

Mailboxes

You might have noticed something if you thought carefully about the experience meter and chain system. You're thinking: surely to maximise your gains you should run through the level once, collecting coins and avoiding enemies, and then, when your chain count is 8x, you go back through the level and defeat the enemies.

This possibility has occured to me! And to that end I have created these teleporters. Touch a mailbox to raise the red flag. Zero or two mailboxes appear in each level. When both boxes' flags are raised, you can warp between them!

Use them to warp from the end of the level back to the beginning, or vice versa! (And they might also be useful if you wanted to take a powerup at the end of the level and use it at the beginning...)

Level Victory Flair

When you enter the cozy little outpost at the end of levels X-1 and X-2, some kind of celebratory animation will occur!

In world 1-1, some fireworks appear.

In world 1-2, some confetti falls from the top of the screen.

This is just a sample of things to come!

Powerups

Projectile powerups can be used to collect distant coins! Use them carefully.

Firewheel: you can send out a circle of fire that rolls along the ground. It can block ANY enemy projectile!

Banana: you can throw it as a boomerang. It can be thrown in any of the 8 directions, and it can drag distant powerups to you, but it's a bit slow.

Lemon: you can change Li'l Suns into coins and coins into Li'l Suns. If you see three Li'l Suns in a row, or two coins and a Li'l Sun, you'll need this item to collect all three coins!

Apple: The symbol of Newton. When you use it in midair, it drops below you and you lose it. But, Newton's Third Law means that you are propelled upward at the same speed at which the apple drops. Use this to make a slightly higher jump to get to a secret place.

Shortcuts

There are secret shortcuts and alternative pathways in levels 1-2 and 1-3. Also, your choice of powerup in these levels will be significant to completing 1-3 and 1-4.

Q&A:

Q) I'm having trouble understanding chains...
A) You must grab the 2nd and 3rd coin before the 1st coin disappears.

Q) This music sounds familiar...
A) They are, in fact, extremely brief samples of various OCRemixes and VGMixes.

Q) These sound effects aren't so great.
A) Some of them are only temporary.

[Russ]

It's pretty fun. I'm impressed.

My only complaint is that when you die, you have to start all over again. It's really annoying.

[Joe123]

Very nice =)

I wasn't too impressed with the jumping though
Since when do ZC limitations mean you can only have one jumping height?

int jumpmax = 6;
int jumptimer;
bool jump;
bool lastA;

	while(true){
		if(Link->InputA && !lastA && !jump && isSolid(Link->X+8, Link->Y+18)){
			jumptimer = 0;
			jump = true;
		}
		if(jump){
			if(Link->InputA && jumptimer < jumpmax){
				if(jumptimer%2 == 0) Link->Jump += 1.35;
			jumptimer++;
			}else jump = false;
		}
	Waitframe();
	}

[_L_]

Well, yeah... but actually I've grown a bit fond of the "press A to call off a jump" system.

It's pretty fun. I'm impressed.

My only complaint is that when you die, you have to start all over again. It's really annoying.

I put in several shortcuts to make it less annoying!

Did you find the "shortcut" at the beginning of 1-2? The one where you, shall we say, do something that Mario would never do?

Spoiler: show

Jump over the pipe instead of walking into it.

[Russ]

No, I didn't think about that! I was too caught up in the Mario style nostalgia.

[C-Dawg]

I'm glad to see people are still cranking out the awesome!