Ann: Pizza Panic [Arcade Lab]

[Daniel]

Hey,

Just wanted to show you guys our latest game, Pizza Panic.

A retro-style platform game where you play as a pizza delivery guy, and race around the neighborhoods of Crustville delivering tasty food for Mr. Ravioli's restaurant!

Some screenies:
http://www.pizzapanic.com/img/pizza-panic-screen-1.jpg
http://www.pizzapanic.com/img/pizza-panic-screen-2.jpg
http://www.pizzapanic.com/img/pizza-panic-screen-3.jpg
http://www.pizzapanic.com/img/pizza-panic-screen-4.jpg

One of the reasons I'm particually glad to show this game is because it's one of those games that started out as an early concept over 3 years ago, but at that point there were other games we chose to play our cards on, and frankly we didn't expect this title to see daylight.

But over time and between other game releases, ideas crossed our minds and about a year ago we felt that we simply couldn't stay away from working at a platform game... still only as a part time project, but at least things were moving forward.

So here we finally are.. back to basics with a new platform game, made out of pure love for the genre!

Direct link - PC version: http://www.pizzapanic.com/pizza_panic_trial.exe
Direct link - MAC version: http://www.pizzapanic.com/pp_trial_installer_macosx.zip

Best,

[jessechounard]

I really like the look of the game, and I'll give the demo a go when I get home from work tonight.

I wonder if the name is too similar to the recently released Pizza Frenzy, though.

[Emmanuel]

It's an awesome game. It has the looks of the best amiga platformers (copper bars for the sky and all!) and I just can't stop playing it.

As previously mentioned, when you click through the level summary, the game stops awarding you stars wherever you clicked; I expected to get them all whether I interrupted the summary or not. I don't know if that's by design or not..

Oh, and wow, you pumped out two games in two weeks (BOE 2 and this one). You've got to have the best number of posts (73) / games released (13) ratio here!

Best regards,
Emmanuel

[Chris Evans]

Whoo hoo, I can't wait to try this. I've been waiting for a new ArcadeLab platformer for a long while.

[arcadetown]

Looks great and ran fine on my computer. One thing I'd like to see is ability to choose a male or female character to better appeal to the women out there. Some women identify with the "skater chick".

btw - love that mouse control, uber smart.

[adamw]

Yup, I agree. Looks and plays great. Is there any way to play with the mouse? I didn't even check out the options screen .

But wonderful game. Well done!

[jessechounard]

Okay, I played the demo like I said I would.

For some reason when I saw the screenshots, I kind of expected something like Happyland Adventures from Free Lunch. Since it's one of my favorite PC platformers, that's hard to measure up to, but I think you guys have done a pretty good job.

I really like the graphics, especially the little touches, like the character using his foot to push and the skateboard animation when jumping and landing.

I didn't care for the font in the rewards screen. Everything was in italics and sort of grainy. (I'm played it on a 21" monitor, so I suppose the problem is that everything is being stretched up.)

My only real beef with the game is the difficulty didn't scale up fast enough for my tastes, but since you're likely targeting a casual gaming audience, that's probably a good thing.

All in all, really good work. I hope you sell a bunch of copies.

[Fabio]

..after a long pause, we were expecting something good from ArcadeLab, but this one is instead..

Excellent!!

Finally a PC platform game with the '80s feel and gameplay but great looking, modern gfx!!

Runs great on my PC, it's not demanding resource-wise yet it is smooth and graphically rich.

BTW: Mr.Ravioli's "You can do better" was really hilarious.

[Daniel]

Thanks for your comments!

Glad to hear all the positive feedback... and that ppl actually have waited for a new platform game!

RE: ArcadeTown

We are considering adding a female character for the next version!
Thanks for the comment on the mouse control. We did put a lot of time tweaking the mouse controls.
As ppl seem to feel comfortable with it, I guess it was worth every minute spent.

RE: Emmanuel

If you skip the summary or click the mouse button half-way through it, you should still receive the same amount of stars as if you didn't click...
My bet is that you didn't fullfil all the goals at that level.

RE: adamw

The game will automatically detect wheter you're using the mouse or the keyboard!
This way, you can start playing the game with the controls that spontaneous comes to mind, making it easy on both casual and non-casual gamers.

RE: jessechounard

Yes, the native resolution of the game is 640x480, so it might feel a bit stretched out on larger screens. It should look ok on monitors up to 19".

It would be possible to re-render the fonts and characters in a higher resolution, but at this point I'm not sure it's worth it.
Running a side-scroller in 1024x768 will probably kill the framerate even on modern video cards, as the DDraw part hasn't evolved a bit. Actually, many recent video cards run DDraw slower than older cards! The solution would be to switch to a 2D-3D mode, but that would change the system req. and be too much hazzle.

Thanks for tip on Happyland Adventures. I'll check it out!

RE: Fabio

Hehe, I can see you find Mr.Ravioli's fake accent rather entertaining.

[Dan MacDonald]

Very nicely designed little game. I hope it does well for you. I enjoyed the mouse control as well, it felt very natural.

[Fabio]

Originally Posted by Daniel

RE: Fabio

Hehe, I can see you find Mr.Ravioli's fake accent rather entertaining.

Indeed, BTW: it reminds me of people from the region of Sardinia, who are best known to be very stubborn.

[svero]

Very good. I hope it's a hit. Then certain people working on certain sequels instead of certain platform games would really have to eat crow!

[Anthony Flack]

Woo!

Your guy looks like a hamburger, but I'm going to have to try this one. This looks like that game I've been waiting to see since Superstar Chefs.

[Mike Boeh]

I like it too. Ola rocked the gfx as usual, and you guys did a great job coding it... As a casual game, I like it more than any other platformer because it's more about timing than hand-eye coordination, so it just might work!

[svero]

I think the key casual item is how right the got the mouse control right for a platformer. Its a nice natural feel. I think if this succeeds we'll see quite a few other platform games that are mouse only over the next few years. Not that I wouldn't want somehting with lots of buttons.. but that's just me.

[Raptisoft]

Very good. I hope it's a hit. Then certain people working on certain sequels instead of certain platform games would really have to eat crow!

I just want to randomly state that Steve Verreault is out of his tiny, Canadian mind.

The game looks good!

[Kaos]

I like this game! I'm gonna buy it!

How many levels are in the trial, btw?

[DadTimesTwo]

This game flat out rocks. Oh how long I've waited for something like this! (Since Bud Redhead came out.)

[Daniel]

RE: Kaos

I think we threw away like 30 levels (out of 60+) when creating the trial version.
However, I'm pretty sure you will run out of evaluation time before running out of levels (except maybe if you rush through them like crazy!?!)

RE: DadTimesTwo

Means a lot to hear you say that!

Agree with you on Bud Redhead.. It's an extremely well pulled off platformer, especially for being ~2 years old I think.

Most things feel very well-balanced and I personally love the gfx.
There are two major downsides that annoys me with this game though. The first being the difficulty which is a little too high for my taste, and the second being the in-air controls.
But like I said, just my personal opinion. It's still one of the absolute best platformers out there!

Originally Posted by jessechounard

I wonder if the name is too similar to the recently released Pizza Frenzy, though.

Not sure why this game has made a second appearence.
I remember seing it early 2005 already, but by some reason it didn't make much noise... But ppl did seem to enjoy it!

Perhaps anyone knows why PFrenzy has made a comeback?

[Bmc]

Originally Posted by Daniel

RE: Kaos

I think we threw away like 30 levels (out of 60+) when creating the trial version.
However, I'm pretty sure you will run out of evaluation time before running out of levels (except maybe if you rush through them like crazy!?!)

RE: DadTimesTwo

Means a lot to hear you say that!

Agree with you on Bud Redhead.. It's an extremely well pulled off platformer, especially for being ~2 years old I think.

Most things feel very well-balanced and I personally love the gfx.
There are two major downsides that annoys me with this game though. The first being the difficulty which is a little too high for my taste, and the second being the in-air controls.
But like I said, just my personal opinion. It's still one of the absolute best platformers out there!



Not sure why this game has made a second appearence.
I remember seing it early 2005 already, but by some reason it didn't make much noise... But ppl did seem to enjoy it!

Perhaps anyone knows why PFrenzy has made a comeback?

I don't think it has, Popcap just put it up on their site. It hasn't reappeared anyplace else that I'm aware of.

[Greg Squire]

Very well done! I love it. The mouse seemed a bit sluggish for my tastes, but not unplayably so. It still was pretty easy to control. I think you have good seller on your hands.

[svero]

A couple of suggestions...


1) make the wrench more menacing.. i keep trying to pick it up for some reason
2) add a percentage of full game completed display on the map somewhere (ie all goodies unlocked and all stars collected and all levels won == 100%)

[Game Producer]

Repeating the things others said: looks good

Btw, have you considered making a deal with some local pizza place? Maybe you could get a pizza sponsor (show their pizza/logo in the intro, and make a package or place named by them?). Just an idea to get you few more $$$ with your game.

[svero]

I like that pizza sponsership idea... Could be some money there. Domino's Pizza Frenzy?

[Martin Flegel]

Hi Ola,

Great looking game again. I will download and try it.

By the way, with which engine do you make the Mac versions
of your game(s)? 2 separate engines for windows and mac, or one engine with 2 'compiles'?

Hope it becomes a hit.
Martin

[Chris Evans]

Okay, finally got a chance to play it for awhile.

First impressions were great. Everything is nice and polished with the ArcadeLab style. Though once I got into the game, initially I felt the player moved too slow for my taste. Also I was a little disappointed that there wasn't a time bonus for delivering pizzas quickly. Usually with "delivery" type games, you want to deliver the items as quickly as possible (Though your game is probably more realistic since most pizza joints nowadays don't make time guarantees anymore. )

However, after the first couple levels I started to enjoy the game more since I realized I was playing a platformer and not a quasi-"Crazy Taxi" game. The levels look great and I love all the little animation touches. Still, I would have preferred if the whole game was as fast as the race bonus level. But I guess you're aiming for the casual audience, so it makes sense. You've managed to make a relaxing platformer, if that's possible! So congrats. I hope the portal users give this game a fair shake.

[Martin Flegel]

Yesterday I played it and really liked it.
Though I did have some problems with control of joystick (or keyboard?)
Anyway, when I enabled joystick in the options, I still could only play it with the mouse.
And yes, maybe there should be a time limit for delivering your pizzas.

But overall it is a really nice game.

Martin

[Kaos]

I bet this game makes it to the top 5 on Big Fish Games as well on Real Arcade games!

If I don't spend too much $ when I go on my Labor Day vacation, I will more than likely buy it when I get back.

[Daniel]

Just bumping this thread to thank you for all comments, and to let you know that we've finally decided to break the exclusivity on Pizza Panic. So this is definitely a big moment for us...

The game just launched at Reflexive, so I'm crossing my thumbs! The game has been updated with some new features since last time, and the Vista support and some bug fixes are there as well. Really hope this will improve the game even further...