Cardboard Tube Samurai

Update - March 19, 2003

I've got Gabe running and jumping both directions, and added a 'super jump' feature. Hold down on the 'Crouch' button ([Down Arrow]) for a few seconds, and little sparkles will start appearing. At that point, if you press 'Jump' (which is now the [X] key), Gabe will jump twice as high.

I also added the 'sparkles' as an effect to the weapon charge-up.

Finally, I have a very basic, non-scrolling, single 'map' screen with a bunch of boxes on it that you can run and jump around on. It seems to be working ok, so far!

You can see it in the new screenshot I just added.

About

Not much to say here, yet. The excellent comic strip Penny Arcade has a series of strips about their character Gabe, as a 'cardboard tube samurai.'

A fellow named Andrew posted a thread on the Penny Arcade forums stating he had created some artwork suitable for a Game Boy Advanced game starring the Cardboard Tube Samurai.

I decided to whip up a little demo on my Linux box, taking the art and bringing it to life. You can see screenshots below. Links to download the demo are at the bottom of the page.

Screenshots


Title Screen


Standing


Jumping


Ducking


Charged up!


Slashing

Super Jump Screenshot

Status

Since this is just a demo at the moment, who knows where it will lead. (Possibly nowhere.) On the other hand, the artwork is very cute, the potential for popularity of a game is very high, and the action code I wrote, although kind of poorly written, works quite well.

What we have:
  • Title screen with menu
  • Non-funcitonal Options screen
  • One non-scrolling level screen
  • Gabe, the Cardboard Tube Samurai:
    • Jumps
    • Runs
    • Ducks
    • Slashes
    • 'Charges up' and launches an energy tube projectile weapon!
    • 'Charges up' and does a super jump
  • Various sound effects
  • Straight SDL code; should build for various platforms:
    • Windows
    • MacOS
    • Mac OS X
    • Linux
    • BeOS
    • Amiga

What we need:

  • Options screen
  • More background scenes
  • Enemies?
  • Run the other direction
  • Scrolling?
  • Other attacks and moves?
  • Some kind of point to the whole thing...

Download

Note: This is the original version with no 'charge-up', a dull grey background, and fewer sound effects...
Updated downloads coming in a day or two!

Source Code:
ctsdemo-2003.03.19.tar.gz
Requires SDL, SDL_mixer and SDL_image.

Windows Executable:
ctsdemo-2003.03.19.zip
Requires nothing. Necessary DLLs are included in the ZIP file!