Glubada Pond
It’s clear that this game was inspired both by Taito’s Bubble Bobble and by Novotrade’s Ecco the Dolphin. It’s also clear that A-J Games was both fascinated with monster mechanics and eager to bend Game-Maker toward different goals and play structures, beyond the standard inventory-based action-adventure games.
The usual Game-Maker structure involves finding power-ups and defeating monsters as you travel a map in search of an end point. Here, the developer tried a more classical arcade structure. Instead of searching for a destination, how about we clear the level of enemies to move on. Sounds simple enough, right? The idea goes all the way back to Space Invaders — or Breakout, if you want to get philosophical. The game also draws on the hop-’n-bop structure of games like Mario Bros. or Tumblepop, where you disable enemies before knocking them out for prizes.
As usual, the developer's ambitions led to wrangling with the engine’s eccentricities. And as usual the wrinkles they could never quite smooth out determined the game’s identifying quirks. Limits in character idle sequences meant that a character couldn’t just stay put when done moving, so the fish faces the audience and wiggles back and forth. The end result is odd and a little creepy, but certainly memorable.
Since the only way for a player to progress is to touch a designated exit tile, the game can’t directly tie success to monster deaths. The solution here is for each monster to leave behind a tiny bubble; collect all the bubbles to open a chest. Use the money from the chest in a vending machine, and the machine opens, allowing access to the next level. A problem is in the power levels of enemies.
Any item left over from a monster death would also, technically, be a monster; it would just be a monster with positive rather than negative qualities. If the monster had a lower power level than the character, it would die on contact, passing to the player its positive qualities — such as increasing a counter. It wouldn't do to make every monster of a lower power level, as the player could simply ram them to defeat them; the point here is to shoot bubbles at them to disable them. Yet if one of these higher-level monsters were to touch the reward bubbles, it would defeat those bubbles and cause them to disappear.
This was a dangerous situation. If there were only so many monsters, and thus only so many reward bubbles, what would happen if some of those bubbles vanished before the player could collect them? Basically, the player would be stuck. One solution might be to overload the level with monsters, or even allow them to respawn, and only ask for so-many bubbles to progress. That isn’t ideal either, as Game-Maker has no option to reset counters either on character death or on leaving an area. So if you were to die, or rack up bubbles in an early level, you would build up a backlog that you could trade in later to zoom right through the levels.
The game never really works out the problems, so in that respect it is flawed. It is possible both to get stuck without bubbles and to mine bubbles for later. Despite the inelegance, the game finds its own flow and basically works. The faults almost open up a strategic element. It’s a strange game, though.
Some of the menus were created or altered by Gregory Stone.
Story
You are a happy fish, living in Glubada Pond. Still, you wish you could have more room to play around in -- the pond just isn't big enough. You decide to wander off, in search of the largest body of water you can find. It shouldn't bee too hard with the magical vending machines lying around.
Instructions
Up, down, left, right -- Swim those ways
End (1), PgDn (3) -- Swim to the lower-left and right
Home (7), PgUp (9) -- Jump/swim to the upper-left or right
5 -- Pick up some items
[Space] -- Fire
[Enter] Use bottle item
Items
Small full bottle with straw -- Gives you five HP
Nearly empty, bobbing bottle with straw -- Gives you one HP
Large full bottle -- This is a potion storage unit; press [enter] to take a bottle from it
Small full bottle without straw -- One bottle for your potion storage unit
Tips
When you shoot an enemy, you enclose him in a bubble. If you shoot him again, you burst the bubble.
To finish a round, kill all of the enemies in the round and collect the bubbles left behind. When you have enough bubbles, you can open the treasure chest. Use the gold from the chest in the coin-operated transportation device to leave the round.
The only way to get to some places is to jump out of the water.
Feel free to edit or add to this game at will. Add your name to the credits if you do. Hey, you deserve it! But don't delete any of the names on the list, please.
Credits
Graphics, sound, animation, and all that stuff -- Eric-Jon Waugh
Menus -- Gregory Stone, Eric-Jon Waugh
Some round/monster ideas -- Strahd
Motivation -- Oliver Stone
Inspiration -- That fish in the lake which always seems to be looking at me
Links
Downloads
- Glubada Pond (779.2 kB)
- Level 1-1 map (47.3 kB)
- Level 1-2 map (47.3 kB)
- Level 1-3 map (57.5 kB)
- Level 2-1 map (37 kB)
- Level 2-2 map (44 kB)
- Level 2-3 map (95 kB)
