Godzilla
Release type: Incomplete
Release date: 1996
Levels: ?
Author: Alan Caudel
Website: Dummy Duck
Related games: Big Fat Tank!
One of Alan Caudel's many experiments, Godzilla is more of a sketch than a game: big on the hackery, small on the playability. The idea here, as in Big Fat Tank!, is to employ Game-Maker's total framework of design tools to make a character far bigger than Character Maker alone will allow. Other games such as Castle Test use monster blocks to extend the character; here Caudel uses background blocks.
It's much the same principle that you see in NES and SNES games that throw around big monsters. Much of the time the background will quietly fade to black as the boss monster roams around the screen, spawning appendages or firing projectiles at the character. That's because the game is actually using the background tiles to attack, and hiding its trickery with invisible scrolling and moving sprites.
Godzilla works a little better than Big Fat Tank!, if mostly in the range of control that it allows. As in Dead Awakening (or any number of walk-and-punch games) the character continually walks to the right, with in this case the background animated to look like it's scrolling behind. (Of course, the moon stays perfectly still as our horrible lizard trudges on.) Cars will drive at his knees. Helicopters will buzz at his head. Aim Godzilla's lightning breath down, forward, or upward to clear the path and continue your carnage.
For what it is, the game plays well. Once you get used to the key mapping, it's satisfying to plow through vehicle after vehicle. The game looks great, too. It's so rare to see a Game-Maker game where the character remains centered as the world scrolls by that for a moment you can forget what engine you're in. The only real problem with Godzilla is that after three or four seconds the concept is over. Caudel more or less tossed together the character and moved on.
In effect what we've got in Godzilla is a rail shooter -- one of the most limited of genres, and as a result one of the most promising. There is potential here for some interesting monster patterns; maybe adding legs and barriers to stomp through, or on. With a bit of thought, there could be some strategy to play.
As it is, the game serves as a short technical demo. Here are some things that you can digest, and apply to your own projects down the road. And that's worthwhile enough.
Contents
Story[edit]
N/A
Instructions[edit]
Godzilla will perpetually walk to the right. Use the following keys to clear the path with Godzilla's lightning breath:
- Attack up-right: PgUp/9
- Attack forward: Right Arrow/6
- Attack down-right: Enter key
Credits[edit]
By Alan Caudel
Background[edit]
Alan Caudel:
- I think later I tried a similar concept [to Big Fat Tank! with a Godzilla game. The playable character was the head which remained attached to a body made up of animated background blocks, with a faux-scrolling city skyline below. It worked about as well as the tank game!
Availability[edit]
Godzilla is not known to have been distributed in any form, prior to its addition to the Archive.
Archive History[edit]
After an earlier wave of rediscoveries, on July 13 2011 Alan Caudel provided another archive of previously missing Game-Maker material, including the following:
Links[edit]
Downloads[edit]
- Godzilla (219 kB)
