Gug's Puzzle Adventure (Homebrew GBA game)
I made Gug's Puzzle Adventure in 2002 with the help of a few friends. It's a short, playable demo, which you can play from your GBA software emulator or flash cart. Please e-mail me with comments and questions.
NOTE: this page has not been substantially updated since 2002.

Table of Contents
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Gug playing on the GBA
Play Gug's Puzzle Adventure!

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2. Screen shots
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3. How to launch and play the game
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Launching the game

First, download the ROM. If you have a way to test on hardware, please use it! Otherwise, use an emulator. Visual Boy will give you all effects except for sound (Ctrl-O will load and run the ROM). Boycott Advance will give you sound, but doesn't support windowing, so menus are obscured by sprites (Ctrl-O will load and run the ROM). Take your pick. Once you run the ROM, hit start (enter) at the splash screen.

NOTE: this game was tested on hardware using the Visoly Flash Advance Linker from Lik-Sang.com. The emulators are pretty good, but hardware's the best way to play it.

Playing the game

Controls:

A (Z in emulator): Swap
B (X in emulator): Push
Start (Enter in emulator): start, brings up menu, exits menu without making a selection
Arrow Keys: direction

Getting Started:

Select a game type from the menu. If you have not played before, I recommend tutorial. It's a quick way to see some of the environments (rain and clouds are in levels two and three), and it will give you an idea of the basic rules, which are:
a) If you get four or more blocks of the same color together, they disappear.
b) If a monster of the same color is standing next to the blocks when they disappear, he'll disappear! However, he does not count towards the four block count.

Next, hit start to go to the menu, and quit. Then play Arcade Mode or Story Mode. I recommend Story Mode for beginners, because Arcade Mode is harder.

Story Mode:

The levels are specially designed to challenge you. Some have time limits. If a monster eats you or you run out of time, you restart the level. If you can't beat a level, you can go to "skip" in the menu if you want to see another of the three levels.

Arcade Mode:

The clock is counting down, and if you run out of time you lose! If a monster hits you, he takes away half your time. Blocks continually come into existence, and when you glom enough, you go to the next level.

Currently, if you "lose", it takes you to the next level so you can see all three levels. Also, if you glom more than four blocks together at once, you get a superstrength powerup! It lets you move immovable blocks, or push two blocks at a time.

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4. Known issues
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  • save and load functionality has been removed.
  • super-secret powerup in story mode doesn't do anything (it will bring you to a secret level in the next version).
  • occasional bug starting level three in story mode-- says game over, but you didn't lose!

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5. Information about the development team
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Project Lead/Lead Programmer:

Matthew Franklin
matt@independentcreator.com

Other programmers:

Craig Olrich
Gordon McNaughton

They did a huge amount of work for this game, and did some pair programming with me to get through the hardest bits. Craig also handled all the workflow stuff like setting up the CVS repository. Thanks!

Lead Artist (only artist!):

Ruth Williams
ruth@animalocean.com

Ruth made every last piece of art for Gug's Puzzle Adventure.

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