Amazon Delivery - Deliver a package in the jungle (Game jam game)

[dhaber]

Last weekend I was the programmer on a team at a local game jam.  We made Amazon Delivery, a game where you control a drone in the jungle and must attempt to deliver a package while avoiding obstacles.   The game play is some what inspired by Flappy Birds (sorry!), but with varied obstacles, some different dynamics, and a proper ending.

 

I used my own engine to make this game.   I also used Box2dWeb for the physics, and TimelineFX to create some sprite sheets of the fire and fire balls.    The audio is procedurally generated with SFMaker.    We had most of the game completed in about 10 hours, and I'm pretty happy with how this turned out.

 

 

Play Amazon Delivery

(For the time being, this is Chrome only.  It works less perfectly with other browsers or with mobile devices.)

 

For a little more information on the game, see HERE.

 

I did make a build with CocoonJS for the Amazon FireTV.  I found that both that and an Android phone almost worked, but Box2dWeb occasionally caused performance issues resulting in jittering.  Also, some of the audio didn't play on the Android versions.  I'm not sure why that is.  

 

CocoonJS was a pleasure to work with, but I didn't really see any performance improvements over the mobile version of Chrome.   I remember seeing that they had native Box2d support, and I'd like to try that out someday.  That might fix the performance issues.   As for the audio issues, I am using SFMaker as  a library to procedurally generate the audio on load, and so switching to audio files could probably remedy all of those.

[Orbital Game Studios]

Was the "game jam" hosted at Amazon? I was unable to attend this year but was wondering how it went. Cool game! I've also experienced audio issues in the kindle devices either as an app or running a web version in the silk browser.

[dhaber]

Was the "game jam" hosted at Amazon? I was unable to attend this year but was wondering how it went. Cool game! I've also experienced audio issues in the kindle devices either as an app or running a web version in the silk browser.

 

Yeah.  It was HOGJam #5, put on by HouseOGame and Amazon.   The theme was fire, and that is why there is so much fire.   It was a good game jam with a great space, and it sounds like they may be planning more, so hopefully I'll see you at future ones.

 

The game is named Amazon Delivery because it takes place in the Amazon, and makes no reference to the company that happens to be named Amazon.

[remvst]

The game is named Amazon Delivery because it takes place in the Amazon, and makes no reference to the company that happens to be named Amazon.

That's funny because Amazon announced they would start using drones a while ago

 

Anyway, the game is fun. I don't like Flappy clones but this one looks different enough to me.

 

If you're still working on it, I would suggest improving the graphics, and making it a little less hard

[dhaber]

 

Anyway, the game is fun. I don't like Flappy clones but this one looks different enough to me.

 

If you're still working on it, I would suggest improving the graphics, and making it a little less hard

 

I agree with you, I'm not much of a Flappy Birds fan myself either.  I tried to make it a little different and add some variety to spice it up, but at its core it is an intentionally difficult game with flappy-like controls.   It seems like most people who have been trying it give up after the first bird or second volcano, which means most people probably aren't that into flappyesque games either.

 

It actually was much harder before.   I had a few people play test it at the game jam, and after watching I kept making it easier and easier.    Last night I made some final changes to make it far easier.   It is probably still too difficult, but I'm really hoping that somewhere in the world a Flappy Birds lover finds this game and actually makes it to the ending.  I know they exist.   Someone at the game jam showed me his high score on Flappy Birds on his phone, and it was over 400.   (EDIT: Apparently youtube shows people getting far beyond that.   It amazes me that people keep playing.)

[remvst]

I agree with you, I'm not much of a Flappy Birds fan myself either.  I tried to make it a little different and add some variety to spice it up, but at its core it is an intentionally difficult game with flappy-like controls.   It seems like most people who have been trying it give up after the first bird or second volcano, which means most people probably aren't that into flappyesque games either.

 

It actually was much harder before.   I had a few people play test it at the game jam, and after watching I kept making it easier and easier.    Last night I made some final changes to make it far easier.   It is probably still too difficult, but I'm really hoping that somewhere in the world a Flappy Birds lover finds this game and actually makes it to the ending.  I know they exist.   Someone at the game jam showed me his high score on Flappy Birds on his phone, and it was over 400.   (EDIT: Apparently youtube shows people getting far beyond that.   It amazes me that people keep playing.)

Oh well I am a big Flappy Bird fan. I just don't like the cloning trend that it triggered.

 

Regarding the difficulty, I tried it again and I think it is too difficult. It's probably because the drone jumps too high and therefore it is hard to be accurate. Just for reference, I got 87 on Flappy, and I still think yours is too difficult

[dhaber]

Regarding the difficulty, I tried it again and I think it is too difficult. It's probably because the drone jumps too high and therefore it is hard to be accurate. Just for reference, I got 87 on Flappy, and I still think yours is too difficult

 

I've considered changing that a little.   Over the course of development I got used to it, but there is an oddity that I'm guessing makes it very different than Flappy Birds.  When you click, force is applied upwards, but your downward momentum is not removed, and so the faster you are falling the less you will rise.   This is subtle and it is probably essential to understand to make it through some of the areas.   I'll play around a little, but maybe if I disable that, lower the amount of force a little, and slightly raise how often you can apply force, then it will be a bit easier.

 

Thanks for the feedback.   I am tempted to make the change, because I keep seeing people try the game and give up too soon.   I really want see some people beat the game.

[dhaber]

Thanks for the feedback.   Nearly all the feedback I got from play testers as well was that the game was too difficult, so I made some changes:

• Arcade physics instead of realistic physics.  Clicking now clears the downward momentum before applying the force, so that you always gain the same amount of distance for a click.
• Less rope.  The package is now tied to the drone with a shorter rope, resulting in less wild swinging and making the player a little smaller.
• Less time between clicks.  You can now add lift every 400ms instead of every 500ms.
• Less lift per click.  Each click gives you a smaller push than before, so that it is easier to control and maneuver.
• Collision box fix.  The fire ball's collision radius was too big.  Now it lines up properly.

It is still a very difficult game, but this seems to make it a fair amount easier.  I have no doubt people will still tell me it is too difficult, but I'm hoping this is a better balance.

• More information about the update
• Play the game  (Be sure to reload the page to make sure you have the latest version, and not a cached copy)

 

Thanks again for the feedback!

[laurakelly124]

Such a wonderful game...

 

I like your concept about this post..

 

Thanks to share this.