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The Mayan Mystery is a retro-inspired metroidvania with an emphasis on exploration. You play as Mitch, and with the help of your best friend (Otis) and mentor (Dr.A), must stop Horatio Hawk from escaping the Mayan temple with a magical artifact! This is the first in a series of games that will take the Adventures Apes from one location to the next, one era to the next, all in an effort to keep the world's most precious treasures out of Horatio's hands! The full version one the Adventure Apes Webpage has 5 bosses and more than 100 rooms plus an illustrated instruction booklet! :)

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Well, it has been a VERY long time since I've had any news to write about!

Mayan Mystery Updates Coming!

Between the last article and this one, the Mayan Mystery was part of a local election campaign which focused on the importance of the entertainment industry here in Vancouver. That was a really unique experience, and I doubt an opportunity for that kind of mass exposure will come around again.

The game is approaching the one-year mark from its release, and suggestions have been made along the way. For the longest time, I really wanted to move on from the game and work on something new.

Lately however, I've been thinking more and more about the suggestions you guys made, and in the end, what I really want is to make the game as enjoyable as possible! The two biggest issues that seem to get brought up are the slow overall performance, and the lack of built-in gamepad controls.

Well, I am officially going back into the game to fix both those issues! Aside from ironing out a few coding bugs, the built-in gamepad controls are nearly complete. The bigger, more time consuming fix is the performance issue. I'm almost positive I know the fix for it, but it will take a little time to implement, so please be patient with me.

A patch to the game is coming, and when it does, I hope that it will make the game much easier to play for everyone (including you laptop guys and gals)!

_______________________________________


Mayan Mystery Sequel in Development!

Okay, that's a bit of a lie.
It's not really a sequel, because it takes part roughly at the same time as Mitch is battling his way through the Mayan temple. In the lead up to the Mayan Mystery, Mitch's pal Otis hits his head and has to remain behind.

Well, he's all healed up, and headed into space!

Originally, the game was going to be a top-down game, similar to Asteroids (see the most recent blog entry). It was playing great, and was a lot of fun, but my heart wasn't in it the way it should be. It was too much of a departure from the Mayan Mystery, both graphically and in terms of game mechanics (was trying to incorporate physics).

Anyways, that was a failure. I tweaked the game's storyline and style of play, and voila! Adventure Apes 1.5: Galactic Gladiator is born!

Galactic Gladiator is a side-scrolling arena shooter style game with pixelly graphics and NO physics. It's been in the works the last few months, and I'm intending it to be the sort of game you can play for a few minutes here or there, instead of having to slog your way through mazes. It's about 30% done at this point, and am hoping to jump straight back into it once the Mayan Mystery updates are taken care of.

Okay, so if you're wondering how this game is shaping up, let me show you!

The game takes place on an asteroid with six stages to choose from...the junction points have randomly created mini-games to play as well. They let you earn bonus crystals, as well as a change of pace from the hectic blasting action!

Here's a little video of the games if you are curious :)

There will be a variety of other gladiators as you can see below, each with various classes!

So, it's going to be a busy time for me the next little while setting all this up! I am optimistic the next batch of updates for the Mayan Mystery will make a world of difference for the players, and am really looking forward to showing everyone how Galactic Gladiators shapes up.

Thanks so much for reading through all this!!

Adventure Apes and the Mayan Mystery: Post Stuffing Bundle Update!

Adventure Apes and the Mayan Mystery: Post Stuffing Bundle Update!

News

Exposure from the latest Indie Royale has been great, and garnered some well-deserved critisism!

The Stuffing Bundle

The Stuffing Bundle

News 5 comments

Stuff yourself with indies in the IndieRoyale Bundle featuring Dream Machine, Puzzle Agent 2, Children of the Nile, Anomaly: Warzone Earth and more!

Adventure Apes and the Mayan Mystery is on Desura!

Adventure Apes and the Mayan Mystery is on Desura!

News 2 comments

After a long battle with anguish, the day has come to rejoice!

Mayan Mystery is Done (and Free)!

Mayan Mystery is Done (and Free)!

News

A full version of the game is now available to play!

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Adventure Apes and the Mayan Mystery

Adventure Apes and the Mayan Mystery

Demo

Try your hand at the first two (and a half!) levels in the Mayan Mystery with this demo of the game. Explore an ancient temple and the catacombs beneath...

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abort_user
abort_user

getting a weird bug. the game crashes when i try to save in one spot. i think i am in the second area (lots of water).

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ScaryPotato Creator
ScaryPotato

I just uploaded a new version with built-in Xbox gamepad controls, along with what I hope will be much smoother performance overall. Just needs to be reviewed/approved, and then everything should be good to go!

If you try it and notice anything not working, please let me know (because of the addition of a new item, you might get an error message if you play the game using an old save file. You should be able to canel the message and keep playing though until you reach the next save point)

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Orpheusftw
Orpheusftw

Nice sprites. Not a bad game at all, though its a little rough around the edges in certain places.
I got painted into a corner by saving in an area that requires bombs to escape. I can't imagine it would break the game too badly if bomb ammo were just unlimited.

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QuintLindwurm
QuintLindwurm

Also apparently they just updated the game to deal with "player trap in a save room".

I just wish they'd be more generous with ammo, in general.

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QuintLindwurm
QuintLindwurm

It would make more sense for all ammo to be unlimited, or to just draw from one common ammo pool, with one or two basic weapons that have unlimited ammo (such as the blue shooter and the bombs).

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kalirion
kalirion

Game is unplayably slow on my laptop (1.3Ghz Core 2 Duo, Intel 4500mhd). Seems to be maxing or almost maxing my CPU.... Never had this problem with gamemaker games.

Outside area feels as slow motion. Much faster inside the temple, but with constant slowdowns which make platforming impossible.

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ScaryPotato Creator
ScaryPotato

That lag that you're experiencing is a result of my lack of understanding things when I first started creating the game, and I apologize for that! Unfortunately, fixing it would mean re-building the game from the ground up.
This is my first attempt at making a game, and I promise that I'm taking everything learned to make the next one better!

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HooterBabby
HooterBabby

Does anyone know where I can find a walkthrough on mapping the 360 controller to this?

I tried Joy2Key but the interface is really bad and keys are given odd names other than what they should be called which is X, A, B, Y, RB, LB, RS, LS, etc.

Is there a time table until the 360 controller aka PC Gaming's Default controller is native to the game?

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Tazi
Tazi

Please, anyone could help me out on how to get more bombs? Enemies only rarely drop bombs, so I always get stucked in rooms with breakable walls, and there's a room where you have to have at least 4 bombs to go trough a passage, no idea how to get that many.

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ScaryPotato Creator
ScaryPotato

Hi Tazi, it might be somewhat rare to have enemies drop bomb ammo, but there are large bomb refills (you get 5 bombs) scattered throughout levels. If you aren't having any luck by going to previous rooms and re-defeating enemies, or already found all the large bomb refills, try describing the room you're having troubles with (and the level you're on), and I'll see if I might have made a dead-end in that particular room.

Thanks!

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Tazi
Tazi

I guess I was just unlucky because enemies slowly started to drop bombs in my next play session, so I was able to get trought that section, beat the 2nd boss, and advance to the next level. But thanks for the reply! :)

An other thing I'd like to ask is, since this game was made in GM:S which supports them, any chance for a controller support update in the future?

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ScaryPotato Creator
ScaryPotato

I never considered making the game with controller support, but it has been brought up more than a few times! You can use Joy2Key to give the game a try with your gamepad though:)

It is a feature that I am adding to the next game though (and the overall controls will be MUCH simpler too!)

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HooterBabby
HooterBabby

Yeah I literally cannot play games like this with the keyboard, good to know that Joy2Key works for it though. Now I just have to figure out how to get it to work.

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ScaryPotato Creator
ScaryPotato

Hi HooterBabby, if you haven't already got joy2key set up, there is a pretty nice youtube video that walks you through everything.
I hope this helps!

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Tazi
Tazi

Thanks for the reply!
I think there's a fairly simple method for adding joy-support to Game Maker, in case you consider building it into Adventure Apes later. ;)

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