As I sit in the dismal dungeon that is castle Glastonbridge's Beanbag development suite (also living room), listening to Amy writing Oasis Zone music, I can confidently tell you that we haven't abandoned work on Mr Beanbag. We may have been distracted by other projects from time to time, and we may have been caught up in feature creep ("let's add another secret zone" - Amy), but we're still going to get this done. I'm less sure who the publisher will be now- we missed the original deadline by a good couple of years, but our number one priority is to get the actual work done and worry about the details afterwards. Believe me, it'll be worth the wait!

Sorry for the delay, and thank you to everyone who has been supporting us!
Posted by spacefish on Saturday 17th 2008f May 2008 08:08:58

Hi all! Good news- the levels are FINISHED! We've got loads of space left on disk, so we're going to cram as many bonus stages on as possible :)

Also: count down for Christmas with Mr Beanbag. I'll be adding a few other things to the calendar as the month goes by, so there'll be more to see than just a new picture each day!
Posted by spacefish on Thursday 30th 2006f November 2006 03:34:48

Well well, we've been busy. Marbe Mansion and Techno Temple zones are now complete, which means all the levels are done and the game is now playable right through from start to finish. There are also three new bonus levels: River Rapids, Supermarket Dash and Memory Melody. We should also get some screenshots up ASAP (like we promised ages ago...)

We will add some end-of-level bosses and the final game completed sequence to finish it off over the next week or so, and the 3 remaining bonus levels.

We're now measuring the time to completion in days, rather than months (or years :-/)

Posted by tricky on Thursday 23rd 2006f November 2006 09:15:47

Yes! Treat.

Check the Demo page for a special edition Halloween level demo! Specially for you.

Not a trick. Honest.

Posted by tricky on Saturday 28th 2006f October 2006 12:05:17

The Techno Temple is now about 1/3 complete. This is the 10th and final zone!

Also work on Marble Mansion zone still progresses, with 1 level complete already and another almost done.

I've also optimised the code of the game engine some more, just to make sure it can handle everything the Mansion and Temple zones can throw at it. Remember the aim is a constant 50fps on a stock A1200 (that means no fast ram!).

Posted by tricky on Thursday 13th 2006f July 2006 12:30:38

Now with the Caves zone done and dusted, there are only 2 zones left to do. Work has started on the level design for Marble Mansion already. Screenshots will appear soon.

We're also still only up to about 530k of disk space used... plenty of space for extra bonus stages and end of level bosses etc. We intend to fit as much into the game as possible.

Mr Beanbag 2 might have to use the revolutionary new "Two Disk Technology" though.

Posted by tricky on Wednesday 21st 2006f June 2006 10:05:58

We've updated the game engine a bit since the first time we posted the demo, so here it is again. Now it should be a bit easier to see what you are jumping on, but do let us know what you think.

Also this version contains not one shred of compiled AMOS, unlike the original, this is 100% of ASM code. Note 30k decrease in filesize (would be even smaller, but the music sample set has increased with the addition of new levels).

As for progress on the game itself, Rainbow Descent bonus level is now complete.

Update 2006-05-21 @ 17:19 BST:
We have just found out the demo does not work on A4000 computers from Workbench if you are using a screen mode from a graphics card. Setting Workbench down to 640x256 @ 8 colours should allow the game to run. I will look into fixing this problem as soon as possible. There should be no problems booting the demo from floppy disk.

Posted by tricky on Saturday 20th 2006f May 2006 03:34:05

Another bonus level has been added, "Levitation Meditation", which connects Madras Zone with Clouds Zone. Work on "Rainbow Descent" is also underway, which connects Clouds Zone to Antarctic Zone.

There will be a bonus level between every zone.

The Caves Zone is now nearly finished, with 4 complete levels and 1 still in production. Marble Mansion zone has also been implemented, but we don't have any levels for it yet.

I've also been interviewed by Jurrasic Pack disk magazine, which should appear in issue #16.

Finally, hello to Amiga-News.de as I know you are watching us!

Posted by tricky on Monday 15th 2006f May 2006 02:30:30

Ok a few of you have expressed reservations about the game engine's look-ahead camera system, which can make it difficult to see what's beneath you when you jump. I've reduced the look-ahead effect on the Y axis several fold, so hopefully it's a bit more acceptable now. Will upload a new compile of the playable demo soon.

Also the code has been super-optimised so now we can fit more objects on screen before it slows down. All important for the new crazy-action caves levels (of which we now have 3 complete levels).

Posted by tricky on Tuesday 02nd 2006f May 2006 12:55:01

After a brief sojourn (Tricky and I are both working on other things at the moment) we've got back on track, and the caves levels are starting to get finished. We've got loads of disk space left on our floppy, so we'll squeeze in as many special stages and bad guys as we can!

Also, I've added spam protection to the guestbook, but I haven't told anybody. Basically, until your message has been approved, only you can see it. It's been really necessary, because hundreds of spam messages are turning up in it, and I have to sift through them all to get to people who're talking about Mr Beanbag. Thank you for your thoughts, those of you who've left them!
Posted by spacefish on Wednesday 12th 2006f April 2006 12:44:11

We're coming along nicely now. Look out for some screenshots soon.

Quite a bit of the Antarctic is already done, so that shouldn't take too long. The maps are pretty much done, it's just a case of adding the bad guys now.

Posted by tricky on Monday 07th 2005f November 2005 01:23:29

That's the Madras Zone well and truly done. Clouds zone is also well under way now, with most of the handler and maps under wraps.

Posted by tricky on Tuesday 18th 2005f October 2005 03:11:56

Finally I've managed to convert every last bit of the AMOS executable into pure assembly language. Now it takes 18k instead of almost 100k and loads very fast indeed.

Work on the Madras Zone handler will commence ASAP. It's pretty much plain sailing from here.

Posted by tricky on Saturday 17th 2005f September 2005 07:10:44

Now do we have a treat for you all today? Yes. Yes we do. You can now download a single-level playable demo of Mr Beanbag in your choice of two formats:

beandemo.zip 170k zipfile of the ADF of the disk of the demo, or
beandemo.lha 159k LHA archive that you can extract to your Amiga's hard disk and run the way Commodore intended, if you're so inclined.

Posted by tricky on Monday 29th 2005f August 2005 12:22:28

Tricky has finished all the level graphics up to the Spooky Caves. There's only the Marble Mansion and Techno Temple to go! I'd best get busy with the level designs!
Posted by spacefish on Sunday 17th 2005f July 2005 05:22:42

Okay, this is the third version of the website we've come up with. Well, Tricky came up with it, then I took a month or so procrastinating before it actually did anything functional. Have a look around. Enjoy! Now we can blog our progress (which is, to be honest, staggeringly vast).
Posted by spacefish on Wednesday 27th 2005f April 2005 04:56:24

eh?
Posted by spacefish on Tuesday 26th 2005f April 2005 02:04:43