Being Matthew Smith: A First Look at Goatup 2

I’ve been working lately on a sequel of sorts to “Goatup”. The full title of the sequel is “BUCK! The Tail of Goatup 2″ but I am sure most people will be happy enough to just shorten that to Goatup 2. This video gives a little overview of the game’s editor and a couple of test levels.

As you can see from this, the game this time isn’t continuously scrolling as before. It’s more of a traditional one-screen-per-level platformer (although the “screen” in this case is a large area much bigger than the physical screen, and the view scrolls around as you play).

I want not only to provide players with plenty of platforming fun; I also want them to be able to experience for themselves exactly what it’s like to be Matthew Smith. To that end, although I cannot provide them with any appropriate recreational combustibles, I do provide a level editor with which I hope people will find it easy to experiment and create their own levels. The editor provides a selection of platform game items and an environment in which it’s pretty easy to just “paint” a level using your finger, place items within the level, and try it out instantly by just pressing the PLAY button. There are various different platform types covering most common platformer tropes, collectible items, various bad guys, and “toys” such as the barrel-emitting Kongotaur which can be used to populate your levels.

The platform action itself is kinda Rainbow Islandish, although without the continuous vertical scroll of that game. Collected items follow behind you, and you can trade these items one at a time for a mid-air jump, allowing you to reach otherwise inaccessible places, or to get you out of trouble. Doing such a jump also makes you and any kids you have fart out stars and sparkles, which can be used to knock baddies off platforms. Each kid you collect doubles your bonus multiplier in all items. So there’s a goodly number of ways to complete each level, and you’ll want to go back after initially completing a level to look for ways of completing it with as high a level score as possible, farting away as few bonus items as you can manage.

There’s still a few weeks left in development yet, mainly now just adding more items and toys to the collection, building a good set of default levels, and looking into how we’ll let users share levels they’ve made.

Some people have said they dislike the giant burping noise in the video, and in fact in the final game all you’ll hear for double-jumping is the quiet fart sound effect. The burp was a warning for when your goat was full up from too much grass. It used to be you’d explode if you ate too much, but I took that out, so the burp is now redundant anyway.

Anyway there you go, there’s my master plan to make Matthew Smiths of you all :) .

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