Gruniożerca 2

[M-Tee]

Download



Pronunciation
/ˈgru.ni.oʊˈʐɛr.t͡sa/

Overview
Gruniożerca 2 is a puzzle-platformer for the NES developed by Łukasz Kur & myself between November 2017 and January of 2018.

In it, you control Grunio, pet and guinea pig mascot of arhn.eu, on a quest to find his owner, gaming personality Dark Archon, who has gotten lost in the depths of their overly complex cellar.

Luckily, Grunio's chew toys have been strewn all throughout the house, the cellar being no exception. So, help this piggie place blocks, swing squeaky hammers, push stools, press switches, collect keys, devour carrots, leap, climb, teeter, and tumble his way through 24 dark, dingy, and drab basement doors.

Objectives

• Collect keys to open doors.
  
• Consume a carrot before leaving each room.

Guinea Pig Controls:
Control Grunio Directly
Left / Right: Move Grunio
Down: (while in front of a switch) Press Switch
A: Jump
B: Enter Cavyvision
Start: Pause

Cavyvision Controls:
The World Through Heightened Guinea Pig Senses
D-Pad: Move Cursor
A: Place or Use Toy
B: Exit Cavyvision
Select: Cycle through Toys

Play Tips

• Take control of the stool: Jump to get past it, or push it against a wall and jump into it to make it bounce back.
  
• Keep a satiated guinea pig: To see the full ending, complete the game with all 24 carrots.
  
• Stuck? There's neither penalty nor shame in restarting a puzzle from the pause menu.

Background
We initially began development on this for the Gramytatywnie annual charity event (for which Emunes.PL produced three physical copies of a special version of the game). With permission from the folks at arhn.eu, we decided to enter it in the NesDev Coding Competition. This means that the game is free to download (along with a lot of other great games from the other contestants), and will, in all likelihood, be included on Action 53 Vol. 4.

Fun fact, I did the packaging design for A53 Vol. 3, and it is definitely getting a Famicom release, an addition to the unusually small number of modern, Western-developed NES games available officially in a 60-pin cart.

Anyway, we hope you enjoy.

[M-Tee]

Download link added to the OP. Feedback highly encouraged. I'd love to hear what you think of our game.

[Ghegs]

Awesome, is what I think of it. Love the animations on the hero guinea pig, the way he squints his little eyes when he jumps and how he trembles when on an edge - and then he tumbles over and looks a bit confused when you make him take the plunge.

Gameplay is excellent too. Single-screen, non-action puzzlers like this are dear to my heart. Or at least there weren't any enemies in the stages I got to. It takes a bit of experimentation to figure out Grunio's range so you can place the toys in just the right spot for jumps, and messing up just one placement basically forces a restart, but that's acceptable when the stages are this short.

The only thing that messed me up was using B to enter and exit Cavyvision, I'm so used to hitting Start or Select to activate additional menus.

I would pay money for a physical cart of this alone.

[M-Tee]

Thanks for the feedback.

You're right, there are no enemies in the game, nor are there any background elements which cause harm. The closest thing to "a death" is falling somewhere you can't get out, and needing to restart.

The original concept of the game involved having some enemies / elements to avoid, but we finally decided to remove anything reflex-based so as to focus entirely on the puzzle aspects. Hopefully the number of different elements we do have in the game and the way we've chosen to combine them provide enough variety for the game's length.

As for button assignment, it's something we were fairly indecisive on early on, and finally settled on this. However, we'll keep all the feedback we collect in mind, and might update the game one more time before Action 53 launches.

[FAMICOM_87]

my first impression  - absolutely professional !!! graphics art style and music are fantastic ! nice work boys  


where is the first game ?  

[DrWho198]

Wonderful game, I really enjoy it. After a while it did crash on me in FCEUX v2.2.2. It happened at the time when I wanted to restart a level. At the moment my computer is lagging because I have too many processes running but I doubt that causes a crash inside the emulation environment. Besides the crash I just loved everything about it. The graphics are nice to look at and the puzzles are simple yet challenging enough to keep you busy. Only thing I would love to see is more levels  ... I don't want it to be over.

[M-Tee]

@Fami87
It's funny, this game has been released for a few days and you're the first to ask about #1. It's actually a far simpler mini-game from the same programmer made for a previous year's charity event.
He approached me with the new gameplay mechanic, and after discussing it, we decided to take the time to make this year's game more complex (and the result is what you have), but we still ran over our originally planned development time by a few weeks.

Anyway, the first game is available online for play at emunes.pl/grunio (although there seems to be a flash incompatibility on my PC) and for download at https://github.com/arhneu/gruniozerca (source uploaded with permission by arhn.eu, owener of Grunio, but not developer of game, for full disclosure). Scroll down to find the gruniozerca.nes file.

In fact, the first gruniozerca was ported to C64 later by a fourth party, and can be downloaded here: https://6bits.itch.io/gruniozerca


@DrWho:
Sorry, the crash is *probably* from a conflict from our sound engine. We thought we caught all of the instances, but a few are still cropping up.

Hopefully we can track 'em down and take care of them before the compilation cart is released. In the meantime, if you're playing on emulator, don't be afraid to use a savestate. Although most of the game's "length" is figuring out each puzzle. Once each is figured out, it doesn't take long to play again and catch back up.

[FAMICOM_87]

cool  but in the first game you are too slosh to catch all carrots and constantly change colors   

[verteks]

Anyway, the first game is available online for play at emunes.pl/grunio (although there seems to be a flash incompatibility on my PC) and for download at https://github.com/arhneu/gruniozerca (source uploaded with permission by arhn.eu, owener of Grunio, but not developer of game, for full disclosure).

Thanks M-Tee for the link to source code of first Gruniożerca game, I will look at it to see how experienced NES programmers write their games, I hope this source code isn't complicated (like game), then it will be easier to learn.

Second installment of Grunio's adventures is far superior to first game, great contribution to Famicom / NES homebrew scene. I'm looking forward for physical release of the game.

[M-Tee]

Updated version of the ROM available. Mostly some small polish regarding player state transitions, one slightly revised stage, but most importantly, the correction of a bug that could possibly cause game crashes.

(Download link in OP has been updated, but for convenience sake):

Download

If you have the earlier ROM, please replace it with the newer one.

[L___E___T]

 



Can't wait to check this out hopefully tonight!