Pixel Poppy Pong (2025 competition entry)
Play as Macchiato, to save your friends who have been hypnotized by the (evil?) Wuppy (story is a WIP). Or, play in classic mode for an easy/fun time. Finally, battle up to 4 of your friends with a multi-tap and analog controls with the 3D control pad.
The AI is tough, but beatable, and I believe it is possible to rank highest on the score chart in story mode (medium or hard difficulty). However, classic and battle modes are definitely meant to be played with other people (try it!).
This was a complete re-write from scratch, utilizing a modified version of Jo Engine. Credits to Random for the original music (except the placeholder music in the name entry screen, that is from Sega Rally 2). The PPP logo sound is from the Master of Monsters soundtrack, composed by Hayato Matsuo.
All graphics are original. The background art is by Tatiana Sherbul, re-drawn by me (pixel by pixel) to work on the Saturn. Poppy field: pixel art - Tatiana Sherbul
Video:
Supports:
- Analog input with the Saturn 3D pad
- Multi-tap (up to 4 players)
- Save backup cart
Emulation:
Pixel Poppy Pong is designed for use on real hardware, utilizing special effects with non-interlaced high resolution graphics.
It plays best on a physical Saturn with a CRT. However, emulators have been tested, see below.
- Mednafen: all effects supported
- Retroarch (it's Mednafen, basically)
- Yabause/Yabasanshiro forks:
- Kronos 2.7: runs at 30fps, mosaic not supported, CD audio issues
- All other forks of Yabause/YabaSanshiro: completely broken, don't even try
- SSF R33: broken, don't try.
- Resolution is wrong, runs too fast, (maybe older versions are better?)
- Nova 0.70: should be playable (I removed the region-free patch that caused it to run at 50hz).
- Mosaic effect somewhat broken, fixed in a future release
- Earlier versions: Broken, don't try
Game options have been added to make emulators more useable (such as turning off the Mosaic effects).
Inputs:
- D-Pad/analog input:
- move your player
- A/C
- options select
- attack forward
- B
- back/cancel
- shield
- A+B+C+Start
- reset game
Options:
- Debug mode: cannot be turned off
- Debug display: you probably want this off
- Mesh Transparency: turn off if using emulators
- Mosaic Effect: turn off if using an emulator other than Mednafen
- Use RTC: Uses internal clock for background color and other special effects
- Big Head Mode: always use the scaled up version of the ball (disabled in 3-4 player mode)
- Analog Adjustment: adjust input sensitivity for the 3D control pad. (press left or right on the D-pad)
Gameplay (40% complete):
- All modes:
- Select from the list of 10 characters (in future versions, you will need to unlock them in story mode).
- each character has different power, speed, and acceleration attributes
- power: affects ball acceleration
- speed: the top speed your paw can move
- acceleration: how fast the paw accelerates
- These attributes affect the AI players as well!
- each character has different power, speed, and acceleration attributes
- Block with your shield
- watch out, it drains your power meter fast
- Attack forward with A/C. A is medium attack forward, C is hard attack forward.
- medium attack costs 4 points from your power meter
- hard attack costs 6 points from your power meter
- the meter recharges when you're not attacking or blocking
- The momentum of your paw affects how the ball bounces back. Basically, you can move forward, and make the ball accelerate/spin faster.
- watch out that you don't cause it to spin too fast, it will bend backwards and you'll score on yourself!
- Every time you touch the ball, your score multiplier increases. This is how you get the best score.
- If you are scored on, your multiplier resets to 0.
- Score is based on the velocity of the ball, the spin, and your multiplier.
- If nobody touches the ball for 5 seconds, it will explode!
- watch out, if you touch the ball while it is exploding, you will lose a life!
- Select from the list of 10 characters (in future versions, you will need to unlock them in story mode).
- Classic Pong:
- basic 2 player back and forth, without special items
- Story Mode:
- Single player, battle through the list of 8 characters
- Special items and moves
- Unlockable characters
- VS Battle:
- 2-4 player battle mode.
- Special items and moves
- Play as unlocked characters
- Note: AI will automatically take control over other players if nobody has selected them.
- Bugs/incomplete:
- items not implemented
- story mode is only about 20% complete
- 3-4 player battle mode works, but you can't "win" yet (1-2 player works fine though)
- sound effects are all placeholders
- music is about 50% complete
- AI doesn't use shields, attacks, or move forward (unsure if I will implement)
- Difficulty balancing is preliminary
- Character unlocks - currently all characters are unlocked by default
Pixel Poppy Productions Presents: Pixel Poppy Pong! (2024 competition entry/description)
Play as Macchiato or Jelly Bean, who are desperately in love with Poppy (or something like that). Battle each other to score goals, avoid bombs, eat fish, gain hearts, and learn the secrets of the universe. If you win, you will earn Poppy's affection forever. But if you lose, press start and try again!
Each player gets 9 lives (hah! get it?). When you lose all 9 lives, the other player wins the match, and gets a star. Whoever gets 3 stars first, wins the game.
The controls are fairly simple:
- Up/Down - move your paw up and down to block your goal
- When blocking your goal, hold down down the button to activate the attack:
- A - basic attack
- B - slow attack
- C - fast attack
- If you don't hold down a button, you will still block your goal
- When blocking your goal, hold down down the button to activate the attack:
- When the round is over, whoever wins gets a star. Press "B" to start the next round.
- When the battle for Poppy's affection is over, press Start to reset the game.
- press ABC+Start at any time to reset the game. (not currently working)
- Start when the game is running pauses the game.
Several items can appear on the field. The main 3 are hearts, bombs, and fish. Whoever touched Poppy last, gets the item. The other items, you will have to play to find out - one is super rare 😉
- Hearts give you an extra heart.
- Bombs take away a heart.
- Fish can give you either 3 extra hearts, or bonus points, depending on Poppy's mood. She's a cat, after all.
- The other ones? You'll have to find out..
This version is "playable" enough although not completely finished. I still plan on using as much time before the deadline to fix/add stuff.
It's definitely most fun played with a second person - the AI is probably too hard.
It's frantic and goofy with 2 humans though! I play tested with my son, it was actually pretty hilarious. I still need to tweak the goal hitboxes a bit and make some of the initial kickoffs less aggressive. But it was still fun enough.
Currently, there is no sound or music. I hope to get at least some sound effects into the game by the deadline. I intend to use Ponesound, although I'm not clever enough to add a cool logo on the game startup sequence yet!
I really want to add a title screen, but I probably don't have time to draw anything. At least I added a loading screen!
Video:
