BOH, retro-flavoured game

[saimo]

Hi all,

I'm a newcomer and I'd like to present a game I developed starting from 2007. It's a completely indie production, but since the product is commercial, I'd understand if this post isn't welcome - in such case, apologies in advance.



BOH is a unique retro-flavoured puzzle-riddled maze game spiced up with thrilling action.
You move in claustrophobic, mysterious, dangerous battlefields searching for the Evil Masters, who throw countless enemies at you until you discover and face them in the final battle. Although your quests are made slightly less hard by the power-ups scattered all around, carrying out the missions demands lots of concentration and quick reflexes.
With BOH the fun never ends: new missions can be added anytime and you can even create your own! And, as if that was not enough, you can also customize entirely its audio-visual aspect!
BOH has been created with lots of passion and care to offer, with its oldschool style, a fascinatingly different videogaming experience.

The game features:
* immediate & thrilling gameplay;
* 45 missions divided in 5 levels of difficulty;
* multi-phase missions;
* multi-floor battlefields of any size and shape;
* mind-blowing puzzles and deadly traps;
* many and varied power-ups;
* 7 kinds of enemies, each with its own characteristics;
* hand-pixelled 2D graphics;
* real-time field of vision and lighting;
* atmospheric audio and rich soundtrack;
* 7 themes;
* possibility to add new missions and themes;
* online world standings;
* Danish, English, Finnish, French, German, Italian, Norwegian, Polish, Spanish and Swedish translations.

BOH comes on a CD-ROM in a plastic DVD box along with a 24 pages, full-color printed manual or as a downloadable ISO image.

Website: http://www.bohthegame.com
Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/pages/BOH/99598418583
Twitter: http://twitter.com/bohthegame

I'll gladly answer any question.
Thanks for the attention and enjoy!

[Phanataz]

Hi Saimo! Thanks for posting your game. I like how the screen rotates and the audio is pretty well done too. It's interesting that the game will run on nearly any platform. What did you use to program the game?


Some larger screenshots:
http://www.bohthegame.com/gallery.html

[saimo]

Originally written by Phanataz

Hi Saimo! Thanks for posting your game. I like how the screen rotates and the audio is pretty well done too.

Thanks, I'm glad to hear such nice comments

It's interesting that the game will run on nearly any platform. What did you use to program the game?

• language: C
• external libraries: libSDL + libdSDL_mixer
• tool: ancient text editor (runs emulated)

More details are in the FAQ (I'd happily tell you more, but unfortunately I'm in a hurry as in few hours I'll be presenting the game live in a store in my town).

EDIT: finally I have some time to give you a full answer - nothing but a direct quote from the aforementioned FAQ, but still it does the job, doesn't it?

BOH has been made mostly on an AmigaOne running AmigaOS 4.

• The code is 100% C, written with FrexxEd (old M68k text editor) and compiled with gcc from shell.
• Graphics have been drawn mainly with Personal Paint (old M68k pixelling application).
• Soundtracks have been composed with MilkyTracker and HivelyTracker.
• Samples have been recorded with AHIRecord and processed with Audacity.
• Other tools used (alphabetical order): ImageMagick, make, MakeCD, oggenc, OpenOffice.org, pngcrush, PNGTool, svn, The Gimp, TuneNet, TVPaint and a few other custom ones.
• The only external libraries used are SDL and SDL_mixer).

Some larger screenshots:
http://www.bohthegame.com/gallery.html

Thanks for providing the link

[saimo]

Hi all,

to celebrate the end of the year that has seen the birth of BOH, the collection of expansions grows with a brand-new, claustrophobically oppressive theme: "underground".
The theme can be downloaded for free from the DOWNLOADS page of the official website.



This is also a good occasion to present the Instant Reward Initiative: graphic artists have the chance to get a free copy of BOH! For details and to take part to the initiative, please surf to the official thread on Mod DB.

Happy New Year!

[saimo]

Hi all!

Could 2010 be devoid of surprises for BOH players? Of course no

Today sees the release of update9, which:
* adds secret missions, i.e. missions that remain hidden until one or more other missions are completed;
* reworks hidden passages so that they follow the orientation of barriers and are / can be perfectly unified with them;
* re-adds trembling to fixed lights;
* improves video modes suggestions by indicating also the optimal zoom factors;
* forces recalculation of global time also when 0:00;
* retouches themes;
* improves missions "getting started" and "unequal alternatives";
* fixes mission "watch your step!" (it had been left in a test/altered state);
* fixes pits near barriers (in some cases they may have looked weird);
* adds two new missions;
* adds the latest expansions;
* updates the manuals;
* applies various other changes.

The update can be downloaded for free from the DOWNLOADS page of the official website.
The demos have been updated to reflect the changes.

Please also note that, on this occasion, all the other update packages have been reworked: besides better installers/updaters, they now include also all the expansions, so that it is no longer necessary to install the latter manually.

[saimo]

Hi all,

I'm very happy to bring more juicy news, which can be summed up in a couple of words: 10 updates! It's a big achievement which is self-celebrated by the massive amount of improvements brought by update10, released today.

More specifically, this update:
* adds acceleration to the turning of the main character when standing (allows to turn by small degrees and, at the same time, to change totally direction more quickly);
* makes enemy fields harmful like traps;
* adds sound effects to enemy fields and conveyor belts;
* improves the sound volume balancement of clusters of squares (enemy fields, conveyor belts and traps);
* intensifies the hit sparks effect;
* increases a bit the weapons shoot rate (so killing enemies is a bit easier);
* replaces the "USE ENHANCED/STANDARD WEAPONS" option with the "DIFFICULTY: normal/easy" option, which affects also the spawning rate of enemies;
* removes the "ENABLE/DISABLE BARRIERS" option;
* adds the "NAME REQUEST: once / per session / always" option;
* adds walls graphics to the themes "C64", "default" and "warm";
* extends the illumination range of rotating lamps;
* adds music and recoloring of graphics to the mission report screen;
* adds 10 new short pieces of music;
* improves some graphical elements, sound samples and music pieces;
* simplifies menus and adds the number of the non-secret missions;
* modifies the automatic theme switching so that it will not occur after selecting another video mode or another different automatic theme switching option;
* optimizes slightly the graphical engine;
* adds a new secret mission;
* makes some minimal changes to a few missions;
* updates and improves the manuals;
* applies various other changes.

The update can be downloaded for free from the DOWNLOADS page of the official website at www.bohthegame.com.
The demos have been updated to reflect the changes.

Enjoy!

[saimo]

To who likes secrets

Easter is coming and - guess what - there are two Easter eggs hidden in BOH, but nobody found them yet... who will be the first?
(If nobody manages to discover them and anybody is interested, I'll reveal them on Easter.)

[saimo]

[Sorry in advance if this sort of posts is not allowed.]

Hello,

tomorrow is Easter... and also BOH's birthday! To celebrate such a happy day, I thought it would be nice to let more people get hold of its sexy package at a cheaper cost: so, starting April 4, 2010, worldwide shipping is free for orders of 2 up to 6 copies!* This means that two or more friends can place a single order and receive their copies comfortably at home at the same price they would have paid if they had picked them directly from the shelf of a store! Moreover, the offer extends also to customers of the digital copy, who, as usual, just have to pay the price difference with the physical copy.

Happy Easter to all!

*The offer is not valid for companies. All the copies are sent in the same parcel to a single destination.

[saimo]

Hello,

since more free time is coming with the summer, I thought I'd provide BOH players with some additional fun - and, while at it, I also made it a little bit easier to beginners



So, I have just released the update11, which:
* adds the aiming device (a tool that shows the shooting trajectory);
* allows to restart from the last phase played when difficulty is set to "easy";
* adds 2 new missions;
* refines light casting;
* enriches and extends the menu music of the theme "underground";
* retouches the menu music of the theme "default";
* adds the Danish translation;
* improves the translations;
* fixes the "mood" of the ending;
* updates and improves the manuals;
* applies various other changes.

The update can be downloaded for free from the DOWNLOADS page of the official website.
The demos have been updated to reflect the changes.

[saimo]

Hi,

since the previous update brought to surface a couple of nasty bugs (as reported by a few users, whom I wholeheartedly thank), I fixed them and seized the occasion to raise the number of missions to 40 and to add a new translation!



More specifically, this update:
* fixes 2 bugs that could cause crashes;
* adds 2 new secret missions;
* adds the Polish translation;
* applies various other changes.

The update can be downloaded for free from the DOWNLOADS page of the official website at http://www.bohthegame.com.
The demos have been updated to reflect the changes.

Finally, a couple of addresses for who wants to follow BOH directly:
* Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/pages/BOH/99598418583
* Twitter: http://twitter.com/bohthegame

As always, enjoy!