Danger! Falling Objects

Objects are falling from the sky! Dodge crates, pliers, wrenches and girders while collecting valuable money, gold coins and diamonds!

Controls:

Function	Player 1	Player 2
Menu Control	↑↓←→ Keys	Unused
Menu OK	Z Key	Unused
Cheat Code Input	X Key (Hold)	Unused
Move	←and → Keys	S and D Keys

Rules:

Objects fall from the top of the screen. Move left and right to avoid the dangerous ones and collect the bonuses.

  These are dangerous. Getting hit by them costs a life.

  These are bonus items. The Money is 50pts, the Coin is 100pts and the Diamond is 500pts. These get more valuable the higher the level you reach.

Modes:

Levels Mode: Play through designed levels! Some of them are completely hand sculpted, some of them pull randomly from rows.
Random Mode: Objects drop from the top of the screen one at a time at gradually increasing speeds (and increasing point values!). How long can you survive?

Like an old arcade game of yore, when you finish all the currently existing levels the game will increase the difficulty and loop. How far can you make it? I tried to balance the levels to make sure all of them can be perfect-cleared on Loop 2. Subsequent loops are not guaranteed.

Cheat Codes Hints:

Level Select: ⬆️⬆️⬆️⬆️⬇️⬇️⬇️❓❓❓ (Disables High Scores)
9 Lives: ⬆️➡️⬇️⬅️❓❓❓❓⬇️➡️❓❓ (Disables High Scores)

Hard Mode: ⬅️➡️⬅️➡️⬅️➡️❓ (Does not disable High Scores)
In Levels Mode, restarts the level if you take a hit... for both players. No Bonus Items will appear, but all drops are worth more.
In Random Mode, the rate at which blocks speed up is increased.
In either case, points for surviving are increased. Good luck!

About This Game

Late in 2021 I was beginning to have doubts on whether I should continue trying to continue trying to make games seriously. The last games I had released were both my Ludum Dare entries in 2017, and every time I had an idea for a game I'd run into a roadblock I couldn't figure out how to pass. I shelved the project, hoping to figure out a solution while I worked on something else. Of course, that never happened, and I have a whole Projects folder full of half-realized ideas, and a OneNote notebook full of unmaterialized concepts. They formed what I came to call my "pile of shame."

But on December 30th, 2021, something changed. I saw a video on YouTube by LazyDevs that felt, and I quote from the comments, "like I got hit in the stomach with a Louisville Slugger baseball bat." (If you want to watch it, you can find it here: The 30 Circle Test). It was painful to see, but it made me realize I had my approach wrong. The best way to get to that big project is to build a bunch of smaller ones and work your way up. Build a staircase of prior successes until you're at the level you want to be.

That night, I decided to start over. The OneNote notebook stays unopened. The half-realized ideas in the Projects folder were set aside. I set a goal in front of myself: "Can I make a prototype game to bring with me to my cousin's new years get-together that I could show to her kids?"

I set off coding. To make a game in less than 24 hours I'd have to start simple. No, not that idea, go even simpler. Simpler still. Game-and-Watch simple? There's the ticket!

Over the course of about 12 hours of development, I managed to make that game, and the kids loved it. Success! We rung in the new year and I had a slight sense of satisfaction: I had put pressure on myself and managed to live up to it.

So over the course of the next two months, I took the game and I polished it up. I decided I wanted to make levels to play instead of just the ever-quickening random objects. So I got myself out of my comfort zone and made a custom tool in Pico-8 to do it! At the end of February I pulled the trigger and uploaded the 1.0 version of "Danger! Falling Objects" here to itch. This is the game you see before you now.

 I meant to upload it to pico-8's "splore" feature, but never really got around to it. Maybe I'll polish up the game a little more, update it here and then upload it? That could be fun.