Mixed Grill March

= Mixed Grill March by Jools Henn =

Licence
GNU GPLv3 license

The Plot
Markie is in the pub at Retrovision, about to tuck into the pub's last mixed grill. When comic book supervillain Mixed Grill Man (aka Bane) realises that the pub has no more mixed grills left, he is distraught! In a fit of desperation he steals Markie's mixed grill, and makes a run for it!



You play the role of Markie and have to chase him and get your mixed grill back!

Introduction
I've been experimenting with SWIFT lately - having previously only written Beeb games in BBC BASIC back in the day, I thought it would be fun (in a kind of masochistic way) to try writing a game to get myself used to coding in assembler.

The result is a BBC Micro homage to Namco Bandai Games' eccentric WiiWare title Muscle March, a grey import of which proved particularly popular at Retrovision 2010. As Markie, Retrovision organiser, in his full Ming the Merciless TV animated character costume, you must chase and match the pose of Bane, AKA comic book supervillain Mixed Grill Man, as he tries to escape with your mixed grill, bashing his way through walls which have inexplicably been built in the way. At the end of each of four levels, the player must alternate key tapping rapidly to catch up and tackle the thief. The controls are A and Z to toggle your character's left hand, and * and ? for your character's right hand.

Features

 * Play as Markie, chasing Mixed Grill Man (aka Bane) to get your mixed grill back!
 * Four levels, that gradually get harder as Markie goes along (from fairly tame, to hardcore)!
 * Generic twelve bar blues music! With arpeggios!
 * MODE 7 title and instructions screen - with high score table!
 * A bit where you hammer the keys to catch the mixed grill thief (with parallax scrolling (sort-of!), and smooth single-pixel-horizontal-scrolled road and houses :D)
 * Hours of fun and frustration!

A marvellous pastiche of the Wii's camp classic 'Muscle March', this isn't just a nod to some RV folklore; it's a meaty, twitchy challenge, worth tasting...

- Retro Gamer Magazine

Update: An unofficial lazy port to the Acorn Electron is available in the forum

Discuss Mixed Grill March

BBC Micro
Original game, inspired by Wii Muscle March, by Jools Henn

Downloads
[[Media:MixedGrillMarch_v1.01-ssd.zip|Mixed Grill March v1.01 disc version (.ssd)]] - Zipped BBC Micro .ssd Acorn DFS disc image

[[Media:MixedGrillMarch_v1.01-uef.zip|Mixed Grill March v1.01 tape version (.uef)]] - Zipped BBC Micro .uef cassette tape image

...and as a special treat...

[[Media:MixedGrillMarch_v1.01_turboload-wav.zip|Mixed Grill March v1.01 tape version (.wav)]] - Zipped BBC Micro .wav cassette tape image

Not a FreeUEF version, this was recorded from a real Beeb :) - with the inter-block gaps reduced in an audio editor afterwards for faster loading (less than two minutes!)

[[Media:MixedGrillMarch_v1.01_source.zip|Mixed Grill March v1.01 GPL'd source code]]

Older releases

Mixed Grill March 0.9 demo

[[Media:MixedGrillMarch-0.1.zip|Mixed Grill March 0.1 early preview]]

Status
Total size is 73k of assembly source (!! - How on earth did people cope coding on a real beeb?), which assembles into about 4547 bytes of machine code (and 3482 bytes of gfx on top of that) - giving us space to spare :).

TODO list
Nothing, it's all done :) - although if I were looking for things to do the following enhancements would be nice, don't think they'll get done though:
 * Joystick support
 * Ability to turn off the potentially annoying music

BBC Micro Development Diary
A Development Diary recording the details of the game's development by the author.