Jungle Ping

Pico-8 demake of the classic arcade game Jungle King (by Taito 1982, shortly after renamed as Jungle Hunt, Tarzan replaced by an explorer)

Controls

• 🅾️ [Z] Action (Jump or Stab while underwater)
• ⬅️⬆️➡️⬇️ Movement, depending on stage:
  • Stage 1: none, just jump from vine to vine
  • Stage 2: swim in all directions while underwater
  • Stage 3: ⬅️ run faster, ➡️ slow down (they can be used during jump) and ⬇️ to duck
  • Stage 4: ⬅️ walk left, ➡️ walk right (no influence on jump)

The Game

It is divided into four different stages:

• jungle and swinging vines (with monkeys on harder levels)
• swimming in a crocodiles/alligators-infested river
• running uphill with falling rocks and boulders
• a camp with cannibals where our hero's girlfriend dangles above a boiling cauldron (an extra native will throw his spear from the tree on harder levels).

Keep an eye on the TIMER: it starts at 5000, quite generous but it speeds up in the last stage and if it reaches zero it's an instant game over, it means your girl ended up in the cauldron.

Completion bonus and Extra lives

So yes, your objective is obviously to save the girl. In the congrats screen you will also see (an addition to the original game) time bonus points are accumulated until you reach 1000, this will give an Extra life! Time bonus is remaining timer / 4. In the original Jungle King you will get 1000 pts regardless of timer which is a shame.
You also gain an Extra life every 30000 points.

Stage 1 - Swinging

Timing is crucial while jumping from vine to vine, try to focus on the speed and oscillation phases of the two. For instance jumping while the next vine is near might not be the best idea especially if it's faster, use some anticipation. After a while it will become the easiest of the stages, even when monkeys will show up (they could look cute but no, not your friends).

Stage 2 - Underwater

Use action button 🅾️/Z to stab the crocs but stay away when their mouth is fully opened! A minimum of 100pts + extra 100pts if the mouth is half open and stabbing them while deeper will gain extra 100pts.
Air bubbles will drag you and push to the surface (you can't move but can still stab at a slower pace).
Important: as obvious as it could sound, you need to breathe! When the 'diving' indicator is low a warning sound will signal it's time to come up to the surface and breathe some air.

Stage 3 - Boulders

What can I say? Just survive, avoid the falling rocks. You can jump (200pts) or duck (100pts), in some case you could even just run below the boulders (50pts). On higher difficulty you will face more rocks at the same time as some will come down faster and even bouncing differently.

Stage 4 - Cannibals

It is actually an easy stage when you find the right time to jump both and save the girl... but it will be probably cause troubles at first (in order to be prepared for this last stage, you might want to practice a little maybe? by selecting stage 4 in the main screen). At higher levels remember a third native will show up on the tree and throw his spear.

Main differences from Jungle King

In the original game everything was predetermined, making longplays safer for those who memorized everything and virtually go on forever since difficulty stopped growing after the 4th iteration (=each time you save the girl).
This version is more randomized/unpredictable and the difficulty constantly grows at every level.
In this version you can start directly from a specific level of difficulty and stage. Good for training and figuring out how to play on a specific point of the game (without wasting time to redo everything from the beginning). Of course you need a regular start (st1-lv1) for a better high-score.

Other differences from the original

• Title screen graphics (reason: too plain, since they also had stages demo);
• Stage1: monkeys will just climb up the vine but watch as they keep moving up even when you're in the same vine;
• Stage2: the bigger croc doesn't follow you but it's harder to predict when they will open the mouth (they are worth 50pts more than other two kinds) and they have a good chance to move faster;
• Stage3: not having a predetermined behaviour/layout the growing difficulty is mainly rendered by speed/pace (notice how smaller rocks gradually become the real challenge at higher levels);
• Stage4: the delicate timing between girl and natives has been carefully preserved close to the original while the spear-throwing one has its own gradually fast timing (currently no animation/sfx after his success/failure on throwing);
• Congrats screen music (reason: not rewarding).

Features

• 60fps flickering tricks for:
  • alpha channel antialias (font)
  • transparency in general
  • colour blending
  • a few subpixel experiments (e.g. the girl in the title screen, in between it creates some blur and it's ok since she's in the distance)
  • (in case you can disable flicker in Pause-MENU P/Enter)
• P8scii for extra gfx (see post: One-Off GFX)
• PCM audio to replicate the (notoriously distorted) Tarzan yell
• Hi-score is saved

Credits

Code,sfx,music,gfx by @Heracleum
Many Thanks to:
@Trog for betatesting and precious first-impression detailed notes
(...your name here...)

Feedback

Please leave a comment and let me know.
For instance I have currently in the todo list:

• Menu option to mute the main theme during action?
• Compose some new music for the title screen?