F-Zero Pocket
A downloadable game for Windows
Ladies and Gentlemen, start your engines!
The call has echoed throughout the universe once again: the F-Zero Grand Prix is back!
Select one of the 30 most skillful drivers of all-time and boost your way to the top in "F-Zero Pocket", a racing fan-game made as a tribute to both the GameBoy Color and the F-Zero series.
20 tracks divided in 4 cups and 4 levels of difficulty: are you up to the task?
Each car has its own characteristic, and it is up to you to find which one suits you best! Will it be the Blue Falcon of the reining champion Captain Falcon? The fast Iron Tiger of Baba? The flying Little Wyvern of James McCloud? Or maybe the impressive Black Bull of Falcon's nemesis, Black Shadow?
You get to choose and to race across Mute City, Big Blue, Red Canyon and 7 other locations!
And if it isn't enough...
You can also create your own track with only a notepad! It is relatively easy to understand and quick to set up, and you can virtually add as many tracks as you want to the game! A tutorial is included in the game's booklet.
So, are you ready to show Captain Falcon your moves? Are you ready to become the fastest driver alive and get to the top of the F-Zero Grand Prix?
(Included are the game, the track files and an instructions booklet)
Default controls
The game works with the same amount of button a classic GameBoy game does:
- A-Button is mapped to the "X" key to accelerate/validate.
- B-Button is mapped to the "C" key to brake/cancel.
- Start button is mapped to the "Enter/Return" key to pause/validate.
- D-pad is mapped to the keyboard keys to steer the car, boost (by pressing Up) and move the cursor in menu/pause.
You can remap the controls in the "Options" menu by selecting the "Set Inputs" choice.
About the project
This project actually started around 2 years ago, as "F-Zero GBX", a monochrome GameBoy-style demake of F-Zero GX. But personal reasons came into way and the project was shelved, as it was also too tough to easily add content to it.
I decided to revive the project of a pseudo-3D racer a year after, which evolved into this. Initially planned for last Christmas as a present, work didn't leave me enough time to finish it properly so it was delayed until now, which is now a present for my older brother. Truth to be told, it would have never been finished on December 2019! Tons of stuff has been added since then, including a complete overhaul of the road-display engine.
And finally, I decided to go fora GBC look instead of staying in 4 colours. It is more vivid this way and I really like how it looks. Didn't have time or money to comission someone to do 30 music tracks in GB style so I went with the GBA OST.
I hope you will enjoy this as much as I enjoyed making it! (and hope you'll start creating a few tracks for fun!)
2020/09/18: V1.1 is available!
Hey everyone, v1.1 is now available! It features several bug fixes as well as gamepad support and a time attack mode. It is all a bit more explained in a README file inside the archive.
2020/09/19: Bug fix in v1.1
A fatal error bug upon dying in a race has been fixed.
Update: another crash upon using the "Pass" option has been fixed.
2020/09/28: Bug fix in v1.1.2
Some players ran into unexpected fatal errors => should be fixed now in v1.1.2
2020/11/06: Bug fix in v1.1.3
As reported, AI were getting stuck inside pitfalls in the latter tracks, which has been fixed in this version 1.1.3.
Download
Install instructions
Have fun!
Development log
- AI getting stuck in pitfalls - fixedNov 06, 2020
- Crash error fixedSep 19, 2020
- New version v1.1 released!Sep 18, 2020
- F-Zero Pocket News!Sep 05, 2020
Comments
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What an incredible game, it was exactly what I was looking for in my game (like a minigame), I can't find tutorials, at least one that someone has finished for GMS.
Thanks! To be fair, I wouldn't recommend anyone to program this the way I did there, it is incredibly not optimized (basically simulating one raster, aka one horizontal line of the screen, as one object in GM) but I used Lou's Pseudo 3d tutorial as a base for it (tweaking it slightly to achieve the results I wanted in the end) : http://www.extentofthejam.com/pseudo/
I actually changed it a bit for a future project in the works, not a racing game but still using the effects in some places! :)
Hello, 🙂 My name is MadShmupper and I'm part of a group of developers working on porting games to handheld Linux devices. Our project is named PortMaster, and we have an active Discord server in which you are very welcome to come check out any time.
For the past couple of years, we've added a nice amount Gamemaker games to various Linux devices. Although these devices have some limitations with OpenGL, games that use GLES2 and SDL generally run very smoothly.
We at PortMaster, firmly believe in reaching out to content creators/game authors like yourself to ask for consent in distributing their free game files within a ready to run port in PortMaster. Without your consent, the user must manually add their game files to a setup files package that we provide. It would be fantastic if you could grant us permission to include your data.win etc.. of F-Zero Pocket within a ready to run packaged port.
May we distribute the game file/s in question, please?
Your game is undoubtedly a superb addition to these handheld devices, and would be fantastic to have it in a "ready to run" format. You will of course be properly thanked and noted as game author/maker. PortMaster will be responsible for the ports maintenance should any be needed. However, as the author/maker, you are welcome to come check us out and have any say you'd like involving said port. Please note that we are not looking to profit or take credit for any of the games we port. Our primary goal is to introduce more games to our beloved handheld devices, and showcase the creations of fine indie devs like yourself. We're also branching out to other ARM platforms. We are growing🙂 Thank you for any consideration that you may lend towards our request!
Best regards, MadShmupper & Everyone at PortMaster
Hello,
Yeah, sure, go ahead! It allows more people to play the game, so that would be a nice thing!
Thanks for reaching out :)
Thank you so very much!👾🎮🕹️❤️
You did a fantastic job, and you should be very proud of yourself!
Thanks! It means a lot to me :)
Just discovered this game a few days ago this is great. The pixel art is on point, and it really feels authentic to the Game Boy Color era.
Is there any chance that you could release the source for this? I know that you haven't updated the game in a long while so you don't have to, but the fact that the game was made in GMS does make me curious.
Hello, thanks for your comment! I am really proud of how the pixel art looks even if it is inspired of existing resources (I took a lot of inspiration from F-Zero GP Legend vehicles for their sprites and GX character art for the headshots for instance) as I tried to replicate what would a F-Zero game on the GBC look like if it came out around 99/2000, hence the very F-Zero X inspired HUD.
As for the source code, I was thinking about that topic not too long ago actually ^^ I think I'll come back to it in the "near" future (if possible in a year or so to add some content) and I'll probably release the code then for people to see how poorly optimized this game is :D
Android?
No Android version of this game had been developped. Windows only.
amaria un multiplayer :,3
Thanks for commenting!
I would have loved to add a multiplayer mode, but I was too short on time and the game wasn't properly optimized to easily run with one player on slower computers, let alone multiplayer! And I have never implemented any online play in any game so far, so my experience in the matter is rather limited.
Other than that, did you enjoy the game? :)
:o bueno....me encanto a primeras :3 peeerrro.....lastimosamente...no peude jugarlo....osea creme ame ver nuevas pistas y todo...pero soy malo para desblokear personajes y mas en f-zero XD si tuvieras una clave para desbloquearlos a todos...aparte...los contorles....porfavor aparte del multijugador porfavor...porfa¡¡ mete opcion de configuaracion de controles ;-; eso seria lo maximo...tuve que desintalarlo..porque ni pude arrancar ;-; tu proyecto magnifico...pero solo quiero configurar mis propios controles y un multijugador...con eso....seria lo maximo
aunque te agradesco por estar al tanto de mis comentarios ://3 y gracias por darme esa experiencia de saver que hay mas de f-zero :D
Ah, sorry, I haven't planned to go back to this project. You can configure the keyboard keys, and the game should also play fine on a standard controler such as the X360 one (although there is no gamepad mapping options)
You are not the first to have liked a cheat code to unlock everything, I'll keep that in mind for future projects!
no entendi tu respuesta....osea no abra multipalyer? ;-; y si se pueden configurar controles??? en donde?? yyyy como desbloquear a todos?? o_O yo no entender
Solo puedes configuar los controles con el teclado en el options, y tienes que validar los cambios en este menu. Puedes jugar tambien con un mando, pero no es possible de configurar este controles; sin embargo, es possible de juegar con un X360 mando con las botones escritan en la descripcion de la pagina itch.io
No habra multiplayer en este juego. Para desbloquear otros pilotos, tienes que ganar las Grand Prix en varias difficultades.
Encountered one problem and have a few suggestions:
Problem: Can't change settings via in-game options, always have to do it via the INI.
Suggestion 1: move game data to the game's folder, if possible (it's good to have a portable variation of the game, ya know)
Suggestion 2: add features to improve steering. Example: if you keep tapping Accelerate while steering you can make tighter curves more easily in most games. Additionally, add the attack left/right by double-tapping left/right.
Suggestion 3: add a way to configure the controller in-game.
Hello, thanks for playing!
What do you mean you can't change settings via in-game options? I never encountered an issue with those, did you validate your changes by going all the way down and use the "Accept" option? If you just pressed the "B" button, you cancel your changes.
Thanks for your suggestions.
1) Well, that's what I wanted to do initially but GameMaker doesn't allow that natively. I have since then discovered an extension that might do the trick, so I'll know how to make this easier in future projects.
2) Yep, that could be nice improvements.
3) Yes, the controller was implemented at the very, very last minute and I didn't have a controller at hand to test most of it beforehand.
I take good notes of your suggestions for future projects, as this one is considered finished on my end.
Above all, what did you think of the game? Did you enjoy it? Any good points to make about it? Thanks! :)
There was no "Accept" option when I tried, so only option was pressing B.
I do appreciate the style too, kind of reminds me of the likes of Top Gear and Outrun.
The "Accept" is located way down, but you are not the first player to have missed it: I guess it wasn't clear, so I'm taking the blame here!
Thanks! I tried to emulate as good as possible this old "fake-3D" style.
A simple arrow around the top and bottom edges of the border of the options menu should be a hint for "more settings above/below".
Another thing I noticed is that even on Easy Mode it feels impossible to get first place with Captain Falcon, so once improved steering ideas gets added it should make everything more feasible
Re hello, thank you for replying to my message.
The fact that you no longer want to develop this fan game saddens me a little. Indeed, it is the only fan game taking the basic concept of F zero finished on the net. It even has, and this is a rare fact, interest in someone having several games in the series like me. I'm not asking you to develop it either, of course (and I wouldn't have a bigger say than that). But I think that making this game known and continue to develop it will keep living a community that no longer has much active to satisfy it and it may even revive interest in F zero. What a lot of fans, including me, want. I personally think it's a game that has a lot of future.
You could also try to ask someone of your friends to help you, or even apply on a specialized forum (I think quite a few people would agree). I hope I didn't annoy you.
Again thank you for creating this game and I hope you will take into account my opinion.
Hi!
I deeply appreciate your interest in this little game of mine. I understand you would like to see it grow bigger (hell, I would too!) but I have worked on it for quite some time (I would say something between 1.5 and 2 years) and, although I enjoyed it and learned a lot from it, I felt like it was time to move on to other projects. This was, after all, a fun side-project I did on my free time less than 5 hours a week.
Now I do agree there are very few F-Zero fan games, but it is also due to the fact the F-Zero community is far from being as large as the Zelda or Sonic communities for instance. Truth to be told, this game has had over 300 downloads and I can say this is better than anything I had hoped for.
I could ask for help, but then I would lose control over whether or not this gets finished, and I would not want to leave it unfinished. As I told you, I don't say I will never work on this game again, but making games is a very time-consuming hobby and there are so many things I want to try!
Thanks for your comments. If I ever make changes to this game, this page will get updated (and I'll also talk a bit about it on twitter using the fzero hashtag) by the way.
Once again, thanks for playing and enjoying this. I truly means a lot to me!
Hello, it's a very good game that you offer us. But there are some problems that I would like to mention to you
1) The mayor problem at me : Non-presence an automatic update system that updates the game as soon as a new version comes out.
2) The musics, takeovers of F zero GP legend and Climax are in 16bit. It would be nice if all these musics were converted in 8bits for more logics and increase the charm of the game.
Now, y propose some ideas that it might be good to integer.
A classic cup with the most iconical circus of the F zero
A software to built you track easiest.
Integrate the racer of F zero GP Legend, Climax, the secret racer of GX (unlockable in story mode on hard difficult) and news racers can see in the manga as the rival of Silver Neelsen and invented racerthat would fit well into the world of the game with her own stories
Sorry for my bad English, y use on great part google traduction.
Hello! Thank you for you feedback, I am glad you enjoyed the game.
The points you make are valid. However, please understand this game has been a side-project for fun more than anything else: an automatic update system would require a server of some sort I guess, at the very least do an online verification each time you boot up the game, with some versioning system... A bit "too much" for the size of this project.
I agree for the music, but I am no musician: I could simply try to find some .mid files of the games' music and throw them in a convertor software such as GXSCC and have them as a 8-bitish tunes, but I am not sure I would have add as many music tracks as I wanted and it would not have sounded very good in my opinion. So I stuck with the original music on this one.
There will probably be no more updates to this game, but let me answer to your other suggestions.
1) A classic cup (like Mario Kart does) is a good idea, but it would have required a lot of searching to find the tracks to keep, and a lot of time to adapt those tracks to the more restricted nature of F-Zero Pocket. After all, I added the last 10 tracks in the 4 days before the release of the game, so I was a bit short on time! ^^
2) A track editor would have been great! I initially planned on having one but this feature got dropped very quickly to ensure I would finish the game in time. I understand the current way is not the easiest one though.
3) Adding more racers would have been fun as well. To tell you the truth, I initially wanted to add the 10 AX drivers as well as Deathborn, Rick Wheeler and a selection of other Nintendo characters (such as Samus Aran) to the list. However, I must say adding as many racers as you suggest is a bit too much work: if I count roughly, that would mean adding at least 20 other characters + original ones.
Once again, thanks for your feedback and your ideas. Overall, I just ran out of time and decided it would be better to release a smaller yet completed game rather than trying to cram more and more content without releasing it.
I had a lot of fun working on that project, so never say never, maybe I will work one day on some features you talked about! Who knows? I just don't see it happening in the near future.
Thanks again!
Hi there. I enjoyed playing, and unlocked all racers. It was almost OK, but there was one issue. In Crater Impact and Death Valley, if AI are out of the screen, they stuck at the gap after jump pad. That aside, thanks for nice game!
Thanks, and congrats on unlocking all racers!
When you say "stuck at the gap", you mean they all stopped there? They died in the gap? Or did they just continue to drive through the gap as if it was nothing?
I did see an issue with that part as well, since collisions are deactivated when cars are not displayed on screen, which can makes them "miss" jump pads, so I guess you witnessed it as well. In the end, I thought it was not a game-breaking issue and decided to ship the game this way, especially since I did the two tracks you mentionned something like two days before the release ^^
Thank you for your feedback, it means a lot to me that you appreciated the game!
Yeah they stopped at the gap. So Diamond Cup was very easy.
OK, very strange, I never encountered this. Don't really see why they would behave that way...
Thanks for the feedback. But since you've unlocked everyone, I believe you would have been able to conquer the Diamond Cup anyway :)
I don't know if I'll be of any help, but I recorded the issue. It always happen in my case. Thank you for your consideration.
Shoot, I didn't see your comment!
Thanks for the video. I will take a look at what might cause this!
OK, found it, this has been fixed. Thanks again!
This is so cool!
Thanks! I had a great time making it, hope you have a great time playing it! :)