Introduction

Hair Boy is a video game for the Amstrad CPC 464, stronly inspired by Meat Boy (2008), created by Edmund McMillen. It is a plaform game where the objective is to jump and rebound in the map, to achieve each map objective. Originally the video game was developed for the CPCRetroDev 2016 contest.

The Plot

The protagonist of the video game is known as Hair Boy, because of his long blond hair. Hair Boy spends every day playing with his sword, imagining himself as a medieval knight in search of adventure. The problem is that he loses his sword frequently, each time in more inaccessible places. Thanks to his aerodynamic hair, Hair Boy is capable of jumping to get to those places, but it's not exactly an easy task...

Gameplay

The player has to move Hair Boy over 78 maps. In each of those maps the objective is simple: get Hair Boy's sword.

Along the maps, the player can find some obstacles:

1. Blue laser: If Hair Boy touches it, he will return to the start of the map.
2. Deformable block: If Hair Boy touches it, the block will dissapear after a little more of 2 seconds.
3. Moving block: This block moves either horizontally or vertically, or even both at the same time. If Hair Boy touches the block, he will return to the start of the map.

Display

During the game, the top left corner displays the time elapsed and the number of times the player has returned to the start of the map. At the bottom is displayed a progress bar that shows the amount of maps completed.

All the previous information, is also displayed on the score screen, which is displayed when a screen is concluded or the player decides to exit.

Game Controls

Arrow Left/Right - Walk Left/Right, Space - Jump

When Hair Boy is touching a wall, you can combine the movement with the jump to bounce off the wall. If Hair Boy jumps in the direction of the wall, he will climb. If Hair Boy jumps in the opposite direction of the wall, he will fly off the wall. The wall bounce is necessary to complete the maps.

Also, on the game's menu you can press M to activate/deactivate the music. During the game, you can press Escape to go to the score screen and return to the menu.

Easter Egg

The hair of Hair Boy is inspired by the hair of the protagonist of Camelot Warriors (1986), developed by Dinamic Software. Also, one of the video game's maps has another reference to that video game.

Loading

On disk:
RUN "HAIRBOY (ENTER)

Game Credits

Hair Boy was developed entirely by Carlos Sevila (@CarlosSevila) aka Casevse. It includes programming, level design, art, sound effects and music.

With Thanks To

1. Francisco Gallego, for the organization of the CPCRetroDev contest, the development of the CPCtelera framework and his advice about technical issues.
2. Lachlan Keown, for the development of the Retro Game Asset Studio tool, used to create the art and level design.
3. Targhan/Arkos, for the development of the Arkos Tracker tool, used to create the sound effects and the music.
4. Richard Wilson, for the development of WinAPE, an Amstrad CPC emulator for Windows.
5. Edmund McMillen for creating Meat Boy, video game that inspired Hair Boy.
6. My Multimedia Engineering friends, for all the feedback.