I continue to love adding to the Tobikomi world, with games like “Felix & Son Arcade” and “Wreck-It Ralph.” Today, I add to that fictional history with “Vs Construction Crew”, a game heavily inspired by Vs Wrecking Crew meant to be played on a Nintendo Vs. DualSystem (or maybe a Tobikomi Vs. DualSystem?).

The Nintendo Red Tent (Vs. System)

To understand where I’m coming from, first you need to know about the Nintendo Vs. DualSystem. John’s Arcade YouTube channel goes over what these systems were all about. The quick summary is, these arcade cabinets were designed with two monitors and sets of controls so people could play games head-to-head. Many NES games were re-released on the Dualsystem with slight modifications (like Vs. Super Mario Bros). Other games were given more of a special treatment though. While Wrecking Crew on the NES is mainly a single-player puzzle game, Vs. Wrecking Crew on the Dualsystem is a head-to-head cooperative game that uses both screens at the same time!

I really get a kick out of these machines. PLUS, in the fictional history where a company like Tobikomi was cloning Nintendo products (like Donkey Kong) of course they would make their own Vs System games. In the real world, companies like Konami and Namco were all making games for the system – so why not Tobikomi?

Creating Vs Construction Crew

So, the goal is to create a game similar in style to Vs. Wrecking Crew. In that game, Mario and Luigi are trying to destroy a building. So, in my game stars Fix It Felix Sr. and Fix It Felix Jr., trying to CONSTRUCT a building. Other gameplay mechanics are quite similar, too. You can knock enemies down, there’s a timer, and most importantly, there are two sides to the wall. Enemies can only hurt you if they’re on the same side.

Coding the Game

Once again, I’m making the game with Gamemaker Studio 2. I’ve had a lot of success making 8-bit style games and even gotten much quicker with it. I came across two real challenges this time though:

• The “dual” nature of this game required some creative thinking. Essentially, there are two of everything because of the two screens. I didn’t want to just show the same thing on both monitors, I instead show a mirror image. Plus, on one side, the characters must look like they’re behind the wall and in front on the other side. You can get an idea of what I’m talking about in the picture below.

• The second challenge is having the game appear on two monitors (if your computer has two). This lets you play Vs Construction Crew on a real Nintendo Red Tent or Vs. Dualsystem, assuming you have a PC inside. I went through lots of hoops to get this to work. The solution I found was this:
  • Users input their computer monitor resolution
  • Users tell the game whether they’re using 1 or 2 monitors
  • The game then calculates how large the game should be and expands the game across both monitors – properly centering the game window for each.
• This works better than trying to find a way to generate two separate game Windows for each monitor, something Gamemaker Studio 2 can’t do natively.

Graphics

Once again, this is meant to be a clone of a specific Nintendo game, so started with wrecking crew sprites and went from there. The characters are designed a bit differently (colors and the famous felix hammer) while the enemies are completely different.

Game Music and Sound

For music, I am using a remixed version of the songs from Marriage of Figaro. I use pieces of this song for gameplay, coin sounds, death, and plenty of others. Here’s just one section, for instance.

Vs Construction Crew Gameplay

Check out the gameplay below! I’m really proud of how this turned out and looking forward to putting it in a proper arcade cabinet someday.

That’s it for Vs Construction Crew! I’m quite proud of how it turned out. If you think this kind of stuff is interesting or fun, check out the BYOAC Forum which is full of people making their own arcade cabinets.