Marshmallow Duel DS

Marshmallow Duel DS v2

Copyright © 2007 Sam Pospischil http://pospi.spadgos.com

This program is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by the Free Software Foundation; either version 2 of the License, or (at your option) any later version.

This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful, but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the GNU General Public License for more details.

You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License along with this program; if not, write to the Free Software Foundation, Inc., 51 Franklin St, Fifth Floor, Boston, MA 02110-1301 USA

The full game source code is not included in this archive to keep download times short. If you want it, you can find it here.

 

This manual is divided up into the following sections to make things a bit easier:

Setup - Navigating the menus and setting up the game
Controls - What the buttons do
Weapons - Gameplay explanations (sorry for the poor GIF animations)
Known Bugs - Things that can go wrong
Credits - All the people involved

Setup:

On loading the game, the first thing you'll see is the main menu. Each of the menus are navigated by using the D-Pad, and the various actions you can perform are listed at the bottom of the screen. The first time you save a setting, a warning screen will popup to ask you if it is ok to format the flash cart's SRAM. Once this is done, any settings you pick will be saved for when you come back later.

Use the Character Menu to choose which players to battle and to rename and change the appearance of your duelers. Pressing left and right on the D-Pad will activate the selected character for a player, depending on the direction. Press X to rename the character and use the trigger buttons to modify their appearance. Renaming a character will erase all the statistics they have saved, so be careful. Note that both duelers cannot be the same colour. When editing the player's name, use the D-Pad left/right to navigate the letters and up/down to change them.

The Pickups Menu is where you choose which weapons to enable for a match. Press X to toggle the selected pickup on or off. A purple blob behind the pickup icon means that pickup is enabled.

The Kill Limit Menu lets you set how many kills a player has to make to win the game. Simply use the D-pad up/down arrows to change the number of kills to play to. This can be anywhere between 1 and 50 kills.

The Miscellaneous Menu is for setting miscellaneous gameplay options. Here you can change the maximum number of pickups that can be in the game at the same time. You can also enable 'pre-show pickups', which shows the pickups on the bottom screen before they appear at the top. 'Die while dancing' causes players to still be vulnerable while doing their victory dance when the round ends, which can be an amusing way to die.

In the Statistics Menu you can view the performance of everyone who has a character saved in the DS. All the stats that are related to time are saved in seconds.

All statistics can be broken down by weapons. For time, this counts the number of seconds you have held each weapon for. So you can see what your favourite weapon is! For kills, it shows how many times you have killed your opponent with that weapon, and for deaths... well, how many times you've been killed by each weapon.

Kills and deaths are calculated as follows:

  • Being touched by a player with 1000V is a 1000V kill
  • Standing on a mine is a mine kill
  • Being shot by a gun is a gun kill
  • Being hit by a puck is a puck kill
  • Being touched by a weasel is a weasel kill
  • Being hit by a skull:
    • is a skull kill if you are pushed into it
    • counts as a magnet kill if your opponent is moving it with a magnet
    • is just a death otherwise
  • Falling in the drink:
    • is an invisibility kill if the other player is invisible
    • is a TNT kill if you died because the ground got exploded by TNT
    • is a grenade kill if the other player blew up the ground under you with a grenade
    • is a warp (fluke!) kill if the other player unwarps and knocks you into the drink before they hit the ground
    • is a net kill if you were in a net
    • is a shield kill if the other player knocked you in with their shield
    • is a boomerang kill if the other player knocked you in with a boomerang
    • is a tackle kill if the other player just pushed you in
    • is just a death otherwise

There are also menu options to view the controls and game credits. Both are non-interactive.

Controls:

Both players share the same DS to play. Player 1 uses the D-Pad and left trigger to control their character, whilst player 2 uses the A, B, X and Y buttons and the right trigger. Start pauses the game at any time.

Weapons:

In Marshmallow Duel, you can only carry 1 weapon at a time. You pick them up simply by running into the floating pink blobs that bounce around the screen. Choose wisely, because different situations will call for different weapons.

Most weapons can only be fired while on the ground, though there are a handful that can only be fired in the air. None can be fired while crouching.

Your Body

A duelers best offense is their own body, or to be precise their own body and the fatal marshmallow goo at the bottom of the screen. Killing your opponent by making them fall into the drink (otherwise known as FIDs) is by far the coolest and most skillful way of ending a battle. There are many different combinations and strategies of moves that will change the outcome of a player/player impact, so experiment and learn them well.

Skull

"Beware this flying brain!" - touching a skull will instantly end your life.

1000V

The 1000V coats its owner in a deadly sheen of electricity. Touching an opponent is enough to blow them sky high in this case. If both players have the 1000V, they are cancelled out.

Invisibility

When fired, the invisibility renders its owner invisible. Fire again to show yourself. After enough practise, you should be able to navigate freely around the level without the need to see yourself.

Mine

Fire to place an invisible mine on the ground directly in front of you. Walking forwards while doing this is a very bad idea - any player that stands on the mine will be explodiously thrown to their death.

Gun

The gun is a swift way of ending a battle - it will kill your opponent if they are standing in front of you. You get 5 shots, but cannot aim up or down. Ducking is a great way to avoid getting shot.

TNT

TNT will mostly not bother you as you cannot pick it up. However it will delete any platforms that it comes in contact with, which could send you into a very sudden FIDs.

Boots

The boots are the height of fashion and instantly make whoever is wearing them irresistable to the opposite sex. They can also be used to jump really high.

Grenade

Portable TNT - the grenade doesn't actually hurt the other player, but any platform it lands on will go out with a bang.

Puck

The nuclear puck skips along the ground and explodes anyone who touches it - sort of like a moving mine. It can also be used to destroy mines and weasels.

Parachut (not 'Parachute')

The parachut is definitely the most relaxing way to break your fall. Hold down fire to slow your descent - you can even change direction while using it. Can only be fired in the air.

Hook

The hook is another weapon that can only be used in the air. Hold down your fire button to grab onto any platform you come in contact with and lever yourself up. The hook will also grab onto ropes.

Warp

The warp can be fired at almost any time, and simply teleports you to somewhere else on the screen. This is usually pretty safe, but sometimes you might end up in the drink because of it.

Magnet

Hold down your fire button with the magnet equipped to draw all the pickups on the screen towards you. Can be used for some cool tricks, and also to steal the pickup from an opponent standing in front of you.

Net

What good fun the net is - fired at another player, it will catch them in an easy-to-roll ball that you should be able to kick off the edge of a platform without too much trouble. The only way to free yourself from a net is to mash your jump button until you break free.

Shield

The shield stops whoever is carrying it from bouncing when run into. It also reflects projectiles... most of the time. Cannot be used on a rope, and is rather ineffective if you happen to have your back turned.

Dunce Hat

Oh boy, the dunce hat will put you at the other end of the fashion spectrum than the boots. It doesn't do anything at all - so not only do you look the fool, you also lose whatever other weapon you were carrying.

Weasel

The weasel is an unpredictable and angry little psycho that runs around on platforms, killing anyone in its path. Be very careful of this one as it will sometimes abruptly change direction and turn on you.

Boomerang

The boomerang is a great way to push someone around without having to actually touch them. Simply throw it at someone to knock them over, and wait for it to return to you. Can be used for some cool tricks if it misses you on the return.

Known Bugs:
  • Boots sometimes display incorrectly
  • Minor and infrequent animation glitches
  • Boomerang can be thrown twice on rare occaisons
  • 'Die while dancing' setting stops victory dances from playing
  • Just a heads up, the game may crash for you, especially in an emulator. It hasn't crashed in the week I've been playing it before releasing, but who knows!
Credits:

All code and some artwork by pospi.
Most game sprites are taken from the original Marshmallow Duel and used with permission.
Music and sound effects by Liam Alexander
Beta testers - Sam and moles.
Based on the Marshmallow Duel universe © 1996 Duncan and Roger Gill.